Inspired by Biggie Smalls’ Ten Crack Commandments, I’ve crafted the 10 Stack Commandments—my proven blueprint to avoid being poor and build wealth. I believe socioeconomic class is the great divider, conditioning you from a young age to stay in your lane. Poor schools teach survival—basic skills for low-wage jobs, with college a faint dream. Middle-class schools push college and student loans, trapping you in debt under the guise of education. Elite private schools focus on relationships and exploration, treating college as a time to chase options, not debt. Being poor is a series of learned habits you have to unlearn; new ones break the cycle of fear and struggle in a system keeping you as worker bees, chasing scraps. You can move up the ladder if you are willing to take chances and change your mindset. Like Biggie’s street rules, my commandments guide you to stack assets, secure your future, and outsmart that system. Let’s dive into my strategies for success.
Why Follow These Commandments?
Investing is a discipline, not a gamble. My 10 Stack Commandments are forged from real-world experience—quitting my sweet government job to work for myself full time, navigating volatile markets, and building a portfolio that withstands the Federal Reserve’s relentless money printing. At Fortified Realty Group, I help others buy, sell, and manage properties; through my videos, I share insights on stocks, crypto, and investment strategies and tie it all together to real estate. These rules are universal, offering clarity for beginners and veterans. They’re about focus, resilience, and adopting habits to avoid being poor while outsmarting a system that profits when you fail.
The 10 Stack Commandments
1. Pay Yourself First
Your first financial priority is investing in your future. Each paycheck, allocate 10-20% to assets like Bitcoin, Tesla shares, or savings for rental properties before paying bills or taxes. For example, if you earn $3,000 monthly, set aside $300-$600 for investments. Recently received a 10% raise? Direct half of that increase—say, $250 from a $500 raise—into your portfolio. You won’t feel the difference, but your wealth will grow. I started by funneling every spare dollar into Bitcoin and stocks, building a foundation that compounds over time. I flipped several houses over the past 10 years and invested every dime I could after taxes and living expenses into my stack. Every real estate closing, I contribute more. People say they cannot afford to pay themselves, but that is the wrong mentality – your investment stack is your savings account, you can always tap it in an emergency by selling a stock or withdrawing some crypto. Over time, as it grows, you won’t want to touch it and you WILL find other ways to cover unexpected expenses.
2. Play The Long Game
Wealth-building demands patience. Focus on 5-10 year horizons, not short-term spikes. I’m holding Bitcoin, Solana, and Tesla for the long haul, ignoring daily market noise. For instance, I bought Tesla at $200, knowing its AI growth will pay off in the future. Short-term traders chase quick profits and often lose; long-term investors plant seeds for substantial gains. Commit to assets with strong fundamentals, and let time work its magic. Time in the market beats timing the market… cliché… yes… very true though. Delaying gratification for 5-7 years while you build your stack and let your investments compound can pay amazing rewards to future you.
3. Use Good Debt, Avoid Bad Debt
Debt can be a powerful tool or a destructive trap. Good debt fuels wealth—like a mortgage on a property where the interest rate (e.g., 4%) is lower than the property’s appreciation (e.g., 7% annually). Credit card rewards can also be smart, but only if you pay the balance monthly to avoid interest. Bad debt, however, drains you: unpaid credit card balances, student loans with no career payoff, or a $1,000 car payment when you’re broke. Even rewards cards—like those offering airline miles, hotel stays or Amazon points—are traps; those points depreciate as ticket prices rise. Invest the cash instead, and you’ll fund multiple vacations later.
4. Change Your Currency
Stop measuring your worth in dollars—they’re manipulable paper losing value over time. Real wealth is held in hard assets: Bitcoin, Gold, stocks, art, real estate, etc. I count my net worth in sats (Bitcoin’s smallest unit), shares, and deeds, not bucks. Imagine a New York City block bought in the 1800s, passed down through generations—its value transcends time. That property can benefit every successive generation in different ways through different types of leverage and other strategies – the best part is when the next generation inherits it, the cost basis is usually “stepped up” thereby negating any taxes so the cycle can start again. Cash does not have that benefit. Think of every story you have seen in the news where someone buys a house and opens a wall and finds a suitcase from the 1930’s with $10,000 in it. How much money was that back when it was stuffed and hidden in that wall? It probably could’ve bought 2 or 3 houses at that time. Today, it won’t even pay for kitchen cabinets. Had that person bought 2 or 3 houses with that money back in 1930, think of how much “worth” they would be passing on today? Set goals: start with 0.1 Bitcoin or 10 Tesla shares, then grow to 0.25 BTC or 25 shares. Focus on building your asset stable, not chasing dollar amounts. What do you want your legacy to be?
5. Don’t Get Jacked By Inflation
Every government around the world steals from their citizens. Money printing and unchecked government debt spending create inflation which strips 14% of your cash’s value annually. To stay ahead, invest in scarce assets and growth assets: Bitcoin, capped at 21 million coins; Tesla, expanding in AI and robotics; or real estate, which holds value. I’ve seen cash savings dwindle while my investments soared. The Fed’s money-printing game is relentless—$36 trillion in U.S. debt ($200+ trillion in unfunded liabilities) and counting. No matter how much DOGE does, it will never be paid off. Choose assets that outrun inflation, or watch your wealth vanish. Inflation eats away at purchasing power, but you’re outpacing it because the dollar value of scarce assets inflates faster than the loss of purchasing power, so it doesn’t matter.
6. Time Your Moves, Don’t Chase Hype
Buy low, hold strong—FOMO is a loser’s game. Never sell when markets crash; if your investment thesis remains solid, hold firm and buy more (HODL and Buy the Dip). I held Tesla (and bought more shares) through every media-driven dip (2023 when Elon bought Twitter, 2025 when Elon ran DOGE… their tricks are so obvious) because its AI and robotics fundamentals are unchanged—they want your feelings about Elon to override your future. Wall Street and the media do this so they can short the stock (betting on it to drop), while you panic sell (causing it to drop more) and you lose gains you’d have by holding. You get your feelings hurt and stop investing, instead of learning the lesson and changing your behavior. Poor people obsess over feelings, wealthy people obsess over the future and how they can grow. Patience, tied to a low time preference (Commandment 2), turns small moves into big wins.
7. Know Your Risk, Don’t Be Reckless
High rewards come with high risks—understand them deeply. Research every investment: why could it go to zero? Are the risks worth it? I hold specific allocations of my investments based on risk/reward ratios. I adjust those allocations regularly based on seasonality and market trends. Don’t buy assets hyped on TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube; the marketing machine pushes scam coins and rug pulls that wipe out your capital. A good investment speaks for itself—no hard sell needed. When was the last time you saw a Bitcoin or Tesla commercial… exactly. I keep a very small stable of investments. As soon as something changes about one of my investments and I feel the risk no longer justifies the reward, I am prepared to cut it and move on to something else. Beware of the sunken cost fallacy where we hang on to losing positions instead of selling for a small loss. By hanging on we end up with a much larger loss. Sometimes, you have to just admit you were wrong and cut bait and mitigate the damage. For instance, Solana is destroying Ethereum – the user metrics and overall shift in the market don’t lie. As soon as I realized it, I ditched my Ethereum for a small loss and loaded up on more Solana. Since then, that pivot has paid off and I have more than recovered my initial loss. If you have ever used both blockchains, you quickly understand why this is happening as the Solana blockchain is faster, cheaper and simpler to use than slower, costlier Ethereum. I am always looking for the next best thing to replace what I have now… until I find it, I stay put. Less is more.
8. Never Bet Against The Future
Don’t sleep on innovation—invest in what’s reshaping the world. We’ve seen this movie twice in our lifetimes—computer revolution and internet revolution. Smartphones with the entire knowledge base of the world in your pocket, accessible anytime, anywhere, are so obvious now, aren’t they? In 2007, everyone thought Apple was crazy pivoting to smartphones dominated by Nokia and Blackberry at the time. Amazon started as a bookseller; now they’ve reshaped e-commerce, cloud computing, and logistics. I’m heavy in Tesla and Bitcoin because they’re the future. Tesla’s rewriting AI, robotics, transportation, and energy; Bitcoin’s rewriting money and the digital gold store of value narrative. Look at history: buggy makers got smoked by cars, Blockbuster got smoked by Netflix, Kodak got smoked by digital cameras (they actually had the digital camera first but brushed it off because their film business was too big and they didn’t want to disrupt it, so they let Sony do it instead haha). Don’t bet on dinosaurs, they go extinct. In the 1990s-early 2000s, when the first two revolutions were happening, I was unable to buy stocks—it was not accessible to normal people… now there is no excuse not to invest… the barrier to entry is literally $1 on a free app like Robinhood on your iPhone. I will not miss the next disruptive AI revolution we’re living through. Third chances are rare.
9. Stay Educated, Never Stagnate
Knowledge is power—study markets, technology, and policy to stay ahead. I’m researching blockchain, Federal Reserve actions, and Elon Musk’s strategies. I create videos and blogs because teaching others sharpens my understanding—paying it forward benefits everyone. Stop learning, and you’re finished. I learned Bitcoin’s value proposition by explaining it to my audience, solidifying my conviction. I read books, blogs, pay for coaching every month, and hang with people who share my growth vision—I shy away from negative people who are always looking backward. I have made many mistakes over the years – for instance I totally misplayed the 2020 market dip after C19 – I thought everything was going to crash when I should’ve gone long and rode the money printing wave up. I did not understand how the stock market could keep going up while the world was shut down – that mistake taught me Commandment 7’s risk research. The cost of my education has not been cheap – some people go to college and some people make mistakes and adapt – either way, you have to learn. Since then, I have changed my entire approach to investing and I have learned these rules and live by them. I don’t like to make the same mistake twice.
10. Kill Tha Noize
Politics and news headlines are distractions—ignore them. Wall Street, banks, and the Fed aren’t your allies—question their motives. The S&P 500 (and every other index and mutual fund) includes zombie companies propped up by debt; banks peddle high-interest loans; the Fed’s money printing fuels inflation. Information from the COVID era was often unreliable. I stack investments like Bitcoin and Solana to stay independent of their rigged system, building wealth on MY terms. I focus on Bitcoin’s technology, Solana’s growth metrics, and Tesla’s AI and robotics (I bought a Tesla to live with the AI and see if it’s legit—it is), not media chatter. Who cares about tariffs, immigration debates, international relations or whatever outrageous thing everyone is an expert in this week? Families and friendships have been strained the last few years because of this stuff. Social media can amplify noise, pushing you toward bad investments. Stick to stacking assets with strong fundamentals, and tune out the rest. This discipline keeps your strategy clear and your wealth growing. Poor people stay poor because they focus on what everyone else is doing instead of holding themselves accountable for their lives.
Why These Commandments Work
Your success is your responsibility—nobody can force you to break poverty’s cycle. These 10 Stack Commandments work because they’re my battle-tested, ever-evolving blueprint, forged through property deals in Fall River at Fortified Realty Group, Bitcoin investments, Tesla’s wild rides, losing money on bad investments and so much more I have not even tackled yet. They demand you shift your mindset, unlearn poor habits, and act with discipline. I’m here to guide those ready to work, offering tools to stack Bitcoin, Tesla, and properties for a secure future. But if you’re not ready, the pain of staying stuck must outweigh the pain of change before you’ll move. Staying stagnant will kill your dreams—choose to grow, or remain a worker bee. The choice is yours.Time to stack or stay stuck—the choice is yours. Ready to act? Book a consultation for Fortified Realty Group LLC’s Fall River, MA full-service property management services to start stacking properties, and follow me on youtube, facebook and X for exclusive insights.
