What I learned by playing a board game.
I love playing games, you know, board games. My cousin (from my husband's side) has this really fun game called Rat Race that she and many of my friends like to play. We will sit there and play for hours (one time we played for 8 hours straight!)
The concept of the game is that you take a little Rat Man Game Piece and roll some dice and try to get out of this small circular area of the board called the "Rat Race" or what everyday man calls: LIFE. The goal is to move from the Rat Race into your DREAMS which is a larger area of the board in the game. It can take hours for a player to get out of the little bitty circular space that is the Rat Race and move into the bigger expanse of the board. Once in the bigger expanse of the board, the player makes loads and loads of money easily and the goal changes from gaining enough money to get out of the rat race into falling on the circumstances that allow you to obtain your dream.
I've played the game over and over again, trying to figure out what is the thing that holds me back in the real world of "gaining my dreams". Why am I still in the rat race . . .
When it came to me. I'm in the rat race because I'm identifying with the RAT! And dog gone it, I'm not a rat. What is stopping me from living my dreams, from having the type of wealth I want, the income I want, the life that I've always wanted?
This little psychological problem: MY THINKING.
I'm at work. Working my ass off. Working hard, running back and forth, fixing problems, juggle impossible tasks, schedules and projects. I'm doing what seems like the impossible and then going home and nearly falling into bed in a near faint. I'm working hard. And because I'm working hard, doing things I hate doing, being in a place that I hate being, dealing with difficult people for the measly salary that I get . . . I think:
If I get $(insert yearly salary here) for doing all of this stuff I hate. . . then how much crap will I have to do/take to get $100,000 or $150,000 or $200,000 a year?
And that's the problem. Our heads are still in the Rat Race!
Here's the facts people. And I want you to read this real slow. In fact, I want you to read this every day until it gets into your thick skulls . . .
The amount of money you make does not mean your work gets harder, or you deal with more stuff, or you must work with even more difficult people. The amount of money you make is the worth that you put on what you know. The amount of money you make actually becomes greater as more people know, understand and value the work you do. That's it. That's all. Want to make more money? Make sure more people know about the work you can do.
An example:
Let's say you are an Accountant by trade. You can work for an accounting firm or for a company that needs accounting services (every large company needs accountants on staff). You make an okay, five-figure income. You work hard, but promotion, raises and bonuses are at the whim of your boss -- and it doesn't look like you'll getting any of those benefits soon. What do you do if you want to become a six-figure earner? Well, as an Accountant you probably have experience/knowledge of tax laws. What can you do with this knowledge?
OPTION:
- You can begin a business on the side, helping small and new business clients complete their taxes.
[Good idea! But this limits you to helping a hand-full of people. There's just so much time in the day and you are only one person -- so only about a half dozen people can be helped using this method. Unless each of those half-a-dozen people are willing to pay you $16,000 a year for services rendered, this method may not be the best way to gain the six-figure salary you want.]
- You can begin a business teaching new business owners all about their taxes breaks.
[This is a much better idea because you can now expand your audience to a class room full of people -- around 30 or 40 individuals. This has the potential for more money but you have to produce the class over and over again. Marketing your class over and over and over again to make sure you get a classroom full of people. To gain a six-figure income, you would have to charge $112 each student, conduct the class 30 times in one year and each class would have to enroll a minimum of 30 students.]
- You can create a DVD teaching new business owners all about their taxes and breaks.
[Much better. You can produce your class as stated in #2 above and have it filmed and create a DVD. Continuously market this DVD and you can gain "passive income". You produce the class once, and get paid every time someone orders your DVD! The more people you market to, the more changes you can make money from your product without additional "work" -- are you starting to see what I mean about the more people who know about your work, the more potential money you can make? If you sold your DVD for $129 you would only need to sell 775 DVDs in one year to become a six-figure earner.)
- You can create tele-seminars teaching new business owners all about their taxes and breaks.
[Tele-seminars are like #2 without limits. You can have hundreds of people all around the world on one of your tele-seminars. You can create a tele-seminar in your own time. You can repeat the play of your tele-seminar if you find it wildly popular, with unlimited viewers.]
Notice that in many of these scenarios, you are not working harder. You are doing the same things that you do daily. The difference is you are serving more people and more people are valuing your services. The goal is to maximize on the number of people that you can serve!
The amount of money you make actually becomes greater as more people know, understand and value the work you do.
So for many of us, our biggest obstacle to advancing our work, or growing our business, or asking for a raise or negotiating a salary, is that we truly think if we get more money, we'll have to do more work and as far as work goes we're already at our limit so . . . WRONG! Stop thinking that way!
The amount of money you make actually becomes greater as more people know, understand and value the work you do.
The difference between you and a six-figure-income person is:
A six-figure income earner markets their specialized skill or knowledge to large groups of people. The more people who know what they do, the better.
A six-figure income earner takes on more responsibility or what "looks like" more responsibility. But in fact, they just take on the responsibility of their life, their career, their livelihood. No one cares more about your prosperity and your money business than you. Stop looking to your boss, colleagues or others to prove your value and your worth.
A six-figure income earner already knows what they are worth and are willing to fight/negotiation for it.
A six-figure income earner is willing to walk away from bad deals or create their own opportunities.
If you are not doing any of the four things above and you want to start being a six-figure income earner. Then start doing those things today. The faster you starting doing these four things, the richer your bank account and your life will be. Let's start now, after all, I've always wanted to have powerful and influential friends!
Until next time my lovelies.
Excerpted from my blog (https://telecommutingmillionaire.blogspot.com/2013/11/RatRace.html)