There is a common theme in how the wealthy use their time, money and resources compared to the working class, in that the rich invest their time and resources into building assets that are leveraged time and time again rather than being stuck on the financial treadmill of trading their time for money, as most people do.
Robert Kiyosaki, especially, talks about the difference between how the wealthy use their time and resources versus the less wealthy, and of particular interest, is the concept Kiyosaki came up with known as the Cashflow Quadrant.
Investment means different things to different people, and many might think of stock brokerage firms such as CMC Markets yet, investing isn’t limited to the stock market, indeed many wealthy people made their money by investing in property, and just think about how much $1,000 of bitcoin would be worth today if you had invested a few years back!
The fundamental difference between small business owners and employees vs. investors is that the small business owner and employee are both trading their time for money in a very linear way; for instance, both the factory worker and the lawyer are directly swapping their time for money – just in different amounts.
The same can be said for small business owners, as just because someone runs a business, this doesn’t guarantee they have found a path to wealth. Often, a small business owner can have the worst of both worlds, because they are still trading their time for money – but this time, without the security of a steady paycheck, and with tons of risk.
Then, even if business is going well, the consultant that charges $350 per hour is still “stuck” in the sense of true wealth creation because they only get paid when they are trading their time. If this high paid consultant can’t find any gigs, gets sick, or goes on holiday – then their income stops.
This is why investing your time, money and resources is the true path to wealth.
True wealth provides both the time and money to do whatever it is you want, when you want, with who you want… meaning you are living life on your terms… and if you’re stuck on the treadmill of trading time for money – this isn’t going to allow you the time freedom associated with true wealth.
The investor, in comparison, has leverage – and it’s this leverage that leads to true wealth… see, when you build an asset, let’s take a book for example, it can take a lot of initial effort but once it is created you can then leverage the asset multiple times to generate income passively. In this instance, it would be in the form of royalties from the sale of a book.
More conventionally, investors leverage their financial resources in order to make money – for instance they might spend some time monitoring the tempramental wobbles of cryptocurrency or researching new financial trends – but what they are not doing, here, is directly trading their time for money in the same way as most people do.
The investor is leveraging their assets; meaning that rather than working for their money they are having their money work for them.
