The Old Get Rich Slow Is Insane
In his interview with Pat Flynn, MJ DeMarco (author of the book The Millionaire Fastlane) uses the work “insane,” to describe the get rich slow way of thinking that has become a part of the American dream. Everybody goes to school then gets a job. Throughout their adult life they work. Year after year, they trade five days of hard work for two days off. They diligently save and invest a percentage of their income in hopes of one day becoming rich. At this point, they retire. For most people, this is around age 65.
Why do you think they call it retired? Of course you are tired if you’ve worked your butt off your entire life. A bumper sticker attached to a forklift at one of my daily stops says it best...
I’m RETIRED. I was tired yesterday and I’m retired today!
Think about it, most of us are trained early on that this is the way to go. We are put into the school system at an early age, mostly schools run by the government. We are trained to sit in school from a specified start time until a specified end time. Whether we have our school work done or not, we have to stay until the closing bell. This is perfect training for our future working careers. You have to work the entire day. It doesn’t matter if you are able to accomplish all of your tasks before lunch, you still have to stay until 5 o’clock.
The reward for getting through school, working a full time job your entire life and diligently saving is that hopefully you will live long enough to enjoy it. Hopefully. Do you see how insane this is? Anybody can do the saving part. Building wealth this way is really not that hard. The living long enough to enjoy it is the uncertain part. Nobody knows how long they are going to live. And how much enjoying do you really think you are going to do when you reach your so-called golden years?
The New Get Rich Quick Plan
The get rich quick I am talking about has nothing to do with any scams, schemes, systems or other crazy plans that claim that it is easy. The get rich quick I am talking about involves hard work, knowledge and constant learning. It requires coming up with a plan and executing that plan. It has everything to do with creating your own passive income. Whether through a business, investment or even monetizing a hobby - creating your own income is the way to go. You need to be in control of your own destiny. The ultimate goal is to escape the imprisonment of the full time job.
In his Millionaire Fastlane book, MJ DeMarco discusses the importance of being able to appeal to the masses. Whatever your business idea or passion is, when you monetize it you need to be able to sell it to the masses. This doesn’t mean having a little store front in a small town where a limited number of people are going to visit. It means harnessing the power of the internet to be able to sell to an unlimited number of people. The selling could be that of an actual product, or it could be selling ideas or information.
The possibilities are endless with the internet. I’m not going to go into detail right now, but you see what I mean. The entire world is your audience. The entire world is your customer. All you have to do is figure out a way to monetize whatever it is you have a passion for. Work hard at something in the short term in order to reap monetary benefits in the long term.
Readers: What are you passionate about and how do you think you can monetize it by harnessing the power of the internet?
