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“Work hard and you’ll eventually get rich.”
We’ve all heard that advice. We followed it and worked hard at our jobs… yet still FAILED to get rich.
You work overtime, work on weekends, and sometimes work at a second job, but you’re not getting any richer. You’re struggling to pay the bills, and you still can’t afford that dream home, that nice car, that international vacation, dinner from that amazing restaurant, and that excellent school’s tuition fees for your children. You probably find it hard to donate even just P1,000 to charity.
You can get pay raises, bonuses, and promotions from working hard… but it’s probably not enough for everything you want in life.
How come some people grow rich and others don’t? How can YOU become rich enough to afford your dreams?
Here are the three steps you need to remember:
Step 1: Create Value to Earn Money
You don’t earn money by doing nothing. Money is only earned by giving value: Do something or create something that people want or need, and they’ll pay you for it. Whatever your job is, you do it because somebody needs it done and so they pay you to do it for them.
Here’s the thing: You can lift more and more bags of cement, you can clean more rooms and polish more toilets, and you can answer more calls and spend an extra three hours overtime every day to polish your reports, yet most likely none of it will add an extra P1 million to your P15,000 monthly salary.
Why? Simple:
It’s not about how hard you work but how much VALUE you give.
That was what T. Harv Eker taught about the “Law of Income”: “You will be paid in direct proportion to the value you deliver according to the marketplace.” The more value you create, the more you’ll be paid.
Working Hard is different from Giving Value.
You can exhaust yourself and break your back at work, but if you’re not giving more value, you won’t earn any more.
Imagine a beggar screaming harder for more alms. That’s not going to get him out of poverty…
If that beggar learns to build condominiums or start and create international businesses… he won’t be a beggar anymore, that’s for sure.
I once attended a seminar by John Calub, and one line will stay with me for the rest of my life:
“The harder you work FROM THE NECK DOWN, The Poorer You’ll Be.”
Doctors are paid a lot because they use their minds to save lives and cure illnesses. That’s very valuable.
Lawyers are paid a lot because of their knowledge in law and for representing cases in court. That’s also very valuable.
Engineers are paid a lot because of their knowledge in science and engineering which solves society’s problems. That’s valuable too!
As another example, CEOs and Executives don’t lift hundreds of crates of products or cook tons of food themselves, but they THINK of ways to make it happen even if they don’t do it directly. They THINK of ways to give more value:
How do you cook and package 500,000 packets of noodles and feed thousands of families?
How can you sell them in other countries like Australia, France, and Mexico? How do you ship them there?
How do you hire and manage executives which will hire and manage a thousand employees?*
Remember this: The more Value you create and give, the more you EARN.
*Note: If you can answer those questions AND DO IT, you’ll earn as much as those CEOs and Executives.
Step 2: Save Money
It’s not how much you Earn, but how much you KEEP.
One of the very first lessons I learned about investing is this one from “The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing
You can earn a lot of money every month, but if you spend it all on junk, you’re not wealthy, you’re just WASTEFUL.
Whether you earn P10,000 a month, P25,000 a month, or P100,000 a month, if you gamble it away, spend it all on more expensive clothes, more expensive gadgets, more crates of beer, etc., then the amount of money you earn will never matter:
You’ll have nothing left at the end of the month, and you’ll have nothing left at the end of your lifetime.
How much can you sell that new Cellphone and that crate of empty beer bottles 10 years from now anyway?
A sure way to save?
Before you spend money on bills, food, and other luxuries, you SAVE MONEY FIRST!
I’ve written two articles about it already. The first one is about budgeting in a way that you’ll learn to find opportunities and invest in them (Click Link), the second one is mostly about paying back your debts (Click Link).
When you SAVE FIRST, you’ll learn to live on what’s left of your paycheck by getting rid of things you don’t need. You’ll learn to waste less money on junk food, waste less electricity, and waste less water, and waste less on everything else (including abusing your credit cards and getting into debt).
If what you earn is not enough for your bills and the things you want, remember that you should always do Step 1: Give more Value and EARN MORE.
Step 3: Grow Wealth
You earn money and you save money, but where should that savings go anyway?
Calculate your income and your expenses. After bare necessities like food, water, electricity, tuition fees, and even internet and cellphone subscription plans, you’ll nearly ALWAYS have leftover cash.
What do you do with it?
You have two choices:
The first box costs P50,000 and will grow to P126,000 in around 20 years.
The second box costs P50,000 and will turn into TRASH in 10 years.
While the first box is obviously the better choice, almost everyone buys the second box.
Why?
The first box contains assets like stocks, mutual funds, business capital, etc. The second box contains new clothes, new and expensive gadgets, junk food, etc. Again, how much can you sell that new cellphone and that crate of empty beer bottles 10 years from now?
That is what Robert Kiyosaki meant when he said most people “turn cash into trash.” You can still buy things you like, but to spend literally EVERYTHING you earn on things that become trash is stupid.
Spending vs. Investing
Robert Allen, author of “Multiple Streams of Income
That’s a lesson similar to what Steve Siebold of “How Rich People Think
While the poor and middle class work hard for their money, the rich make their money work hard for them.
Rich people invest their money on assets that give value and earn MORE money. They keep doing that all their lives, and that’s one big reason why they’re rich.
Do More, Earn More, Repeat to Infinity
The more you earn, the more you save.
The more you save, the more you invest.
The more you invest, the more you earn.
Repeat those three steps until you have enough for anything you need and want.
That’s how you grow wealthy.
Jesus taught this principle in the Parable of the Talents. Those who do well with what they have, those who create value with their minds and bodies then save and invest what they earn to give more value get more blessings. They earned them. Those who don’t use what they have well lose everything instead. (Remember Matthew 25:29)
The rich earn money and use their money to get richer and live better lives.
The beggar does nothing, loses everything, and suffers as he grows poorer.
When that beggar, however, learns to give value by working, saving money, and investing to give more value, then he’ll grow wealthy too!
The Magic Question:
So how do you give value?
How do you save?
How do you find excellent assets you can use to grow wealthy?
The answer is simple: LEARN HOW!
There are thousands of people who’ve succeeded in life, and many of them wrote books about what they learned and what they did. Read about them so you can do what they’ve done and get similar results: success!
You can only get rich when you learn how to do it… so start learning and earning!
LifeWork (like homework… but for improving your life):
- What are you doing to earn money? What value do you give? With your current skills and knowledge, what can you do or create to give MORE value in order to earn more?
- Can you cook better food and sell it well? Can you manage employees better? Have you learned to be excellent at finding and dealing with clients?
- HOW can you give more value and earn more than what you earn now?
- How much do you save every month? In all the years you’ve been working… how much have you saved?
- Read the “Your Wealthy Mind Savings and Budget Plan” and follow it. At the very minimum, save 10% of every paycheck and use it for investing. Save another 10% and use it to buy Finance books. (You can also read my other articles here on this website. No matter how small, I guarantee that they’ll help.)
- Before you start investing, search the internet for good Finance and Business books. If you find some that you like, buy them from your local bookstore and learn from them. If their advice seems practical and you can use them, then use what you learned right NOW!