Go into debt for things that pay for themselves. Then use what they pay to cover the things you used to go into debt for.
Here is the simplest version.
Instead of financing a car, finance a flex space. Small commercial property, light industrial, warehouse with office. Put a tenant in it. The tenant covers the mortgage. Whatever is left over covers your car payment.
Your car is now being paid for by your tenant. Not by you.
Then repeat it.
Each income producing asset you add to your portfolio funds something else in your life that used to come out of your paycheck. Keep going until your debt is fully funding your life instead of consuming it.
The reason most people never do this is not that they lack the knowledge. It is that they use their credit on the wrong things first. Every point of borrowing capacity spent on a depreciating asset is capacity that cannot be used on an income producing one. The order of operations matters enormously.
A few things this requires to work correctly.
Buy assets that actually cash flow after all real costs are accounted for. Not projected cash flow. Not optimistic cash flow. Actual cash flow after mortgage, taxes, insurance, management, vacancy allowance, and maintenance reserve. A property that does not genuinely cash flow is just another liability dressed up as an investment.
Be patient in the early stages. The first property funds one bill. The second funds two. The compounding is slow at first and then it is not.
Resist the temptation to expand your lifestyle faster than your portfolio grows. The strategy works fastest for the person who lives on what they earn while the assets build and expands their life as the income grows rather than in anticipation of it.
Start with one flex space. One tenant. One car payment covered by someone else's rent check.
That is the whole idea.
Happy to answer any questions about finding, financing, or evaluating your first commercial income producing property.