How to Make Money

If it takes money to make money, how does one make money when he has no money at the start?

A person without capital has nothing to leverage but his or her time. This is why millions of Americans wear the handcuffs of hourly wages.

When I was 14, my life sold for $1.60 an hour. At 18, an hour in the life of Roy H. Williams was selling for three dollars and thirty-five cents. People all around me talked about “the security of a steady paycheck” as though steady and unchanging were a good thing.

But I found a way of escape.

“There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have. And if you cannot hear it, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls.”

– Howard Thurman (1900-1981)

If you want to slip the handcuffs of hourly wages, you must figure out how to be paid according to your accomplishments. “How long did it take?” isn’t the question you want to answer, but rather, “What is the value of my achievement?”

People paid by the hour are paid for their activities. People paid royalties, license fees, or sales commissions are paid for their accomplishments.

Average people are average because they cling to an avoidance of discomfort. There is a truth – a profound, 4-word truth – known to every successful person: “Pain is my friend.”

Pain is an informant, a sentinel, a lookout blowing a bugle. Pain tells us when something is wrong and indicates the location of the problem.

“An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.” – Niels Bohr

“Mediocrity has a way of keeping demons from the door.” – Marie Arana

Comfort leads to complacency. Solomon spoke of the dangers of going with the flow when he said,

“There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.”

Solomon followed that statement with an immediate, sharp contrast:

“The laborer's appetite works for him; his hunger drives him on.” (Proverbs 16:25-26)

Wait a minute. Solomon warns us the direction most easily taken – “going with the flow” – is a road that leads to nowhere. Hunger, according to Solomon, is your ally.

For what do you hunger?

Are you willing to risk embarrassment?

Financial loss?

Damage to your reputation?

Let your hunger lead you. Let it drive you on.

People stay in the box because it’s safe there. And then they talk about needing to think “outside the box.”

“There be tigers outside the box, matey. And ogres and monsters and people who might laugh at ye. Are ye sure ye be wantin’ out o’ that box?”

I have no idea where that pirate came from.

Here, after much rambling, are my points:

1. The times cry out for change.

2. We know change is needed because we feel pain.

3. Change makes us uneasy because we cannot see the future.

4. Financial death is the destination of those who refuse to change.

If you have no problems, if you feel no pain, carry on. Good job. Well done. As you were.

If you need to make changes but you’re not sure what to change, when to change it, or how to implement that change, consider a trip to Austin to spend a day with the Wizards.

Change opens the door to a brighter future.

Are you willing?

Roy H. Williams