You're paying a huge bill every year, but you probably don't even realise it.
I was listening to Alex Hormozi tell this story on Tiktok: "Years ago, I watched a man perform a curious calculation on stage. He wrote "million dollars" on a whiteboard and called on someone from the audience. The person earned $50,000 a year. The presenter then scribbled a minus sign and proclaimed it was costing this person $950,000 annually not to make a million each year. It was an eye-catching statement designed to shock." The point was clear: ignorance is expensive. We tend to count costs in terms of rent, food, clothes, and other tangible expenses. But this man argued that the real financial drain is not knowing—specifically, not knowing how to earn more. It's an intriguing way to think about opportunity cost. But can ignorance really be quantified this way? In many ways, yes. The gaps in our knowledge can limit our potential income far more than any line item on a budget. For many, the missing million isn't just about salary disparities but about unseen opportunities in personal growth or career advancement. The proposal is not merely to inspire recklessness in financial aspirations but to prompt a reevaluation of what we consider costly. Sometimes, the real barrier is the limitation of our own understanding. Investing in learning, developing skills, and broadening our perspectives can, arguably, repay in dividends that dwarf our regular expenses. So the biggest cost may indeed be ignorance, but more importantly, it's the choice to remain in it. The challenge is to convert the unrealized into the tangible, to shift understanding from a liability to an asset.