The truth is that until you figure out how to make money while you’re sleeping, you will work until the day you die. That lesson is one that I wish I had learned sooner in life. I wish I had started investing at an earlier age, but I didn’t understand, and I never learned about money. That aspect is one of the downsides of growing up poor because you’re not surrounded by people who are encouraging you or teaching you knowledge about money.
Until you take an active role and understand and figure out how the system works, you will never be financially free and will always be trading your time for money. That being said, I will review some money-making lessons that I wish I had learned sooner.
Start applying these financial principles now!
- Invest. Either invest or work until you die. There is zero chance that you will ever develop FU money until you understand that you have to be investing. You need to deploy extra cash and let that money work for you. That is what the secret is.
- No financial bailouts. Understand that nobody will bail you out financially, and it’s nobody’s responsibility other than you to figure out your finances.
- Debt enslaves. The higher and larger your debt, the more of a slave you are. That is the devil. I don’t sleep well if I have a lot of debt. I’ve been broke, and I have been not broke. I can tell you from experience that nothing robs you of joy like having a bunch of credit card debt. You feel like you have a thousand-pound gorilla that you’re always carrying around with you. Live debt-free by making smart financial decisions.
- Side hustles. Every single person needs multiple streams of income. If one goes down, you will always have one to fall back on and one to grow. It’s never been easier to make money in the universe’s history and right now because of the internet. Making money online is literally like taking a test with the book open. Find somebody doing it, copy what they’re doing, and do it yourself. I don’t know where to start, Skillshare is a good place. The platform features tons of entrepreneurship courses for you at any stage of the business. Even if you want to start a side hustle, they have classes that walk you through step by step how to start.
- Unequal skills. High-value skills are more valuable, which people with money will pay more for. These skills will need to be developed. One skill that I think you need to develop is sales, learning to sell something. If you can sell anything, being a good salesperson is invaluable. Every company needs it. Often, sales positions are commission-based, so you can have a salary and commission, which means you’re basically uncapped in terms of your potential.
- MLM scams. I learned the hard way that multi-level marketing (MLM) is a scam. If it’s structured like a pyramid, meaning you need to get people underneath you to make money, it’s truly a scam. Now, you can technically make money at it. Sure, if you’re the first five people or so. But the majority of us that hear about it are too late. And ultimately, everybody hates you and avoids you because you will try to sell it to all your friends and family.
- Hype and frenzy. Don’t get caught up in the hype and frenzy. Be smart and logical. The foundation and fundamental principles of investing and making money still work, but unfortunately, there’s a lot of hype surrounding certain things like crypto. I’m not talking about it negatively, but look what happened. Everybody started to get super hyped up and buying. It got pumped up and inflated, and then people lost a ton of money by not being educated or understanding cryptocurrency. To be a better investor, you must separate your emotions from investing. You can’t get upset when something doesn’t go as planned and have a knee-jerk reaction of taking your money out. When everybody’s freaking-out and selling is the time that smart people invest financially. Whether this is real estate or the market, they see opportunity and other people’s fear. They know that when things are bad, they’ll get a better deal. Skillshare also has classes about real estate and investing, along with how to flip and how to find sectors & markets.
- Money vs Happiness. Making money will only make you happy if it comes with struggle. If you’re given something, you don’t respect or appreciate it as much as what you had to work your ass for. You need to be willing to live below your means and take your extra cash and invest it. Start a side hustle. But you have to start.
