WARNING: this tweet from Wall Street Playboys will make you think:
When starting a business or investing our $$$, we have a tendency to only think of financial risk. As this tweet points out, financial risk isn’t as important is time risk.
We would all agree that time is more valuable than money, right?
Time cannot be replaced. Money can be. Because time is irreplaceable and of immense value, we should always try and consider the time risk with every investment we make. Is this particular investment or business worth the amount of time you’ll be investing? Any investment or business must be a significant opportunity to justify your time investment.
I used to be a certified public accountant. For this job, I had to get an accounting degree. I had to have several years of actual accounting work experience. I had to take CPA exam preparation courses. I had to pass the CPA exam, which is very challenging.
I never once stopped to think about how much time had to be invested to become a CPA. It was at least 7 years of my life. After I got my public accounting job, I worked 70 + hour weeks at the firm. This was a MASSIVE TIME INVESTMENT. Even worse, it was from the ages of 18 through 25 when I was young, hungry, and willing to knock down walls because I didn’t know any better.
Turns out that I hated accounting. Today, I don’t even do my own tax returns. 🙂
I met some great people in my accounting journey, but I didn’t learn anything about investing, marketing, salesmanship, or entrepreneurship. I learned how to audit financial statements to see if the company was cooking the books. The skills I didn’t learn are far more valuable than the skills I did learn. Thankfully, I realized I could walk away from the corporate world, but I lost so much valuable time.
I’m sure we all have similar stories. We have all invested our precious time into things with low returns. One of the reasons we do this is because we haven’t been taught about time risk. When we do finally realize the value of our time, we tend to make some significant changes:
1. We stop working for one paycheck, or one commission check.
(These activities are trading time for money and it’s always a bad trade.)
2. We learn to make work and business fit our schedules instead of fitting our schedules around work and business.
(We always make the rules for our lives. You’re either a slave to work or work is a slave to you)
3. We focus on buying or building assets that can be sold, or used to generate future income.
(Why work if you’re not creating an asset? Seriously)
