I have seen and heard many rich and successful folks saying making money is easy.
Wow, anthonyms, this is some food for thought on a Sunday morning for sure. I have heard these words many times before as well (for example, Buffett guaranteeing that he could make 50%/year on a portfolio under 10MM easily)–but, just as advertisers say that we need to see ads for a product at least seven times before we actually begin to notice it, I never really pondered this thought until this calm, peaceful, Sunday morning brought your words to the forefront yet again and they actually began to take root.
There are a lot of opinions on the difference between the rich and the poor. I have one quote and one opinion, and I hope these ideas will be of help to this wonderful community of like minded thinkers:
First, the quote (paraphrased):
“Rich people acquire assets, poor people acquire liabilities.”–Robert Kiyosaki
I’ll never forget when this quote hit home with me. I was a business owner at one time, and one day one of my staff members stopped me outside my business as I was walking in from lunch. “Look at what we got!” she said.
Her boyfriend was polishing their new toy. A Humvee. It was the first model. The ENORMOUS one. The one that was about eleven feet wide and which drank a gallon of gas every 13 miles.
“What…” I asked her, knowing that on her salary this was a foolish decision, “what are you thinking buying this?”
“Oh, come on,” she countered, “you get a job so you can buy things, right? Between his and my salary, we can buy this.” Her boyfriend smiled at me as he continued wiping down the operating-room clean hood of his new vehicle.
I thought about the price of the Hummer and how much that money could grown into if it was invested for twenty years. Maybe enough to retire on, or at least give her a big step toward retirement.
Long story short–a month later she was asking me if there were any overtime shifts available. Six months later, they were unloading the Hummer. A year later, they had broken up.
MORAL: Get rich by buying assets (stocks, businesses, education) and not liabilities (More car/house/boat than you need.)
Now, the opinion:
Rich people believe there is plenty, MORE than plenty, FAR MORE than plenty, for everyone to go around. Poor people believe there is a finite amount of everything, and you have to get yours, your neighbor be d****d, before it is gone.
You and I have seen this before. It is the day after Thanksgiving. The doors of Wal Mart open and at 5AM hundreds of people are rushing through, soon to be literally fighting over big-screen TVs, this year’s must-have teddy bear, and the latest tech gadgets.
Now, some of these people may in fact be very wealthy. But I’m willing tho bet that the vast majority are not, because the PHILOSOPHY that brought them there at 5AM has told them that they have to get while the getting is good. And once that TV is gone, they will never get another one, so it’s mano a mano time, your neighbor be d****d. A rich person knows a TV is a commodity. NOT worth fighting over, especially before daybreak.
So–long story longer–is making money easy? I confess that I haven’t yet gotten to the point in my life where I can say that with utter conviction. But I DO think there is a method to getting rich, and that method revolves around having the right PHILOSOPHY about how to get rich:
1.) Steer your money towards assets and not liabilities.
2.) The self-made rich should be admired, not resented. They are an example of what we can all become, and they have not taken ANYTHING from us. There is plenty, much more than plenty, to go around.
Thanks again, antonyms, for the Sunday morning inspiration 