I just talked to one of my friends about how bad things are going for him. I genuinely tried to help, offering the best advice I could. He was having difficulties with his job and his financial situation. After the talk, I felt that I didn’t really offer enough practical tips for him to make a change, so it got me thinking about what sort of things he could do in order to have more money. I decided to write this article for him and for you!
“What are some of the most basic things that somebody can do right away and receive some money?” Was my first question. Then I thought that receiving money obviously comes from adding value to some other person and then that person paying you X amount of dollars. But that sounds pretty hard when you don’t have anything to add to another human being. Your life is a mess, your job sucks, you don’t have any money. That would be the worst possible scenario right?
That is exactly what my friend was explaining to me on the phone. He feels tied to the ground because he doesn’t really have anything to offer. “Ok, I won’t argue with him.” I thought to myself.
So the challenge is to find some sort of way to make money without actually doing anything.
Is that even possible? It must be. I truly believe anything is possible. If that is true, why not make it even more of a challenge?
How about… finding something which takes just one second of “not doing” it and can make you more money. Let’s say that for just one second you’ll receive $100!
If I find a way to do this, both my friend and you could earn $500 dollars for just 5 seconds of not doing anything!
OK, that shouldn’t be so hard!
Wake up sleepy-head!
The first thing would be to just wake up. No, I don’t mean it in a figurative way. Actually wake up. Make a conscious decision to wake up when you are supposed to.
The best thing about this is that the decision to do so takes only one second.
If you are already waking up at 7:00 AM, and that’s when you are supposed to wake up, just go for 6:00 AM. Just one more hour.
This habit alone will make you $100 dollars/week. That’s because you’ll save that money, which you are now currently wasting.
I sense that you don’t trust me on this one. You don’t? Think about it! If you just use one hour in the morning for more productivity, do you think you won’t be able to find ways in which to make $100 dollars/week?
So what I am actually proposing to you is that you wake up earlier and use that extra hour only for the purpose of trying to ask the next question:
“How could I generate $100 more this week?”
Do you think that if you were to do this and really, really ponder that question one hour, for the next 5 days (in the morning when you are fresh and energetic) you won’t find the answer?
I’ll bet my bottom dollar you’ll find an answer. Your subconscious mind will tell you where you need to go, just do the work and trust in it!
“The latte factor”
Let me give you another decision which only takes one second to implement.
This will surely add up to much, much more than $100. This alone should be worth $500!
Do you know about the so called “latte factor” ? It’s a theory which says that if you save the money from the lattes you’re drinking daily, you’ll end up a millionaire. There’s an entire movement dedicated to this. Now, I don’t really promote extreme frugality. I don’t believe in it. I love living in luxury and having the finest things in life.
I also think you should live in luxury only when you can really afford it! Don’t trick yourself into thinking that you can afford small things like a daily latte or a chocolate bar or Pringles, when you know that you are actually scared to add up what those cost over the course of a month!
I had a friend back in the day who was absolutely addicted to small “shiny” stuff, usually eatable stuff like this:
or this
and this
He came from a very rich family so he afforded buying all of these. Unfortunately, he is now very poor.
This isn’t “Need For Speed” Real Life Version
Why not decide to not step on the gas with force, in that split moment when you want to impress your girl or imagine yourself a Nascar driver? Why not decide to not do that?
Don’t you think that will surely mean $100 more in your pocket?
Please understand, this is not frugality my friend. This is just common sense. This is being balanced. And you should practice it in every activity that you undertake. Not only driving. Practice it until being a balanced individual who doesn’t waste money on unecessary things will become natural.
You’ll be able to live a lavish lifestyle, I promise you, once you get the money. I’m all for Birdman’s lifestyle! But until then, please be balanced!
Eat your own food, don’t eat out!
Yap, you guessed it. It’s the old sandwich trick, which your mum used to apply when you were in school. She’d give you a home made, nasty smelling, too much “breaded”, not enough cheese and meat, sandwich!
That way she made sure you didn’t waste her money on expensive treats. It was basically an excuse for not giving you any pocket money. And yes, I did have a bad childhood!
But it did work, didn’t it? You should apply it, but maybe just improve the actual sandwich a bit. This will save you time and money, as you’ll eat straight at work, during the lunch break and you won’t commute to the nearest pizza place and neither will you spend extra dollars on that extra large shawarma!
Stop conceptualizing
Everybody plays a game inside their head. In the morning, just after we wake up and we need to go eat something, we think about what needs to be done during that day. During breaks at work or whilst in the car, driving to work, we start to think about all the work we have to do when we get to the office. So when we finally arrive at the office, we already feel tired and want to quit. We conceptualize in this manner when we arrive home instead of relaxing and actually detaching from the work enviroment, we stress about what needs to be done the next day, or what we did wrong today, or the fight we had with our boss or employees last month!
This game that we play in our heads can be stopped. It takes just one second.
It will probably save you much more than $100/month!
Why is that? You’ll be much more productive when you need to be and you’ll have less overall stress. You’ll also have a much more fulfilling existence! That will lead to an increase in your salary, an increase to the value you bring to your job. The universe is bound to give you more if you offer more!
Be in the moment, be in the “now”. I know this sounds simple and it’s sometimes hard to apply, but you must. You must think about the future only when you are in the planning phase, and think about the past only once (when you try to learn something from what has happenned). Other then that, be in the present moment.
So what do you think? Will you be able to apply all these 5 steps which take only 5 seconds to decide upon? (but obviously imply loads of discipline)
I’m guessing that by now you’ve realized that these will actually lead to something like $5,000 or $50,000 much rather han $500!
