How to Become Wealthy

Nine Truths That Can Set You on the Path to Financial Freedom

#1: Change the Way You Think About Money

The general population has a love / hate relationship with wealth. They resent those who have it, but spend their entire lives attempting to get it for themselves. The reason a vast majority of people never accumulate a substantial nest egg is because they don't understand the nature of money or how it works.

Cash, like a person, is a living thing. When you wake up in the morning and go to work, you are selling a product - yourself (or more specifically, your labor). When you realize that every morning your assets wake up and have the same potential to work as you do, you unlock a powerful key in your life. Each dollar you save is like an employee. Over the course of time, the goal is to make your employees work hard, and eventually, they will make enough money to hire more workers (cash). When you have become truly successful, you no longer have to sell your own labor, but can live off of the labor of your assets.

#2: Develop an Understanding of the Power of Small Amounts

The biggest mistake most people make is that they think they have to start with an entire Napoleon-like army. They suffer from the "not enough" mentality; namely that if they aren't making $1,000 or $5,000 investments at a time, they will never become rich. What these people don't realize is that entire armies are built one soldier at a time; so too is their financial arsenal.

A friend of mine once knew a woman who worked as a dishwasher and made her purses out of used liquid detergent bottles. This woman invested and saved everything she had despite it never being more than a few dollars at a time. Now, her portfolio is worth millions upon millions of dollars, all of which was built upon small investments. I am not suggesting you become this frugal, but the lesson is still a valuable one. Do not despise the day of small beginnings!

#3: With Each Dollar You Save, You Are Buying Yourself Freedom

When you put it in these terms, you see how spending $20 here and $40 there can make a huge difference in the long run. Since money has the ability to work in your place, the more of it you employ, the faster and larger it will grow. Along with more money comes more freedom - the freedom to stay home with your kids, the freedom to retire and travel around the world, or the freedom to quit your job. If you have any source of income, it is possible for you to start building wealth today. It may only be $5 or $10 at a time, but each of those investments is a stone in the foundation of your financial freedom.

#4: You Are Responsible for Where You Are in Your Life

Years ago, a friend told me she didn't want to invest in stocks because she "didn't want to wait ten years to be rich..." she would rather enjoy her money now. The folly with this school of thinking is that the odds are, you are going to be alive in ten years. The question is whether or not you will be better off when you arrive there. Where you are right now is the sum total of the decisions you have made in the past. Why not set the stage for your life in the future right now?

#5: Instead of Buying the Product... Buy the Stock!

Someone once asked me why they weren't wealthy. They always felt like they were putting money aside, yet never seemed to get any further ahead. The answer is simple. I told them to stop buying the products companies sell and start buying the company itself! A survey of America's affluent (those who make over $225,000 a year or own $3,000,000 in assets) revealed that 27-30% of all the income the wealthy earned went into investments and savings. That isn't a result of being rich, that is why they are rich. When the pain of getting out of the bondage of financial slavery is greater than the pain of changing your spending habits, you will become rich. Either change, or be content to live as you are.

#6: Study and Admire Success and Those Who Have Achieved It... Then Emulate It

A very wise investor once said to pick the traits you admire and dislike the most about your heroes, then do everything in your power to develop the traits you like and reject the ones you don't. Mold yourself into who you want to become. You'll find that by investing in yourself first, money will begin to flow into your life. Success and wealth beget success and wealth. You have to purchase your way into that cycle, and you do so by building your army one soldier at a time and putting your money to work for you.

#7: Realize that More Money is Not the Answer

More money is not going to solve your problem. Money is a magnifying glass; it will accelerate and bring to light your true habits. If you are not capable of handling a job paying $18,000 a year, the worst possible thing that could happen to you is for you to earn six figures. It would destroy you. I have met too many people earning $100,000 a year who are living from paycheck to paycheck and don't understand why it is happening. The problem isn't the size of their checkbook, it is the way in which they were taught to use money.

#8: Unless Your Parents Were Wealthy, Don't Do What They Did

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. If your parents were not living the life you want to live then don't do what they did! You must break away from the mentality of past generations if you want to have a different lifestyle than they had.

To achieve the financial freedom and success that your family may or may not have had, you have to do two things. First, make a firm commitment to get out of debt. To find out which debts should be paid off before you invest and those that are acceptable, read Pay Off Your Debt or Invest?. Second, make saving and investing the highest financial priority in your life; one technique is to pay yourself first.

Purchasing equity is vital to your financial success as an individual whether you are in need of cash income or desire long-term appreciation in stock value. Nowhere else can your money do as much for you as when you use it to invest in a business that has wonderful long-term prospects.

#9: Don't Worry

The miracle of life is that it doesn't matter so much where you are, it matters where you are going. Once you have made the choice to take control back of your life by building up your net worth, don't give a second thought to the "what ifs". Every moment that goes by, you are growing closer and closer to your ultimate goal - control and freedom.Every dollar that passes through your hands is a seed to your financial future. Rest assured, if you are diligent and responsible, financial prosperity is an inevitability. The day will come when you make your last payment on your car, your house, or whatever else it is you owe. Until then, enjoy the process.
©Mkimya Ent.

Dubai tallest building in the world

©Mkimya Ent.

Two Ways to Become Rich

In a free enterprise system, getting rich is everybody’s dream. Some want to become rich for the amenities and the trophies wealth offers: lavish houses, luxury cars, elegant yachts, expensive clothes, dining extravaganzas in the best restaurants in town, and traveling to exotic destinations. Others want to become rich for the financial freedom, the independence, and the security wealth provides: the freedom to spend more time with friends and family and to explore their full potential; the independence to work when they want as much they want, without a boss over their head; and the security, the peace of mind that comes with the creation of a safety net against the uncertainties life saves for them and their families down the road. A third group lusts to become rich for the power and fame wealth brings. A fourth group wants to become rich for the opportunities wealth offers to contribute to society, to indulge philanthropy and help the poor and the needy, to build things that will last beyond this life. But how can one make this dream come true? How can one become rich? What does it take?

In the old industrial economy, people became rich the “company-builder way,” by setting up large companies and having other people work for them. That’s how the “King of Steel” Andrew Carnegie amassed his wealth in the last quarter of the 19^th century. He built the largest steel company in the world and had scores of people working in his steel mills under the close supervision of legendary managers like Bill Jones and Henry Clay Frick who didn’t hesitate to use force to make sure that workers pursued Carnegie’s dream rather than their own. The “King of the Automobile,” Henry Ford (NYSE:F) followed a similar path. He, too, created a large corporation where thousands of people worked in his T-model assembly lines under the close supervision of scores of upper, middle, and lower-level managers within the “scientific management” model invented by his engineer Frederick Taylor; and so did the “King of Oil” John Rockefeller and his Standard Oil Corporation, employing legions of workers in drilling, pumping, refining, and shipping oil.

In the new post-industrial economy, people become rich the “business-builder way,” by building business rather than companies, by helping other people work for themselves, build their own business, become rich, and make them richer in the process. That’s how Silicon Valley scientists-entrepreneurs became rich. Frederick Terman, Robert N. Noyce, Gordon E. Moore, William Hewlett, and David Packard (NYSE:HPQ) amassed their fortunes by helping other high-tech scientists-entrepreneurs amass theirs. Venture capitalists like Ned Heizer, Jim Markkula, Bill Drapper, Eugen Kleimer, Tom Perkins, and Andy Bechtolsheim became wealthy by serving as financiers and mentors to high-tech start-up entrepreneurs. Andy Bechtolsheim helped Larry Page and Sergey Brin become rich by launching Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), a venture that turned him rich, too. In a few years, he saw his $100,000 turn into over billion dollars! Boston’s Route 128 business builders followed a similar path. Georges F. Doriot and the investors of the Boston-based American Research and Development Corporation (ARDC) became rich by making rich Ken H. Olsen, founder of high-tech start-up Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). In a few years, ARDC’s $70,000 investment in Olsen’s DEC turned into $350 million. Microsoft (NYSE:MSFT) founder Bill Gates and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) founder Steve Jobs amassed their own fortunes by helping scores of engineers and marketers become entrepreneurs, who in turn helped other engineers and marketers become their own entrepreneurs, work at their own pace often in their own place, sharing the risks and the rewards with him. Ray Kroc became rich by creating a franchise organization—McDonald’s (NYSE:MCD), helping franchisees build their own business; making money for themselves and for Ray Kroc in the process. Multi-level marketers Richard DeVos and Jay Van Andel became rich by sharing their business experience and expertise with others and helping them build their own business network, others who in turn helped the next layer of people to build theirs, and so on.
©Mkimya Ent.