Gabrielle Olya

Mon, Jun 30, 2025, 10:00 AM5 min read

Building wealth doesn’t have to be complicated. Ali Abdaal, a doctor-turned-entrepreneur and author of “Feel-Good Productivity,” believes that getting rich comes down to mastering just three core actions.

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“In our economic system, every single economic unit — i.e. individuals and businesses — are really just doing these three fundamental actions,” he said in a recent YouTube video.

Here’s what they are.

Anyone who makes money has to do some sort of work to get it.

“For example, a software engineer is doing the work of writing software, a doctor is doing the work of treating patients, a teacher is doing the work of teaching kids,” Abdaal said in the video. “This is what we previously referred to as a ‘value creation.’ It is doing the work to create the value.”

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In order to turn your work into money, you need to sell your work — a value exchange.

“If you’re a software engineer working for Google, you are doing the work of writing software, and you are selling the work to Google as your employer,” Abdaal said. “Google is the one giving you money in exchange for you doing the work for them.

“If you’re a doctor, you are doing the work of treating patients, but you’re crucially selling the work to your employer, which is probably a hospital,” he continued. “The hospital itself is then making money from insurance companies and the government, but you as an individual doctor are fundamentally selling your work to your employer.”

To continue making money, you have to keep doing the work and ensure that your skills and qualifications remain up to date.

“As a doctor, you are doing the work of treating patients, you’re selling the work to your employer at the hospital, and you’re administering or maintaining your ability to do the work by keeping your professional qualifications up to date and filing your taxes and not getting struck off the medical register, for example,” Abdaal said.

While these three actions may seem simple, they really are the keys to building wealth.

“When it comes to the game of making money, it’s really, really helpful to understand that these three things are basically the only actions that are ever being done in the game of making money,” Abdaal said. “If you would like to make more money, it is worth understanding that these are the three actions, and [you can make more money by] improving your skills at doing the three actions.”