Pay the Price
“Self-made Millionaires Achieved This Status
Because They Were Willing to Pay the Price.”
There is a price to pay for getting rich, just as there is a price to
pay for everything you attain in your life. Many chatter about being
willing to pay the price, but few will actually do so. If you are serious
about becoming a wealthy man or woman, you need to be prepared to
pay the considerable price tag associated with that blissful state. It
doesn't come free.
So let's talk honestly, frankly and openly about exactly what is
involved if you are to make your fortune. You will not read what I am
about to tell you in any 'feel good' book.
To make a lot of money, you’re going to have to give up many
things. A proper family life, a decent social life, friends and many
other things besides. Often you won’t even know what the price is
when you start out. Nevertheless, you must resolve to pay it. This is
the factor which stops most people from getting rich. They want it for
nothing and are not willing to sacrifice anything at all to get it. This is
a fantasy.
I think my strength is in smashing illusions, fantasies, and myths.
Most people sign up for a great many of these fantasies which they
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believe to be 'the truth' and this has a huge impact on their wealth-
creating efforts. Often it even threatens survival.
Most people barely survive financially. Worse still, lacking an
iron-grip control on even the basics of their lives, they mumble the
incantations of success, expecting magical results. That is, results
which do not exact a price or penalty.
Let us be brutally honest here, this is the state of people in the
United Kingdom today:
1. 2% are wealthy.
2. 5% are comfortable. They live in a decent house with a small or
zero mortgage, they drive a new car, they take one or two holidays
each year. They have enough money for most of the things they need,
but they are not wealthy. I would describe them as being in the high
end of their comfort zone.
3. 53% are scraping along day-to-day, month to month. They are
just about paying their way, but there is never any money left over for
luxuries. Also, they live in constant fear of the large unexpected bill,
tax demand, or medical expense. They are hanging on to the tricky
business of life by the fingernails - barely surviving; lurching from
crisis to crisis.
4. 40% are days away from drowning and are coming up for air for
the third time. Their past mistakes and failures have created a
crippling burden of debt which they have not the slightest hope of
paying back through working at a normal job. The crushing weight of
their errors and the cumulative effect of years of laziness, inaction and
lack of discipline have created a terminal situation. Each month they
sign up again for inaction and myopia. Each month their load
becomes a little heavier. Without urgent and immediate action, the
outcome is inevitable - total financial collapse.
As an aside, I would like you to reread the above paragraph and
notice how I place the blame for this situation squarely on the
shoulders of the person experiencing it. This is where it belongs of
course but it is unfashionable to say so.
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In a society which seeks to crush individualism and make each one
of us a worker in the state collective, how can an individual possibly
be to blame for his own misfortune? He cannot. This would give the
individual some personal power, and that cannot be right! No. It must
be society, greedy capitalists, manipulative industry, bad luck, his
upbringing, peer pressure, his race, lack of education, his age, lack of
opportunity, or any one of a hundred other factors all of which are out
of his control. In short, he is not to blame, according to modern
thinking.
If you doubt this, read the following and see if it has a familiar
ring:
"Yes, I admit it. I'm flat broke and I owe tens of thousands of
pounds to other people which, to be honest, I don't have a prayer of
paying back. But it's not my fault. I was made redundant from my job
and thrown on the scrap heap at 40. Those greedy bosses call it
downsizing - but I don't notice any downsizing in their fat wallets.
Twenty years I've worked there, and that's all the thanks I get. I'm a
heavy- motor electrical engineer, and there just aren't that many jobs
around for someone of my abilities. I've applied for a few but they
always want younger men. I guess losing my job made me kinda
depressed and my wife couldn't take it. She wants a divorce and the
bitch is taking me for every penny. I don't have any savings, and the
money I get from the state is a joke. Sure I'm broke, but as you can
see it's not my fault."
Blame-Shifting
Let me translate this litany of blame shifting.
"I am such a weak and feeble human being, that I have been
unable to master one of the simplest and most basic skills of life; that
is to spend less than I earn. My greed exceeds my means to pay for it,
and so to fuel my desires, I must borrow from the surplus created by
others. I have spent every penny of my own money, and squandered
the surplus created by others which they entrusted to me on the
promise that I would pay them back. I have broken that trust and they
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are unlikely to get their money. I am not a trustworthy human being,
but it's not my fault.
“I know that the world is a dangerous and uncertain place, but for
twenty years I decided to ignore that fact. Consequently I have zero
savings, but it isn't my fault. I needed all the stuff I bought, and a lot
more besides. I did some training once, twenty years ago, and I fully
expected that to last forty years.
"The world owes me a living, and society should provide jobs for
people with my abilities, regardless of whether they are needed or
not. Bosses should provide jobs for workers regardless of profits.
People need jobs, and it is the duty of bosses to provide them. I have
no intention of retraining. I have made a half-hearted attempt to get
another job, but because I'm so weak, I get quickly discouraged and
so I have given up. Now I get free money from the state. This is
nothing like enough for me to live on, and I think the state should give
me a lot more free money."
I know you do not hold the same attitudes as this man - you would
not be reading this book if you did!
So given the terrible poverty, both financial and spiritual of the
majority of people, what can you do to raise yourself up into the top
2% (by Western standards)? How can you achieve this success?
This fifth secret is all about realising that you cannot have it all,
and that you must pay a big price (give up something) in order to
attain wealth. You need to be crystal clear in your own mind that you
are willing to pay the price, otherwise abandon all hopes right now of
becoming rich.
It is vital that you apply full focus to this very important area if
you are not to drift through life aimlessly.
You Cannot Have it All
So, it's time for some home truths. The first thing you have to
know is that you can't have it all.
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Despite what those slick-suited seminar-gurus tell you, every
decision you take in life has a shadow partner - the life you cannot
now lead because you took that decision.
A few simple examples will prove the point.
You take a career decision to become a surgeon; but doing this
precludes you from being a lawyer.
As a woman you decide to marry and have a family. The
consequence is that your career is on hold for a minimum of five
years and more like fifteen or twenty.
You decide to go to the cinema; you cannot also spend the evening
in a fine restaurant.
You decide to give up drinking; you cannot now go boozing with
your pals.
You decide to start thinking for yourself; you lose most of your
'friends.'
Every decision you take has consequences.
Every decision, no matter how seemingly inconsequential, sets
your life on a slightly different course. This is why, as Jim Rohn says,
"Everything matters."
Even inaction has its consequences.
If you decide just to float down life's stream, and the current
sweeps you randomly into the left tributary, you cannot also enjoy the
right tributary. If you sleep all day, you cannot also play your
favourite sport on that day.
This tiny handful of examples should prove to you immediately
that you cannot have it all. It is so obvious that it is hardly worth
saying, and yet there are at least two top seminar gurus on the circuit
at the moment who are claiming that you can. In fact, I'm fairly
certain that I have seen a book and a tape series entitled "You CAN
have it all." Wrong! But far more importantly, every decision you
take to improve your life, no matter how trivial, will have an
associated cost - a price that you will have to pay in order to achieve
that success.
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The price usually involves the sacrifice of one aspect of your life,
in order to achieve more in your main area of endeavour.
Here's a simple example. You're a single guy, and you decide to
spend every evening for the next three months decorating and
improving your house from top to bottom in order that you might sell
it for the best price. This will allow you to realise your goal of
moving up the housing market. You really want a detached house and
have a burning desire to move out of the poverty-stricken terraced-
house neighbourhood in which you live. Great goal! But the principle
is that you can't have it all, so what is the price that you will pay for
choosing this route?
Answer: It will kill your social life for the next three months. No
drinking, no clubbing, no frittering away your time with the mates.
Who knows, you might have met your future wife at one of those
missed evenings at the club, but instead you were home, working.
The pathways of your life divide. You follow one which leads to a
brighter, better tomorrow - according to your best judgement, of
course. The other diverges sharply, blinks and shimmers uncertainly
before fading out to join the countless millions of other 'might have
beens.' You never meet that woman, you never marry and have
children with her.
Another example: Charles sets himself the goal of becoming super
successful; really mega-rich. This man wants £100 million, he wants
it badly and he's going to get it. Now that's a lot of money and far
more than I will see in my lifetime, and I've seen plenty!
Now ask yourself seriously, can this man have it all?
Can he work the demanding 12 hour days, 350 days each year
which are required to achieve this level of success and be a perfect
father who never misses his son's football matches or his daughter's
clarinet concert? Can he be a perfect husband who is always home
from the office by 5:30 to peck his wife on the cheek; who's never
late for a dinner party with friends? Can he shoot for super success
and also be a competent odd-job man who spends weekends and
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evenings tinkering with the plumbing, or installing new work-
surfaces, pipe clenched firmly between teeth?
Let's go further. Can he try for mega-wealth, and also be a 'good
old mate' to a bunch of lads down at the local? Can he play for the
darts' team Tuesdays and Thursdays? Can he say "yes" to a ten day
skiing holiday with his friends? Is he likely to be an active member of
his local choir or amateur dramatics group? The answer is no.
Shooting for this level of wealth requires laser-beam focus. There will
be late night and breakfast meetings; urgent problems to sort out
requiring him to jump on a plane at a moment's notice; international
midnight telephone calls - you name it.
Let us probe deeper. Will others consider him to be a reliable
friend? In other words, are people likely to say of him "Good old
Charlie, he's a real pal. You've only got to pick up the phone any hour
of the day or night and he's there for you." ?
I don't think so, do you?
Charles is on a fast track to super-success; this track is not open to
any old mooch or bum, it requires extraordinary discipline and effort.
It requires 100% commitment; and total dedication to the task in
hand. This level of success commands a high price, not surprisingly,
otherwise every half-witted, unfocused fool in the country would be
doing it.
Whilst we are on the subject, let us ask: "Will Charles have many,
or indeed any, friends?"
Friendship has a high time-overhead, in case you haven't noticed.
You have to call each friend at least once a week and meet them at
least once a fortnight, otherwise they fairly rapidly drop out of your
circle of mates. With only a dozen chums, you will find that most
evenings and weekends, indeed almost every spare moment you have,
will be consumed in meeting friends for a drink, chatting on the
telephone to catch up with all the gossip, coffee mornings, driving
endlessly to and fro from their tiresome houses, dandling their
squawking brats on your knee and going "coochy-coo," letter writing,
e-mails and returning mutual favours.
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Your life is thus reduced to working, sleeping, and entertainment
( socialising). It would not be overstating the case to say that this
describes most people's lives. There is nothing wrong with that, if the
major life-goal you have set yourself is 'to be a good friend to as
many people as humanly possible.' But can you do this and be a super
success? Can Charles shoot for his hundred million, and be the person
I just described? Can Charles have it all?
The answer is tritely obvious. No he cannot. If he is to achieve his
dream, he must pay the price - and the price is a big one.
All Dreams Have Their Price
This doesn't just apply to Charles and his very high goal of making
a hundred million. It is important for you to realise that every goal
you set in life has an associated price which you will have to pay. Big
dreams come with a large, fancy, gold-embossed price tag. Smaller
goals have a cheap supermarket stick-on label, but there is still a price
attached to every dream.
You cannot have it all.
I hope you have taken this on board, and now believe it totally.
You cannot move beyond this point in the realisation of your dreams
if even a small part of you still subscribes to the fantasy of being able
to have it all. You cannot. Neither can you have something for
nothing. You get no results in life unless you pay the price. No free
lunches. No 'emanations from the bountiful universe.' Sorry - it
doesn't work like that, much as we would all want it to. The universe
is only bountiful as long as we put forth the required effort to make it
fruitful. We only get a bumper crop from 'bountiful nature' by doing
the backbreaking work of preparing the ground, planting the seed,
weeding, hoeing and watering. All of this must be done before you
can enjoy the harvest.
I am reminded of the story of the vicar walking through his village.
He comes across a man working in a beautiful cottage garden. He
stops to admire the lovely flowers and says: "I see that you and God
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have done a splendid job on your garden." To which the man replies:
"Yes, you should have seen it when God had it all to himself!"
The Entrepreneur
To make serious money you almost certainly have to run your own
business - and if you have never done this before, you are in for a
shock!
Running a business is like standing on a shore with wave after
wave of problems hitting you. It never stops. It never goes away.
Some waves are tiddlers, some are like tidal waves, most are normal
sized waves.
The variety and challenge in business comes in what particular set
of problems you will face today. Yesterday it was a massive bad debt,
today your supplier has gone bankrupt, tomorrow it will be some
government jobsworth trying to shut you down. Next week it will be a
VAT inspection, then employee sickness, followed by a fire
inspection to ensure you have 3.6 extinguishers to every 19.3
employees. The week after that it’s a problem at your printer followed
in quick succession by your telephone system failing, the alarm
system going off at 2 a.m. and an irate customer threatening to sue
you for something he purchased from an entirely different company
with a similar sounding name...
It just goes on and on. This is part of the price you pay, daily,
weekly, yearly. It has been said with some truth that everyone makes
money by solving other people's problems. I have not even mentioned
the positive army of faceless bureaucrats with a strong anti-business
agenda. The ASA, PIA, DMSB, MOPS, DTI, Trading Standards,
DPA, SFA, MPS, FSA, Inland Revenue etc. etc. You have to be able
to bat away all of these problems and come back for more without it
destroying you. Making big money is all about handling hundreds of
problems. Some easy, some total sons of bitches.
The truth is that many people can't handle this. I don't mean they
are incapable - many problems are no-brainers. I mean that they are
not willing to handle them - to pay the price for success. Most
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people’s emotional bank account runs out long before their financial
bank account. In other words, they can’t handle the endless wave of
problems and so they just roll over.
Another price you must pay is to be alienated from most people in
the society you currently inhabit. Until now, you have probably been
immersed in the warm, weak soup of British society. This will
change. Are you willing to pay this price too?
The Painful Truth
Let me tell you some facts about the UK and its people, in general.
As a race we have many wonderful characteristics. We are tolerant,
kind, easygoing, industrious and have a profound sense of right and
wrong, to name just a few. But there is a character trait of which I am
not proud to be a part. Whilst most people play the lottery, have
premium bonds, do the football pools and pray to get rich ‘by
accident or luck,’ (i.e. for zero effort) they simultaneously loathe and
despise anyone who has made something of their lives and will do
anything to slap down such a person and destroy them. Read the
tabloids if you doubt this. Anyone with more than £10,000 is called a
'Fat Cat' and anyone with a four bedroomed house apparently lives in
a 'mansion.' E.g. 'Fat Cat Robert Smith was unavailable for comment
when we visited his mansion in Surrey.'
If you ever make more than a modest amount of money or achieve
fame, you face the distinct possibility of being attacked, ridiculed,
smeared, and hounded by the press and media. Their sworn mission
will be to drag you down - to find some dirt in your background,
some chink in your armour which they can then use to destroy you.
It's not personal, it's just because their readers want you destroyed.
Why?
Their readers detest successful people because they act like
glitterin