We Have Been Sold A Lie - Part 1

Courtesy of Yahoo News:

"For the past 40 or 50 years, Americans have lived by a series of unofficial tenets: A good education guarantees a good job, hard work will bring prosperity, and 40 years of 40-hour-a-week work earns a comfortable retirement. Then, maybe; now, not so much. Workers who believe that somebody owes them a comfortable life just because they try hard are risking bitter disappointment in a Darwinian economy, where there are likely to be more losers and fewer winners than we're used to. The winners will be those who learn how to adapt, expect nobody to give them anything, and are prepared to work harder in the future than they did in the past. That's how it was in America before anybody ever heard of the middle class, and it may be that way for a while again. The real middle class--the true bedrock of the nation--will be able to handle it."

Friends, this is what folks in my industry have always known. We have been proclaiming the truth for years about this lie (get a good education so that you can get a good job, work 40 hours a week for 40 years and you'll be set) and yet few people actually listen. Of the ones who do, even fewer of them are actually willing to do something about it. Of those who are, they are the winners. Of those winners, those who persevere become the top 2% of income earners.

"The first 40 hours (a week) you work, you work for a living. The next 40 hours (the same week) you work, you work for a lifestyle."

~Anonymous

Of course, you probably have to work 50-60 hours a week now to maintain your standard of living. Indeed many are worried about their falling income, rising costs, and reduced financial safety net (though their ultimate safety net should be dependence on God and not something tangible anyway). The question is: what are you willing to do about it?

We meet so many who have big mouths to complain, yet when push comes to shove, they scurry away either because of fear of ridicule/embarrassment/other people's unqualified opinions or they think they know better. Personally, I rather take financial advice from someone qualified to give it -- someone who is actually retired and still making money, more than they did when they were working; not the financial advisors who are still working to earn 5- or 6-figures each year, not Grandma or Uncle Bob, not the broke guy in the cubicle down the row, and most certainly not the bathroom wall of the 21st Century, the Internet. (Honestly folks, I could take a picture of your good-looking significant other and paste it on the Internet with my own opinion. Does that make it true?)

Listen, in the end, only you (not the politicians or government) are responsible for taking care of your family. If I can show you a legal and ethical way to replace or add to your income in a quarter of the time, and that income will continue for the rest of your life PLUS it is will-able for up to 4 generations, would you really do something for your family?