You Don’t MAKE Money — You EARN Money
“Money is multiplied in practical value depending on the number of W’s you control in your life: what you do, when you do it, where you do it, and with whom you do it.” — Timothy Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek.
Money is one of those things that humans use as a construct to show that they have provided something meaningful to the world. Others find meaning in things that don’t produce money, but most of us need some amount of money to keep our lifes in order and balanced. Without money you can’t have shelter or food, unless you are one of those minimalists. But what most people lose sight of is the fact that you don’t MAKE money, you have to EARN it. So all these dropshippers and different “side hustles” out there will never really earn you a good living. And if they do, it will be because you earned and provided enough value to your marketplace. You solved a problem and you deserve to be paid for that. The marketplace will tell if you if your product is good or not.
Earning and making money is what separates the wealthy from the rest. The wealthy know how to earn money through systems, processes, judgement and logic. The other 99% of us know how to make it, by accepting a paycheck from the wealthy who are using us as part of their elaborate system to earn wealth for themselves. Let me explain.
To Earn Money is to Provide Value to an Ecosystem
One of the biggest thing all entrepreneurs face in the beginning is having an amazing idea, but not sure how to execute on it or if it really solves a problem in the marketplace. If this isn’t one of your first thoughts as an entrepreneur, failure is right around the corner. We, as entrepreneurs, need to know how we will create an ecosystem that rewards our end user with some type of marginal utility.
Even as a dropshipper, you need to develop a brand identity and story that sells the product better than your competitor. If we are not providing our users with anything and set up an ecosystem around just hoping that customers will give us their card info, we are doomed. Consumers only hand over there credit card after we have built trust around what we are selling.
I personally have failed over 25 when launching different business ventures. One of the biggest thing I have learned about this is that I was starting businesses for the wrong reason. If you are starting a business to make money, you will soon not have enough money to stay open because you will be doing things for money which becomes unsustainable. Money is the lagging indicator that you have created something the marketplace enjoys. But what you do day-to-day in your business, and the actions you are taking to execute on a worthwhile ideal is more important.
Sometimes entrepreneurs lose sight of the larger reason why they started the business they started. If you aren’t starting a business to solve a problem for a market, or to do some kind of good for mankind to some proportion, you have a low probably of striking gold with whatever it is you sell.
Human culture is a value-driven society, based on a exchange of something for something. Not something, for nothing.
Sure, making money will pay the bills, but as humans we were put on this earth to stretch the limits of human potential, and to push our limitations of what we think is possible. Making money is heavily ingrained in our society from a very young age. EARNING money on the other hand is something entirely different which is not taught in schools because the people teaching us about money in school aren’t earning money themselves; they are making it, i.e a salary.
Instead of waking up pretending you are an entrepreneur with an online store, wake up and ask yourself, “how can I earn money from my customers? What value do I provide in exchange for customers to want to spend money on my website?”
Money is cool, it allows you to do things and experience life at different levels based on how much you earn. But money is not cool when you don’t earn it. That is why 70% or so of the workforce is not happy to be at work. When humans aren’t stretching the potential of what is possible for themselves, we feel soulless.
Go out there and earn money on your own. Humans were not collectively meant to work in a job. Only over the last 100 years has the corporate hierarchy taken over.
