12th December 2024
Recently, a youngster came to me for some career advice, and the question he asked was, “How do I make a lot of money?”
My reply to him.was simple,
“The only way to make a lot of money is to create a lot of value.”
Here’s a harsh truth: No one hands out money, No one is going to pay you just because they like you or think you’re cool, That’s not the way the world works.
Money earned is a direct byproduct of value created.
Create value, receive value.
If money is the goal, value has to be the focus.
This isn’t just some vague idea: The only way to get rich is to create an enormous amount of value for others, and capture a small portion of that along the way.
It’s not talking about the thing, it’s not brainstorming about the thing, it’s not asking about the thing, it’s not thinking about the thing.
The only way to create value is by doing the thing.
And if you don’t know where to start, look around you. There are customers, colleagues, bosses, shareholders, employees, Every single one of them has a problem.
What problems can you solve for the people around you?
Figure them out, solve them, scale that solution.
That’s how you make money.
Time is your most valuable financial asset (but only up to a point).
When you’re young, you have no skills, knowledge, networks, or money.
Time is all you have to give.
You invest this asset into your professional endeavors. You work extremely hard, trading your time for the skills, knowledge, networks, and money you lack.
But when you get older, you need a mindset shift: Time is no longer the most valuable asset, energy is.
The perpetual busyness of modern work culture is mostly a result of a continuation of the “Time for X” trades long after their value has dried up.
To avoid that end, leverage the skills, knowledge, networks, and money to concentrate your finite energy into the small number of important moments and opportunities. This is where you unlock the gold.
An easy way of saying this: Work hard, then work smart.
There’s no such thing as making it.
People seem to think that making it is an end state. That you get there and then get to coast.
Wrong, Every single day, you have to fight to earn your seat at the table.
This is a universal truth: If Apple stops making new iPhones, within a few years, they will no longer be a successful company.
The reality is that the fight gets more intense as you have more success: You have more to lose, More mouths to feed, More people counting on you, More expectations.
There’s an old saying that I love:
Every morning in the savannah, the gazelle wakes up and knows it must outrun the lion or be killed. The lion wakes up and knows it must outrun the gazelle or starve. Whether you’re the gazelle or the lion, when you wake up in the morning, you’d better start running.
You have to make it, every single day, you need to create value every single day to survive and thrive.
For continued success, Always ask yourself, “Are you giving more in value than what you are receiving,” and you will always have a list of loyal customers who will never leave you.
Create value to make a lot of money & stay blessed forever.