Never Focus On “Get Rich Quick!”

This is not another article on how to make money fast; it’s not a get-rich-quick scheme. I dislike those articles as they are merely spreading false information. There is no way you can get rich fast. Well, you can win in a lottery, but as many lottery winners have shown, keeping the money is an entirely different ball game.

No, Never Chase the Get Rich Quick Scheme

One says that lottery games are the “poor man’s game.” It gives false hope to the millions risking their own money. It’s better to throw money out the window. Rich people do not take unnecessary risks. They never gamble with their money unless there is a high possible return on investment while the risk is minimal. Don’t be fooled into joining hypes and take high risks for small payouts.

If you genuinely want to be rich, you need to think differently. You need to stop doing the same things as your friends and start your own journey to financial freedom. You need to widen your network and find mentors who have done similar things as you want to accomplish. 

How to Make Money When You Have None?

You’ve probably heard the phrase, “You need money to make money.” And it is true to some extent. The more money you have, the more opportunities you have to invest and expand your wealth. When that’s said, people with next to nothing are still able to make money. The first and most obvious answer is to get a job. If you want to guarantee a steady income that can support your lifestyle, working for a company can be a good option. You have to start at the bottom, but that’s where most employees start. It takes time to climb the corporate ladder. Always improve yourself, and give your employer the best of you every day. Take more initiative, and read books about the industry you are in. When you feel you are worth more than the salary you receive, ask for a raise! Never settle; strive for more (but don’t overshoot!)

When you have reached a certain level within the corporate ladder, stay open to change and take a different path. There’s only so much you can make by being an employee; if you want to get financially independent, you can focus on entrepreneurship and investing. More on this later in this article.

Start your own business if you want to work for yourself. I would recommend starting a company where you can generate a cash flow rapidly. The less you have, the more reliant you are on a positive revenue.

How I Started My Ventures

I started with a clothing line when I was 16 years old. I managed to sell a few sweatshirts to a local shop in my hometown in Norway called Tønsberg. At that time, I was not very focused on the business as I had school to attend! It quickly faded out and ended up costing me a few thousand dollars. Then, when I was 18 years old, I started a phone company that imported exclusive phones from China. I sold them with a 50% profit margin and generated a profit of $2000 per month! I used Finn.no, which is equivalent to Ebay.com.

The phone business went well for a while. Besides being hustled by a shady character in Oslo, I saw that the phones I sold were beginning to become outdated, as this was in 2008/09. I sold “analog” phones while Apple introduced the smartphone. I decided to shut the business down in 2009 and focus on my last year in high school.

When I moved to Oslo to study for a Bachelor in Entrepreneurship and Business, I got a part-time job as a customer representative for a VoIP company. I didn’t like that job, but it gave me needed money. While I studied, I was enrolled in a mentorship program where I received a mentor working at Telenor (Norway’s largest telecom company). He helped me to go for it and start a new company where I sold website services. I got a few clients from friends and family, and it resulted in enough income per month, that I was able to quit my other part-time job. In some way, it did set me free. Free to focus on my projects and the knowledge of generating money for myself.

The Key Take Away, What I’ve Learned

After that, I’ve started multiple businesses. Many have failed, some have succeeded (like CCN.com and Hacked.com). If there’s one thing that I’ve learned and that you should take away from reading this article, it is this;

Make sure that you can make money fast – get a revenue source.

If you need to develop a product or service over a longer period, the risk dramatically increases, including the costs of the project. That’s why it’s often smart to start a consulting business or a “pay-per-hour” business where you perform specific tasks for other companies or individuals. Perhaps you can run their social media profiles? Maybe you can create a website or an app for them? Or even create a gardening business. The options are endless; make sure you make money from day one. No matter how little you make. Start, build, develop, improve, and grow.

How Do Wealthy People Make Money?

Investors and entrepreneurs are making the most. Unless you live in corporate America (or the UK) and are the CEO of a large multinational company, you are probably earning the same amount as most of your peers with regular jobs, anywhere from $40 000 to $100,000 per year. That’s an okay sum, but it’s not enough to be set for life or to guarantee a comfortable life for your children’s children. To break free from the entangling system we all live in, you must learn what the people on top know and how they exploit the system. Unless we all can exploit the system, then how can we call the system fair?

The rich don’t work for money. Between 1993 and 2010, over 50 percent of the increase in the national income in the United States went to the wealthiest one percent. Since then, things have only gotten worse. Economists at the University of California found that 95 percent of the income gains between the years 2009 and 2012 also went to the wealthiest one percent.

The 0.1% top earners have so much power that they will do everything and currently do, to secure their wealth and keep increasing it. Workers are not rewarded any longer; workers are looked at as a necessary evil. The shareholders want a flexible labor market where they can easily hire and fire people to increase the company’s value. Since the principle of shareholder value maximization was introduced in the 1980s, the focus on short-term profitability for shareholders has exploded. This has led to job insecurity, not only because it became easier to sack employees but the businesses became short-sighted and focused on bringing the highest returns year-on-year. This has caused many Western businesses to fail by not investing in people, research, and development and to have a long-term vision and strategy. Power corrupts; the more power people and businesses get, the more they focus on short-term growth and maintaining control.

Employed? Your Company Doesn’t Care About You

You are easily replaceable. You should not have any loyalty to your employer. None at all. If you get a better offer somewhere else, or even better, you can start your own company: DO IT. Don’t think about your current employer. They don’t give a shit. Wait? I like my boss; he/she is kind to me. Well, that’s your boss’ job! Don’t be fooled. The real rulers are the board members and the shareholders, and they DON’T GIVE A DAMN. They are interested in profits, not in you. And if you are not rewarded based on the profits you bring the company, why should you work there?

So many people I know are STUCK in their jobs. They cannot see themselves working for anyone else or to start anything on their own. Limited by their mind. I was educated to believe that a good life is a life where you work for the same company and do the same thing repeatedly. Wake up! You are stuck. You need a reality check. Do you have a contingency plan? What happens if you get fired or the company you work for files for bankruptcy? Now is the time to create one.

So How Can I Make Money?

What are you good at? Can you start a business on your own and try to expand? Can you change your job to a better-paying one? Always focus on generating income and not spending your proceeds. Use your salary to buy assets, whether it is stocks, or index funds, to lend out money through a peer-to-peer lending service like Prosper, or to buy real estate to rent out for a yearly return above the inflationary level. Do not spend money on unnecessary items, like a new car, a bigger house, or a diamond ring. You do not need it, nor does your family! You need to watch your capital grow, not shrink.

Either become an entrepreneur or start investing in low-risk assets

And please take my word for it. Never fall for the get-rich-quick schemes, they do not work.

Images from Shutterstock.