I was working in a restaurant and one day a regular invited us to his place for after work drinks.
He opened the front door into a monumental hallway with beautiful winding stairs and a large mosaic monogram with his initials on the floor.
We went into the main living area with a professionally decked out open kitchen, a 20 person dining table and a seating area with 4 large Chesterfields.
The whole room is filled with art and antiques.
He asked me if I wanted to pick a few bottles of wine because of my good taste ( I'm a trained sommelier).
He then guided me to his library and opened a secret door that led into the wine cellar.
Every large winehouse in the world was represented and he insisted on picking whatever I wanted. The sheer amount of stacks of Mouton Rotschild premier Cru, Tenuta Dan Guido - Sassicaia...
We opened 4 bottles that would've cost about 10.000 euros together. No sweat.
He told us that despite the nice kitchen he never cooks. He goes to restaurants every day and on the weekends he hires top chefs to cook for his guests.
Then he asked us if we would like to go and have lunch in Milan, the next day (I'm from Belgium). He chartered a heli and had extra space for 3 persons.
He's a modest guy. Rides his bike everywhere and makes his money selling real estate. He only sells high value property like castles and works one day a week. He's not extremely talented but admitted he's just lucky.
I realized that to become rich, you need money. Whether it's your own or someone else's doesn't matter, you just need a lot.