Benzinga and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commission or revenue on some items through the links below. Jacob from Dallas had built a net worth of about $1.9 million by age 20 while still in college. A month and a half later, much of it was gone — lost to gambling and partying. He called into "The Ramsey Show" looking for a way out, asking how to rebuild after watching his finances unravel so quickly. Jacob told personal finance expert Dave Ramsey that he consistently made five to six figures every month doing crypto marketing but lost everything very quickly due to what he called "lifestyle inflation." He was flying between cities, spending around $100,000 in clubs in a single night, and placing multiple six-figure bets, rapidly draining his money within days, Jacob told Ramsey.
• Wall Street Ignored This AI Stock — Could Intel's RAD Be the Next Big Player?
• Traders Are Flocking to Direxion ETFs — Targeting Tesla and Elon Musk's Market Moves "It was more so just going out, traveling, clubbing, bottles, cars, Airbnbs," Jacob said. "It was poor decisions and then a lot of gambling." ‘The Other End Of The Spectrum' Ramsey said Jacob needed a full reset in how he viewed life after equating success with making a lot of money quickly and spending it on whatever felt fun. Jacob should step back from the fast, party-driven lifestyle and move toward a more grounded mindset, he said. "The good news is you got hedonism out of your system really early in your life," Ramsey said. "The bad news is it cost you a couple of million dollars to do it. I would take you from Wolf of Wall Street to a monk. I’d go the other end of the spectrum." Ramsey said overconfidence in getting rich quickly, combined with a disregard for consequences, was a key driver behind Jacob's situation. He pointed to his own early experience in real estate, where he became a millionaire in his twenties, only to lose it all. See Also: See What AI Could Build for Your Portfolio — Try a Custom Index Now "I lost it all because I built a house of cards and I wasn’t playing long ball," Ramsey said. "Everything was short ball. I had to go to the other end of the spectrum when I went broke and I had the benefit of losing everything and going bankrupt and I got the opportunity to start over." One of the benefits of failing early is that it forces you to recognize your limits and ground your ego in reality, Ramsey said. It also gives you a chance to build a more disciplined and stable approach moving forward. "When I went broke in my 20s, one of the things I figured out was I wasn’t as hot as I thought I was," he said. "That helped me reset and I settled way down into a more psychologically and spiritually healthy rhythm to reset my life."