Your Money Your Life Topic - Why You Won't Be a Millionaire!
Jerrin Finney is the owner and author of blogs on The 1099 Life. Remember to always do your research and gather all the information necessary to make the best decision for yourself possible.
DISCLAIMER: Look, don't take advice from random people on the internet despite your desperation to escape your current financial situation. Stop. Think for a minute. Realize that it's more likely than not that the person writing about how you can increase your finances or get rich in X amount of days is more concerned with how they can increase their bank accounts by selling you on something, whether it's a course, seminar, book, and so on. And yes. I want your attention to get something out of it, too. I'm not saying I don't want something out of this. If I didn't want something from you, I wouldn't be publicly on the internet. I want to have more control over how I work when I work, and what projects I work on. If you need a writer and think I have the skills to help you grow your online business, then by all means, reach out to me via the links you find throughout the website!
But always do your due diligence and research the best options for yourself. Make sure you manage your risks and don't put yourself in a worse position than you already are. You may need to consult a financial professional if it makes financial sense. But you must assess your situation and try to take as little financial burden as possible through education and research. Tough to do, I know. But it's your best protection against falling for financial traps and pitfalls. So be careful with your money and proceed cautiously when pursuing any potential business opportunity.
Heads Up! I'm Not A Billionaire, Nor Do I Want To Be!
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I don't want to waste any more of your time. I don't care to be a billionaire. It seems like a miserable life to live. Once upon a time, I thought I wanted to be a billionaire. I thought it would be fun to go through the challenge of being a billionaire. But there's only so much of a challenge that my existence can put up with that's worth it. And being a billionaire? That doesn't seem worth the challenges that go along with it for me. So I will never teach you how to be a billionaire. If I become one, great. But it's not my goal to be a billionaire. I don't even want to be a millionaire, necessarily.
I don't care about money because I look at money differently. Money's just a tool. It's a middleman for what I want. I want freedom. I want control. That's why I chose to pursue the freelancer route now. And I'm not even running wide open on the freelancer route! I'm creeping down the route and getting a feel for it. I'm like a mouse thrown in a new maze. I'm sniffing around, trying to find my way through a new environment. So if you want to hear some recycled crap about how to get rich quickly or how to be a millionaire, I'm not that guy. Money's just a middleman - something to trade away to get the true thing I want, whether it be comfort, health or status.
Money's a key if you will. The things I want in life are "locked" by price tags. Money is a strong tool to break down those price tag barriers holding what I want. You don't need a tool but for a situation where it's useful. That's how I see money.
Don't Just Take My Word!
I'm not asking you to listen to me as though I have answers. I don't. But I may have something of value that you can take away from this. Please, don't take anything you see or hear online at face value. Do research and assess your risks before considering a financial risk, like starting a business to get wealthy.
Now, I said that you would never become a millionaire. There's a reason I say that. I say that because I look over the data year after year - and the census data every ten years - showing the average income of Americans. I'm also on the internet, watching many people promise to help you make millions of dollars yearly for the past ten or fifteen years. The same promises are still being made in 2024. A course exists, promising to make you wealthy if you follow their step-by-step process - in 2024! They've been around for years, teaching their simple, easy strategy. You can even put it on auto-pilot! They did all the work for you! And now that A.I. is the new buzzword (and the new technology you know very little about, more than likely because it's new to the mainstream), they promise that A.I. can magically do the work for you while you chill on the beach and do nothing!
Yes, the A.I. can find an audience for you, find a product to sell to that audience for you, market to that audience, and all of the other complicated things that come with forming a connection with people and selling them a product, service, or content that will resolve their problems while you chill on the beach!
It's bull. How do I know? I do micro-tasking for websites that help teach AI how to respond to user queries like a human would. No, the A.I. doesn't understand how humans work. Humans work behind the scenes, teaching the A.I. the best way to respond to user queries. The same is true with search engines, including YouTube. There are people watching videos, clicking on websites, and rating them based on specific criteria. I know that because I'm one of those humans. A.I. isn't a magic wand to make you millions while you do whatever you do. A.I. is just a tool. A tool is only as great as the skills the user possesses.
But like I said, don't take my word for it. You can do your own research. You won't get rich if you follow people's advice on the internet.
There's One Person You're Making Rich
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There is someone you're making rich. First of all, you're making corporations like Meta and Google Alphabet rich. You go on their platform, watch the ads and click on the links they put there just for you to click on. The owner of the content - whether it be a website owner or social media account owner - gets a cut of the ad revenue as well. And if you buy products, services or content that are advertised to you, then you're helping to make those companies or people advertising rich.
When you click on the links to purchase overpriced courses that don't give you any credible credentials that prove you're an expert in anything (not to mention, you're not making any money despite following the step-by-step process taught to you), then you're helping some potential scammer (allegedly) get wealthy. You're not making any money. Yet, you say this person has something of value to give you. What are they giving you? A dream? A fantasy? What useful information are they giving you?
You don't know what you're doing and they don't know what they're doing. If they did, then they wouldn't have to sell you a course promising you an overhyped dream! If you want to take courses, take them. But take them for a much cheaper price and for some useful skills. Courses on Coursera, for instance, costs a fraction of these overly priced fluff courses and they give you skills that you can use to potentially get a job. I've used Coursera and I know they offer more value than some random dropshipping course you find on the internet. Yes, I've also bought and/or looked into some of these overpriced courses offered by random people online. That's why I have the opinion that I have. But again, do your research and discover answers yourself.
How do you keep your money? How do you make yourself rich? I don't know. But there's a way to put you on a better path to making money than to losing money.
Making Money - According To Me.
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To summarize what I'm saying here, you won't be a millionaire. Why? Because you keep throwing money at people, trying to find a magical cure for your desperate situation. I get it. You're irrational. I'm irrational. We all are. I'm not faulting you for being desperate to get out of poverty - especially when people keep trashing poverty and poor people. Nobody wants to be treated like trash. Nobody wants to be hungry. Nobody wants to see their family struggle. So I'm not here to say you won't be a millionaire because you deserve to be poor. I'm saying you won't be a millionaire because the people who claim to be selling you a solution to your problem aren't selling you anything. It's a big, pretty box with nothing in it. And the sad thing? You find out there's nothing in the box and become even more depressed because now you're out of money you didn't have to spend, and you didn't find a solution to your financial problems. Or, you fall for the sunk-cost fallacy. You've already spent money. You're invested in finding a solution. You think something's coming from that empty space in that pretty box. It has to. You invested so much of your mental energy. There's too much on the line. You need this to happen.
But nothing comes from that emptiness in that pretty, superficial package. That course? There was nothing in it. You could've bought a Shopify plan and connected it to Alibaba to start your dropshipping company and fail for cheaper. And there's nothing wrong with failing at a business - so long as you're prepared for the risk that comes along with it. It may be a risk worth taking if it doesn't cost you too much of a financial burden.
Here's one piece of advice for you that I've learned. Making money isn't about making your life easier. It's about making other people's lives easy with a solution they are willing to pay for. If you're looking to make your life easier without considering how you will make someone else's life easier, you probably won't get paid much money.
Look at Amazon. They make my life very easy. I can order something online without driving around town and the surrounding cities to find a product I need. It'll be at my doorstep as soon as I get off work! I'm not saying everything they do is ethical or that they're my favorite company. Despite the problems Amazon may or may not have, they make my life easier. And I'm willing to pay for that convenience. The same is true with fast food restaurants. Even YouTube and Google make my life so much easier. I search for certain videos and websites and get the answers I need within seconds in most cases.
That's why I say if you make someone else's life easier, they'll throw money (and their personal data) at you. Again, if you want to make money, make life easier for people who are willing to pay for that convenience you'll provide.