Go to school, get a good grade, if you can do well, you will get a good job and hence live a successful life”. With due respect to everyone, this is insane advice with recourse to the everyday reality of our world. Going to school so that you could become successful is a fallacy and has been for as long as I can remember in the history of the world. History has always recorded people performing extraordinary feats outside the confines of the established system of the day. Jesus at 12 years was already more knowledgeable than the temple teachers; Mark Zukerberg dropped out of Harvard to build a world-class institution in less than 10 years; limbless folk are richer than able-bodied folk; dead people are making more money than the living. Point is, there is more than enough evidence to show that if you want to make a mark, established system of operations are the lowest level of success possible, you need to think and operate at the level of unconventional wisdom and faith.

I believe that every human being created for so much more than money, that what really gives every man satisfaction which is what we seek, is beyond just what we can get for ourselves. That when human beings really introspect, and look deeply, the things that give them true satisfaction is beyond money, they want to leave a legacy, help people as much as possible, give of themselves. In the light of this, the advice to “Go to school, get a good grade, if you can do well, you will get a good job and hence live a successful life” is such a SELFISH agenda. There are just so many wrongs in that statement, it doesn’t lead to wealth, doesn’t give fulfillment, neither does it make you more spiritual (ask the millions who rush to work at 5am and get back at 9am).

God has created to be able to have ‘wake-up calls’, we are able to evaluate our positions in life and retrace our steps. There is nothing demeaning or foolish about turning back as soon as you discover you are on the wrong track. How did these people become financially free such that they were able to with the power of passive income live their dreams. It is simply a question of LEVERAGE. To create wealth, you either leverage on TIME, PEOPLE or MONEY. 95% of people leverage on time and that is where poverty, stares people down.

If you leverage time to make money, it means anything that touches your time, touches your money. Job, self employed, small business, etc directly leverages your time. Its simply Time = $$$; falling sick, resigning, sack, etc affect your money. You live in a place where there isn’t time freedom to create other sources of income, no time for family, no time to engage the activities that lift soul and spirit. This crazy cycles goes on till retirement if they keep you that long, and all of a sudden, you realize you haven’t scratched the surface of your dreams. Time = $$$ is where the majority find themselves, its the least level of personal responsibility. It may be a good place to start, but its a means to an end, not an end in itself. JOB – Just Over Broke; was never meant to make anyone rich. There is hardly enough time for the dreams of our heart to invest all of it chasing ‘salary’ which was never meant to satisfy, nor be enough. Why any would invest so much in this endeavor is a mystery to me, or maybe they were ignorant of this reality. Now you know!

Leveraging on PEOPLE (i.e. People = $$$) is where most big businesses live. The idea that you can use other people’s time and efforts to create value instead of yourself. Truth is, I am not surprised about the angst majority of folk have towards rich business people. It is because they are the ones being leveraged on. Paul Getty said “I’d rather earn 1% of 100 people’s efforts than 100% of my own efforts”. Creating a system that leverages people’s time, effort and their money isn’t as difficult as it seems if we are determined to take the hard steps. This is the bane of majority – doing the hard work of making up their mind! The options we know ranges from growing your business to have 500 employees, according to Forbes, whatever business you are engaged in, the point is, do you ever envisage growing it to the point where it doesn’t need you? If not, you have just decided to own a job for life. Or you can short-circuit the process and get a KFC franchise, or something of that sort only snag is the huge capital outlay to get started in it. Network marketing is another fantastic option and one I am involved in, where you build an organisation by leveraging on friends and family and has been touted as the option for a 90% of the world considering how difficult and expensive it is to build a big business or get a franchise. Network marketing not only enables you earn fantastic income in the interim, over 5 years of building this business, you can earn fantastic passive income but in the process, you develop the highly needed business skills that going to a traditional business school will not provide.

Leveraging on MONEY (i.e. Money = more $$$) is where people who have raised enough capital via leveraging on people, get to play. To leverage on money to create more money, you need to have grown wealth through leveraging TIME with financial intelligence or leveraging PEOPLE. Examples include real estate, shares, bonds, stocks, etc.

The point is being financially free at 65 years. That you are able to generate enough passive income to take care of your living expenses at that age. For simplicity, let’s say you spend $3000 per month on your life style and charity work the way you like to, yet the system of leverage you have created, generates $5000. This is financial freedom, where you are not working for money but money is working for you.

New levels call for new rules of engagement. You will still be working at 65 years, unless you are FINANCIALLY FREE.