previously, u were hi in2 hornyculture ... :o
it muz b tuff 4 u 2 mov from 1 in2 ze other ...
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The RETIREMENT thread
- Thread starter Leongsam
- Start date
it muz b tuff 4 u 2 mov from 1 in2 ze other ...
The plant specimens from Vietnam tends to be less leafy.:o
can c dat u study horticulture in ze same way as u study hornyculture ...
No. I hate oats. However, I like mangoes.:p
How can any job that is working under someone or a co. be fulfilling ? Only possible fullfiling job is a job whereby you can choose to report at anytime u wish, or go back anytime u wish and need not be at beck and call from a boss.
I am trying hard to think of a job that pays about $1k sgd per mth and can be abt 50% fulfilling kind . I am tired of my ft job liao. Till now cannot find 1. Can anyone give serious advice ?
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We need such employers ...http://tinyurI.com/koep86v
Re: dedicated to Leongsam: 4 Things Rich People Should Stop Saying
Build a portfolio of FIVE ETFs....one for US, one for Europe, one for emerging economies, one for US growth and one for bonds. Your allocation could be 20 pct each. On the bond ETF, my suggestion is that you bump it up according to your age after you hit 55; at 55, your bond holding increases to 55 pct.
Rebalance your portfolio every year to restore the initial allocation. A 7 percent annual return is achievable based on this.
Build a portfolio of FIVE ETFs....one for US, one for Europe, one for emerging economies, one for US growth and one for bonds. Your allocation could be 20 pct each. On the bond ETF, my suggestion is that you bump it up according to your age after you hit 55; at 55, your bond holding increases to 55 pct.
Rebalance your portfolio every year to restore the initial allocation. A 7 percent annual return is achievable based on this.
Re: dedicated to Leongsam: 4 Things Rich People Should Stop Saying
Your investment should always be in accordance with the macro environment, not some portfolio risk management devised by some financial adviser. Financial advisers have borrowed CAPM and then twisted it into a sales pitch. Aggressive investors, overweight stocks. Conservative investors overweight bonds. That kind of thinking will make you lose money in the wrong macro environment. Bonds around the world have been smashed in recent days as a result of the macro environment, and Asian stocks went down while US stocks continued to go up.
The macro environment tells us bonds will be a bad investment for the next few years, as the debt supercycle slowly comes to its climatic finish and funding crisis continues in Europe and spreads to Japan. US also possible. Stocks have also gone up dramatically and do not present value. The wisest thing is to stay in cash. That is precisely what financial advisers will never tell you to do, because they always want you to remain invested to earn your AUM fees.
Your investment should always be in accordance with the macro environment, not some portfolio risk management devised by some financial adviser. Financial advisers have borrowed CAPM and then twisted it into a sales pitch. Aggressive investors, overweight stocks. Conservative investors overweight bonds. That kind of thinking will make you lose money in the wrong macro environment. Bonds around the world have been smashed in recent days as a result of the macro environment, and Asian stocks went down while US stocks continued to go up.
The macro environment tells us bonds will be a bad investment for the next few years, as the debt supercycle slowly comes to its climatic finish and funding crisis continues in Europe and spreads to Japan. US also possible. Stocks have also gone up dramatically and do not present value. The wisest thing is to stay in cash. That is precisely what financial advisers will never tell you to do, because they always want you to remain invested to earn your AUM fees.
Re: dedicated to Leongsam: 4 Things Rich People Should Stop Saying
In retirement, one should experience the magic, a safari can bring !:o
In retirement, one should experience the magic, a safari can bring !:o
Re: dedicated to Leongsam: 4 Things Rich People Should Stop Saying
In retirement, must All The Way Lah !!
In retirement, must All The Way Lah !!
Re: dedicated to Leongsam: 4 Things Rich People Should Stop Saying
At our vintage, we must eat more mango pudding !:p
At our vintage, we must eat more mango pudding !:p
http://www.tropicalmba.com/is-passive-income-possible/
Blog based businesses are not the majority of online business opportunities. It’s worth reminding yourself that blog-based conversations about entrepreneurship will always overrepresent ideas about blogging.
As someone who is currently earning passive income off businesses that don’t have an important blogging element, I wanted to weigh in with some alternatives to commonly held opinions in the business blogosphere.
Myth #1. Truly passive income is not possible.
Reality: It’s possible.
I hear this a lot. I’m not sure why. It’s 100% possible and I know a bunch of people, including me and my business partner who are walking proof. People have been earning passive income for milleniums. If you find yourself arguing about this point, I’d have to ask to what end? Passive income as a category is useful and it ought to be used to refer to any type of income you receive that requires minimal effort to upkeep.
As a fun blogosphere aside– anyone who has mistook the 4 Hour Work Week to advocate working for only four hours a week is due for a re-read. Those who have suggested that it is not possible nor agreeable to focus less than 4 hour per week on income generating projects or jobs that you find unpleasant needs to check their temperature.
Myth #2. Having employees is a pain in the butt, and makes it harder to run an automated business.
Reality: it’s the exact opposite.
In my experience having team members has a wide range of benefits:
Myth #3. Businesses that are formulated from the beginning to be “passive income” businesses are more likely to create it.
Reality: The likelihood that an owner will be able to make passive income off of her business has more to do with the attitude and mindset, than with the structure of the business, or the processes that have put in place.
I think that the E-Myth Revisited is okay. In my view it’s the most overrated book in the business blogosphere. If you haven’t yet read it, it’s not bad, but I can sum it up for you in a sentence or two:
The E-Myth Revisited (Twice!) by Dan Andrews: “Most small business owners build a business around what they know how to do well, and since they aren’t good at the art of entrepreneurship (finding profitable streams of cash flow and scaling processes around it), they build themselves in to their businesses…. Don’t do that.”
Examples? The expert baker who can’t let go of cooking the cupcakes. The blogger who starts a blog in order to blog to make money. The architect who starts a firm and finds herself working 70 hour weeks designing homes.
Consider that the E-Myth is strongly focused on technical people or otherwise experts who endeavor to start a small business. As the barrier to entry to entrepreneurship continue to go down, a lot of people (like myself) entering the conversation stated out with no particular overwhelming expertise or technical skill. We just liked the idea of owning a business.
Value, not structure, will ultimately drive your ability to reap passive income from your businesses. If you own something valuable, and you can communicate your vision for the company to your team members, you can hit the road jack. I promise. It works.
Myth #4. A blog based business is one of the better ways to build a passive income business.
Reality: Blogs are a difficult way to grow a passive income business. Just anecdotally, I’ve met a bunch of people in the last 3 years who make passive income off of online-based businesses. I’d say off the top of my head, easily less than 10% of it is blog based.
Not only is blogging expensive, perishable, time consuming, and risky (in terms of opportunity cost) but blog based businesses depend on new, quality content. New content on great blogs is expensive to create, and if you want to keep your blog based business thriving, you’ll need to create it or find somebody who is as good as you to do so. Not impossible, but difficult.
Myth #5. Your blog is not your business.
Reality: It totally could be your business.
In general, it’s not the best idea unless you’ve got hyper niche expertise like Simon or Timothy. If your intention is to blog your way to expertise, as if often suggested you do in the blosophere, I’d take a hot second to ensure your heading somewhere valuable.
Speaking of passive income, if you really want to know about passive income, you should be checking out Pat Flynn’s blog…. In fact, Pat’s blog was the #1 most suggested blog in TMBA applications. It’s great because he shows you directly how to make money on the interwebs.
It’s odd to say that he’s the exception in this regard.
Reality: Being an exception is good.
I gotta go get on a plane to Manila. I’ll be there for a few weeks, look me up!
Cheers,
Dan
Blog based businesses are not the majority of online business opportunities. It’s worth reminding yourself that blog-based conversations about entrepreneurship will always overrepresent ideas about blogging.
As someone who is currently earning passive income off businesses that don’t have an important blogging element, I wanted to weigh in with some alternatives to commonly held opinions in the business blogosphere.
Myth #1. Truly passive income is not possible.
Reality: It’s possible.
I hear this a lot. I’m not sure why. It’s 100% possible and I know a bunch of people, including me and my business partner who are walking proof. People have been earning passive income for milleniums. If you find yourself arguing about this point, I’d have to ask to what end? Passive income as a category is useful and it ought to be used to refer to any type of income you receive that requires minimal effort to upkeep.
As a fun blogosphere aside– anyone who has mistook the 4 Hour Work Week to advocate working for only four hours a week is due for a re-read. Those who have suggested that it is not possible nor agreeable to focus less than 4 hour per week on income generating projects or jobs that you find unpleasant needs to check their temperature.
Myth #2. Having employees is a pain in the butt, and makes it harder to run an automated business.
Reality: it’s the exact opposite.
In my experience having team members has a wide range of benefits:
- They make working more fun.
- You can help contribute to the success of others.
- They can run your business for you.
- You open yourself and your business up to more opportunities.
Myth #3. Businesses that are formulated from the beginning to be “passive income” businesses are more likely to create it.
Reality: The likelihood that an owner will be able to make passive income off of her business has more to do with the attitude and mindset, than with the structure of the business, or the processes that have put in place.
I think that the E-Myth Revisited is okay. In my view it’s the most overrated book in the business blogosphere. If you haven’t yet read it, it’s not bad, but I can sum it up for you in a sentence or two:
The E-Myth Revisited (Twice!) by Dan Andrews: “Most small business owners build a business around what they know how to do well, and since they aren’t good at the art of entrepreneurship (finding profitable streams of cash flow and scaling processes around it), they build themselves in to their businesses…. Don’t do that.”
Examples? The expert baker who can’t let go of cooking the cupcakes. The blogger who starts a blog in order to blog to make money. The architect who starts a firm and finds herself working 70 hour weeks designing homes.
Consider that the E-Myth is strongly focused on technical people or otherwise experts who endeavor to start a small business. As the barrier to entry to entrepreneurship continue to go down, a lot of people (like myself) entering the conversation stated out with no particular overwhelming expertise or technical skill. We just liked the idea of owning a business.
Value, not structure, will ultimately drive your ability to reap passive income from your businesses. If you own something valuable, and you can communicate your vision for the company to your team members, you can hit the road jack. I promise. It works.
Myth #4. A blog based business is one of the better ways to build a passive income business.
Reality: Blogs are a difficult way to grow a passive income business. Just anecdotally, I’ve met a bunch of people in the last 3 years who make passive income off of online-based businesses. I’d say off the top of my head, easily less than 10% of it is blog based.
Not only is blogging expensive, perishable, time consuming, and risky (in terms of opportunity cost) but blog based businesses depend on new, quality content. New content on great blogs is expensive to create, and if you want to keep your blog based business thriving, you’ll need to create it or find somebody who is as good as you to do so. Not impossible, but difficult.
Myth #5. Your blog is not your business.
Reality: It totally could be your business.
In general, it’s not the best idea unless you’ve got hyper niche expertise like Simon or Timothy. If your intention is to blog your way to expertise, as if often suggested you do in the blosophere, I’d take a hot second to ensure your heading somewhere valuable.
Speaking of passive income, if you really want to know about passive income, you should be checking out Pat Flynn’s blog…. In fact, Pat’s blog was the #1 most suggested blog in TMBA applications. It’s great because he shows you directly how to make money on the interwebs.
It’s odd to say that he’s the exception in this regard.
Reality: Being an exception is good.
I gotta go get on a plane to Manila. I’ll be there for a few weeks, look me up!
Cheers,
Dan
<hgroup>[h=1]The Top 4 Reasons Why 'Passive Income' Is A Dangerous Fantasy[/h]</hgroup>
I’ve been encountering a lot of people lately — particularly young people rightly enthralled with the seemingly limitless potential of the Internet — who have focused their professional lives on developing “passive income.”
You know the fantasy: write some ebook (or better yet, hire freelancers in Mumbai to research and write it for you at $.20/word!) on some niche topic, set up AdWords and Facebook campaigns targeted to the right keywords (you can hire those Mumbai guys to do your keyword research too), put up a cheap landing page (with copy written by… guess who!), press “Go!” on the PPC campaign, and voilà. . . just wait for the money to roll in while you sleep!
Now, with all those dog owners across the globe buying your new ebook on how to help their pit bulls lose weight with Açai cleanses (the keyword research your man in Mumbai did determined that dog training and antioxidant weight loss were hot niches)–you can just check in every once in a while to make sure your outsourced VA is facilitating the transfers from your ClickBank account over to your checking account, and while you’re not working, you can hang out in whatever fine restaurant his Internet research has determined is happening this month on your particular island of Fiji.
I’m caricaturing a bit here of course–but not too much. This is more or less the life plan that many of the “passive income” people I’ve encountered lately have spouted to me.
But there are a couple problems with holding “passive income” as your main goal in business and life:
1. You Can’t Stay Ahead of Competition Passively
If your research really does determine that there is some amazing market niche that until now has miraculously gone unnoticed and unserved—dog owners who wish to help their dogs lose weight naturally, for example—sooner or later, word is going to get out that there’s money to be made there, and someone is going to create a better ebook or info course or product that serves that market’s needs better than yours does, and who markets it betterto them than you do. You can’t manage this competition while sipping margaritas all day from your paradise restaurant on Fiji. You’ll soon see your market share go down the drain—just like all those Açai cleanses. . .
2. You Can’t Maintain a Loyal Tribe of Customers Passively
As soon as your customers realize that you don’t care about them (which you don’t, if you’re trying to get away from them as fast as possible), they will eventually go elsewhere, to someone else who actually does care about them and their needs. ‘Nuff said.
3. You Can’t Lead Great Teams Passively
If you’re going to be building a large, scalable business, sooner or later you’re going to need employees and/or freelancers (even if they’re spread out over the world virtually). You’re not going to attract great talent for the long run by indicating to them that you have no interest in being involved in the business whatsoever.
All the great talent will run the other way from a leader like that (i.e., a non-leader.) You’ll end up attracting people who are just looking to make a quick buck with as little work as possible. A mirror reflection of the person hiring them, in this circumstance.
Some people obsessed with “passive income” say, in response, “No problem, I’ll just hire a leader to do all that managing, motivating, and creating stuff!”
What you’re essentially saying, then, is that you’re adding zero value to the equation. You’re not coming up with the ideas, you’re not implementing/executing the ideas, and your not leading anyone to implement or execute them.
Perhaps you’re adding capital, but the start up costs on these kind of ventures tend to be close to zero, so really you’re adding nothing.
Again, no leader worth her salt will be attracted to such an opportunity. And anyone you do hire to lead the value creation, if they have two brain cells, will see that she’s the one adding all the value. Sooner or later she will simply find a way to cut you out of the value chain, either by requiring more and more compensation, or by going off and competing against you (and actively at that.) Why does she need you? You’re not adding any value anyway!
Anybody who can truly create the value on their own, without your active involvement or leadership, probably costs more than you can afford if you’re trying to create some passive income vehicle to fund your Fiji lifestyle.
4. You Can’t Create Meaning, Passion, or Purpose in Your Life Passively
I’ve had several conversations recently with people in their twenties who have built up some semblance of moderate passive income (for now, before the competition gets the better of them, or their team implodes in disarray for lack of care, or their revenue collapses for lack of customer development or innovation.)
These people are (for now) living the dream–they get to travel to Fiji or some other exotic location on a shoestring and hang out on the beach, funded by their little niche ebook or whatever.
Yet none of these people I’ve talked to who have this temporarily successful lifestyle seem very happy. They actually seem kind of restless and lost. I’ve had conversations with several of them to help them determine “what the purpose of their life is” now that they have some amount of money coming in from some little passive venture they don’t even care about that much. It all feels empty to them.
This is the basic mistake they’ve made: they’ve fallen prey to the belief that money and meaning are two totally separate things. They’ve chosen to make their money from something that feels completely meaningless to them (some business they care so little about, they just can’t wait to get away from it and minimize their involvement as much as possible), which they hope will buy them the freedom to do something they actually care about.
This is deeply sad to me. Sad, because these people have given up so easily (or never even entertained in the first place) the idea that something meaningful to them could also be their livelihood.
Think of the people who know who are most fired up about what they’re doing in life. Make a mental picture of one or two such people you know.
My guess is, these people:
A) Live, breathe, eat, and sleep this activity that is their passion. It’s what they most care about. There’s no way they’d give up this active, creative endeavor for a life of reclining on a beach chair. They cannot wait to wake up another day and spend another full day, from dawn to dusk, engaging in this project, building and creating things within this realm, giving this gift to the world. And, my guess is these people…
B) Find their involvement with this activity provides them the resources they need to live comfortably. They may not be mega-rich from it. They may not be millionaires from it. But they are living comfortably doing it, and they get to spend all day every day giving the gift to the world they’re most passionate about.
That is a good life. That is a meaningful life. In turn, what is most certainly notmeaningful is some temporary party on a beach funded by some lame ebook you don’t even care about which will soon be competed into oblivion anyway.
Of course, you can make honst money in Internet info-products, or affiliate marketing, or other such areas where people tend to get drawn to “passive income” fantasies. But, to make real money over the sustainable long-haul, you must treat these like any other business. In other words, you must provide real value to real customers with a real need.
And the only way you can do that is actively. If you keep viewing it as a “headache” that your customers want to interact with you or that you have to out-compete and out-innovate your competitors in providing more value to your customers, you’re in the wrong business.
I know a guy you should invest with instead, if what you’re after is easy money. His name is Bernie. He’s hanging out, very passively, in a bar — I mean, behind them.
(Of course, you can also always get passive income by buying-and-holding US Treasuries, which are paying out around 4.2%. The BLS just reported inflation at 3.6%. No one’s going to get rich with that level of passive income net of inflation. And according to Shadow Government Statistics, the real rate of inflation you and I are actually experiencing—including at the grocery store checkout line, at the gas pump, and at the doctor’s office—not the massaged statistics the government puts out, is actually much higher, perhaps up to 11%. So government bonds could actually be not passive income—however meager—but passive losses.)
He went straight for the jugular, pointing out the fundamental flaw common to all intentions to create “passive income”: the focus with such efforts is totally on the wrong thing, he pointed out.
“Every time I’ve seen someone create a business, with the ultimate intention of getting away from that business and its customers as quickly as possible, instead of moving towards that business and its customers, it fails.
“What makes business work is creating value. If you’re going into the business with the intention of not creating value, but of having it magically provide money for you, then you often make really bad choices. The business that you’re investing in or creating doesn’t tend to be creating value for its customers or for anyone. So it doesn’t tend to spit off the cash you’re hoping it will. So many times I’ve seen people pursue passive income, and end up having active losses instead. They just spend a lot of time and money trying to push responsibilities off on other people and having it not work.”
Just to play devil’s advocate, I raised with Bryan the issue that very wealthy business owners often do tend to have something approaching passive income, through their highly-scaled businesses, which they could step away from or sell.
Bryan said, “People who have become very wealthy through business have gotten very good at leveraging their time in their pursuit of creating value. They’ve done that by first creating value, and then automating the process of creating value, so they can scale and provide even more value to more and more people. But it starts with the fact that they already understand how to create value. They understand it so well, that they’re able to create that value and then automate and scale the process of creating more of it.
“The majority of people I see who are interested in passive income and pursuing it, haven’t learned how to create value in the first place. They’re just trying to do gimmicks and tricks and formulas. They’re trying to do the automation part, but they’ve missed the point that the automation only spits off cash if it’s based first on automating something that actually creates value. If you automate something that is worthless—or worse than worthless, a scam — it’s not going to work in the long run.”
Bryan’s answer clarified in my mind an important distinction I’ve seen play out many times.
I’ve spent the last year interviewing millionaire and billionaire entrepreneurs for my forthcoming book The Education of Millionaires. All of them could, theoretically, step away from the businesses they’ve created. Yet, they’re so passionate about their businesses and the value they’re creating in the world, they mostly choose not to.
Does that mean they’re in the lowly-trenches doing rote work in their business? Of course not. It means that, as Bryan suggests, they’ve leveraged their time in their quest to create more and more value. They choose to focus their efforts—often 12 hour days—on scaling to provide value to larger and larger audiences.
They’ve delegated, automated, streamlined, systematized, etc. Not with the intention of sitting on some beach somewhere for the rest of their lives and watching the checks roll in, but with the intention of freeing up their time to create even more value that they’re inspired to create, either by leading that business to the next level of greatness and service to greater audiences, or by starting a new business.
Bryan added: “If you make your choices based on, not ‘how can I get money for free?’ but on, ‘What challenge can I put in front of my face that’s going to have me step up to be the kind of person I’d rather be?’ you’re going to start to forget about wanting passive income, and you’re going to start to focus on what purpose you truly want to create the world.”
I’ve been encountering a lot of people lately — particularly young people rightly enthralled with the seemingly limitless potential of the Internet — who have focused their professional lives on developing “passive income.”You know the fantasy: write some ebook (or better yet, hire freelancers in Mumbai to research and write it for you at $.20/word!) on some niche topic, set up AdWords and Facebook campaigns targeted to the right keywords (you can hire those Mumbai guys to do your keyword research too), put up a cheap landing page (with copy written by… guess who!), press “Go!” on the PPC campaign, and voilà. . . just wait for the money to roll in while you sleep!
Now, with all those dog owners across the globe buying your new ebook on how to help their pit bulls lose weight with Açai cleanses (the keyword research your man in Mumbai did determined that dog training and antioxidant weight loss were hot niches)–you can just check in every once in a while to make sure your outsourced VA is facilitating the transfers from your ClickBank account over to your checking account, and while you’re not working, you can hang out in whatever fine restaurant his Internet research has determined is happening this month on your particular island of Fiji.
I’m caricaturing a bit here of course–but not too much. This is more or less the life plan that many of the “passive income” people I’ve encountered lately have spouted to me.
But there are a couple problems with holding “passive income” as your main goal in business and life:
1. You Can’t Stay Ahead of Competition Passively
If your research really does determine that there is some amazing market niche that until now has miraculously gone unnoticed and unserved—dog owners who wish to help their dogs lose weight naturally, for example—sooner or later, word is going to get out that there’s money to be made there, and someone is going to create a better ebook or info course or product that serves that market’s needs better than yours does, and who markets it betterto them than you do. You can’t manage this competition while sipping margaritas all day from your paradise restaurant on Fiji. You’ll soon see your market share go down the drain—just like all those Açai cleanses. . .
2. You Can’t Maintain a Loyal Tribe of Customers Passively
As soon as your customers realize that you don’t care about them (which you don’t, if you’re trying to get away from them as fast as possible), they will eventually go elsewhere, to someone else who actually does care about them and their needs. ‘Nuff said.
3. You Can’t Lead Great Teams Passively
If you’re going to be building a large, scalable business, sooner or later you’re going to need employees and/or freelancers (even if they’re spread out over the world virtually). You’re not going to attract great talent for the long run by indicating to them that you have no interest in being involved in the business whatsoever.
All the great talent will run the other way from a leader like that (i.e., a non-leader.) You’ll end up attracting people who are just looking to make a quick buck with as little work as possible. A mirror reflection of the person hiring them, in this circumstance.
Some people obsessed with “passive income” say, in response, “No problem, I’ll just hire a leader to do all that managing, motivating, and creating stuff!”
What you’re essentially saying, then, is that you’re adding zero value to the equation. You’re not coming up with the ideas, you’re not implementing/executing the ideas, and your not leading anyone to implement or execute them.
Perhaps you’re adding capital, but the start up costs on these kind of ventures tend to be close to zero, so really you’re adding nothing.
Again, no leader worth her salt will be attracted to such an opportunity. And anyone you do hire to lead the value creation, if they have two brain cells, will see that she’s the one adding all the value. Sooner or later she will simply find a way to cut you out of the value chain, either by requiring more and more compensation, or by going off and competing against you (and actively at that.) Why does she need you? You’re not adding any value anyway!
Anybody who can truly create the value on their own, without your active involvement or leadership, probably costs more than you can afford if you’re trying to create some passive income vehicle to fund your Fiji lifestyle.
4. You Can’t Create Meaning, Passion, or Purpose in Your Life Passively
I’ve had several conversations recently with people in their twenties who have built up some semblance of moderate passive income (for now, before the competition gets the better of them, or their team implodes in disarray for lack of care, or their revenue collapses for lack of customer development or innovation.)
These people are (for now) living the dream–they get to travel to Fiji or some other exotic location on a shoestring and hang out on the beach, funded by their little niche ebook or whatever.
Yet none of these people I’ve talked to who have this temporarily successful lifestyle seem very happy. They actually seem kind of restless and lost. I’ve had conversations with several of them to help them determine “what the purpose of their life is” now that they have some amount of money coming in from some little passive venture they don’t even care about that much. It all feels empty to them.
This is the basic mistake they’ve made: they’ve fallen prey to the belief that money and meaning are two totally separate things. They’ve chosen to make their money from something that feels completely meaningless to them (some business they care so little about, they just can’t wait to get away from it and minimize their involvement as much as possible), which they hope will buy them the freedom to do something they actually care about.
This is deeply sad to me. Sad, because these people have given up so easily (or never even entertained in the first place) the idea that something meaningful to them could also be their livelihood.
Think of the people who know who are most fired up about what they’re doing in life. Make a mental picture of one or two such people you know.
My guess is, these people:
A) Live, breathe, eat, and sleep this activity that is their passion. It’s what they most care about. There’s no way they’d give up this active, creative endeavor for a life of reclining on a beach chair. They cannot wait to wake up another day and spend another full day, from dawn to dusk, engaging in this project, building and creating things within this realm, giving this gift to the world. And, my guess is these people…
B) Find their involvement with this activity provides them the resources they need to live comfortably. They may not be mega-rich from it. They may not be millionaires from it. But they are living comfortably doing it, and they get to spend all day every day giving the gift to the world they’re most passionate about.
That is a good life. That is a meaningful life. In turn, what is most certainly notmeaningful is some temporary party on a beach funded by some lame ebook you don’t even care about which will soon be competed into oblivion anyway.
Of course, you can make honst money in Internet info-products, or affiliate marketing, or other such areas where people tend to get drawn to “passive income” fantasies. But, to make real money over the sustainable long-haul, you must treat these like any other business. In other words, you must provide real value to real customers with a real need.
And the only way you can do that is actively. If you keep viewing it as a “headache” that your customers want to interact with you or that you have to out-compete and out-innovate your competitors in providing more value to your customers, you’re in the wrong business.
I know a guy you should invest with instead, if what you’re after is easy money. His name is Bernie. He’s hanging out, very passively, in a bar — I mean, behind them.
(Of course, you can also always get passive income by buying-and-holding US Treasuries, which are paying out around 4.2%. The BLS just reported inflation at 3.6%. No one’s going to get rich with that level of passive income net of inflation. And according to Shadow Government Statistics, the real rate of inflation you and I are actually experiencing—including at the grocery store checkout line, at the gas pump, and at the doctor’s office—not the massaged statistics the government puts out, is actually much higher, perhaps up to 11%. So government bonds could actually be not passive income—however meager—but passive losses.)
Why You Should Aim For “Leverage” In A Business You Care About, Not “Passive Income” In a Business You Don’t Care About
I asked my friend and business mentor Bryan Franklin, a successful Silicon Valley executive coach, what he thought about “passive income.” I knew he has some strongly negative opinions on the concept, and he did not disappoint.He went straight for the jugular, pointing out the fundamental flaw common to all intentions to create “passive income”: the focus with such efforts is totally on the wrong thing, he pointed out.
“Every time I’ve seen someone create a business, with the ultimate intention of getting away from that business and its customers as quickly as possible, instead of moving towards that business and its customers, it fails.
“What makes business work is creating value. If you’re going into the business with the intention of not creating value, but of having it magically provide money for you, then you often make really bad choices. The business that you’re investing in or creating doesn’t tend to be creating value for its customers or for anyone. So it doesn’t tend to spit off the cash you’re hoping it will. So many times I’ve seen people pursue passive income, and end up having active losses instead. They just spend a lot of time and money trying to push responsibilities off on other people and having it not work.”
Just to play devil’s advocate, I raised with Bryan the issue that very wealthy business owners often do tend to have something approaching passive income, through their highly-scaled businesses, which they could step away from or sell.
Bryan said, “People who have become very wealthy through business have gotten very good at leveraging their time in their pursuit of creating value. They’ve done that by first creating value, and then automating the process of creating value, so they can scale and provide even more value to more and more people. But it starts with the fact that they already understand how to create value. They understand it so well, that they’re able to create that value and then automate and scale the process of creating more of it.
“The majority of people I see who are interested in passive income and pursuing it, haven’t learned how to create value in the first place. They’re just trying to do gimmicks and tricks and formulas. They’re trying to do the automation part, but they’ve missed the point that the automation only spits off cash if it’s based first on automating something that actually creates value. If you automate something that is worthless—or worse than worthless, a scam — it’s not going to work in the long run.”
Bryan’s answer clarified in my mind an important distinction I’ve seen play out many times.
I’ve spent the last year interviewing millionaire and billionaire entrepreneurs for my forthcoming book The Education of Millionaires. All of them could, theoretically, step away from the businesses they’ve created. Yet, they’re so passionate about their businesses and the value they’re creating in the world, they mostly choose not to.
Does that mean they’re in the lowly-trenches doing rote work in their business? Of course not. It means that, as Bryan suggests, they’ve leveraged their time in their quest to create more and more value. They choose to focus their efforts—often 12 hour days—on scaling to provide value to larger and larger audiences.
They’ve delegated, automated, streamlined, systematized, etc. Not with the intention of sitting on some beach somewhere for the rest of their lives and watching the checks roll in, but with the intention of freeing up their time to create even more value that they’re inspired to create, either by leading that business to the next level of greatness and service to greater audiences, or by starting a new business.
Bryan added: “If you make your choices based on, not ‘how can I get money for free?’ but on, ‘What challenge can I put in front of my face that’s going to have me step up to be the kind of person I’d rather be?’ you’re going to start to forget about wanting passive income, and you’re going to start to focus on what purpose you truly want to create the world.”
***
Michael Ellsberg is the author of The Education of Millionaires: It’s Not What You Think, and It’s Not Too Late, which is launching from Penguin/Portfolio in September. It’s a bootstrapper’s guide to investing in your own human capital at any age. Michael sends manifestos, recommendations, tips, and other exclusive content to his private email list, which you can join at www.ellsberg.com. Connect with him on Twitter @MichaelEllsberg and on Facebook.
Ten Things Your Mother Never Told You About Being Wealthy
http://www.chuckgroot.com/TenThingsY...ngWealthy.html
Ten Things Your Mother Never Told You About Being Wealthy
You’ve probably heard these things all of your life.
“Work hard and you will be rewarded.”
“Money doesn’t grow on trees.”
“We may not be rich but at least we’re happy.”
“We may be poor, but at least we’re honest”
“Money is evil”
“Put that down – don’t you know it’s dirty?”
I’ve always wondered where people get their belief systems. I remember two of my very limiting beliefs around money and my own capabilities that came innocently enough from two people I admired – my father and my teacher at school. Being a fairly good student but bored in school, my teacher would say at conferences “Stephanie is a straight B student – but she could really do better.” Of course, my parents would come home and tell me that I could do better – so into adulthood I told myself that no matter what I accomplished,I could do better! It wasn’t until I realized that I was living someone else’s opinion of me that I was able to break through and break out of my self-defeating thoughts.
I became wealthy at an early age – actually in my early 20s. However, I spent way too much money and lost most of it within a matter of years. While rebuilding my life and my wealth, once again I took a look at why I had lost all of that money. While thinking about what I had learned growing up, I remembered that my father,who had lso had success in business at an early age – was never a very good money manager.He didn’t pay the bills. He didn’t value his money – he just spent it. But boy, was he smart! I remember two innocent comments made by my other early in my life. They were not connected, but somehow I connected them. The first comment was “Your father is so smart – it’s a shame that he can’t manage his money”. The second comment, made at a different time, was “You’re just like your father”.
Of course, I put the two together, and became just like my father’ – a horrible money manager.Once I realized that once again I was living a belief system and a method that belonged to someone else, I was able to let go of that belief (and others) to be able to stop and become wealthy once again.
Now further into my life, I am going to tell you about some of the beliefs that you have been exposed to. These things are simply not true.
1.Wealthy people think only about money
Actually, it’s quite the opposite. Poor people think much more about money, and in a negative way, than rich people. Wealthy people concern themselves with how to grow their money, while poor people focus on how to pay the next set of bills that arrives in the monthly mail.
2. Wealthy people are greedy (or liar s)
Greed and lying are two principles that do not serve anybody. Wealthy people focus on the value that they can add to their customer or through transactions in their business. While focusing on that value, wealthy people automatically attract more money. People who focus only on how to get more money will find themselves in a weak financial position, where they may be forced to lie or be greedy.
3. Money is evil
Taken out of content from a biblical reference, the actual quote is “the pursuit of money is evil”. Money itself is the value-exchange mechanism that we have put in place in this world to share goods and services.
“Wealthy people come from all walks of life—college educated and high school dropouts alike.”
4. You have to be very smart to be wealthy
Wealthy people come from all walks of life – college educated and high school dropouts alike. The process of creating wealthy is actually a system that anyone with any level of education can follow. It simply takes a willingness to learn and consistent effort.
5. If you go to school and get a good education, you will be taken care of
There has not been a time in history where this statement is more false. Large corporations are downsizing every day. People are losing jobs. Pension funds are being taken away. Corporate benefits are slowly diminishing, costs are up and salaries are down.You are NOT being paid what you are worth in a job, no matter what level of education you may have.
Now, here are some things that ARE true about wealthy people.
6. Wealthy people use and understand leverage
You can’t change a tire on a car without a jack. Likewise, you cannot create wealth with a limited amount of time. We all have 24 hours in every day, yet wealthy people receive more benefit out of those 24 hours than poor people. They do it with leverage. They use other people’s time and other people’s money, or they work together to create something that pays back 10-fold. We have been taught to “go it alone” and “be the best you can be”, but when you team up with others, you will truly see exponential growth in your own future.
7. Most wealthy people don’t have a “regular” job
In a regular job, you have to work 9-5, get paid your regular salary and you have a limited amount of time to spend on other endeavors. When you are highly paid in a regular corporate job, you may very well work more than average – sometimes 10-12 hours in a day or more! Wealthy people have businesses of their own which create leverage for themselves to be able to structure and create the life they want.
8. Wealthy people understand that there are hundreds of ways to make money legally, ethically and honestly
We are taught to place a value on our time and get paid for that time. Just think about the number of small businesses out there (maybe one of them is yours!) where you get paid for an hour’s work. Consultants,doctors, lawyers, accountants, massage therapists are all in this category – you have to work or you don’t get paid. Using many different techniques such as real estate investment, stock market, internet, network marketing, or repetitive business models like self-storage or Laundromats are just a few of the hundreds of ways that a person can become wealthy.
“How you deal with life’s challenges can be the difference between wealth and poverty.”
9. Wealthy people view money management as their part time job
As the creating wealth process occurs, wealthy people step up to the job of gaining the knowledge to become an excellent money manager. They overcome their concerns about not knowing what to do and seek out the people that can teach them the methods they need to know to manage their money. They build a wealth team and consult with experts. ]
10. Wealthy people focus on the positive
When a crisis or problem arises in our lives, most poor people ask themselves “why did this happen to me?” or “It figures – bad things always happen to me”. Wealthy people don’t think such things. Instead, they frame their questions with
“How can I…?” or
“What if….?”.
Challenges in life are normal and to be expected. How you deal with them can be the difference between wealth and poverty. Be open to opportunities that
When you are able to understand that so much of living the life you want and creating your dreams revolves around your own thoughts and mindset, you will understand that you, yes YOU! have the power of wealth inside you.
Achieve Your Dreams,
Stephanie Frank
http://www.chuckgroot.com/TenThingsY...ngWealthy.html
Ten Things Your Mother Never Told You About Being Wealthy
You’ve probably heard these things all of your life.
“Work hard and you will be rewarded.”
“Money doesn’t grow on trees.”
“We may not be rich but at least we’re happy.”
“We may be poor, but at least we’re honest”
“Money is evil”
“Put that down – don’t you know it’s dirty?”
I’ve always wondered where people get their belief systems. I remember two of my very limiting beliefs around money and my own capabilities that came innocently enough from two people I admired – my father and my teacher at school. Being a fairly good student but bored in school, my teacher would say at conferences “Stephanie is a straight B student – but she could really do better.” Of course, my parents would come home and tell me that I could do better – so into adulthood I told myself that no matter what I accomplished,I could do better! It wasn’t until I realized that I was living someone else’s opinion of me that I was able to break through and break out of my self-defeating thoughts.
I became wealthy at an early age – actually in my early 20s. However, I spent way too much money and lost most of it within a matter of years. While rebuilding my life and my wealth, once again I took a look at why I had lost all of that money. While thinking about what I had learned growing up, I remembered that my father,who had lso had success in business at an early age – was never a very good money manager.He didn’t pay the bills. He didn’t value his money – he just spent it. But boy, was he smart! I remember two innocent comments made by my other early in my life. They were not connected, but somehow I connected them. The first comment was “Your father is so smart – it’s a shame that he can’t manage his money”. The second comment, made at a different time, was “You’re just like your father”.
Of course, I put the two together, and became just like my father’ – a horrible money manager.Once I realized that once again I was living a belief system and a method that belonged to someone else, I was able to let go of that belief (and others) to be able to stop and become wealthy once again.
Now further into my life, I am going to tell you about some of the beliefs that you have been exposed to. These things are simply not true.
1.Wealthy people think only about money
Actually, it’s quite the opposite. Poor people think much more about money, and in a negative way, than rich people. Wealthy people concern themselves with how to grow their money, while poor people focus on how to pay the next set of bills that arrives in the monthly mail.
2. Wealthy people are greedy (or liar s)
Greed and lying are two principles that do not serve anybody. Wealthy people focus on the value that they can add to their customer or through transactions in their business. While focusing on that value, wealthy people automatically attract more money. People who focus only on how to get more money will find themselves in a weak financial position, where they may be forced to lie or be greedy.
3. Money is evil
Taken out of content from a biblical reference, the actual quote is “the pursuit of money is evil”. Money itself is the value-exchange mechanism that we have put in place in this world to share goods and services.
“Wealthy people come from all walks of life—college educated and high school dropouts alike.”
4. You have to be very smart to be wealthy
Wealthy people come from all walks of life – college educated and high school dropouts alike. The process of creating wealthy is actually a system that anyone with any level of education can follow. It simply takes a willingness to learn and consistent effort.
5. If you go to school and get a good education, you will be taken care of
There has not been a time in history where this statement is more false. Large corporations are downsizing every day. People are losing jobs. Pension funds are being taken away. Corporate benefits are slowly diminishing, costs are up and salaries are down.You are NOT being paid what you are worth in a job, no matter what level of education you may have.
Now, here are some things that ARE true about wealthy people.
6. Wealthy people use and understand leverage
You can’t change a tire on a car without a jack. Likewise, you cannot create wealth with a limited amount of time. We all have 24 hours in every day, yet wealthy people receive more benefit out of those 24 hours than poor people. They do it with leverage. They use other people’s time and other people’s money, or they work together to create something that pays back 10-fold. We have been taught to “go it alone” and “be the best you can be”, but when you team up with others, you will truly see exponential growth in your own future.
7. Most wealthy people don’t have a “regular” job
In a regular job, you have to work 9-5, get paid your regular salary and you have a limited amount of time to spend on other endeavors. When you are highly paid in a regular corporate job, you may very well work more than average – sometimes 10-12 hours in a day or more! Wealthy people have businesses of their own which create leverage for themselves to be able to structure and create the life they want.
8. Wealthy people understand that there are hundreds of ways to make money legally, ethically and honestly
We are taught to place a value on our time and get paid for that time. Just think about the number of small businesses out there (maybe one of them is yours!) where you get paid for an hour’s work. Consultants,doctors, lawyers, accountants, massage therapists are all in this category – you have to work or you don’t get paid. Using many different techniques such as real estate investment, stock market, internet, network marketing, or repetitive business models like self-storage or Laundromats are just a few of the hundreds of ways that a person can become wealthy.
“How you deal with life’s challenges can be the difference between wealth and poverty.”
9. Wealthy people view money management as their part time job
As the creating wealth process occurs, wealthy people step up to the job of gaining the knowledge to become an excellent money manager. They overcome their concerns about not knowing what to do and seek out the people that can teach them the methods they need to know to manage their money. They build a wealth team and consult with experts. ]
10. Wealthy people focus on the positive
When a crisis or problem arises in our lives, most poor people ask themselves “why did this happen to me?” or “It figures – bad things always happen to me”. Wealthy people don’t think such things. Instead, they frame their questions with
“How can I…?” or
“What if….?”.
Challenges in life are normal and to be expected. How you deal with them can be the difference between wealth and poverty. Be open to opportunities that
When you are able to understand that so much of living the life you want and creating your dreams revolves around your own thoughts and mindset, you will understand that you, yes YOU! have the power of wealth inside you.
Achieve Your Dreams,
Stephanie Frank
At our vintage, Just Do It !:p
Agree.
I got a relative of mine who bought a unit of Lucky Plaza decades ago at $90,000. Her rental per month now is $12,000. She actually can sell for a few million also.
She withdraw her CPF arready? :o
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