Want Success? Work hard for it!

Recent times, I have come across people who talked about getting out of the rat's race, who talked about being business owners employing "smarter people". They dream and talk lots about the concept of financial freedom and financial abundance, yet I have no idea why they believe that they can achieve so without working hard towards it.

In other words, they simply dream and believe that they can achieve it, but took no actions or little actions towards it. It really beats me...

For the benefit of those who do not know what's the cashflow quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki, a short summary is as follows:

* E: Employee — Working for someone else.
* S: Self-employed or Small business owner — Where a person owns his own job and is his own boss.
* B: Business owner — Where a person owns a business to make money.
* I: Investor — Investing money in order to receive a larger payout in the future.

All in all, I think the Cashflow Quadrant summarizes the very well the different systems of earning money. To me, whichever quadrant you are in, you still need to work hard to achieve success in it. Success does not just happen by itself, nor does it come to the person who merely dream of it. Success is there for us to reach out and achieve.

The main difference in the quadrants is, being in the B and I quadrant allows you to still make money even though you might not be around sometimes. BUT... it doesn't mean not around indefinitely. Ultimately, a business cannot run forever without a CEO. An investor will still have to monitor his/her investments periodically to determine the state of health of his/her investments. Some work is still required to maintain them! It's a farce at times to think you do not need to work at all when you are in the B or I quadrant.

Also, in the initial stages, hard work is still required. Lots and lots of it. It appears to me that there are many who did not consider this. To me, success comes to those who worked hard for it. It's a plan, a journey, and it applies to all areas, although the context of this post is about financial success. The laptop on the table did not just come into being by itself; it was planned and designed. Your house wasn't built by chance from laying just bricks; a master blueprint and an architectural outlay is required. And in both cases, when the plan is out, the originators worked hard towards creating it! Plans are useless if they are not realised or followed. The same goes for achieving your success.

But.... you may ask.... Hard work is part of the rat's race! It's slavery! I want to be a business owner, an investor, so that I am out of the rat's race!

WAKE UP! What you want is also what the 6 billion population wants! Who doesn't want an easy job that's high-paying? What makes you think people will want to work for you if you do not put in the hard work yourself at the initial stages? That sentence in the previous paragraph just reeks off: "I want to others to work hard for me so that I don't need to work, because I don't want to work." Yeeks!

The cashflow quadrant was created very nicely for us to understand graphically the different ways and areas where we can work for our retirement needs. Whichever quadrant we chose to be, it's our choice and happiness to do so. But warped interpretations start to proliferate around. On a certain forum, I have seen students and get-rich-quick wannabes over the last 2 years telling me that they don't want to be in the rat's race, and act as if they understood many secrets that their seniors in life do not. Incidentally, these people stem from MLM companies (disclaimer: I'm not against MLM) and were blindly repeating what was told to them. They are fresh to the society, and are easily influenced and swayed by promises.

Yet, they give me the impression that they do not want to work hard as well. Not surprisingly, these people slowly realised the dreams were much too idealistic over about half a year, and eventually stopped their forum postings, only to be replaced by a new bunch of forumers. Perhaps they became extremely successful, and could not afford the time to reply {contradicting the original idea of not needing to work}, I wouldn't know... But I doubt so.

I'm pragmatic, I go for pragmatism. Yes, I from the younger generation in the work force, born in 1983, and I have my personal ideals and dreams. But I make sure my plan is there, my blueprint in my hand, my journey in sight, my goals intact and down-to-earth. Dream big, dream far, yes... But dreaming very big and far while thinking you can achieve those dreams without working very hard???? That's not me.

To succeed, you have to work hard and work smart for it. You have to love work. Nothing can replace hard work.


I shall conclude with the following taken from the last chapter in the book "The Richest Man in Babylon" by George Clason.

"Work, thou see, by this, in the time of my greatest distress, didst prove to be my best friend. My willingness to work enabled me to escape from being sold to join the slave gangs upon the walls. It also so impressed thy grandfather, he selected me for his partner."

Then Hadan Gula questioned, "Was work my grandfather's secret key to the golden shekels?"

"It was the only key he had when I first knew him," Sharru Nada replied. "Thy grandfather enjoyed working. The Gods appreciated his efforts and rewarded him liberally."