Work to learn, don’t work for money. This is an awesome peace of advice that I adopted years ago and that I am more and more actively putting into practice into my career life. I wish this wisdom was from my own thinking, but I actually borrowed it from a guy named Robert Kiyosaki.
Several years ago when I first started looking at becoming an entrepreneur I came across Robert’s book titled Rich Dad, Poor Dad. This book really help point my mindset in the right direction. I was selling real-estate at the time and I would listen to this book on audio over and over in my car. It has been several years ago, but the statement work to learn, don’t work for money just stuck with me.
The statement, work to learn, don’t work from money comes from this idea that people with great wealth don’t work for money they create money. Robert says over and over that the rich don’t work for money. It took me a while to understand what he ment by this. He implies that you can’t build great wealth by working hourly for a company. This is a true statement. Regardless of how big or how small your salary is, if your being payed for your time then your not building great wealth. Your only ably to make so much as your time can allow. This is why I love the idea of having an online business. Your online business can make money night and day. Whether your at your computer or not, your website can be generating income. Your online business can generate a LARGE amount of income if you build a great audience. Your website is not limited by the constraints of how many hours you have to work.
You want to be free?
If we really want to find freedom financially then we have to learn how to make money work for us and not be a slave who is working for money.
Here is just a tiny example of what I mean. Obviously there are much larger investments and ways to make money work for you.
I recently invested less then $50 into a plugin for my website that improves my email opt-in box. Since I’ve done this I have seen a pretty nice increase in people opting in to my news letter and downloading my free eBook. My investment was the $50 and about an hour of my time setting it up. My email conversion rates have about doubled since installing it.
Studies show that each email that you obtain is worth about $12 a year. So in theory I only need about 5 subscribers to break even on the cost of the plugin and only 10 subscribers to double the value of what I spent. I’ve gotten well over the 5 subscribers since installing the plugin. Wouldn’t you say I made money work for me? Such a small investment will give back such a large return. I am doubling my email opt-in rate wich means I am doubling my the income I make from my email list.
Incase you were wondering the plugin I purchased is called OptinSkin. I love it and highly recommend it.
Why am I bringing this up?
Recently I wrote a post talking about how I lost my job and how I was going to be putting a lot more time into my blog. I also said that I was offered a couple job opportunities but that I did not take them. The reason I didn’t take them had noting to do with the money they would pay me. Reason being I no longer will work for money. I will work to learn and to develop a new skill.
When considering a postion or a contract with a company I have decided that it must be ran through a check list.
1) Can I do this job without loosing to much quality time with my son and my future wife?
2) Can I do this job without damaging my ability to effectively run my own online business?
3) Will this job enhance my knowledge and skills that I need to peruse my dreams and business goals?
4) Can I do this job without compromising my faith, beliefs and who I am as a person?
5) Will I love and be passionate about the work that I am doing?
I recently accepted a postion
Recently I was offered a postion with a company to do some web and marketing work. Now why would I do this? First of all the postion can answer YES to the five questions listed above. The hours required by the position will have little impact on my ability to spend time with my son, my future wife and my time spent working on my own online business. The type of work that I will be doing will not cause me to compromise my faith, beliefs and who I am as a person. The main and final reason I accepted this position is for the knowledge that I will be able to gain that will greatly increase my ability to create a larger income with my own online business.
Notice that none of the reasons had anything to do with my salary or benefits. Yes I will be paid and paid fairly well, but it is not a driving force. I strongly believe that If we get our priorities right and understand how money truly works then having money work for us will come much easier and finding that freedom that we long for will not be nearly as challenging.
There are so many more factures to this that I can’t possibly fit into a single blog post. I recommend that you either read or listen to Rich Dad, Poor Dad. There are a lot of principals that will highly impact your way of thinking and help you break out into financial freedom.
Take the time to educate yourself. If you don’t understand money then you will not be able to effectively run a business or build any wealth. You will be a slave to money and always be struggling. I also want to point out that becoming rich is not a priority for me. I am more interested in being a great steward of money and not leaving my family in a position where money is always an issue or a struggle. What I want for me and my family is freedom. That means making money work for me so that I am not a slave who is working for money. That means not having debt and things of that nature that puts us in a place of bondage. That means not reporting to a job that steals our joy and makes us miserable.
A few other books that I have read and that have made a huge difference in my life are listed below.
48 days to the work you love (This book really helped inspire me to start looking to do something with my life that I love and that I can be proud of).
Total money make over (This book helped me understand how stupid debt was, how to get out of it, and how God has a different way he wants us to handle money.)
There is so much more that I could say on this topic, but rather then tell you each and every thought I have on the subject, I would like to leave the conversation open for you. Please feel free to continue the discussion in the comments below and share with all of us your thoughts and opinions on this topic.
May you find freedom
image provided by jscreationzs
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Sound words, but the editor let you down: “Why am I brining this up?” There are more, wasn’t sure whether to put this on Facebook or…
Una! Your a life saver! I got that corrected.. My editor on this post was me!! Sometimes I’m just to excited to release a post and I don’t take the time to run it by my editor! Lesson learned, thank you for pointing that out
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