There are Two Ways to Make Money

Back before the industrial revolution, I believe more people were entrepreneurs and business owners. You had the butcher, the blacksmith, the baker, etc. It was more typical to develop the skills of building relationships, sales and marketing in your community, and figuring out for yourself how to earn a living.

But then the promise of the industrial revolution was you no longer had to figure out how to make money. If you just show up at the factory and do what your boss says, you got paid.

And now for a few generations people have taken the “easy” money that was given to them by working for a big company. But the tradeoff is you get paid less than your are worth (the excess productivity shows up as a profit for the company and shareholders) and you get a steady paycheck at the expense of the value of your work. If you invent something that makes or saves your company millions of dollars per year, your salary is unlikely to change much. Maybe you make a small bonus here and there, but all the upside is owned by the company.

And now, more and more people are waking up to entrepreneurship. And realizing they have not only the opportunity for more financial success, they are happier and more energized working for themself than working a corporate job.

So today, in 2020, there are still 2 ways to make money:

• JOB: Do what your job tells you to do and get paid
• ENTREPRENEURSHIP: Figure out how to make money for yourself

And maybe this seems obvious, but here is the hidden challenge.

If you want all the upside of entrepreneurship, you CAN NOT expect someone else to tell you what to do and the steps to take to make money. THAT IS CALLED A JOB.

If you want to be an entrepreneur, you will have to figure out a lot of the steps yourself and figure out how to make money. That is why it says above “Figure out how to make money for yourself”.

That’s the deal.

And listen, for sure you can find a great book, podcast, online course or mentor to help you shorten the learning curve, but ultimately no matter what you will eventually find yourself in the jungle of entrepreneurship, needing to use your own machete to forge your own path.

And that is why so many people who WANT to become entrepreneurs get stuck. They are looking for the concrete easy to follow 1-2-3 guide of fool-proof steps to take and then money shows up. That can happen in a job, but not in entrepreneurship.

So my best advice is to just get started. Sell something on eBay, get experience. Learn to make $10, then $100, then $100 per month, then $1,000 per month and so on.

But please don’t expect it to be as easy as showing up to a job, clocking in, and following orders.

And with that insight, give yourself grace and permission to stumble, fail and have setbacks along the way.

If you want more than a job – then you have to figure it out (much of it) for yourself. In part because there really are almost an unlimited number of way to make money, and what works for one person isn’t necessarily going to work for someone else.