Just wondering

Okay, no long platitudes or sermons today about how what the rich know that I don't, or the ins and outs of running a business. Just a few observations from me about what I've learned in the past few months. This is just me commenting on my experiences in the past 8 weeks or so, what I have seen and what really confuses me. I'm sure somebody out there knows the answers I'm looking for, but I sure don't.

People are out there looking for jobs, and there aren't many to be had. I get that. It's a tough situation, and the times right now aren't very good. I get that, too. But I wonder sometimes why people keep looking for relief from somebody other than themselves. See, I understand that not everybody is cut out to run their own business, not everybody has that inner drive to carve out their own slice of the economy...it's hard to do, and on some days it's very hard to do. It's a lot of work, and frankly, not everybody wants to do work that hard. Some people would rather sell their time for $8 or $10 or $20 an hour, if they can find someone to hire them, and let somebody else worry about all the headaches associated with having and running a business. And that's okay; I certainly did it for many years.

But I also meet people who would really like to escape the whole idea of depending on someone else for their livelihood, people who have the savvy and the know-how to run a business for themselves, to take a (small) risk and see what happens. And yet they don't. That's the part I don't get. They spend hours and days and weeks trying to convince somebody else they are worth whatever the employer is willing to spend to buy their time, sometimes finding low-paying jobs, occasionally something pretty good, but most often they find nothing. Yet they still refuse to bet on the only person on whom they can really count: them.

I met somebody recently who said they didn't have time to grow a business, they needed income right now. So I asked them when they were last employed. Answer: more than a year ago. That took me aback a little. They needed income now but they hadn't had a job for a year? What if they had started a business a year ago? I pointed out that had they done that, and if they worked really hard in the meantime, it might be paying off by now. And if it was and they kept working hard, nobody could take that away from them, until one day maybe they wouldn't have to work so hard, but would still have something nobody could take from them. What you do right now, today, will affect what you have a year from now. They looked at me like I was nuts; start a business, they said, if they did that they wouldn't have time to look for a job!

I have no answers here, I'm just wondering out loud. See, I've run my own used and rare book business since 1998, but before that I worked so many hours per week I couldn't count them all, and all for the benefit of somebody else. I was paid for my time and my employer believed every waking moment of my life was their to use as they saw fit. So what that I was paid what some people would call a lot of money? I benefited them far more than I benefited me. It crushed me not only physically, but emotionally, too.

On a weekly basis I meet dozens and hundreds of people running their own small businesses selling whatever they can, wherever they can. Ebay, Bonanza, Etsy, the flea market...these people I admire. They aren't sitting around waiting for somebody to give them a job, they are out trying to scratch out a living on their own. They aren't whining about how badly their employer treats them, or how many hours they have to work to make their paycheck. Most of those who have the guts to open their own business have to keep their jobs, at least in the beginning. Bills are bills, after all. But since they aren't afraid of hard work, they aren't afraid to work now so they can play later. And while Ebay has pretty much run it's course for new entrepreneurs, there are plenty of other newer chances out there.

I guess I'm asking the unanswerable question here. Why won't people help themselves? But occasionally you meet someone who will, someone who doesn't mind betting that they can do it, that they can take the American Spirit and go out and create something for them and their family. And if they fail? So what? Everybody fails sometimes. At least, everybody who tries, sometimes fails. If they never try, they never fail. And maybe that's my answer.

Commentary on THE WEALTH FILES Part Two

Busy, busy, busy. A week between entries is too much, sorry folks.

"Rich people play the game of money to win.
Poor people play the game of money not to lose."

So what's the lesson here? If your goal is simply to be comfortable, then since you will not have much more than necessary to live at your chosen level you will always be vulnerable to some bad fortune or poor decision. You will not have a reserve. If you want to be comfortable, odds are you never will be. Think how many times a team has lost a game in which they had a big lead, simply because they stopped playing to win and started playing not to lose: you see it all the time.

But if your goal is to be rich, whether or not you ever get there, you have a much better chance of winding up comfortable. Once you have achieved a certain level of comfort, you will not be satisfied but will, instead, keep working for more, building a reserve, so that if disaster does strike you will not be wipe out. And if disaster does not strike, then you can live your life doing exactly what you please.

So how do you become rich? By working for someone else? Not usually. I suppose there are those people at the top of the corporate pyramid whom we could call rich,but 99% of the company's employees would not be. So, if you're the CEO of a huge multi-national corporation, you don't need to read this blog, because you already know what I'm saying. For the other 99%, though, slogging up the corporate pyramid and hoping you don't get fired before you get where you want to go, and good luck with that, they have to choose a different path. And that path is being your own boss. But that scares off a lot of people because, you see, that requires investment. Not only money, but emotional, too. You have to invest in yourself.

How many times have I seen people shy away from spending a small amount of money to start their own business because they are scared. And let's be clear: they aren't scared of the amount of money...usually they have spent more than that on their cell phone, or a video game system. No, the money isn't the issue, they are the issue. By spending money to start a business they will actually have to invest in themselves, and for many people, maybe most people, that is simply too frightening to consider.

How many people have gotten rich working for someone else? Not many. How many people a truly comfortable working for someone else? These days, not many. The only way to achieve either goal is to work for yourself.

Or win the lottery.

Commentary on THE WEALTH FILES Part One

We have all been programmed, I am slowly beginning to realize that now. I'm not sure when or how or why we were taught to think backwards, but we were. At least, I was. I had been programmed to believe that you should trust in someone else to employ you, to invest in you and then to demand that investment back in the form of my labor. And that's completely fair, too; if they are the one who invests in and trains me, it's only fair that they get to leverage my efforts for their benefit, right? But when was I taught that's how things should be, instead of me investing in myself?

The truth is that my experiences are no different from most Americans. In The Wealth Files by T. Harv Eker, the author gives 17 ways in which rich people think differently from the non-rich, and every last one of them rings true. The first one, in particular, is something I have been guilty of many times in the past.

Rich people believe "I create my life,"
Poor people believe "life happens to me."

Wow, that's me alright. Is it also you? Have you ever seen a successful person and said, "that kind of stuff never happens to me?" I've done it too many times to count. I would then write their success off to luck, or family wealth or good genes or the phase of the moon, or anything at all other than what it truly was: somewhere along the way, somebody took a chance and worked hard and invested in themselves. They didn't offer excuses why they could not do something, they simply did it. They created their life, instead of waiting for life to happen to them.

But the vast majority of people will never do this. I know, because I see it every day. They will continue doing what they have always done and hoping something will change, because they have been programmed to believe that is what they are supposed to do. Only a very few will ever take control of their own life. I'm glad I'm one of them.