The Billionaire Mindset
Or . . . How To Escape The “Time is Money” Trap

 
By Ben Hart

 
One of the best-known time management experts out there is a man named Brian Tracy.
 
A lot of what he says is very good. But one point of his I take issue with is his advice that we should think of each hour of our time as worth a certain amount of money.

This is the “time is money” concept.
 
Brian Tracy says that if we want to make more money we need to first start thinking our time is worth more. So if you’ve been making $50 per hour, he says, start thinking your time is worth $75 per hour.
 
He then says if we want to start making $75 per hour, you need to do work that is worth $75 per hour instead of work that’s only worth $50 per hour.
 
I believe this is exactly the wrong way to achieve what I think you want to achieve in life, which is freedom.

This is no way to build wealth . . . at least not fast.
 
I’m not trying to pick on Brian Tracy here. He’s a good man and puts out a lot of good advice. And he’s just recommending what all the time-management experts have been telling us for decades – to think of your time as money.
 
The motivation behind this concept is not bad. If we start thinking our time equals money, we’ll probably get off our butts and spend less staring at the boob tube.
 
So if thinking of your time this way gets you off your duff, then you’re certainly better off.

But thinking of your time this way, at best, will only provide a marginal increase of your income.
 
It’s not going to produce an exponential increase in your income.

How To Turn Your Annual Income
Into Your Daily Income

The paradigm I want to share with you here does not aim to double the value of your time. It aims to increase the value of an hour of your time 1,000 times or more.
 
In other words, instead of making $50 per hour, make $5,000 per hour . . . or even $10,000 per hour, or more.
 
This paradigm I’m presenting to you has very little to do with managing your time better, or with getting more out of your day, or with getting everything done on your to-do list.

What I’m going to share with you today is a completely different way of thinking than the “time equals money” way of thinking.
 
In fact, your time is a whole lot more valuable than money. Time is not something you can ever get back. Money is. You can always make more money. But you can never recover lost time.
 
So stop thinking that your “time equals money” if you would like to build an income generating machine that can earn you $10,000 an hour or more.
 
Instead of thinking how much your time is worth, start thinking “how much value am I creating?”
 
Let’s say your company is paying you $50 per hour, which is $104,000 per year.
That’s not bad for a salaried employee. That probably puts you in upper middle management.
 
Now, suppose you went to the owner of the company with an idea for a product that would save the company $1,000,000 a year, or that would generate another $1,000,000 a year in profit.
 
Do you think the company owner would be willing to pay you $10,000 or perhaps $100,000 . . . or a whole lot more for your invention, or your idea, or your new method for doing business?
 
Your company would not bat an eye to pay you that kind of money if it was convinced your new idea, or method, invention or product was really worth that to the company.

Your company could not wait to get the check book out and write you a check before you sold your idea to a competitor.
 
By the way, you don’t need to be in business for yourself to start thinking this way. You can start thinking this way even as an employee of a company.
 
Start thinking, not “what is my time worth?” Start thinking, “what is my contribution worth to the company?” “How much value, how much profit am I bringing in?”
 
I know a commissioned sales person, a friend of mine, who sold a $100,000,000 product to the government. His commission was about 1%.  

So his commission was about $1,000,000.

How long did it take him to sell this product to the government? I have no idea. Maybe a couple of years . . . while he was also working on other projects and also getting paid for those.
 
He is paid on commission. What he essentially does is share in the profits of the company -- profits produced by his efforts.
 
He is obviously selling very high-ticket items -- mostly to the government, and also to very large corporations. It does not take him many million-dollar and hundred thousand-dollar pay-days to make what a salaried upper-middle management guy makes in a lifetime.
 
In his case, it’s all about how he gets paid. He’s not paid based on his time. He’s paid based on the value he provides to the company he works for.
 
So the first step toward making $10,000 per hour or $100,000 per hour is to stop thinking “how much your time is worth?” and start thinking “how much value are you creating?”
 
When you buy a computer or software, are you thinking “how much did I just pay Bill Gates or Michael Dell?”
 
No. You’re thinking “will this software or this computer do what I need it to do?”
If you buy a novel -- say, a novel by Stephen King -- are you ticked-off about the money that Stephen King is making off you. Maybe he’s just made $1 or $2 from you.

Are you thinking “this is a rip-off?”
 
And are you worried that Stephen King is selling the same book to a million other people; that he’s also selling the movie rights; and that he’ll probably make more money off you when you see the movie.
 
Are you concerned about that?
 
Of course not. You’re happy to pay the money because Stephen King is providing you many hours of enjoyment, entertainment and excitement for a bargain price . . . that is, if you like his stories. And lots of people do.
 
How much is Stephen King’s time worth? How much is Bill Gates’ time worth?

How much is Alex Rodriquez’s time worth? The Yankees seem to think a lot. They pay him something like $75,000,000 dollars to play third base and to hit home runs.

Is Alex Rodriguez worth this money?
 
Of course he is, or the Yankees would not pay him the money. He helps put fans in the seats by helping the Yankees win games. I have not done the math on it, but I assume George Steinbrenner has.
 
So Alex Rodriguez is clearly worth the $75,000,000 dollars to George Steinbrenner, or he would not pay him this kind of money.

Steinbrenner is not an idiot.
 
So, in terms of generating wealth and enormous income, I almost can’t think of worse advice than the “time equals money” paradigm.
 
That’s the kind of thinking the leads to a lifetime of slavery.  Instead, start thinking . . .