Let me paraphrase an insightful passage I read that describes the difference between someone with a welfare mentality versus someone with an abundance mentality.
A guy looked at a Corvette the other day and said to me in a disapproving tone, “I wonder how many people could have been fed for the cost of that car?”
I replied, “I’m not sure. It fed a lot of families in Kentucky who built it. It fed the people who made the tires. It fed the people who made the components. It fed the people who mined the copper. It fed the people who made the trucks that hauled the copper ore. It fed someone who helped sell the car.”
That’s the difference between having an abundance mentality and a welfare mentality. When you buy something, you put money in people’s pockets and give them dignity for their skills.
If you don’t know by now, many people make or have A LOT more than you think. When you see people playing tennis in the park or lounging around at a cafe on a weekday afternoon, it’s unlikely because they are unemployed. It’s because they either don’t need to work or have flexible business hours.
Every week I hear a new story about a person who makes or has way more than you’d ever expect. I’ve shared some of these stories with you.
* Uber drivers who make more than their Uber corporate counterparts.
* A ~22 year old female art student from China who bought a $2.25M home for cash.
* The 26-year-old non-techie who landed a $250,000 pay package at Airbnb.
* 100,000+ millennials who expect a ~$1.1M inheritance.
* A University of New Hampshire librarian who left $4M to his school.
* A food blogger who makes $500,000+ a year.
* A Hawaiian entrepreneur who started a greasy spoon franchise and was selling his $8M house that only another entrepreneur could afford.
The point of these posts is to highlight what’s financially possible. Going to a good school to get a job in a traditionally lucrative field isn’t the only way to make good money. Just because you couldn’t get into the greatest school on Earth, The College of William & Mary, doesn’t mean your life is over.
Too many people tell themselves they don’t have the knowledge, skills, connections, background, or pedigree to get rich. Some even stunt their growth because they believe their race, gender, or sexual orientation puts them at a disadvantage.
What a shame to think this way when we have a half black president, plenty of first generation immigrant multi-millionaires, a gay CEO at Apple, a Chinese mayor of San Francisco, and J-Lo! Heck, we even have a man who said a bunch of offensive things and still got elected as the 45th president of the United States. Anything is possible folks!
Six Figure Janitor Cleaning Up
Let’s say you still don’t believe you can be rich despite all my examples. How about this example of a Bay Area Rapid Transit janitor who made $235,000 in 2015 thanks to $165,000 in over time pay!
To be a janitor, you don’t need to go to college or vocational school. You don’t need to be a certain race or sex either. All you’ve got to do is be willing to clean unsightly things. In other words, practically everybody can be a janitor, unless you’re too proud.
Source: http://transparentcalifornia.com/agencies/salaries/
Mr. Zhang actually grossed $271,243.02 in 2015 if you include his benefits. Over the last three years, Mr. Zhang received a combined $682,000 in pay and benefits over the last three years, averaging $227,000 a year.
What’s great about this story is that Mr. Zhang didn’t just accept his $58,750 base pay. He decided to take advantage of the BART overtime system and work harder. San Francisco has a monster $9.5 billion annual budget. We also passed an enormous $3.5 billion new proposition to improve the system. Why not get your honey money too?
“Almost every day of the year Mr. Zhang is cleaning our stations,” BART spokeswoman Alicia Trost said. “He is signing up for time that is also available to others — if he doesn’t take them, someone else will. Station cleanliness is a priority for us.”
Did you get that folks? Mr. Zhang wasn’t a “privileged janitor” who got allocated more time than others. All he decided to do was out work his colleagues. Unlike some people who found Mr. Zhang’s compensation outrageous, I say well done sir!
For those of you with similar or more “advantageous” backgrounds, there’s no reason why you can’t make as much as Mr. Zhang if you really want to. If you disagree, tell me why in the comments section.
Related: How To Make Six Figures At Almost Any Age
Traits To Adopt To Be Rich
If you want to be rich, adopt these traits.
Work ethic. 40 hours a week is an arbitrary amount of time to work. There are 168 hours in a week. If you worked just five hours more a week, think about how much more you could make or do with an extra 260 hours a year. Mr. Zhang decided to work almost every day of the week for years! You might not have the same chance, but at least you can work on your side business during the weekends.
Source: Transparent California
Desire. You’ve got to really desire to be free. If you’ve got a cushy job that pays you just enough not to leave, then you’re probably just going to stay put and surf Financial Samurai most of your working hours. Remove the complacency IV from your vein.
Risk taker. Put yourself out there. Rejection is just the name of the game when you are constantly taking risks. But if you’re never failing, then you aren’t trying hard enough. It takes effort to find optimal levels of happiness.
Open mind. Think about the many different ways there are to cook fish around the world. There are even more ways to make money and live a lifestyle you want. Read, watch, learn and participate to open your mind.
Humility. Don’t be so arrogant and presume that your way is the only way. Be humble enough to realize when you’re wrong. And when things start to click, be humble enough to remember when things went wrong. Things can change instantly.
Leverage. “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world,” wrote Archimedes. An individual can only put in about 70 hours a week of before they start breaking down. Instead, leverage technology to reach more people. A website’s quality remains constant 24/7.
Organizational discipline. Think about all those people who’ve made a ton and now wonder where it all went. Once you’ve got a solid handle on your money, you can invest your money in the most optimal ways possible. Tracking your finances through a free financial app is a no brainer.
Believe In Yourself
Thinking about creative ways to earn more is hard. It’s why so few people offered their ideas when requested in “Get Rich By Predicting The Future.” But I promise you that it becomes easier building wealth the more you practice.
Take a look at this priceless piece of artwork below. It’s called “Into The Night” by an artist that’s been featured in many major media publications. Notice the intricate battle between light and dark. It’s a metaphor of our daily struggles where we’re constantly trying to overcome our laziness and fears. If you let your eyes relax, you can see darkness winning the battle.
The painting is exquisite and would sell for over $100 million if Jackson Pollock created it.
Alas, I created this painting when I was 26 on my now rental condo balcony. I used some leftover blue, white and black paint to get creative while waiting for the rooms to dry. Then I created a yellow and black version. Then I created another, and another, and another until I ran out of paint. Then I cut off my ear like Van Gogh! Just kidding.
Yes, my art might look like chicken scratch to you. But to me, they are beautiful because I never thought I’d be able to create any type of art at all until I tried. If I had kept practicing my art every week for 13 years, I’m sure I would have a portfolio of amazing work. No wonder why schools try to expose kids to everything just in case something sticks.
Although I gave up art as a young lad, I didn’t give up my creative writing because I believed in myself. Every week someone who doesn’t write for a living tells me my writing sucks. If it’s not my writing they’re criticizing, it’s my website design. If it’s not my website design, it’s my intelligence. The body blows keep coming and I keep advancing. Thank goodness because being able to do something this fun in early retirement is truly a blessing.
If you find yourself chalking up someone’s entire good fortune to luck or if you catch yourself criticizing another for their efforts, slap yourself in the face. Your welfare mentality is keeping you down. Mr. Zhang is out there hustling. So can you.
If You Want To Move On From Your Job
If you want to leave a job you no longer enjoy, I recommend everybody negotiate a severance. If you negotiate a severance like I did back in 2012, you not only get a severance check, but potentially subsidized healthcare, deferred compensation, and worker training. Since you got laid off, you’re also eligible for up to 27 weeks of unemployment benefits. Having a financial runway is huge during your transition period.
Conversely, if you quit your job you get nothing. Check out, How To Engineer Your Layoff: Make A Small Fortune By Saying Goodbye, on how to negotiate a severance. I first published the book in 2012 and have since expanded it to 180 pages from 100 pages in the 3rd edition thanks to tremendous reader feedback and successful case studies.
Recommendation To Build Wealth
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Dumb story. First of all virtually zero employers are going to pay that much overtime. Only a reckless employer (i.e. government) that has zero accountability or budget to maintain can give so many hours at time and a half. 99% of private companies would be giving 5-8 hours over time max per week before they start looking at bringing in more staff to take care of the work.
That janitor is not normal. Even assuming he never eats/sleeps/etc, there’s only around 8760 hrs in a year. That averages out to a ludicrous $31/hr. I’m not going to complain if does a good job, but let’s be honest, nobody pays janitors $31/hr (assuming he does eat/sleep/etc, his effective payrate is much higher).
Perhaps not normal. But a reality. Believe in the reality that many people are making much more than you think. A lot of it has to do with plain old hustle.
Do you actually believe this stuff, or do you just write this way because it generates money in hate-clicks?
Like, it’s transparently obvious on a basic logical level that it’s inherently impossible for more than a small percent of people to make this sort of money. Imagine that literally every person in the US is a hard-working genius. The same low-paying jobs will still need to be worked, and money won’t come from nothing.
This logic can be used to justify literally any society where a non-zero number of people are rich.
I do believe that we can all try little bit harder and stick things out a little bit longer. What do you believe? I don’t think there’s a lot of hate. Are you hateful?
See: https://www.financialsamurai.com/the-secret-to-your-success-10-years-of-unwavering-commitment/
The janitor is a bad example for you. He was cheating the system. An investigation found that he had spent hours of his “overtime” in a closet, not working.
A simple google of his name will point you to a lot of articles about it.
I don’t know anybody who works a 40 hour work week and works for 40 hours straight. Taking a break is important to do good work and reset.
“Imagine that literally every person in the US is a hard-working genius. The same low-paying jobs will still need to be worked, and money won’t come from nothing.”
Is their hard work and genius nothing? Surely those things generate value that could result in wealth?
There isn’t some fixed set of jobs available that “need to be worked”. If we produce more, there is more to be had.
What are the premises behind your assertion that it’s “impossible for more than a small percentage of people to make this sort of money”? There are no natural laws dictating that the supply and distribution of money take any particular shape.
Not sure why the 26 yr old who landed a $250K gig at Airbnb would be considered a non-techie. He says in his blog he giving CS-heavy lectures in his previous role. He also “made a brand new project, heavier on computer science and built in React, to show off my knowledge of front-end development”…..guy is a techie.
There was another story about a millionaire janitor in Vermont. #janitorsbekillingit
I love articles like these because they are inspiring and highlight what’s possible. However, my concern was that, in order to make that much, he had to work almost all of his day. Sacrificing his family life, sleep and health. Is this true or is anyone able to make a sizable income if they just work a little more every week.
I’ve known several people, including myself for 5 years, that worked 16 hours per day to meet our financial goals. Not everyone will want to take this path but it didn’t put undue strain on me mentally or physically. I invested all the extra money in real estate and my daughter will get her college Tuition paid from rent money. No begging the government for free money (btw I support college grants) and no worrying about student debt.
Do what’s important to you. Make sacrifices but don’t sacrifice your life.
Hi Financial Samurai,
The janitor case is simple impossible in Brazil. Here in Brazil people rarely are payed for extra hours of work, graduates included.
Yes, our work ethics suck. Actually I am not sure we can even call work ethics.
But, I agree that people usually have many more options than they like to think. It´s a relief think that you did all you can. Not just about money, but about everthing in life.
I know a girl that is not mega rich, but have more than enought money to do everthing she want with her life, but she say that she don´t have any other option except be a teacher. I don´t talk with her anymore. Any one with this kind of mind deserve what got in life.
I love stories like this. Somebody figures out how to make a lot of money quickly, jumps in without hesitation, and crushes it. Now he has a better pension and a nest egg to invest and make even more money passively. In just a few years of all-out effort. The larger bigger pension gives him leverage to invest the nest egg a little more aggressivly and he’ll have the time to learn how to invest. Of course, it could all go wrong and the money could be wasted. I have read often that people who receive windfalls are usually broke within a year.
I kind of did the same (big effort) when I was abruptly retired 12 years ago without even knowing how or what to do. I bought a house with a big mortgage and no job, rented out a suite and 2 rooms, and free-lanced and worked at minimum wage jobs. For the first few years I worked every day at about 5 different jobs, and cooked a nice dinner for my lovely adult foreign English student boarders every day. After about 5 years, I stopped working and taking boarders, got smarter and took over management of my nest egg, taught myself how to invest and was lucky, it grew very fast. And of course with compounding it grows faster every year.
At first I tried to tell friends that they could make a lot of money investing and renting the last few years before and after retirement, but they all immediately claim it is not possible, they hate managing money, they hate having renters, etc.
I used to tell the success story of my 27-year-old trainer to people (already owned a house and several rental properties, put himself through university with no debt), and the “welfare mentality” crowd still said it was impossible for young people to afford a house and he must be doing something illegal!
Now I travel 6 months of the year and practice stealth wealth (learned that the hard way). If somebody asks how I do it, I say I live in my basement and drive a 28 year old car. People are very hostile to success as many of the comments in this post show.
You missed the point of the Janitor story. His ability to sign up for all overtime available was based on seniority. His coworkers stepped aside, because he was in his final years before retirement and his retirement benefit would be based on the average salary over the past three years. When he retires, the next in line would be given this opportunity. People who designed the system did not expect this level of solidarity and self discipline from a seemingly unorganized group. This is not about hard work, this is about taking advantage of the system.
Sorry for being a party pooper here. But the outlandish total compensation packages for janitors are likely not the result of hard work but a symptom of the broken and bloated public sector where a few folks have figured out how to game the system. Next time they raise your property taxes and state income taxes you know where your money is going! I’m pretty sure that there are thousands of people working at McDonald’s and working longer and harder than this janitor and still make only a fraction. That’s where the real income inequality is!
Growing up, my parents had the welfare mentality. I was a rebel, and had the abundance mentality. I used to fight with them that they were mismanaging their finances and I could do it better for them. It turns out my sassyness as a teen was correct and we now have 7 figures. Hey we just recently joined the club, but it’s still an exclusive club to be in. I don’t miss government cheese in our house at all. Keep the f’in cheese, I want a life of frugality with lots of extra money in my house. Epic success. Heck, I can’t even say I really busted my @ss to do this, like you did Sam. I have been generally somewhat lazy in life, but I am also 40 and still working so I suppose that’s a trade off.
While I agree with hard work and having the right attitude, whats the point of making that much money if you have no spare time to spend it? Life is about balance and I hope this gentlemen takes advantage of this extra cash and invests it wisely to buy back some time in the future.
Cameras catch BART janitor who made $270,000 in a year spending hours in Powell St. closet
Very cool that he gets to make money sleeping on the job and taking so many breaks! Very smart man who is working the system to his benefit. If you think about it, how many people in the private sector really work at least eight hours a day. I would say nobody.
I wonder with the increase in San Francisco property taxes and income taxes whether we should pay him and his colleagues more like $500,000 for him to work harder? What do you think?