It’s strange that for a society that’s so focused on making money and owning assets, we have some pretty unusual and downright scary approaches to the stuff and how it comes into our possession. Money doesn’t grow on trees, but we give our children and ourselves the idea that it’s nearly unattainable to make enough of it to live the way we want. Here are three of the common misconceptions that our society taught me that my own experiences in business have shattered.
It Takes Money to Make Money
Having money can make it easier to make more money, properly utilized. If not for that fact, venture capital wouldn’t be a big industry. However, if you don’t have money, it doesn’t mean you can’t make any. Plenty of big earners today started off bootstrapping. I bootstrapped my business and it worked. Perhaps it’s more convenient to make money when you’ve got money but in no way is it a prerequisite. You just need to put in some effort, some brains and be good at what you do. Personally, I’m of the opposite opinion: if you can acquire funding that you need to pay back later, you’re not in the best position. The best position is to bootstrap your operation and build it up from small but affordable beginnings. You don’t want to be owing anything to anyone at any point; perhaps the “it’s cool to get into debt even if you don’t really have to” myth should be shattered in another article! Evidently if you want to open a retail business you’ll need funding, but there are plenty of business plans that can be thought up and executed without the need for capital or loans, which means the old saying that it takes money to make money is not true.
Time and Money are Proportionally Related
This is a very common one. Because the industrial age and the model of employment it brought about is based on a proportional relationship between time and money we tend to associate that relationship with money, rather than with employment. So let’s get that clear: the relationship between time and money is imposed by employment, not the idea of money itself. If you’re clever with your business plan, you can create something that makes money based on other things, like product sales. Look at online membership training sites as an example — if you can find 100 customers for a $100 a month program you’ve made $10,000 (from which you subtract your marketing and hosting expenses, among any others). I’m not insinuating it is easy to make $10,000 a month but I am saying that your income doesn’t have to be proportional to your time investment.
Money is the Root of Evil
This old proverb is a pet peeve of mine because it and the attitudes it engenders are the seeds of what make people averse to making money. Seeing money as some kind of enemy, or something that is difficult to work with, is like setting yourself up not to make any. Money is a tool like any other and these emotional connotations do not assist in the acquisition or use of that tool. Once you begin to see it for what it is, your business decisions can be based in reality and have a level of objectivity associated with them. Many people make stupid business decisions because they have developed certain mindsets regarding cash and these need to be put to the back of your mind. Fears about losing money, or the idea that money is evil, simply don’t help anyone.
Change Your Mind
If you’ve fallen prey to these misconceptions, it isn’t too late to change your mind. It can be hard to escape from old mindsets and habits imposed on you by the culture you live in, but that doesn’t make it impossible. I don’t subscribe to the “it’s only worth doing if it’s difficult” mindset but in this case, the difficult is certainly worth doing!
