It was Tuesday morning and he was exhausted. He was not a party-goer. He did not visit the clubs during the weekend. He was simply exhausted. His life was drained by his work. Even though he loved his job, he hated his work. it was 7 am in the morning and his shift was about to start at 10 am. The perks of being the manager were that he could arrive a few minutes late. This usually worked in his favour because he had to walk 5 km to work every day. So at this time, he was already late anyway.
As he lay in his bed, thinking of an excuse to give to his supervisor for being late, which he won’t anyway, his phone rang. A notification appeared on his screen:
“TODAY’S THE DAY THE LORD HAS MADE!”
The daily affirmation from his Bible reminded him that today was the day that the good Lord has made. “What a crappy day You decided to make,” he thought to himself as he rolled over in his sheets. Facing the opposite end of his bed, the solid wall faced him. Perhaps not so solid as the wall was drywall. He thanked the heavens that his neighbour was the stay-in-the-room type girl. The walls were so thin, that he could hear what show the girl was watching and what were the commercials in between her shows. At least, she was single he thought to himself.
After 15 minutes of contemplating his life, he finally decided to wake up. However, that was not enough. It took a further 10 minutes to get up from his bed. He stretched his arms as far as possible. Blood rushed to his head and he fell back on the bed. He lay on top of his unmade bed. Thoughts of not going to work drifted into his mind again. It took a further 12 minutes to finally gather the strength to get up from his bed. This time he stayed up.
It was now 7:47 am. His apartment was a tiny studio apartment. The main room was the kitchen area and bedroom with an en-suite bathroom. The bathroom was big enough to shower and sit on the porcelain. The basin was an afterthought installed by the landlords. It wasn’t hard to tell that the apartment used to be a garage. It got cold when it was cold and it got hot when it was hot. It was a pretty decent apartment, especially for a young bachelor such as himself. But the foundations of the apartment remained to be that of a garage. It was not might to be living courters. And this proved to be true every morning as he had to clean out heaps of dead ants on the floor. It was a consistent reminder that he was not home. He was living out the backroom of another man.
After his shower, the clock read 8:12 am. At this point in time, he knew he did not have time to eat. With traffic, he figured he could perhaps be at least 10 minutes late for work. But as habit would have it, he brewed himself a creamy, hot cup of coffee. As the kettle whistled promises of sweet coffee, he went over to his laptop and opened YouTube. It had become a ritual that every morning he would watch a video or two about personal development. These videos would take 30 to 45 minutes each morning. He knew that he would save time each morning if he did not watch them. But these videos, to him, were important. They allowed him to remember his goals and remember that he is the captain of his fate. Without these videos, he would be a slave to the system. That was the last thing he wanted to be.
As the kettle clicked to signal the water was ready to create his cup of coffee, he got up from his seat and walked to the kitchen counter. A tiny workspace literally just enough to place his cup. The countertop was covered with the mini two-plate oven and kettle. Next to the kettle was the sink. The tiny area between the sink and the kettle was the only area available to work in the kitchen. Underneath the counter were the different compartments that housed his kitchen condiments. He opened the compartment on top and extracted the bottle of coffee, the sugar, and the coffee creamer. He grabbed his cup from the second compartment and began working his magic. He added one teaspoon of instant coffee, five teaspoons of the coffee creamer, and one teaspoon of sugar. He added just enough water to make a paste of the mix. Then, he opened the fridge and pulled the carton of milk. The rest of the cup was filled with milk. The last step of his wonderful coffee mix included the microwave. He knew the time it took to heat up the milk before it boiled over. He placed the cup into the microwave, set the time to 2 minutes, and watched as the light inside the microwave illuminated his morning fix. 2 minutes later, the light died and the timer beeped. He carefully held the handle of the cup and pulled the cup out of the microwave. His cup of deliciousness was ready.
With his cup of delight in his hand, he walked back to his laptop. He placed the cup of coffee on a coaster and switched to grab the computer mouse. He clicked open the browser, clicked open the saved Youtube bookmark, and began scrolling to a video that caught his attention. Three scrolls in, one video stole his attention. The thumbnail was a simple graph with the host looking up at it. The title read “How The Rich Trade Value For Money and Not Time!” This is a concept he had read before in Robert Kiyosaki’s ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad‘. But it wouldn’t be a problem to hear someone else take on the concept and so, he clicked on the video. It was now 8:21 am.
The concept of trading value for money and not time is a pretty simple one to understand but extremely difficult to implement. The idea behind the concept is that one needs to create something that replaces the time needed to generate wealth. Time is a precious resource. It is precious because it is finite. There are only 24 hours in a day. Time is extremely limited. You can create the illusion of having more time but the truth of the matter is that there are only 24 hours in a day. Time once spent, cannot be resupplied. Thus, the concept states that it is not financially wise to use time as the primary resource of wealth creation.
As he was watching the video, he thought to himself that while he is watching the video, there is someone actively making money. While he is drinking his coffee, there is someone actively making money. And they making money without clocking in. Why was he never taught this at an early stage? Instead of being taught to depend on a job for wealth generation, why didn’t anyone teach him to create something of value that will generate his wealth for him?
All he is life, he was taught that one goes to school, gets their education, and gets a job. All his life he was taught that for him to live in this world, he had to trade time for money. Trading time for money is essentially trading one’s life for money. Time is a resource that measures and treasures one’s moments. Those moments are the ones that makeup one’s life. Which moments do you create if most of the time you are at work?
Others will say that one should work hard in order to break free from trading time for money. However, this is not true. If it was true, the mother who works to the bone at the taxi rank selling fruits would be a millionaire. He occasionally saw street vendors set up their stores as early as 5 am. And the same vendors he would see again around 6 pm. These people are working hard but they not reaping millions.
He discovered that rich people do not work hard. What they do instead is provide value. The value of an iPhone is immense. Hence the top executives of Apple’s pockets are immense as well. The value of a YouTuber with a million subscribers is great. Hence the pockets of those YouTubers are great as well. Value doesn’t have to be groundbreaking as Tesla, Apple, or Microsoft.
Value can be something simple that serves a lot of people. Steve Harvey once said that for him, making money is pretty simple. He said that he sold 10-dollar jokes to 10 people. And then was able to sell the same 10-dollar jokes to 100 people. And then he was able to sell the same 10-dollar jokes to 1000 people. He simply learned ways how to increase his reach until he made his first million.
Fundamentally, that’s how influencers make their money. Some might be sharing absolutely nothing of value to you but to someone else, what they share is extremely valuable. There are YouTubers with thousands of subscribers and some with millions of subscribers. And some of these YouTubers, all they do is react to videos. Some of these YouTubers sometimes just share how their day went at college or at work. There is someone out there who is willing to find that content somewhat valuable.
The tricky part, the part that makes it so difficult is finding those people. The difficult part is finding the first ten people who will find you valuable. And when you found that ten, the next obstacle is finding the next 100. That is what makes trading value for money difficult.
In essence, he knows that it will boil down to the power to market effectively that leads to value generating one’s wealth. The ability to market one’s value is how one can multiply their reach by 10. He remembers what Robert Kiyosaki once said. He said that it is called best-selling author, not best author. There are awards for best authors but in the context of making money through writing, that title is called best-selling author. The ability of an author to sell is how an author can make money with their books.
The same with an influencer. The ability of an influencer to get people engaged with their content is directly linked to how well they can sell their content. If an influencer feels that to attract potential buyers is by showing their body, who was he to judge? There are influencers and content creators taking their families out of poverty with their OnlyFans accounts. Who was he to judge? He, who, if he continues on the current trajectory, will probably end up living the life he desires only in his dreams? Who was he to judge those who have found ways to provide people with value that gave them the financial freedom, and time to enjoy that freedom, that he envies?
He looked at the clock and realised that it was time. He took his last sip of coffee and headed out the door. He loved his job but hated his work. Because he knew, that each minute he spent at work was eating away the moments that made his life.
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