Rule #1 of Building Wealth: Play Defense With Your Money

“Never lose money.”

I used to play basketball in high school. My first coach was a highly defense-oriented person.

When I was 17, and in my last year of high school the Detroit Pistons won the NBA Finals. The team was coached by Larry Brown, known for his defense-first mentality.

My coach was a huge fan of the Pistons and their style of play. During our training, he focused more on shutting down the other team and getting “stops.”

The idea of a stop in basketball means you prevent the other team from scoring by pressing the basketball, which forces errors like steals or bad shots (which you need to rebound).

This is the fundamental idea of basketball. A team that’s good at offense but lacks defense will likely lose more than they win. But a team with excellent defense and good offense has a better chance of winning.

This is how basketball works. Instead of scoring every time your opponent scores, simply prevent them from scoring, and you can take your time to score. This is a much more confident and effortless way of playing the game.

One thing that people forget about modern basketball is that a team like The Golden State Warriors (known for their excellent offense), usually has the…