4 quick steps to building wealth

1.  Find something you can do well and (at least moderately) enjoy doing.*
2.  Do it.**
3.  Try to save some of the money you make doing it.***
4.  Repeat steps 2 and 3.****

I think that may be it.  What do you think?

photo credit: woodleywonderworks

* Notice I didn’t use a phrase like “doing passionately” or “doing because you love it.”  You don’t have to love it, but you have to enjoy doing it enough that it is not annoying to you.  If you love helping people, maybe working as a nurse’s assistant is enjoyable.  If you have a passion for music, maybe owning a record store would be fun.  If you have a love of football, maybe being a sports writer is enough.  You don’t have to be Brett Favre, always “having fun out there.”

**It helps, obviously, if you enjoy investment banking or building fantastic dot-com startups instead of making rag dolls for the neighborhood kids.  However, I don’t think you can discount loving doing it.  If you want to make rag dolls, figure out a way to get rich doing it.  Launch a rag doll company, or write a how-to on the internet.  Somebody got rich on Cabbage Patch Kids, after all.

***As I’ve pointed out before several times you’re always better off thinking of more ways to MAKE money than SPEND money.  At the same time, UNLESS you are investing in your wealthbuilding (spending money to increase your skills or education or to grow a business, etc.) you’re better off spending no more than 99% of your income.  The difference between spending 99% of your income and 101% of your income is the difference between getting richer and getting poorer, any way you look at it.

****I hope that the general theme of wealth and ‘becoming rich’ doesn’t always come off as a crass pursuit of one more dollar.  I realize, for example, I might have made a lot more money continuing to claw up the corporate ladder, but I felt so drained and lifeless doing it that I had to quit (see step #1).  I like the idea of doing something more-or-less enjoyable, while making money doing it.  It may sound childish, but if you work hard at something that makes you miserable you have to wonder whether you’ll be able to continue doing it well enough to succeed.  Something you like doing – even something you just TOLERATE doing – is a better option.  If you become wealthy doing it, so much the better; life is easier when you have a little money in the bank.