This week I discuss the age old question… How do you get RICH?
VIDEO SUMMARY
How do you get RICH? This is a question humans have been asking themselves for thousands of years. Why do some people become wealthy and others do not? To be honest, I do not pretend to have the answer. Nobody does. But I do think that if you are a business person or you are an accountant, it is important to sit and ponder this question. Really think about it. Because we are in the role in society that is responsible for generating value. And so if you think about this question, you can come up with some really powerful insights, even if you do not come up with the ultimate answer.
So before we get started, let me make a clarification here. When I say “get rich,” I am not talking about happiness. I am not talking about fulfillment. I am talking about MONEY. If you are watching my channel, you want to know about money. If you want to know about that other stuff, you are going to have to go watch somebody else. So we are focusing specifically on the question, “how do you make a lot of money?”
So like I said, people have been studying this question for thousands of years. And so we have a lot of information to start with. So if you read the academic journals, read all the business books, take all the business classes, what you will find is that there are several recurring themes in business. And I am going to talk about four main ways to be successful. You can follow these pathways in life to lead to a lot of money.
The first way to success is Talent. We are all born with natural strengths and weakness. There are all kinds of self assessments and tests out there to help you identify what your talents are. This could be referring to your internal personality or external situation. We are all unique, and we all have unique strengths and weaknesses. If you look at something as simple as the city you were born in, that gives you certain advantages and disadvantages. There is this idea, that if you capitalize on your strengths and mitigate your weaknesses, this will allow you to get ahead in life. So to use an example, if you discover you are a child prodigy at the piano, you can capitalize on that talent and turn it into money. What this is about is understanding yourself, and being aware of your strengths and weaknesses. Once you have that insight, you can make the right life choices that will benefit you the most.
The second way to success is Hard Work. It takes hard work to make money. You will get this if you listen to any motivational speaker who tells you to get out there and do what it takes. So to go back to our example, if you have musical talent, but you never practice, you are never going to make the money. So hard work is a really common theme when it comes to success.
The third way to success is Attitude. This is talking about coming into a situation with the right mindset. If you are one of those people who is always negative and saying things are never going to happen… well, things are never going to happen for you. So having the right mindset is important. One of the most famous books on success is “Think and Grow Rich.” And so fans of that book talk about how your attitude can translate into money.
So those are the three most common ideas that are talked about on how to get rich. Talent, hard work, and attitude. So we can use these ideas and come up with a simple equation. Talent + Hard Work + Attitude = Money. Wouldn’t it be nice, if there was a simple equation like this, that everyone could follow to make a lot of money. But there is a problem here. In life, we know, that this equation does not work all the time. We all know people who are talented, who work hard, and have a positive attitude. They have all of that, and they still have no money. The opposite is also true, we know there are people out there who are not talented, have not worked hard, and have a horrible attitude and yet they have a ton of money. So how does that fit into this equation.
I suggest there is a fourth way to success that is not talked about as much. The fourth way to success is Opportunity. This is a little bit more complex idea, which is why I think people do not talk about it as much. When you read the biographies of successful people, they can point to several specific moments in their lives when they took advantage of an opportunity. They saw an opportunity and they took advantage of it. And you do not need many of these opportunities to make a lot of money.
So here is the full equation: talent + hard work + attitude + opportunity = money. And in my opinion, you need all of these things. What makes opportunity complex is that sometimes it works against the other variables. If opportunity is really important, what does that mean? It means you should be spending time every day looking for opportunities. This is time when you are doing nothing but looking around you and listening. You are not working. You are not thinking about your talents or your attitude. You are just listening. That is what it takes to spot opportunities. But it goes even further. You have to create space in your life for opportunities to happen. If you are working at your job for 60 hours a week, you do not have time to go after any opportunities. So the problem is people are so busy. There are opportunities all around them and people do not even see that they are there. And if they did see the opportunity, they would not have the capacity to go after them.
Ultimately it becomes a balancing act between all these variables and that is how you get rich. Those are my thoughts, but the reality is, this is a question that can never be answered. Life is just too complex to really capture in a simple equation like this. In the big picture, the reason why these things lead to riches is because they are all hard to do. People do not want to do them. So if you put in the effort it will set you apart from everyone else. And these things are good for society. It creates value for society when you work hard. So if you do this for decades, society will reward you with money.
Leave a comment down below letting me know what you think! If you find these videos helpful, please subscribe to my YouTube channel.
Neither Zach De Gregorio or Wolves and Finance Inc. shall be liable for any damages related to information in this video. It is recommended you contact a CPA in your area for business advice.