I don’t think there is such a thing as a “lazy man’s way to riches,” but there are online marketing systems, investments, and home business opportunities available that can help you make money from home on virtual autopilot.
But before you curl up on your hammock and start counting stacks of hundred dollar bills in your mind, you need to know upfRont that anything worth having is worth working for—at least a little bit.
Is your financial future, or the security of your family, worth working for?
I think so. But don’t get me wrong, I’m still kind of impressed by this whole “lazy man’s way to riches” thing.
Working 9 To 5
It’s been said by some smarter people than myself that “you make a living working 9 to 5, but you make a lifestyle working 5 to midnight.” In this context, the word “lifestyle” refers to having the time freedom to do the things you want to do when you want to do them, while making more money on autopilot than you can spend.
I don’t know who said that first, but I do know I don’t want to spend every waking moment of my free time “working” a business. Truthfully, I was born tired and I’ve grown comfortable in my laziness over the years.
So, when I recently went looking for a new online business to build, I knew right from the get-go that I needed something where I could follow step by step directions to build a marketing system online, automate it, and then walk away…
…With a steady stream of money coming in each month while I spend my days playing with my grand daughter and the mutt puppy she recently rescued in the mall parking lot.
So, while I hate to admit it, I guess what I really wanted was a “lazy man’s way to riches.”
What’s with that?
The point is, your job was never meant to be a route to financial security. Think about it.
How would your boss survive if you were able to actually get ahead financially, or God forbid, build some wealth, on the job? You’d quit, like any sensible man or woman. And then where would your boss be?
He would have to do the filing and wait on the customers himself—and that ain’t gonna happen—at least not in the places where I’ve worked in the past.
Secret Of The Lazy Man’s Way To Riches
Now hold your breath because I’m getting ready to revel something earth shaking: The secret to the lazy man’s way to riches is residual income.
Residual income is any positive cash flow you receive from various business and investment interests that you control. The key here is the word “control.”
Control simply means you have the rights to the proceeds from the business or investment—but you are not obligated to show up for work, punch a clock, or spend the best years of your life dealing with an unappreciative boss or herds of disgruntled customers.
Robert Kiyosaki refers to this residual income as “passive income,” where you derive an income without having to be actively involved in its creation.
The best sources of passive income are typically things like:
· Stock dividends
· Rental income
· Small business profits
· Royalties from intellectual properties
· Interest from cash deposits or accounts receivable
Take another look at Kiyosaki’s passive income sources. You’ll notice they all require capital and sweat equity to put into place—which makes the “lazy man’s way to riches” sound like a myth.
And you would be right to think that. Truly, unless you have inherited a portfolio of stock, a real estate empire, or the rights to a dead relative’s copyrighted material, you will have to do the work and make the right investments upfront to enjoy the “lazy man’s way to riches.”
But don’t get discouraged. This is something you can do—just as the characters in Burke Hedges’ pipeline parable created their wealth systems.
Day 7 Assignment
In this final assignment for your small business boot camp I want you to think about why you have chosen to start a small business, and how you believe your involvement in a small business will impact other people in your life.
To get started, I want to share a story with you that illustrates how a quote from Henry David Thoreau changed my life.
I wasn’t going to go out shopping on Black Friday this year, but my son asked me if I could take him to a local bookstore to find something to read.
We wandered about for bit, trying to find something to match his mood and were coming up short. I knew he was an avid fan of Rhonda Byrne’s “The Secret,” and recommended he pick up her sequel to that book, “The Power.”
As we drove home he flipped through the book and came across this quote by Henry David Thoreau…
“…If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment.”
I thought about the quote for a minute and realized Thoreau’s message directly related to several experiences I have had in the home business industry.
Not all of us are suited for the work at home opportunity way of life, and among those of us who are, not every opportunity is the right opportunity for us at that time in our life. But, if you will consider Thoreau’s quote, and think about your past failures, you may find hidden value in even the biggest disappointments.
For example, years ago I decided to join the life insurance business. I worked my butt off to get licensed, and then quickly discovered that I was the worse life insurance agent that ever made a cold call. I could not even sell a policy to my mother.
But I did manage to sell one policy to a friend before quitting the business.
Several years later my friend died of cancer. We had lost contact with each other shortly after I wrote the policy, but his widow sent me a letter thanking me. Apparently, the day after the funeral my former life insurance boss hand delivered her death benefit, which enabled her to pay off her home mortgage and put money aside for saving.
Little did I know at the time that my failure in the life insurance business would change another person’s life.
Going back even further, I was first introduced to the home business industry when a co-worker talked me into joining his opportunity. I never made a dime in the business, but again, Thoreau’s word spoke the truth.
My upline hosted opportunity meetings in his home every Thursday night. After the meeting we would all head out to his garage where he had set up a huge library of motivational books and tapes.
Thanks to that short lived dive into the home business industry, I was introduced to great authors and speakers like Jim Rohn, Napoleon Hill, Og Mandino, W. Clement Stone, Zig Ziglar, and about a dozen others who literally changed my life.
If you’re thinking about getting involved in a business, don’t dwell on failing. Instead, think about what you may learn and experience, and how this experience may open other doors, or even change people’s lives.
With that in mind, here is a three step challenge for you:
1. Extend your boot camp training into a lifelong commitment to self-training and education.
2. Adopt a pioneer attitude about your business endeavors and approach each new business and investment opportunity as a learning experience.
3. Throughout your life, always measure your business and investment opportunities from a “value” perspective. That is, while conducting your due diligence, make sure the products and services you plan to market add value to your customers’ lives.
Recommended Reading Assignment
Are you stuck in a prosperity paradox?
A prosperity paradox is a dark place where hard working people spend the majority of their lives.
So, how do you know if you are in a prosperity paradox? If any of the following are true in your case, you may be living in a financial quagmire…
You believe that hard work and loyalty to an employer will pay off in the long run.
You believe that the only way to create wealth is to lie, cheat, or steal.
You are convinced that all home business opportunities are scams or pyramid schemes.
You think because you pay your bills on time, save little, and pay your taxes that everything will work out.
If you suffer from any of the above delusions, you are living in financial denial and may well find yourself sucked down the tube of financial mediocrity or worse.
It disgusts me to see healthy, intelligent people living in poverty. With a few noted exceptions where governments constrain any possibility of economic freedoms, there is no reason why you cannot learn how to make money and create wealth.
And I have a theory about why many of us who want wealth and success never seem to get it…
…We have not paid our dues or acquired the right information.
I recently re-read “The Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell. In this book Gladwell discusses what it takes to create world class success in any field or industry. According to him, a person needs to devote around 10,000 hours of training in an area to reach world class levels of expertise.
And this same rule applies to wealth building as well.
Think about it. When was the last time you spent 10,000 hours deliberately trying to master anything? If you worked 40 hours per week, it would take over 5 years to get really good at something—which creates a prosperity paradox in itself, because most of us want to make money by next Thursday, not next year, or the year after.
Fortunately, you don’t have to wait 5 years to start making money. Nor do you need to spend the next 10,000 hours sweating over your keyboard.
I’m not saying Gladwell was wrong. In fact, I believe he was right. But thanks to mentoring and the fact that success leaves clues, we can copy the wealth producing strategies and business building methods used by our wealthy neighbors, without having to re-invent the wheel.
In a sense, this is like leverage. Now that you know such a thing exists, it would be foolish to start a business alone or in a “knowledge vacuum.” Get a jumpstart on your journey to wealth by following proven leaders who have blazed a trail for us all to follow.
Life is great, and the world has so much to offer each one of us. Don’t spend your life in a prosperity paradox. Study the habits of wealthy people and learn how you can create wealth—starting with a solid understanding of Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers.”