How do you have wealth with no money?
When you are first starting out forging your entrepreneurial career path the chances you have money are not high. The majority of the time you are trying to keep your head above water. So you ask yourself, “How can I earn a living?” Remember you have bills that are due on the 1st of the month (every month). You do not have the luxury of taking 8 months to negative cash flow. Therefore you are not in “business” you are in a “profession”.
So how do you make the decision to enter a world where no one guarantees your paycheck? How do you enter a world to build “wealth” when you have no “money”?
Good questions right?
Let me tell you how it started for me.
When I was 17 I was confronted with the dilemma of “bills”. I was also confronted with the fact that I lacked money. My natural instinct was to “learn”. I spent more than a year reading every type of book I could find. I must have read over 50 books on making money in real estate. I learned a great deal. I joined the military to qualify for a “VA Loan” so I could buy my first house. By the time I was 19 I assumed I knew every type of unconventional strategy you could think of. Then a close a very close family member of mine said one simple statement, “Knowledge is power but when is power ever knowledge?”
Many people think by picking up books and learning their contents they will become wise. There is a great deal of truth to that concept. The issue is…most people will not apply their knowledge. The facts of buying a house sat in my mind for one year. I thought I didn’t know enough to buy a house so I wanted to keep “learning”. If the facts you learn from those words rest solely in the framework of your mind you have knowledge that is not useful. Facts that lack the ability to be applied are not practical. The inability to organize your knowledge into “action” might as well make your knowledge worthless.
What good is it knowing how to make a generator if you don’t use it for your community when they lack electricity?
At 20 years old without a clue how to get a mortgage approved I purchased my first house with my brother. I would go on to gradually buy 20 more of them. Then we would open up a real estate company, a mortgage company, and inevitably make more money than I could imagine.
I did this because I decided to “do” something with the “knowledge” I had. Regardless of whether I knew it all or not I “did” something. It was this moment for me when I converted my “knowledge” to “wealth”.
Knowledge becomes “wealth” when you can show others how to “do” something they do not know how to. The ability to practically apply what you are learning is the source of your “wealth”. Many people in business simply “do”. Have you ever heard the term “self starter”? Entrepreneurs who simply “do” get more than those that plan to do something. You must actually do something.
Do not misunderstand me.
Without organization, prudence, and attention to detail you cannot be successful long term.
Wealth is not rooted in the action of simply doing. Wealth is the ability to take the knowledge you have and apply it to a real life situation. Your application to real life is what you do in order to “earn” money. People think money is a “thing”. My approach to “money” has always been a “conversion mechanism”. Money allows you to “do” things. That’s it. Money can let you 1) occupy your residence (pay rent), 2) get from your home to work efficiently (buy a car), 3) see a doctor when you are sick (pay for health insurance), 4) spend three hours on a Wednesday morning (cover your lifestyle through residual income).
Wealth is “useful knowledge” that is applied to opportunities where the people in those opportunities do not know how to use the tools available to them to earn money.
This is why it is so important for the Professional Entrepreneur to take performance based incentive to accumulate their money. The Professional Entrepreneur takes the time to accumulated wealth (knowledge) to apply to an endeavor (opportunity) so that they can earn (money) a living. It is a very simple straight forward concept.
If you want to become “wealthy” you have to learn how to accumulate knowledge that can be directly applied to tangible situations. Then you must train yourself to recognize these situations. Once you find the situations you “act” on them. I have done this for the past 13 years to earn a very good living. You then “set” your own “value”. No one tells you what you are worth. You tell them what it is worth. The source of Wealth for the Professional Entrepreneur is an unlimited asset that can convert to money. Just like any other asset. The difference is the Professional Entrepreneur does not run out of their Wealth asset.
Let’s put it in a way that is easy to understand. If you have a 100,000 USD piece of real estate you cannot go down to Wal-mart and tell the cashier “Hey I’m going to give you one square inch of my property for this bag of rice.” You “convert” your “wealth” to money. Upon its conversion (the value which you know what it is) you then apply it to pay for your bag of rice.
Make sense?
The Professional Entrepreneur’s “Wealth” is the “Knowledge” that converts to money. Simple. As a Professional Entrepreneur you always have at least 100,000 of assets every year. The asset is in your “mind” and it is the “useful knowledge” you have that others do not.
Learn what is required to recognize the Market Gaps in an industry. Study how to enter a pond without many fishermen. Find the bait that all the fish are searching for. Then cast your lure and watch the fish fight over what you have. Then watch you convert your wealth to money.
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About Christopher: Christopher Knight Lopez is a Professional Entrepreneur. Christopher has opened over 7 businesses in his 14-year career. Christopher’s purpose is to take advantage of various market-driven opportunities. Christopher is a certified Master Project Manager (MPM) and Accredited Financial Analyst (AFA). Christopher previously held his Series 65 securities license. Christopher also has his General Lines — Life, Accident, Health & HMO. Christopher has managed a combined 286mm USD in reported Assets Under Management & Assets Under Advisement. Christopher has work experience in 29 countries, raised over 50mm USD for various businesses, and grossed over 7.5mm in his personal career. Christopher worked in the highly technical industries of: biotechnology, finance, securities, manufacturing, real estate, and residential mortgages. Christopher is a United States Air Force Veteran. Christopher has a passion for family, competitive sports, fishing, martial arts and advocacy for entrepreneurs. Christopher provides self-help classes for up-and-coming entrepreneurs. Christopher’s passion to mentor comes from belief that entrepreneurs need guidance. The world is full of conflicting information about entrepreneur identity. See more at www.christopherklopez.com
