Different Worlds!!!

 
As a follow-up on the previous post about the Theory of Work, I was thinking about how different are the worlds of an Employee and a Businessman. On deeper evaluation, I realized the entire difference lay in how they approach life…

To illustrate, I can use the proverbial Pyramid and highlight the difference. For an employee, the pyramid looks like this, starting from the bottom–

When an employee starts his work, he is a fresher, right out of college. Maybe he has acquired some higher/niche skills because of which he might start at a pedestal or two higher. But the essence remains that he gets embroiled in a RAT Race where he is aiming to go higher and higher up the corporate ladder, ensuring he doesn’t become redundant. What he forgets is that even if he succeeds in touching the highest pinnacle, which is highly unlikely, he will still be in the RAT race. Moreover, in this entire process, he will lose his life – of which he has just one; and his energy – which will get sapped. Even if he is the chosen one, touching the highest pinnacle, it is the glass ceiling beyond which he cannot even think of breaking through.

If we look at this slightly deeply in correlation with the Theory of Work, what he does is spends his life working for someone else in a sort of a prison. On weekends when he gets a couple of days off he behaves like a free bird trying to do

everything that is possible within his reach to feel good about his life. But he knows he has to go back to the prison again the next week. So, he keeps grinding through his life and most probably dies thinking if he could have done better.

On the other hand are business owners. For them, the pyramid looks like this, starting from the top –

When a business owner starts work, he gets paid ZERO. He puts in his hard work, his blood and sweat, his life’s worth in building up his idea, his business, with passion and hunger for success. It is not necessary that he succeeds in the beginning – he might fail and falter multiple times. But if he remains true to himself, he learns and imbibes good things, steers clear of his mistakes, and slowly starts to build up the business. He puts together a team that shares his vision and is tuned to the organization’s mission and then the multiplier effect slowly sets in and the leverage shows up. He then keeps building the business and gets paid more and more while his work keeps on reducing and reducing.

This happens till the point he reaches Financial Freedom, a stage where he becomes redundant. At this stage, he does not need to work to ensure that money flows into his bank account. He has built the business and now his team carries it forward whilst he relaxes and enjoys his life. For all the hard work that he puts in for those 5-10 years, he now gets back double. And what he leaves behind when he dies is a LEGACY – for generation(s) to come…

Where do you want to be – in the RAT race or building a legacy? Do leave your comments…

The Theory of Work!

Across the human world, there are lots of people doing varied kinds of professions/businesses etc. However, as per Robert Kiyosaki, a world-renowned author who is a self-made millionaire and writes on Financial Education, anyone earning money through legal/ethical means falls under one of these categories –

Employee: Someone who works for a businessman/company and dedicates 8-10 hours of work from his daily life. This person basically trades his time seeking security and at the end of the month draws a pay-cheque, which in most cases is no where equivalent to the kind of effort put in.

Specialist / Small Businessman: Believes in doing everything with perfection, believes he is the best – Doctors, Lawyers, Professors, Consultants, Small-time shop owners etc. These people also at the end of the day trade their time and draw an income equivalent to their skills and effort (which is definitely more than most employees) but still seek security like employees do.

Big Businessman: As defined by Forbes, a person having an organization of more than 500 people. These people don’t believe in working for others but instead leverage others. All employees working for a business owner contribute to the profits that he makes while being paid a pittance. By leveraging manpower, these people move up the value chain and attain freedom – of time, of money and most other things.

Investor: Again, as defined by Forbes, someone who earns more than USD 200,000 of income from his investments. These people also leverage to earn money – but they leverage money itself. Their money works for them while they holiday with their family. In turn, they generate more income for themselves and are free for life.

As per world statistics, 97% of the world population falls under the E & S quadrants, trading time and yearning for the eluding security. Only 3% around the world actually understands the power of leverage and works towards attaining freedom, being in the B or I quadrants. However, if we look at the world-wide wealth distribution, 96% is controlled by people in the B & I quadrants and only 4% is left for souls in the E & S quadrants.

Given a chance, where would you want to be???

Another interesting facet of this theory I can explain drawing an analogy with the world of athletics…

Now all those 97% of people in the world do one common thing. They blindly run a Marathon of “Go to work, come back home” for all their life – 30 to 40 years! If you belong there, think if you would be able to sustain this schedule in these ever-changing times when security has become a myth and you never know what can happen in the world. But even then, a lot of people continue doing this and teach their kids exactly the same thing – Study hard, get a good job. Their kids might earn slightly more but in the end they are also running the same rat race!

On the other hand, a person in the B or I quadrant works smartly – he runs a Relay! He is alone in the beginning in most of the cases, and starts running. Then slowly he meets people who understand his vision and join him and the team takes shape. This team runs together, generating more output with lesser individual effort. In some time, the first person passes on the baton to the team who run the show with a bigger team. However, even after passing the baton and stopping his run, the person continues being paid because he has built a pipeline – an income stream that will continue paying him irrespective of what he does because he utilized the concept of leverage to build the pipeline…

Wouldn’t all of us want to have a pipeline of your own? Something that can keep paying us and our family for years and generations to come without having to worry about the work part…