Maximizing your income, AKA making more money, is definitely the most obvious and widely known part of becoming wealthy. We hear about CEOs making millions and millions of dollars, and think, “Yeah, it’d be easy to have tons of money if I made that much too!”
Good news! You don’t have to make millions of dollars a year. You just have to make more than you spend. And the higher your income is in relation to your spending, the more you’ll be able to invest. So how do you make your income higher?
Get a job (another obvious one there). But most people stop at “Get a job”. If you’re really looking to add some extra income, consider another job! Do something on the weekends. Get a side hustle. Mow some lawns, babysit, help a local business figure out how to use a computer, sell popsicles on hot summer days, run a textbook business on campus, sell your plasma. These are just random ideas off the top of my head, but you get the idea. There are always opportunities, if you see one or think of one, take advantage of it!
Learning new skills is also a huge step to earning more money. You can learn just about anything online now. For example, I taught myself how to cut my own hair, and I now cut other people’s hair which supplies me with occasional extra income. It’s a very small amount of money, but you can go much bigger. You could learn how to code for free and boost your income tens of thousands of dollars.
But making more money is not the most important part of becoming wealthy. Plenty of people make loads of money, but can’t hold onto it. Unfortunately, success in today’s culture means driving new cars, buying flashy clothes, and living in ridiculously large houses. We are taught that our spending should rise as our income rises. But that goes against the second part of the Secret Equation to Become Wealthy…
(Pictured: Me at Winspear Opera House. Dallas, TX September 2015)