How to Get Rich

The full title of this essay is: How to Get Rich: The Sorely Needed Logical and Structured Essay That Won’t Be Found Anywhere Else Today.

I wrote this because I figured it was something that was needed, something that would be fresh, new, and take an innovative approach to the subject aside from the usual spiel of “don’t drink that Starbucks latte and take that money and invest it at an assumed compound rate of 12% and you’ll be a millionaire in 40 years”, etc.

The full length of this is 48 pages so needless to say, I don’t think it would be practical to upload all of it here. I figured I would upload the beginning of it to give those who haven’t had a chance to read it to get an idea of what it’s all about. So without further ado, here is the beginning of: How to Get Rich: The Sorely Needed Logical and Structured Essay That Won’t Be Found Anywhere Else Today.

It’s a question that will undoubtedly arise in the minds of many people at one point in time or another in their lives.

And we all know what that question is.

“How do I get rich?”

And so the search begins.

Books, articles, tapes, videos, seminars are all devoured but the person devouring them begins to see a slightly frustrating pattern showing up:

All the information out there seems to be repeating the same things over and over again. The same information is being churned over and over again and packaged in different products with the people buying them hoping they will say something different but invariably are left feeling disappointed when they find there’s nothing really new to learn. Add to that, it’s just full of platitudes, information that they hear all the time, but isn’t very useful – superficial information that doesn’t go any deeper.

You know exactly what that kind of information is.

It’s the kind of advice that has no “meat” to it.

To illustrate the superficiality of the get rich advice given today, here’s a brief snapshot of each side.

One side gives the general information we all hear about all the time.

– Go to college and get a good job and work hard to climb up the corporate ladder.

– Live below your means.

– Save your money and invest it in your 401k because otherwise you’re losing free money.

The other side gives even more seemingly vague advice. – Start your own business.

– Invest in stocks.

– Invest in real estate.

Or the kind of advice Robert Kiyosaki says – “Buy assets”, because assets put money into your pocket and liabilities take money out of your pocket.

But what assets to buy?

Again, the same old answers. Stocks, real estate, bonds, etc.

Then you have the middle ground which attempts to give real information that’s applicable in real life, and it does look like that on the surface, but it’s much too idealistic to work in the real world and assumes too much. You’ve heard about it.

It’s the “don’t buy a latte at Starbucks everyday and take that money and invest it and assuming it gets a 12% annual return, you’ll be a millionaire by the time you retire”.

But what if you don’t want to wait that long to retire to do the things you want?

What if you don’t want to sacrifice life’s little everyday luxuries?

What assets specifically give a 12% annual return every year? (they never mention that do they, and do they really get those kinds of return every year?)

What if those assets don’t return 12% on average, but 6% or even worse, a negative return due to circumstances out of your control? (look at what the whole subprime debacle has done to Wall Street and the stock market)

What about capital gains tax and transaction costs?

The personal financial experts always love to breeze through the “assuming you get a x% return” but it’s not a universal guarantee.

Can this strategy work?

Yes, but again, it assumes a lot.

What happens if you lose your job and can’t put in the money to invest?

Maybe you get sick and have a large medical expense to take care of?

A car accident that takes you out of work for a year?

A financial emergency that forces you to take money out of your investment account?

Then they get trapped in the cycle where they don’t have any money to save, less invest and because there’s no savings to bail them out, they whip out the plastic to hold them over, but they soon start getting into high interest credit card debt that quickly snowballs.

Meanwhile life happens in the form of weddings, babies, braces for the kids, weddings of family and friends, furniture for the new apartment/house and the viscous cycle continues.

This is what financial experts tend not to see in the real world.

It’s not always cut and dry. It’s easy when you make given assumptions but real life doesn’t work that way.

Then you have the pop psychology type of get rich advice.

People use words like “mindset”, think in abundance, and all this pseudo psychology.

“You deserve to be rich.” “The universe will make you rich”. “Feel the abundance around you.”

That sounds great and all, but again, when it comes down to the REAL world of actually DOING something, it doesn’t help.

Then you get phrases about getting rich like:

“It’s not how much you make; it’s how much you save.”

That’s great and all, but there’s ultimately, there’s only a certain limit as to how much you can save.

At some point, you can only save so much, even if you make a little, you can still save but at what expense at the quality of your life- what will you miss out on?

What people seem to forget is that there’s no limit as to how much you can make.

That being said, why not focus on the other side of the equation?

It seems so simple and logical, yet most finance experts only tend to focus on the other side of the equation of saving, investing, budgeting, etc.

That’s like playing defense all the time.

Sure you can play great defense but sooner or later you have to start playing offense to put some points on the board.

Otherwise you’ll never win a game.

Don’t get me wrong, that’s nothing bad about playing defense and all but nobody wants to go into detail on the other side of the equation, namely playing offense because they don’t know what to say and even if they do, it’s just a bunch of platitudes like:

– Get a higher paying job.

– Invest in real estate.

– Start your own business.

It’s all fluff, yet people praise it like it’s the best thing since sliced bread. It really puzzles me why people settle for the crumbs when they should be looking for the main course.

What we need are REAL solutions that will work in REAL LIFE that the AVERAGE EVERYDAY PERSON can apply to get rich – NOT recycled platitudes of common sense and flowery philosophical type information that basically tells us what we already know:

It’s easy for people who have parents who can give them money to start a business, who give them whole businesses, who pay for their college tuition and their house to give them a head start in life, who connect them with high paying jobs, etc.

But what about those who don’t have rich parents? Who work in 9-5 jobs? Who pay for everything on their own?

What about the average Joe?

That being said, I wanted to write a logical essay that provides the very “meat” of getting rich that’s not very prevalent at all in today’s literature that the everyday person can apply because all of the recycled information out there tends to make people run around in circles, never getting to the center, to the MEAT.

What people want to know is HOW TO START.

That’s the big GAP that’s prevalent in today’s world that nobody is addressing because the advice of today is too general and doesn’t go into any depth.

It’s general advice like:

– Invest in real estate.

– Go to a good college and get a good job and max out your 401k.

– Save and invest your money in stocks and bonds and your Roth IRA.

– Live below your means.

– Start your own business.

But reality soon starts to set in.

– Not everybody can get rich in real estate. It’s a cyclical market. Timing is crucial. When the real estate market is down, it’s very difficult to make money. Startup capital is needed. The risks are great. And it’s not as easy as late night infomercials make it seem. Can it be done? Sure it can. But when the field gets oversaturated, not everybody will be able to make a decent amount of money from it.

– The days of getting a great job out of college and job security are over. With the explosion of people graduating college and getting a bachelor’s degree, the scarcity that its value was based upon has dropped. It’s become the new high school diploma. Too many people are competing for too few jobs and pensions and job security are a thing of the past. On top of all that, students are leaving college with huge debt in student loans with the average being around $20,000 as well as considerable credit card debt. Add to that inflation, a lack in the rise of real wages, skyrocketing cost of living costs, etc., and the college graduate feels doomed to live paycheck to paycheck, spinning his/her wheels in the all too familiar rat race.

– With over 70% of people living paycheck to paycheck, the old “save and invest” route seems to fall under the realm of impossibility. It’s easier said than done. Along with all the economic factors, there’s the psychological factors of consumerism and materialism and readily available credit fueling the debt that adults incur.

But can this method of living below your means and saving and investing to get rich work? Can it be done? Of course it can. But the argument against that is that some people just don’t want to scrimp and save their whole lives. They want to experience life before they die. They want to experience life while they’re still able to when they’re young and to do that, it requires money.

– Then there’s the highly favorable entrepreneur route of owning your own business. When the words are uttered: “I want to start my own business”, all the critics come out of the wood works and say:

– “Starting your own business is a lot of work. Get ready to work 100 hour weeks.”

– “Where are you going to get the money to start your own business? You need money to make money.”

– “It’s too risky. How are you going to pay your bills? It’s not secure.”

And everybody’s favorite:

“Did you know that 9 out of 10 businesses fail in the first five years?”

So what’s a person to do given all these seemingly checks and balances and stone walls that appear on all the paths to getting rich?

Alas, they throw their hands in the air and declare that only those who have rich parents or got lucky are the ones who can get rich. The rest are doomed to forever be stuck spinning their wheels in the rat race.

What’s the average person to do – who didn’t have any inheritance from their parents, who had to work during school to support themselves and their families, who knows what it feels like to live paycheck to paycheck?

Section 2: What This Essay Is About and Why I Wrote It

Seeing as how there’s all this information out there being churned over and over again, with nothing new, with no definitive answer that the AVERAGE person can use, this is precisely why I chose to write this essay – to fill in the gaps of the advice that’s out there for the everyday person to go DIRECTLY to the heart of the matter and better structure and aptly explain the mechanics of getting rich.

But getting rich is NOT all about making as much money as you as you’ll soon see and I’m sure that’s something you already know.

But first off, before we do anything else, the FIRST and FOREMOST LOGICAL THING TO DO is we have to DEFINE what we mean when we talk about getting rich.

Section 3: How Do We Define “Rich”?

We can’t define rich as a certain amount of income/year.

$30,000/year might not sound like a lot in America but take that to a third world country and you can live like a king. Rich for someone might be a million dollars but take someone who already has a million dollars and rich will be 10 million for him/her.

So there is no “absolute” number we can use to define rich.

It’s all relative.

So how do we do we define what rich is?

Well, if you breakdown what people want when it comes to getting rich, it can be categorized like this.

We have needs.

Then we have comfort.

And then we have freedom.

Needs is self explanatory. We all need a roof over our heads, food and water to eat and drink, clothes to wear, etc., – in other words, the basics to survive.

Then we have comfort. The TV, vacations, the nice car, the things you want, but don’t really need, etc.

Then, we have the holy grail of getting rich.

FREEDOM.

We want to have the time AND money to do WHAT WE REALLY WANT TO DO IN OUR LIVES, WHEN WE WANT.

What good is freedom alone if you can’t do anything with it because you don’t have the money to finance what you want to do?

What good is all the money in the world if you don’t have the time and freedom to enjoy it because you’re working all the time to make it?

I think we can all agree that covering your needs is the absolute basic minimum foundation of getting rich. You have to make enough money to cover the basic necessities of life. That is a must.

But from then on, most people get confused.

They THINK that getting rich involves COMFORT – that COMFORT is the PINNACLE of getting rich – jetting off to enjoy vacations on remote desert islands, eating the best foods and drinks, buying the best cars and clothes and houses and gadgets, etc.

The media has us believing that this is what getting rich is all about.

And don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with doing all that. The thing is, when people view that as their “end game” and they actually get to that stage and do everything, the question they invariably and inevitably ask themselves is:

Now what?

What scares people is what do you do AFTER?

After you buy the nice, big house, the fancy car, the yacht, what do you do after ALL THAT?

They’re just “things”. You will get bored of them quickly.

Very quickly.

Once your needs are met, any additional income has a diminishing effect on your utility.

For example, let’s say you’re really hungry so you eat that first burger and it tastes really good, but the next burger and the next don’t taste as good. Why? Because you’re not as hungry anymore. Your needs were fulfilled. What now? Now that you’re satisfied with hunger, do you buy more and more food or do you do something else?

I want to wean people away from the improper thinking of buying expensive things, cars, houses is what being rich is all about. There’s nothing wrong with doing that BUT realize that if that’s your end game, you’re in for a world of hurt.

People ADAPT to their circumstances in time.

So even if you buy the nice house, car, etc., you’ll get sick of it and the novelty WILL wear off over time.

Think of it like this.

You’ve experienced it before when you were a kid, when you really wanted that toy and finally got it.

You got sick of it a month later.

The same thing applies here, only that the toys are a lot more expensive.

You see, everybody who wants to get rich is looking for that point in time when they can just relax – sip a margarita by the beach.

But what do you do AFTER that?

After that “point” in time when you don’t have to worry about your finances anymore?

Nobody ever thinks about that and when that time comes, they get hit like a bus with a big gaping void in their soul.

So some people turn to drugs. Some to alcohol. Some commit suicide.

And I think we can all agree that none of those things can be construed as a person who is “rich”.

Again, there’s nothing wrong with enjoying all the comforts in life but it’s more like the seasoning of life. It makes everything taste better.

But if all you eat is seasoning, you’re going to be severely malnourished.

That being said, what people are REALLY talking about when they say they want to get rich is FREEDOM.

To have the time and money do what they want, when they want.

And here’s the secret most people don’t realize.

WHEN YOU VALUE FREEDOM over COMFORT ,you invariably get both.

When you value COMFORT over FREEDOM, you will NEVER be free.

You will always be trapped in the cycle of debt.

So with all that being said, I think the following definition of what getting rich is all about will be something most people will agree on:

Having enough income to meet your basic and comfort needs and to give you the freedom to do the things you truly want to do in your life.

The typical person reading this is probably a 9-5er who has his/her needs met, has some sort of comfort, pays the bills and saves a little, in other words the typical middle class, but they don’t have as much comfort, but more importantly as much FREEDOM as they like and that’s ultimately the bridge they want to gap to get “rich”.

This is just the first couple of pages of the 48 page essay. To read it in its entirety, you can sign up for the VIP Self Improvement newsletter and wait for its release. I usually release it once a month as a bonus to one of my products/services.

It’s an essay you definitely won’t regret reading.

Edit (4/4/2010): After Over One Year and 3 Months of Only Being Offered a Handful of Times Via Special Monthly Offers, The Essay Is Now Available to the General Public for Purchase

It seems almost every day, I get a couple emails asking when this essay will be available. I always give the same response that it will be available in one of the monthly special offers as it’s not available all the time in every single one.

It can get a bit repetitive and time wasting on my part and some of the emails I get are downright nasty, accusing me of hoarding this information, not sharing it with the world, so I’m going to go ahead and have it available for people to download NOW for the FIRST TIME since I wrote it in January of 2009.

Obviously, it won’t be free since this is something that’s not your typical spiel you hear about getting rich. It goes much deeper than the financial aspect and it took me about a year and half to write in my head.

If you’re sick and tired of all the how to get rich advice heard today such as:

“Don’t drink that latte and invest it at 12% a year and you’ll be a millionaire.”

“Invest in your 401k or you’re losing money.”

“Buy real estate.”

“Learn how to trade stocks.”

“Start your own business.”

Then this essay is for you.

It’s not the kind of essay that’s full of recycled platitudes but shows you:

• STRUCTURE • LOGIC • ORDER

It puts all the pieces together to show you the whole picture.

For those of you who’ve read How to Find What You Love To Do and loved it’s refreshing nature in the sense that it wasn’t full of the advice you’ll find everywhere else (i.e – ask yourself what you would do if you had a million dollars) and contained practical, meaty information that delivered results, then what you have to realize is that this essay is the equivalent of that, only a heck of a lot longer.

It’s structured, analytical, logical, makes sense, flows and will make you see its topic in a whole different light.

Here are a couple of things the select group of people who have had the privilege of reading it have been saying:

“I finally read your essay on getting rich. In a nutshell, you continually keep amazing me, with how clean and well organized your thinking is.

I started with Robert Kyiosaki and his books, and the rat-race game, then I found lots of others, including Bob Proctor, Brian Tracy, Napoleon Hill, Tony Robbins, the Nightingale-Conant corporation, and many others. They are all quite good, butso far – to me and to lots of others all around the world, you seem to be the someone who obviously have spent long-long hours digesting all the information, and condensing everything to a relatively small and understandable format. Full of energy, powerful stuff.”

“Hi Brian, I finally read your essay on getting rich. In a nutshell, you continually keep amazing me, with how clean and well organized your thinking is. To tell the truth, I have been learning self-improvement for years now. I started with Robert Kyiosaki and his books, and the rat-race game, then I found lots of others, including Bob Proctor, Brian Tracy, Napoleon Hill, Tony Robbins, the Nightingale-Conant corporation, and many others. They are all quite good, but so far – to me and to lots of others all around the world, you seem to be the someone who obviously have spent long-long hours digesting all the information, and condensing everything to a relatively small and understandable format. Full of energy, powerful stuff.

So all in all, wow, thanks for your great work, you are really a great service to all the temporarily “middle-class” people out there! I highly recommend your work to anyone interested in getting out of the rat-race that keeps haunting our days. I remember the day when I found your blog, like 1.5 – 2 years before. I just could not stop reading all the posts in there… 😉 (are you happy? :D)

I completely agree with every word you say. Sometimes it seems to me that in essence everyone could start their own company and be well off doing whatever he/she pleases to do. Even if I think that lots of people are not ready for it just yet. Btw. I have already moved out of a company where I worked for 5 years, and started my own a year ago.

So, thanks again, and keep up the great work!

You are one of the best motivational and personal-development source on the whole planet right now.

Best wishes,” Csaba K.

“I finished reading your essay, “How to Get Rich…” I enjoyed reading it and was delighted that there was very little of the “fluff” that you find in most business/self-improvement books. There was a ton of raw material which really required thought and mental energy to absorb. “

“Hi Brian,

I finished reading your essay, “How to Get Rich…” I enjoyed reading it and was delighted that there was very little of the “fluff” that you find in most business/self-improvement books. There was a ton of raw material which really required thought and mental energy to absorb.

I would also add that it’s thought provoking and extraordinarily accomplished–it puts into words and simple language what so many other books have tried to do. It cleared up the misconception of getting rich by getting money. The real way to true riches is through freedom and following your intuition and interests.

Great work!”

P. Irani

“Thank you so much for the gift. What I absolutely love about your material is that it has a rare combination of wisdom about the human spirit and usable MEAT for the intellect. “

“Hi Brian,

Thank you so much for the gift. What I absolutely love about your material is that it has a rare combination of wisdom about the human spirit and usable MEAT for the intellect. With what is going on in the world, my circumstances and personal history, that is exactly what I’ve been craving. I would suspect that there are a lot of people out there who want REAL, GENIUNE solutions to help make their lives work and (like myself) want their lives to be and feel meaningful. I’m very excited to be out of “personal development hell” and will continue to pass your website link to other people.

In regards to my thoughts about your ebook, I write from my perspective and personal needs. I’m a go-getter, take action, just do it, let’s do it big, kind of person (and I’m an introvert). Since the real estate/construction drama, my challenge has been patience. Also, I have enough life experience to know that just doing it, chasing money, and thinking positive hasn’t worked. Your wisdom regarding starting small and building was equivalent to taking an anti-anxiety pill. It relieved the mental pressure of “just take action and do it” that is programmed into us. And, you followed it up with methodical logic that made sense to me.

There are a few more of the items that you mentioned that I will be working on and developing. But, more importantly, when I do have my idea I will feel confident in going for it.

Keep up the great work and I look forward what you have planned for CMC.”

Tracy A.

You’ll see that it’s all meat and will definitely make you think.

If you’ve read the preview and have been waiting patiently for months on end for it, it’s finally here!

 

http://briankim.net