Every week I get asked “How can I make money” from my non-entrepreneurial friends, so I thought I’d put together a simple, yet powerful list to help spark interest or give a little direction to anybody who wants to build financial wealth in their lifetime. I’ve picked up a lot of these concepts from super smart people, from life experience, and from my own victories and losses. Now go stack some of your own cash. @thewillcrozier
1- Forget saving your way to wealth. That’s like walking from LA to New York. Sure, it’s possible, but you might be 65 by the time you get there. It’s important to find a better “vehicle” so there’s time to enjoy the wealth.
2- That “better vehicle” is owning your own business. Whatever you do, make sure you own a business. If necessary, wrap a business around your career. Ie- If you mow lawns for a living, buy 100 mowers and hire 100 employees. If you are a barber, buy 5 shops with 5 chairs each and lease them out. If you are an engineer, make contacts in your business, and then start your own firm.
3- School is irrelevant when it comes to getting rich. It will help you make 95k a year instead of 35k a year, but will teach you nothing about making 1MM+ a year. School is great for training your future employees.
4- For the most part, politicians are poor. Celebrities are poor. Athletes are poor. Business people own all of those people and control all the wealth in this world. If you own a plumbing supply company, you can have more wealth than 99% of the politicians, celebrities, and athletes out there.
5- Your house is an expensive luxury item. Don’t confuse it for anything else. Enjoy one if you can afford it, otherwise rent cheap and dump money into your business.
6- IRAs and 401k’s. Do this if you have absolutely ZERO idea of what else to do.
7- You do not need money or good credit to make money. Finding money for your ideas is not a problem. Money will pour from the sky and chase you to the grave if you have a modest track record of success and create opportunities for other to invest in.
8- Getting rich won’t happen overnight, nor will it take 30 years. If you have the right ideas, and work hard, think in terms of 3-7 years. This amount of time will pass by anyway, you might as well make a metric sh*t ton of cash while it does.
9- There is good debt and bad debt. Good debt is business loans, inventory loans, or loans on commercial buildings. Bad debt is for expensive cars you can’t afford, vacations on credit cards, or store cards for bags and shoes. Try to get hundreds of millions of dollars into good debt. The anecdote is this: Bankers call you Sir or Ma’am if you have a million dollars in the bank, or if you owe a million dollars to the bank. Both are equally valuable to them.
10- If you want juicy steaks, join a BBQ class or club. You’ll have excellent steaks in no time. If you want to have a physically fit body, join a boot camp and go through hell with other motivated folks. You’ll be fit and strong in several months. If you want to be a millionaire, join a small business club or real estate club to talk to and partner with other millionaires. You’ll be worth millions within a few years. Yes, it really is that simple.
11- Don’t waste your time cutting back on small expenses like Netflix, buying cheaper food, couponing, or hunting big sales at stores. You’ll be miserable and can’t realistically cut expenses below a certain threshold anyway. Instead focus on earning way more money. It’s a lot easier to earn 10x the national average then to spend 10x less the national average.
12- Real Estate is a proven model for making wealth and there are dozens of ways to enter the real estate business and make money. Buying an existing business is also a great way to dramatically shorten the time needed to make real money in life. Consider buying a small chain of flower shops from the old lady who wants to retire, or the cargo trailer manufacturing company that needs new energy to make it thrive. Whether it’s Real Estate or Small Business, use loans, investors, employees, and new team members to increase returns, reduce risk, and successfully leverage money and time for everybody’s benefit. Find all of these things at a local networking meetup. There are dozens of them in your town, just search Facebook for them. Network, network, network. If you are too shy, pretend that you’re not and then go and network. Nobody will know that you’re actually faking it anyway.
13- Don’t take money advice from the poor or middle class. They don’t know what the hell they are talking about, even if they say it with all the confidence in the world. At the same time, ignore the Gurus selling courses, posing with rented cars and girls. Better to find somebody local who isn’t selling anything. Rich people will give you all this info for free. Be kind, respect their time, and add value to their life in any way you can. Sometimes that can simply be enjoying their hobbies with them.
Bonus- There’s a rumor that money “Changes” a person. It does not. It just takes that person and amplifies their character 100 times over, making them seem extra awesome or super douchey.
