Anatoly Iofe is founder and CEO of IceBridge Financial Group, a global multifamily office based in Boca Raton, Florida.
You can make more money than ever and still feel like your net worth hasn’t gone anywhere. I see this all the time: smart, accomplished people with big titles who quietly admit they feel stuck. It’s not because they’re careless but because the whole system they rely on was never built to create wealth in the first place.
A Shaky System
A paycheck is linear. You earn it by showing up. Wealth is exponential. It grows when you don’t. That simple gap—linear income versus exponential wealth—is why so many high earners feel like they’re running hard but not getting ahead.
The lifestyle creep happens slowly. I’m not talking about the flashy stuff but rather the quiet upgrades that come with each promotion. A bigger tax bill. A better school. A nicer Zip code. A vacation that used to feel like a splurge but now feels standard. The numbers get larger, but the breathing room doesn’t.
And concentration risk sneaks in even faster.
Most executives don’t realize where their net worth actually sits until someone lays it out. They see the deferred comp, the RSUs, the options, the ESPP and, of course, the paycheck that funds everything else. It looks like a diversified balance sheet. But it’s all tied to one company, one set of decisions and one balance sheet you don’t control.
When things are calm, that feels fine. But calm never lasts. Maybe your company gets a new CEO or a reorg hits. That can change your whole financial life overnight.
And when that happens, the reality hits fast: The paycheck stops. Deferred comp stops growing. Unvested options disappear, and even healthcare turns into a line item in the severance conversation.
None of this is uncommon. It’s just rarely talked about out loud.
Liquidity is another place where high earners get blindsided. You can bring in a strong income and still struggle to access cash when it matters. Because income is not liquidity. You can’t touch deferred comp early. You can’t sell RSUs before they vest. You can’t borrow against restricted shares. So people with seven-figure pay packages end up scrambling to fund a move or their kid’s freshman year at the exact moment they need flexibility.
They’re not broke. They’re just locked up.
Then taxes take their slice. Not in a dramatic way—in a slow, grinding way that compounds in reverse. Every bonus triggers ordinary income. Every sale adds friction. Without structures designed to blunt tax drag—not loopholes, just more tax-efficient containers—the expected return gets eroded each year.
Breaking The Pattern
This is the part most people overlook: You can be highly paid and very disciplined and still be financially fragile if everything depends on one employer.
The people who break out of that pattern don’t do it by earning more. They do it by changing how their finances are structured. They build things outside the payroll system—assets and entities that keep compounding even if the job disappears.
That doesn’t require quitting. It doesn’t require taking wild risks. It just requires shifting from “I need to earn more” to “I need a system that works even when I’m not earning.”
Real structure looks like this:
• Liquidity that doesn’t depend on HR. These include lines backed by diversified assets, not employer stock.
• Growth happening where taxes don’t eat it alive. This involves using containers that allow compounding to actually compound.
• Diversification that’s real, not cosmetic. True diversification helps balance sheets survive a bad quarter, a bad boss or a bad reorg.
None of this is exotic. It’s just not the way high earners are taught to think. They’re trained to optimize comp plans, not build autonomy.
High income can hide fragility for a long time—until something shakes the system. And when it does, everything becomes clear very quickly: who’s actually wealthy, and who’s just well-paid.
If any of this feels uncomfortably familiar, that’s normal. In my experience, most executives don’t feel rich. They feel exposed. Like everything works as long as nothing changes.
But things always change.
Building Wealth Not Tied To One Job
The real question is simple: Are you building a life that only works if your job keeps working? Or a structure that keeps growing even if you decide to step back?
Wealth isn’t about income. It’s about independence. And independence starts the moment your money keeps working when you don’t.
The information provided here is not investment, tax, legal or financial advice. Consult with a licensed legal or tax professional for advice concerning your specific situation. www.ifg.one/disclaimers
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