Your job is a necessary evil during the early stages of your wealth creation, but it should not represent a long-term plan. Not only do jobs restrict your income potential, they may also be hazardous to future income. Recent surveys and census data indicate approximately 30% of people will be forced to retire early due to circumstances beyond their control, including layoffs and illnesses.

Jobs are created by entrepreneurs who understand that wealth is created by adding value to raw material or services, and selling finished products or services at a profit. Who adds the value to raw materials and services? You do. You are only valuable to an employer when you can effectively and efficiently add value to the organization’s product or service.

So, if you are interested in rising above a just over broke (J.O.B.) existence, you need to take Work sucks’ advice and look for income opportunities outside employment.

There’s no denying the fact that a job, with a steady income, is nice to have. It helps you pay the bills and keeps a roof over your family’s head. Unfortunately, that’s about all it does. What’s in a job? Security? A pension? Some of us are dreaming of retirement, thinking we’ll be happy living off half of what we can’t afford to live on today.

A job was never meant to make people wealthy. In a free market environment we sell our labor to an employer for the highest pay possible, while your boss tries to pay you the lowest wage you will accept. Usually the boss wins, because he is in control of the purse strings. As long as you look to your job for wealth, you will be disappointed.

If you want to become wealthy, you must look beyond your job. You earn a living between 9 and 5, but you achieve wealth after 5 and on weekends.

Most Nigerians think a job is security, but they are wrong. As long as you depend upon somebody else for your livelihood, you are a slave to that person and/or organization. And like a slave, you can be dispensed with as soon as they deem your services uneconomical. It’s a negative image, and I apologize for hitting you with it, but you can’t sit back and relax in the pseudo security of a job or retirement plan and expect others to secure a financial future for you and your family. Dependence is not security; independence is security.

Hard working people have entrusted employers to provide them lifetime employment. Unfortunately, this trust does not reflect reality.

Owning your own business is one vehicle you can use to take responsibility for your own financial future, without having to depend upon the vagaries of an unjust job market. The expression, “if you want to catch fish, you have to risk the bait,” is so common it has become cliché. But how many of us actually incorporate that basic philosophy into our lives?

Are you willing to risk the “security” of the traditional nine to five, Monday through Friday routine, to enjoy financial freedom? Vince Lombardi once stated “the will to excel, the will to win: these are the things that endure.” A business built with your own hands, energy, and ingenuity can endure where a job cannot, but if you expect to become a successful entrepreneur, you will have to take risks.

Taking risks to create wealth does not mean senseless gambling of your savings in the stock or bond markets, or betting everything on a horse race. Taking a risk means putting your self-confidence and self-image on the line. It means taking the chance of being embarrassed in the marketplace. And, it can also mean going against popular opinion and peer pressure to follow a dream. As Teddy Roosevelt was fond of saying, “seek opportunity, not security.”

Current labor statistics do not paint a pretty picture, with quality jobs being outsourced overseas quicker than new jobs are being created. Sure, there are always low paying, low skill jobs available. But who can support a family on minimum wage?

Dependence is not security--independence is security. Don't sit back and relax in the pseudo security of a job or retirement plan. To achieve wealth you will need to learn how to accept and manage a certain amount of risk.

Success gurus like Anthony Robbins and Robert Kiyosaki teach that you have to get excited about wealth building to achieve success. What excites you about building personal wealth? How do you feel about poverty, or the lack of money? What motivates you to spend your free time reading books like this, studying interest rate tables, or analyzing stocks and real estate deals?

To achieve financial success you must get emotionally charged over something wealth represents. After all, it’s probably not the money you are after. You are after the security and promise of a better life.