Wealth.
It means many things to many people. But what I’m going to be referencing in particular here is monetary wealth. The accumulation of money and the effective and efficient acquiring of money. Wealth is the foundation before anything else and there is a simple reason why. Wealth is what will allow you to free your time, to maximize the amount of time that you have free in your time spent here on this earth.
And that is the greatest power that there is. Money isn’t so valuable, after all if someone said I’ll give you a billion euros but you’ll die five minutes after what would be the point? Money has value because it can buy time and time is our most valuable resource. Time is the resource that we cannot acquire more of no matter how rich or how powerful that we become. Time is the key.
And wealth is the key to time. The fact of the matter is it requires a great deal of wealth to have the time and health that a medieval peasant would have. A good chunk of a medieval peasant’s life was spent away from work and the work they did was generally with family or a community in the fresh air.
Hard work sure, but work with reward and with community. We’ve devolved a long way since the time of medieval peasants. I know that’s shocking to say for most and that’s not say certain advancements have not been made. But most of the “advancements” of the modern world are hardly advancements at all.
But that’s another topic for another time.
Point is, to have a shot at developing yourself to your potential, to spending your time in rewarding ways, to put it bluntly, not be a miserable person for the rest of your life. You are going to have to figure out this wealth game and how it operates in the modern world.
Because operations have changed.
There was once a time when being strong and fast was the key to wealth. Be the best hunter. Leadership skills, storytelling, and speaking skills mattered greatly as well, they still do.
Day by day wealth concentrates into the hands of fewer and fewer who can dole it out like corrupted gods as they so choose. To earn a slice of that pie you’ll have to work harder, be smarter, and be craftier than many that came in few generations prior. At least in most places of the world. Geography, or rather culture, matters greatly here.
This will be most relevant to those living in the United Kingdom, Australia, Western Europe, the Nordic countries, and of course the United States but should have practical applications to all people living everywhere.
So let’s get started.
The Greatest Wealth Building Method #1 – You Already Know The Answer
This is what I’m going to tell my children to get into and if you’ve read my works for any length of time you already know what the answer to this question is.
It’s sales.
Sales, sales, and sales.
High end items are best but honestly money follows sales like bucks follow does in heat. They’re magnetically attracted to one another. What I’ll recommend to my children is to get started in sales as early as possible, even if the money is not great at first. Get those reps in and really develop those sales skills. But when it comes to getting promotions and even getting a job, sales skills are what will get you either in most cases, though you’ll need a few others as well.
Start sales young, way before eighteen. Read books, develop as young as you can with learning all that you can about sales. Then go out and get a sales job that has the potential for good commissions. Sales is a high stress field because most people are horrible salespeople. If you suck at sales then sales is the worst job in the world but if you’re good at sales then it’s the best job in the world. There’s not much middle ground with sales.
Put in the time and learn the ropes and I think, personally, this is the best route to developing wealth. Developing wealth that can then be leveraged in investments that can then separate your time from your money, whether that be a business of your own, real estate, or whatever else. A topic that is beyond the discussion for today.
So in a word.
Learn sales.
The Greatest Wealth Building Method #2 – Corporate Ladder
Climbing the corporate ladder is a skill. It’s a skill that’s required much less for people with the right connections but for “normal people” it is a skill that is required to ever build wealth. There is a ton of money in corporations, I know that’s a very general statement to make but let me elaborate. There’s a lot of money to be made in corporations that don’t coincide with working hard. Finding a spot on the corporate ladder requires a few key skills.
Sales would be one of them. But beyond that is knowing how to politic. There’s been a lot of bad mouthing of corporate politics but frankly it’s just part of the game. It’s something that you can get mad about and whine about or it’s something that you can accept as fact and then use to your advantage. Learning how to politic is the subject of many great books. And I’m not talking about The Price or “dark psychology” or things of that nature, though those books can be helpful.
I’ve talked about them before, books such as Who Gets Promoted, Who Doesn’t, & Why, Corporate Confidential, and the like. These books are about sucking up nor are they about being unethical. They’re about addressing the realities of humanity and working with those realities to best accomplish your goals without selling your soul.
Generally this will require getting a base level degree or working your way up a company. But regardless it is an effective path to wealth for those that have a knack for this sort of stuff. I hated this stuff but swallowed my pride, learned all that I could about it, and was able to advance way further in my career than I ever thought possible.
That seems a lifetime ago but it worked for me then.
The Greatest Wealth Building Method #3 – Blood
Marrying into wealth is still one of the best ways to make money. I can’t tell you how many “entrepreneurs” I’ve met who got started with seeding or just straight up gifts of cash from another who makes money. Whether that’s a husband with a cushy job letting his wife use the money to start a “side hustle” or someone marrying another with rich parents, or whatever else. Something that confused me for the longest time was how so many of these “entrepreneurs” got their start.
I’d followed their methods, meticulous tracked everything, yet was no experiencing the same results. Then I learned about scale and about how marketing is an investment. If you get ten grand to start a business your advantage over someone who has one grand to start is is not ten fold, it’s more like one hundred fold. The more you can invest the more exponential your rewards are. And most of this comes from the marketing front.
If you can outspend another in marketing you can often beat them, granted that you have a halfway decent system along with product/service in place. To deny this is to deny the reality of how most people “get their break”, by money from others. Whenever you see a “self made entrepreneur” or someone living a “cheap sustainable lifestyle” usually that’s code for daddy/hubby/daddy in law has money and gives us money to fail and fail and fail until we got something halfway right.
I don’t say this to be cynical but just to be wary. A good portion of wealth is simply blood. And following the methods of someone who has “blood money” will lead you to wasted time, money, and frustration. Nor am I saying you should marry someone for money or be friends with someone with money.
But closeness with those with money, as far as wealth generation goes, is never a bad thing.
Wealth
And that is not to say that there aren’t many entrepreneurs who make it on their own or with a business loan. Loans, leveraged properly, can be used to generate great wealth. Whenever starting a new business it can be a good idea to break down a business plan as if you were going to apply for a loan. Even if you don’t plan on using a loan. I don’t want to get too much into entrepreneurship here but understand that essentially it’s a money sink until it gets up and running. And the only way to sink money is to have money or to have guts and take out a loan.
Something we may get into at a later time. In the meantime look at the above, or at least the first two. Think of what the best vehicle for wealth for be for you. And then don’t keep thinking about it, go out and take steps to do it. To build wealth and therefore get back more of your most valuable asset in the long run, time.
If anything I said here interests you I’d highly recommend you check out The Ultimate Alpha Collection which is a compilation of 16 of my books for the price of 5. It covers everything from being a man to making money to getting the right mindset to getting girls to fighting and more and is a resource no man should be without. Pick up your copy today!
-Charles Sledge
