The ultimate paradox: The lazier you are, the richer you are.
Relax your way to riches! You need to start realizing how the laziest people are the richest.
If you don’t know what the best business to get in is, someone else will tell you, but you’ll find yourself chasing your tail. I was reading a real estate investment book written by the successful Dave Van Horn, and noticed that he was always getting into something “better” throughout his career. He starts off buying houses with his own cash, fixing them himself, and selling them. Then realizes he can start to outsource more and more of his work. The lazier this guy gets, the richer he becomes. Consider the following sentiment and the wealth of each of these different levels:
Banks – Why do any work when we can just lend out the money to an investor?
Investors – Why repair the house myself and deal with all the headaches when I can just contract it out to a builder?
Builders / Syndicates – Why deal with the tenants for the houses we build when we can contract it out to a property management company?
Property Management Companies – Why do the repair work ourselves when we can contract it out to some local handy man services?
Construction Workers – Good thing I’ve got so much job security and they can’t outsource my work overseas! Back to work.
Meanwhile, the suppliers are behind the curtains, like when Levi Strauss said, “Why mine for gold when I can sell jeans needed for the miners?” – Levi wins whether miners find gold or not! Same mentality the lumber mills have towards the builders. “Why be the bank when we can get massive ROI as a mill?” Whomever said “money doesn’t grow on trees” never saw a P&L for a lumber yard!
But consider what all those ‘levels’ look like in regards to: the ROI (6% for a bank, but infinite for a worker that has to put in no money to get a paycheck), scalability (very scalable for a bank, not scalable at all for a worker), and stress / risk of each of those levels.
This post title was almost, “Get out of the business you’re in, because this is better.” There’s always something “better” if you don’t know how to define “better.” At the end of the day, if it pays the bills and you like doing it – keep doing what you’re doing.
