Embrace The Journey
If you've never read any of Robert Kiosaki's books, Rich Dad, Poor Dad" I highly recommend it and definitely believe it should be required reading for high schoolers. Few would argue that our school system does a whoefully poor job of preparing our children for life in the real world. They graudate college knowing next to nothing at all about budgeting, writing a check, paying bills, how credit works or how to manage money. In facts, most adults don't know how to manage money!
The book explains how those who struggle with money spend their hard earned dollars on liabilities. Liabilities are things that do not retain or grow in value over time. They are often quickly used up. The purchase of most vehicles (with some very expensive exceptions) is basically a liability in that it drops in value the moment you drive it off the lot, yet your paying more for it with acrrued interest over the years.
What's often the first thing folks do when they come into some extra cash? Spend it! They go out and buy a bigger TV, computer, car or go on vacation they've been dreaming of. How does any of this help them get one step closer to building wealth? In fact, most American's fall far short of saving enough for their retirement years.
Reading Robert Kiosaki's book back in 2011 was a real eye opener for me and my husband. It's also why we started building our investment portfolio in real estate. Along the way, we also learned to use credit and leverage our money in ways that will allow us to continue to build our net worth. You see, as T. Harveker puts it in his book, Secret's of the Millionaire Mind, wealthy people think in terms of networth.
How many times have we heard of people who suddenly come into large sums of money just to lose it all in a short period of time. A million dollars doesn't last long when you don't know how to handle it.
The same thing can happen when you start a business and it becomes a hit and you're growing faster than you ever dreamed. The money flows in fast, and you become a sudden success.
Many entrepreneurs who go through this can end up broke, unhappy and alone in just a few years. Why? It’s because they didn't have enough time to develop critical skills to know how to handle the money, and they have no idea what to do with it once they have it.
The reality is, there's a tremendous amount of self-satisfaction that comes from overcoming adversity and dealing with all the frustrations and hassles that come from hard work. It teaches you how to handle the results of your newfound success once you do finally experience it.
Let's say it takes you 10 years to accumulate the millions of dollars you've always dreamed about. Now you've got the money and you're on top of the world. You've worked long and hard and overcame many challenges along the way. That’s what makes it all worthwhile.
That's what a lot of people don't get – that the education you acquire along the way, and that incredible feeling of satisfaction plus the skills you developed, is more valuable than the money. I veiw the process as a journey and the money as the icing on the cake.
I'm sure the money is great, don't get me wrong! If you had a choice between skills or the money, which would you choose? I'll take the skills and I'll take the mindset that goes with them. Because having the skills means I can go get the money again and again.
Without those skills, the money disappears real fast and you won’t know how to get it back. But if you’ve got the skills, the contacts, the self-image, the confidence, etc. – you can go get the money again. At least that's the way I see it.
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