Wealth
In today's world we are bombarded with images and stories of extravagantly wealthy people. Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and the list goes on. But do we ever sit and wonder why or how they're so wealthy? What is it they do that makes them wealthy? Sure you can point at the giant business and say, "that," but what is, "that," I want to answer that question today.
What makes an income?
We all know that our work is what makes an income for us, but have you ever stopped and thought of what work is, or why it's important to wealth building? It's a simple question and can be answered simply, but beneath the surface there is a core reason wealth is built through work. It's the reason we all live in luxury in the modern world, why even a homeless person is more well off than a homeless person even 200 years ago. One word. Infrastructure.
Infrastructure!
Daily we have many encounters with infrastructure, we use it so much we don't even remind ourselves to thank the people who built it or even thank the people who thought of it. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the man credited with believing in the highway, used his infrastructure building capabilities to create a system to connect buyers and sellers of goods reliably. Without a highway how long do you think it would take to receive even a small letter from someone who was across the country? I'd wager it would take a lot longer, and now think of a tractor trailer operating without a highway. I personally do not believe it would make it too far. One last example would be the ability for businesses to open a location along roads that connect to the highway, allowing for more customers and in turn, more wealth. A major piece of infrastructure like this is a blessing but there is infrastructure everywhere and they all help you generate wealth and even generate wealth for others.
New age infrastructure
Everyone associates highways with infrastructure but what about what makes the Information Era's much better? The reason for the mass wealth generation of today is because of the internet. Ideas can be exchanged immediately once sent out into the world, everyone can contribute way faster. They internet it an even more amazing piece of infrastructure, they call it, "The Information Highway!" What is information? It is the key to generating new ideas to help people any way you want to. This thing we use everyday is the most over powered tool for anyone to use, all the information in the world can be accessed for free if you know how and where to look! Anyone can start up a store on the internet too, no more looking for real estate, now there is digital estate such as domains. Starting to generate wealth is easier than ever because now you can contribute to infrastructure building for way less capital than ever before.
How is infrastructure useful for me?
Today we are bombarded with ads daily, similar to billboards we shout our names and hope someone in need of us hears and responds. There is always someone in need, and when someone needs help that usually means they dont have the time to deal with it on their own. There is the magic, you can easily find people who don't have the time to cook, clean, learn something or even sell something. You can always find someone in need. Especially today when the world is moving faster than ever and we are generating more wealth than ever. Your time is what creates time for others, and well time is an extraordinarily valuable resource, not everyone has a lot of it. Our infrastructures save time between every task and event leading to more time that needs to be allocated, which leads to more things needing to be done, which leads to more time needed on hand. Humans have time, and can allocate it quite well compared to a donkey (if you're a donkey and reading this, that does not apply to you), so you're more likely to be hired if you can help people spend their time wisely.
How can I help?
Your idea doesn't have to be completely fresh to help infrastructure, you can contribute to existing infrastructure. Jeff Bezos made it easier to link buyers and sellers of products, while Mark Zuckerberg made it easier to link families and friends, while also using that data to connect advertisers with buyers easier. The whole point for infrastructures existence is to connect people with a problem to someone who can reliably fix it without many problems in between. Your contribution to infrastructure could be as simple as an Amazon store page with your goods listed, or as complex as a new way to connect many people with each other. The quicker ideas and resources can flow between the right people the more wealth can be created. Because your time is valuable and even with amazing skills you're nothing without finding the people who need the skills.
How is wealth created, what is it?
Wealth is not money, wealth is somewhat food, somewhat any luxury. Those are measurements of wealth but not the full picture. Wealth is created through spent time, this blog is a contribution of wealth, any task that increases the total luxury, knowledge or surplus in the world is wealth, the expenditure of time you wont get back into a meaningful task that saves other people's time is wealth. Your wealth is measured by how much time of others you have. Cash is not anything without the time people put behind it, cash is just a paper recipe, but because so many people spend so much of their time trying to capture as much as possible it gives cash value. We spend cash at grocery stores so we can spend time doing other jobs and farmers can spend time creating our delicious vegetables, fruits and meats. Money is Time, not the other way around. We spend time for money, and you are what you eat, money eats our time away.
What to do?
The last thing I want to touch on is what to do with this information. I highly encourage you to spend your time doing something you love that you know will help other people. Look at a problem you and your community has, and spend time fixing it for a fee. Everyone needs to eat, don't let your hard beautiful work go to waste, you have an amazing brain that can work very hard at anything, you just need a reason to kick it into gear! I believe everyone should eventually own a business in their lifetime, especially top ranking employees. Those are the people who love their job's and can drive innovation unlike anyone else, the true pioneers. Yes being an employee is necessary for real world experience but as a capitalist your mission should be to open your own market and do things your way to see if they work! Never give up on the people who mentored you either, your previous employer before you started business is what made you so successful, so you should always strive to partner with that success. Wealth creation is way more when there are separate entities with the same goals as you. Align and win or divide and conquer. The latter may sound enticing to some of you, but look at the United States. With different management points and separate reasoning minds, they can mastermind to come with a goal that helps everyone, while certain places can do their own thing and either fail miserably or succeed like no other. More avenues of thought and idea expression will generate more knowledge, wealth and time for everyone, even if you delegate in a large company those resource allocations are determined by a single mind. A single mind is weak, multiple can become a mastermind.
Thank you for reading. This thought piece was provided by Mason Duke, the founder of PromiseMO, LLC
I wish you a wonderful day/night/afternoon!