The 17 Principles of Creating Wealth

Chapters 4-5

Your Job is a Wealth Inhibitor

Now that you have considered ways to restrict your spending to less than your current earnings and use your saved income to build a nest egg, you need to consider how your job may be holding you back.

Your job is a necessary evil during the early stages of your wealth creation, but should not represent a long-term plan. Not only do jobs restrict your income potential, they may also be hazardous to future income. Recent surveys and census data indicate approximately 30% of people will be forced to retire early due to circumstances beyond their control, including layoffs and illnesses. AXA Equitable and Nationwide Financial have an extensive database of figures related to forced layoffs and early retirements.

Jobs are created by entrepreneurs who understand that wealth is created by adding value to raw material or services, and selling finished products or services at a profit. Who adds the value to raw materials and services? You do. You are only valuable to an employer when you can effectively and efficiently add value to the organization’s product or service. 

Thus, the fourth step in building personal wealth is to change your mindset about your employment status.

There’s no denying the fact that a job, with a steady income, is nice to have. It helps you pay the bills and keeps a roof over your family’s head. Unfortunately, that’s about all it does. What’s in a job? Security? A pension? Some of us are dreaming of retirement, thinking we’ll be happy living off half of what we can’t afford to live on today.

A job was never meant to make people wealthy. In a free market environment we sell our labor to an employer for the highest pay possible, while your boss tries to pay you the lowest wage you will accept. Usually the boss wins, because he is in control of the purse strings. As long as you look to your job for wealth, you will be disappointed.

Most Americans think a job is security, but they are wrong. As long as you depend upon somebody else for your livelihood, you are a slave to that person and/or organization. And like a slave, you can be dispensed with as soon as they deem your services uneconomical. It’s a negative image, and I apologize for hitting you with it, but you can’t sit back and relax in the pseudo security of a job or retirement plan and expect others to secure a financial future for you and your family. Dependence is not security; independence is security.

While dropping my son off at school recently, I noticed an elderly gentleman standing in front of the school with a sandwich sign draped around his neck. The man was protesting unfair hiring practices by the school in the form of age discrimination. We live in a society that rewards youth and beauty, while disregarding the value of experience and ability. This man was willing to stand before the community to protest this injustice. His dilemma is all too common today, where hard working people have entrusted employers to provide them lifetime employment. Unfortunately, this trust does not reflect reality. Owning your own business is one vehicle you can use to take responsibility for your own financial future, without having to depend upon the vagaries of an unjust job market.

The expression, “if you want to catch fish, you have to risk the bait,” is so common it has become cliché. But how many of us actually incorporate that basic philosophy into our lives? Are you willing to risk the “security” of the traditional nine to five, Monday through Friday routine, to enjoy financial freedom? Vince Lombardi once stated “the will to excel, the will to win: these are the things that endure.” A business built with your own hands, energy, and ingenuity can endure where a job cannot, but if you expect to become a successful entrepreneur, you will have to take risks.

These risks do not mean senseless gambling of your savings in the stock or bond markets, or betting everything on a horse race. Taking a risk means putting your self-confidence and self-image on the line. It means taking the chance of being embarrassed in the marketplace. And, it can also mean going against popular opinion and peer pressure to follow a dream. As Teddy Roosevelt was fond of saying, “seek opportunity, not security.”

Aside from the “job security” issues, your status as a wage or salary earner places you in the highest taxed form of income. Passive and portfolio income does not fall victim to Social Security taxes, and expenses associated with operating your business come out of your gross receipts prior to taxes. The structure of business taxation can allow you to enjoy some of the finer things in life, such as dining out, vacations, and nice cars (provided they are legitimate business expenses), while the same pleasures in life for a wage earner must use after tax dollars to do so. Robert Kiyosaki talks about this concept in detail in his Rich Dad, Poor Dad series, which should be required reading for any wealth builder. You don’t have to like him, agree with him, or buy real estate to get wealthy, but you should at least give him a try.

Not convinced?  Take a look at some current statistics regarding employment.

It's been said that 80% of America is two missed paychecks away from financial disaster, and recent statistics indicate Americans spend 110% of their monthly income. Do you fit this mold?  What would happen if you were laid off without pay tomorrow?  Can Americans look forward to a secure retirement under Social Security or the company pension plan?

Current labor statistics do not paint a pretty picture, with quality jobs being outsourced overseas quicker than new jobs are being created. Sure, there are always low paying, low skill jobs available. But who can support a family on minimum wage?

Manufacturing jobs in particular have taken a beating in the marketplace during the past few decades, with some states, like Michigan, losing over 23,000 jobs in the course of a year. According to Labor Department figures, 26 states have seen manufacturing job losses in the past year. The federal government claims many of these displaced workers are receiving retraining, however, Bureau of Labor Statistics cites fewer than 204,000 displaced workers qualified for retraining in 2003, and only 47,000 actually received training assistance. The Bureau of Labor Statistics defines displaced workers as, “persons 20 years of age and older who lost or left jobs because their plant or company closed or moved, there was insufficient work for them to do, or their position or shift was abolished.” During the January 2001 through December 2003 period, 5.3 million workers were displaced from jobs they had held for at least 3 years.

In June of 2006, 4.6% of the available workforce in America was unemployed for an average of 18.4 weeks. For workers over 45 years of age, this unemployment period jumped to 23.8 weeks. That is over 5 months. Compare this to the statistic in the Introduction of this report that reveals many Americans have less than 3 months worth of cash and assets available to sustain them without continuing income. Of course, there is unemployment insurance, but this may take weeks to kick in, is a degrading and frustrating process, and is certainly no route to achieving the standard of living your family deserves.

Of the 7.6 million Americans unemployed at one time or another in the past year, 4.3 million lost their job due to completion of temporary projects, 3.7 million were laid off, and 1.9 suffered permanent job loss through no apparent fault of their own. To top it off, the median weekly wage and salary for working Americans in 2005 was $651. It hardly seems worth the effort. Yet, 123 million American go to work everyday, living paycheck to paycheck. Over 13 million of these people work in “alternative” job arrangements as independent contractors, on-call laborers, and temporary services. Additionally, in 2004 nearly 8 million Americans worked multiple jobs simultaneously—just to make ends meet.

Most Americans think a job is security.  They are wrong.  As long as you depend upon somebody else for your livelihood, you are a slave to that person and/or organization.  And like a slave, you can be dispensed with as soon as they deem your services uneconomical. I suggest it is time to change the way you do business and start working for yourself.

Dependence is not security--independence is security. Don't sit back and relax in the pseudo security of a job or retirement plan. To achieve wealth you will need to learn how to accept and manage a certain amount of risk.

Success gurus like Anthony Robbins and Robert Kiyosaki teach that you have to get excited about wealth building to achieve success. What excites you about building personal wealth? How do you feel about poverty, or the lack of money? What motivates you to spend your free time reading books like this, studying interest rate tables, or analyzing stocks and real estate deals?

To achieve financial success you must get emotionally charged over something wealth represents. After all, it’s probably not the money you are after. You are after the security and promise of a better life.

Use these emotional tags to drive you to work while others sleep. Use your anger over working for an unappreciative boss to push you to limit your spending on frivolous doodads. Use your desire to achieve a better quality of life for your family as an impetus to analyze more deals, take calculated risks, and strive for more sources of passive and portfolio income. In the end, use your determination to achieve the independence and security of sound financial management and personal wealth.

There is a Degree of Risk in Creating Wealth

You have probably heard the expression, “if you want to catch fish, you have to risk the bait.”  But how many of us actually incorporate that basic philosophy into our lives?  Are you willing to risk the “security” of the traditional nine to five, Monday through Friday routine to enjoy financial freedom?  If you expect to become a successful entrepreneur, you will have to take risks.

So, your fifth step in building wealth is to embrace measured risk through knowledge of your market niche and understanding the associated opportunity costs of not making selected business decisions or investments. “Opportunity Costs” is a fancy word used to measure the “loss” of income or revenue by “not” making a specific investment or business decision. Bean counters like to use opportunity costs to measure upside and downside potential of business transactions, and recognize that any business deal can incur risk of loss.

These risks do not mean senseless gambling of your savings in the futures market, or betting everything on a horse race.  Taking a risk means putting your self-confidence on the line.  It means taking the chance of being embarrassed in the marketplace.  And it can also mean going against popular opinion and peer pressure to follow a dream.

Risk is the probability of a loss, and its potential impact on your financial well-being. Successful entrepreneurs mitigate that risk by learning everything they can about an investment or business venture—this is called due diligence—before they get involved. Perfect knowledge is not always available, as every endeavor has unknowns; however, your job is to analyze the information that is available, and then make informed decisions.

Some risk can be reduced by “hedging,” where the risk taker invests in insurance policies or more conservative investments to minimize the risk exposure. Hedging costs money in the form of insurance premiums, and lower return on investments. For example, an investment in a bank certificate of deposit is considered very safe, but its returns are currently averaging 3-5% per year. At the same time, an investment in a less conservative—and thus more risky—real estate transaction, may net a gain of 100% or more. Every investor must determine his or her own tolerance for risk exposure and make investment decisions accordingly.

Another form of risk is evident in “gambling,” where the gambler is willing to lose his or her entire investment in pursuit of a huge payoff. The lottery is a perfect example of this. If you buy a one-dollar lottery ticket, your entire investment of that dollar will be reduced to zero value if the numbers you selected are not picked by the lottery system. Lotteries typically have astronomical odds against the gambler, with 100 million to 1 odds being common. Your risk exposure in this area is extremely high, but may be mitigated by limiting the amount you routinely spend on lottery tickets. A business transaction or investment that offers the chance to win big, countered by the more likely chance of losing your entire investment, is essentially gambling.

Some people actually thrive on taking risk, and are considered “risk seekers.” This is obviously not for the faint of heart, nor is it advisable to risk next month’s rent in pursuit of a get-rich-quick scheme. “Risk averse” people are the exact opposite, and run from any sort of identifiable risk in a business or investment venture. The happy hunting grounds lie somewhere between being risk seeking and risk averse. Finding this center ground is dependent upon your unique circumstances, available financial resources, and your ability to manage risk.

Once you have addressed the question of risk, you will need to consider how fear of failure may be impacting your progress towards your financial goals.

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