Saturday, February 1, 2014

Choose

السلام عليكم

Hi.
It has been a busy week. (Pheewww)

So, in this post I would like to highlight a topic that many people have been talking about for years and yet, not many have taken that 'big step forward' and act upon this issue. 

Let me pose a question to you, do you want to work for money or money works for you?

Robert T. Kiyosaki in his book 'Rich Dad Poor Dad' has shown us a very simple yet powerful diagram of how we generally live in this world. 

Google Images


The left-hand side column is the common way of how people live their life nowadays.
95% of the world's population is either an employee or self employed. 
Whereas the other remaining 5% either own businesses or invest their money or they might be doing both(which is usually the case). These people sit on the right-hand side column. 
Unfortunately, those who are the Es and the Ss own only 5% of the world's wealth and yes, you're totally right, the rest of the wealth is owned by the Bs and the Is.
Which sides do you want to be? The 'poor' or the 'rich'? 

Employee
People in this quadrant exchange time for money. 
They work for an hour, they get paid a certain amount. 
If they want a pay rise, then they have to work another hour so on and so forth. 
However, the underlying truth is that not only they give up their time for money, they also take in stress, anger, disappointment and the list goes on. 
They have deadlines, endless meetings and being yelled at by their bosses is part of the life. 
Some of them even have to give up family time in order to please their bosses and make money for the company. 
It's just sad but that's how life is in this quadrant. 
They are trapped in the so-called 'rat race'.
The never ending race that can drive people to madness. 

Wealth : little. Have to work forever, yet doesn't guarantee any wealth accumulation 
Time : 9-5 clock-in, clock-out. Sometimes maybe until late night. Might have a day over the weekend or two(if they were lucky)
Financial freedom?: hurm, go ask your boss please. :P

Self Employed
Those who are self employed have achieved some sort of liberation.
They don't have anyone to report to, they can work whenever they want.
The more they work, the more money they get. This is not necessarily true for the Es because some of them might work hard, but they might not get along very well with their bosses and hence, bye-bye, no pay rise for you. 
For self employed people, that's not the case but there's a catch. Since they run their own businesses, so they have to literally do everything.
They are the CEO, they are the accountant, they are the HR people (he mights need to employ someone to do some work for him), they are the PR officer and they are the cleaner. Strictly saying, they are everything in the company. So they end up having 5-6 jobs in one job. It's even more tiring isn't it?

Wealth : better than employees(hopefully), vice versa may also be true. More work means more wealth
Time : Might have plenty of free time or might also end up working 24/7
Financial freedom?: uncertain

Business Owner
Howdy boy? *giggles
Business owners own systems and people work for them. 
Most of the time, the business runs by itself and generates huge amount of cash for the owners. Pretty interesting huh? :D 
But to start, it requires one to put in a big chunk of cash to invest in setting up the business. For example, a shop lot of Costa cafe costs roughly £75000.
While a McDonald's outlet requires initial upfront of £200000. You have to break the bank bro! 
So you tell me, where can one gets this amount of money if one didn't inherit them or otherwise one may have to take a loan from the bank, which adds to the risk involve. 
p/s : I know of a business that splits its profits almost 50-50. Do you?

Wealth : self-generating and accumulate quickly as time moves on
Time : it's harsh for the first few years, after that plenty of time to go travel around the world
Financial freedom?: Highly likely

Investors
What would be the best alternative than having money to work very hard for you? 
Investors plough cash into businesses, assets, bonds etc. and make money works very hard for them. 
They can go to sleep, travel, stay at home and enjoy sip of coffee and yet their wealth hardly stops growing (unless they have a lousy investment portfolio). 
This group of people enjoy the benefit of compounded return. As time goes by, their assets keep growing. They might need  to attend meeting here and there occasionally, check upon their investment portfolio once in a while and the rest of the time just enjoy life and do what they want to do, not what they have to do. However, one stills need to break the bank initially to get started on this.
The rate of their success really depends on the amount of risk that they are able to tolerate. The higher the better(not necessarily true).

Wealth : money works for them, pile up over time
Time : all the time in this world
Financial freedom?: Highly likely, almost certain

Wake up people!! 
We need to position ourselves in the B and I column.
Unless you love to be in the rat race forever, take action now. 
Start up a business. Invest!
I have started mine. It is slow but surely inshaAllah(God's willing), it will bear fruits later. 
Fortunately Alhamdulillah(all praise is to Almighty God) partnering a business that splits its profit almost 50-50 with me is a blessing. 
I've taken my first big step from the 'poor' column to the 'rich' column. 
Have you?

LONDON
UK
010214

Peace be upon you