Spinning wheat into gold

For centuries individuals searched for a way to side step the process and become rich. It was and still is an urban legend that if you could obtain fast money you would become rich and all your problems would be solved. Unfortunately, it doesn’t happen and even when someone becomes rich that never was rich they do not know what to do with the money and within a short period of time they are poor again.

My parents and grandparents were taught how to become an employee and their employers dangled a carrot before them claiming that some day they could be the boss if we work hard and were loyal to the company. Of course those positions were few and far between so most people worked 20-30 years for the same company and retired with little or nothing to show for that effort.

In today’s society we are still taught to be an employee but our employers offer little or no vision of the future. In fact they upsize and downsize employees at a whim and treat their employees like they were a box of fries at a drive thru window. At what point did it become fashionable to treat people like they should be fortunate to be able to earn a living?

The true issue isn’t how employers treat their employees, it is that we are taught that a job is the only way to earn an income and everything else is simply a dream if you are not already rich. However, this is beginning to change. As the U.S. job market shrinks, incomes shrink, and more people are bounced from job to job views are changing and desperate individuals are looking for alternate ways to earn an income. This will be magnified as gas prices and interest rates continue climb. Normal people will be locked out and will be forced to look for alternatives.

Here are 5 urban legends that affect our ability to be successful:

1. Only people born into money or are lucky become successful. It is luck and not drive that makes people successful.
2. Without a degree the only way to earn enough to support my family is through a first or second job. Even with a degree the best way to earn a consistent living and retirement is with a job.
3. All business opportunities are scams and only unscrupulous people make money doing them by praying on the weak.
4. I can get rich starting my own small business and hire employees to work for me. As the boss, my employees will make me money. As the employee the boss makes all the money.
5. If I hit the lottery I would be rich and never have to work again.
   

In direct sales we see emerging countries create huge success early on when a new country is opened and several times I have been asked why this is? There are three answers:

• Need. All emerging countries contain people that struggled for decades to survive. Anyone offering them an opportunity to be successful will be taken seriously.
• Education. Most of these countries are taught on a different level. The main difference is the level of Math that is taught. When you present a matrix based compensation plan they can see and understand how it works almost immediately. To this day I do not completely understand the compensation plan of my company, I just know it works.
• Society. In the U.S. our first response to someone approaching us about a business, any business is that it will never work. In these countries no one is telling people that it can’t be done.
  

When you live in a land of plenty and you are receiving an income regardless of the level, it is difficult to see a time when it will come to an end and you will be struggling to eat let alone pay your bills.

What this all boils down to is those who are proactive and plan will survive in the world economy. Those who continue to let their future be directed by others will find out when it is too late that most people only do things that are in their best interest and do not care about their neighbor.