Over the years, whether in my personal or business life, I’ve been all about learning the 1 percenters from other people and applying them, writes Glen James author of Sort Your Money Out & Get Invested.
I’m now more a student of life learning from wherever I can and applying such lessons. If someone is doing something that is working, it’s usually not due to their inherent skills and talents (I mean, sure, I get it — but go with me). Often they are just following a process and a law, like cause and effect.
I believe we can learn concepts from all areas of life and apply them to our situation. So no matter whether you’re an employee, self-employed or run your own business take everything I talk about here and apply it to your work life.
Become a leader in your field
Becoming a leader in your field opens up opportunities that wouldn’t make themselves known if you weren’t seen to be a leader in your industry or sector. Being known as a person of influence can give you huge career (and income) opportunities. Make the most of the opportunities you have and be stoked to be involved, no matter what you’re doing. Be a subject-matter expert in what you do and what you love. A lot of the time it’s just a matter of being known, not how much you know. You could consider going to industry networking events regularly or joining and volunteering at an industry association. You could ask to write for industry trade press magazines.
Focus on helping solve people’s problems
The more problems you solve for people, the more money you can make. While this usually speaks to starting a business — and I know not everyone has a business — it’s a good basic concept of how people become rich. As I’ve mentioned already, the Microsofts of the world are an extreme example of this. The key here is that someone had a passion for something or a problem to solve — they didn’t set out to become a millionaire or billionaire from day one. This could be as simple as making the best coffee in your town because there wasn’t any decent coffee — often people don’t know that there is a problem that needs solving. Think innovatively. Find a gap or a thing or a niche, test it for a while to see if there are any signs of life, take a risk, turn it up a notch and go all in!
Start a business
Think of most people you know from your day-to-day life who are ‘rich’ or even ‘doing really well’ — they’re usually business owners. I want to acknowledge this is not for everyone and not everyone will become self-employed. And I’m not talking about the tradie or contractor who has their own, one-person business. I’m talking about having a business that employs people, has systems and processes, and is very profitable. A business where you, as the owner, can step aside for four weeks without doing anything and it would still run and make money. You don’t have to start a business today. If the idea is thought provoking for you, it doesn’t need to be carried out straight away. It could be something you consider in the years to come. If you want to start a business, find a business owner in your world, or even a few, and ask if you can buy them a coffee. Then ask them lots of questions. You will find if they can do it, you can too.
Scale your business
To make serious money and wealth in your life, you need to take your business idea, get the correct systems and processes in order and then turn it up to 11. It’s all about scale. More profit without basically needing to invest more (or only a very small amount) into your internet plan or electricity. When it comes to most businesses and those who are self-employed, there’s not much scale to be made. That is, there are only so many hours in the day that you can be working and generating income. You could increase your hourly rate and make a profit on any supplies you on sell as part of your business activities. There is, however, a ceiling to this because market forces come into play. Scale is important and you can pick up scale by being online and internet based or not serviced based (if you are a sole practitioner).
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This is an edited extract from Sort Your Money Out & Get Invested by Glen James (Wiley, $32.95), available 1 October where all good books are sold.
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