There are various definitions of money and many schools of thought of how money can influence decisions taken by people and how these decisions also impact on society.
Some people believe that they need to work hard to get money and they do not believe they should allow other people to help them get the money they need because they do not trust any other person when it comes to money. Such people prefer to keep their money to themselves alone and they are always afraid to invest. They are afraid they will lose their hard-earned money if they invest it. They continue to work physically hard and keeping their earnings in their bank accounts seeking to get financially independent one day without any financial education and advice.
Stupendous money is made when we allow other people to work for us and when we get the money we in turn would find good creditable systems to invest in for greater returns.
Business therefore continue to grow and expand and society benefits enormously. People get jobs to do, they become more responsible and children are loved and cared for and they also grow up being good, cultured and humane international citizens.
The truth of the matter is that no employee can be richer than his/her employer. Employees could become richer if only they turn their active or earned income into passive and or portfolio income.
Napoleon Hill in his book “Think and Grow Rich” wrote “One type is known as LEADERS, and the other as FOLLOWERS.” “Decide at the outset whether you intend to become a leader in your chosen calling, or remain a follower. The difference in compensation is vast. The follower cannot reasonably expect the compensation to which a leader is entitled, although many followers make a mistake of expecting such pay”
Employees should aspire to become employers one day and they should pave the way and allow younger generations to take over from them at where they are now so that they could go out and run their own businesses. Employees could be business owners whilst working for their current employers, meaning they can have other people also work for them. Employees could also set time frame at which they will resign to go and mind and run their own they businesses, that is become self-employed and gradually become big time business owners, but they must learn to be financial Literate and begin to trust other people whom they should delegate and give them authority to transact and execute business agenda for them, whilst they, the owners concentrate on other equally important demanding issues.
Nobody truly gets rich by working for himself/herself. You would be operating under capacity and cannot expand and serve larger society to get the needed results and money. You should learn Financial Literacy that would teach you how you should use other people’s time and other people’s money to run your businesses to be able to reach out to larger society and get the needed results.
When we are young and energetic, we could work for others to learn from them but we should aim to have our businesses that we should allow other people not known to us join us on board and help grow and expand our businesses. If we think we could be rich by working hard solely and also as employees throughout ourselves, we would be greatly deceiving our own inner beings. Many middle class people also try to portray themselves as rich but really they are in the middle in between the poor and the rich. The wealthy or rich people don’t take loans from banks to buy personal cars and houses. The wealthy people do not need monthly pay cheques to make living a bit meaningful. The wealthy or rich in society can survive life without monthly pay for years. They do not depend on it at all. Can the poor and the middle class do that for even three months? It will be “wahala” at home yet these middle class people always think they are rich.
The wealthy or rich people do not necessarily have personal expenses. Financial Literacy would teach you all these and you would get to know that Financially Literacy is needed by everybody and should be learnt by all, young or old, poor or middle class.
Napoleon Hill in the same book “Think and Grow Rich” defined that “Knowledge is only potential power. It becomes power only when, and if it is organized into definite plans of action, and directed to a definite end.”
The middle class mostly are highly educated people with PHDs, MBAs, MPHILs, etc hence they are always tempted to think that because they are formally educationally rich they also think they are truly rich. Never! The current classroom, formal education does not let us think and create. We are conditioned to think like others, mean while we are unique different people with different creativity and style. Formal education is good but it should not be confused with Financial Education or Literacy. Financial Literacy which is really relevant to our daily lives was never known and even up to now is not meaningfully taught in schools even in the so-called advance countries. Financial Literacy Education encourages creativity. In fact, it’s all about creativity. These middle class people who mostly work for others through out their working lives go on retirement if their children do not come to their aid, then the government must do that so they could survive life. Majority of them are perpetual dependants.
No wonder in many offices especially in Africa, people specialize in “pulling” down their brothers and sisters to occupy some positions thinking that is what would bring them financial freedom. It is so funny because the position that is being fought for has been created by someone, who owns the organization and you an employee (an outsider) who could be sacked any time you misbehave, you are fighting over a property that does not rightfully belong to you. You do not have a permanent stay over there, so why do fight with your colleagues over transient and temporary positions. If it’s yours it would be given to you ultimately and genuinely, else forget about it and start to build your own where you would not fight with anybody.
The same Napoleon Hill also wrote “An educated man is the one who has so developed the faculties of his mind that he may acquire anything he wants, or its equivalent, without violating the rights of others”
Robert Kiyosaki of the Rich Dad, Poor Dad fame, wrote “Financial intelligence is not how much money you get but how much money you keep and for how many generations you keep it.”
This educates and tells us that as we look for money should know we would have children, grand children, great-grandchildren or we should know we would have human beings whether related to us or not who will live after us. We should know we have a community, a village, a country, a world where our contribution will be needed even after we have died and left this world over hundred or thousand years. Do we really want to be remembered? Life is lived once.
We all need money but we should use legal and genuine means to get the money we need.
Jamie McIntyre wrote in his book, “What I Didn’t Learn at School But wished I had” that anybody who says he/she does not like money is telling a lie, He says it is a denial”
If you truly want to be wealthy, then you need Financial Literacy Education and you need to learn to have businesses where you let other people work for you and pay them for their services.
When you work hard for money, you worship the money and you are mean with it but when your money works hard for you, it worships you and you are generous with it.
© 2010, Godwin-Xavier Ayeebo
Blog: www.g-xavierayeebo.blogspot.com
Email: gayeebo@gmail.com
