Mind Your Own Business

Financially struggle is often the result of people working all their life for someone else. Many people will have nothing at the end of their working life. 

Current educational system focuses on preparing today's youth to get good jobs by developing scholastic skills. Their lives will revolve around their wages or their income column. And after developing scholastic skills, they go on to higher levels of schooling to enhance their professional abilities. They study to become engineers, scientists, and so on. These professional skills allow them to enter the workforce and work for money. 

"What is your business?" 

"Oh, I am a banker"

"You own a bank?"

"No, i work there"

In that instance, they have confused their profession with their business. They are big difference between your profession and your business. A problem with school is that you often become what you study. A study of auto mechanic makes you a mechanic. The mistake in becoming what you study is that too many people forget to mind their own business. They spend their lives minding someone's else business and making that person rich.

To become financially secure, a person needs to mind their own business. Your business revolves around your asset column as opposed to your income column. The rich focus on their asset column while everyone else focuses on their income statements. That is why we hear so often:

"I need a raise."

"If only I had a promotion"

"I am going back to school to get more training so I can get a second job."

"I am going to work overtime."

"I am quitting in two weeks. I found a job that pays more."

These ideas are sensible yet you are still not minding your own business. These idea still focus on the income column and only help a person become more financially secure if the additional money is used to purchase income-generating assets. 

Start minding your own business. Keep daytime job but start buying real assets, not liabilities or personal effects that have no real value once you get them home, A new car loses nearly 25 percent of the price you pay for it the moment you drive it off the lot. For adults, keep expenses low, reduce liabilities and diligently build a base if solid assets, For young people who have not yet left home, get them to start building a solid asset before they leave home, get married, buy a house, have kids and get stuck in a risky financial position, clinging to a job, buying everything on credit. Many young couple who get married and trap themselves into a lifestyle that will not let them get out of debt for most of their working years.

Kind of asset suggested:

1. Business that do not require own presence. You own them but they are managed or run by other people. If you have to work ther, it is not a business, it becomes your job.
2. Stocks.
3. Bonds.
4. Mutual funds
5. Anything else that has value, produces income or appreciates and has a ready market.

Keep your asset column strong. Once a dollar goes into it, never let it come out. Once a dollar goes into your asset column, it become your employee. The best thing about money is that it works 24 hours a day and can work for generations. 
Keep daytime job, be a great employee but keep building that asset column.

ps: based on Robert T.Kiyosaki with Sharon L.Lechter

Laugh as if you owned everything