In this blog series I am going through 15 challenges that the late Jim Rohn dared us to pursue in our own lives.
Today we will be talkiing about the ninth challenge that Jim Rohn gave us.
Invest Your Profits
Here’s one of the philosophies that Mr. Shoaff gave me. Profits are better than wages. Wages make you a living, profits make you a fortune. Could we start earning profits while we make a living? The answer is yes.
I think the first thing we need to do is define these two words. I found these definitions on dictionary.com.
wages– money that is paid or received for work or services.
profits– the ratio of such pecuniary gain to the amount of capital invested.
So with these definitions in mind, what is Jim Rohn saying here? I read it that wages represent gain that will be received almost immediately. Profits are gains that usually take longer to get back.
Whenever we face a major decision in our lives, we need to evaluate what our immediate gains (wages) will be vs. what long-term gains (profits) we will give up. It is usually the best to make the decision that will benefit you the most in the long-run.
Let me give you this example. When you graduate from college, you have choices to make in your life. You could choose to go find a job and start making money. You could also choose to go to college and get a degree before you enter the working world. If you look at that decision from a wages viewpoint, it is clear that you will make so much more money in wages over the next 4 years if you just start working. In fact, in the short-term you will end up losing money if you go to college. If you look solely at wages, your best option would be to work. If you look at that same decision from a profit viewpoint, it will become apparent that by going to college for 4 years and getting a degree would be a much better option long-term. Yes you are losing out on money you could be making right now, but having a degree gives you the potential to make much more money in the long-run. That is not even taking into account the knowledgeyou will gain.
I agree with Mr. Rohn that profits are better than wages. We should always look at major decisions in our lives with the long-term in mind. We should look at what will give us the better overall gain.
Sometimes we have to do things in the short-term to make a living. We have to have money so we can live. We should never spend our entire lives living in the here and now. We need to put our focus on what will be of greatest profit to us over our lifetimes and work towards that. Mr. Rohn made a very good point that you can potentially work on both at the same time. They don’t have to be completely seperate.
It is not important that you are not where you want to go today. What is important is that today you are moving towards that place you want to be going.
I would like to challenge you today to look at making decisions in your lives that will profit you in the long-run, even if it causes you some wages in the short-term.
