I've concluded there are only four ways to make money and
accumulate significant wealth in this world.
1. Make an unusually valuable contribution. This is the
easiest and most successful path wealth, but since it
usually comes disguised as hard work, it's also the path
most resisted. The world pays for our expertise, our
effort, our ideas and our inventions, and it pays extremely
well if make unusually valuable contributions.
2. Save and invest. This, too, is a reliable and nearly
fool-proof road to wealth, but since it takes time,
personal discipline and has absolutely no sex appeal, it is
largely ignored. Spend less than you make, save the
difference, let time and compound interest make you rich.
3. Inherit money. I've read that in the next few years
twenty trillion dollars of accumulated wealth will be
transferred from the passing generation to the younger one.
Nothing like that has ever happened before! It pays to
select the right parents!
4. Be lucky. Be in the right place at the right time. Know
the right people or win the lottery. While this one is
unpredictable and fickle (and gives rise to a sense that
life isn't "fair"), it happens often enough to give us
hope. Unfortunately, the statistics are against you. But
who knows? Luck happens.
Unfortunately, I didn't know these rules before I was born
and so chose wonderful but poor parents, and the statistics
have proven entirely reliable--I've won no lotteries. So,
from personal experience I can only recommend paths one and
two.
Get good at what you do. Love it enough to get VERY good at
it, and the world will pay accordingly. Then, save and
invest, and let time be your friend.
accumulate significant wealth in this world.
1. Make an unusually valuable contribution. This is the
easiest and most successful path wealth, but since it
usually comes disguised as hard work, it's also the path
most resisted. The world pays for our expertise, our
effort, our ideas and our inventions, and it pays extremely
well if make unusually valuable contributions.
2. Save and invest. This, too, is a reliable and nearly
fool-proof road to wealth, but since it takes time,
personal discipline and has absolutely no sex appeal, it is
largely ignored. Spend less than you make, save the
difference, let time and compound interest make you rich.
3. Inherit money. I've read that in the next few years
twenty trillion dollars of accumulated wealth will be
transferred from the passing generation to the younger one.
Nothing like that has ever happened before! It pays to
select the right parents!
4. Be lucky. Be in the right place at the right time. Know
the right people or win the lottery. While this one is
unpredictable and fickle (and gives rise to a sense that
life isn't "fair"), it happens often enough to give us
hope. Unfortunately, the statistics are against you. But
who knows? Luck happens.
Unfortunately, I didn't know these rules before I was born
and so chose wonderful but poor parents, and the statistics
have proven entirely reliable--I've won no lotteries. So,
from personal experience I can only recommend paths one and
two.
Get good at what you do. Love it enough to get VERY good at
it, and the world will pay accordingly. Then, save and
invest, and let time be your friend.
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