School Ain’t What It Used To Be

If you go far enough back into the history of America, you’ll discover the average student of the 18th and 19th centuries learned nearly everything they’d need to know in life from two books: Noah Webster’s Blue Back Speller and The New England Primer. That’s it! Two books.

You won’t find these books in schools today. They’re far too radical for our generation. After all, they taught young people how to think for themselves, how to dream big, and how to turn those dreams into reality. The very foundations of America are based on those dreams of long ago.

I once heard the story of a history professor and his students. This happened back maybe 20 years ago. The students were given an assignment to read and comment on The Federalist Papers. These essays were written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison in an effort to convince New York voters to ratify the Constitution.

The students complained that the essays were impossible to understand, to which the professor is purported to have said: “That’s because they were written for the average 1780’s farmer in upstate New York.” In other words, those farmers (who probably never got passed the eighth grade) had a better handle on the law and politics than those college students.

Three Quotes

I’ll share three historic quotes with you. I’ll comment on them as this mini-course unfolds. For now, just read them and let them sink into your brain. They’re the basis of why you struggle to survive while others live off your labor.

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.” – Thomas Jefferson

“If the American people ever allow the banks to control issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers occupied.” – Thomas Jefferson

“Permit me to issue and control the money of the nation and I care not who makes its laws.” – Mayer Amsched Rothchild (prominent European banker in the eighteenth century)

Voluntary Servitude

By the early 20th Century, the purpose of schooling in this country had changed from educating to controlling. Big business interests we’re not looking for dreamers and thinkers. They needed producers for their factories.

Mind you, it wasn’t all bad. Our parents and grand parents earned a decent wage. That allowed them to buy homes and raise families. And this “emerging middle class” propelled America to greatness.

But the lack of a proper education kept them blind to what was really happening to their wealth. More important, this lack kept them from controlling their personal wealth and by extension, their own freedom. They had unwittingly volunteered to become slaves to the wealthy and better educated. Maybe you’ve done the same thing. I know that for a time, I certainly did.

Four Ways To Earn Money

If you are an employee, you contract with a business owner to trade your labor for wages. The amount of money you can earn is directly related to the value of your skills and the time you give your employer. So to earn more money you’ll have to perform your job with greater skill or efficiency, and/or work longer hours. Whatever the case, there is a limit to how much you can earn. Your control over your income is severely limited.

There was a time when job security was a major reason to become an employee. The promise was that you’d always have a steady paycheck. But not so much these days.

If you are an entrepreneur, you become your own boss. You get to keep all the money you earn instead of sharing most of it with your boss. But you also take on the added responsibilities and liabilities of being the boss. There are risks, but they can be offset by a greater earning potential. Still, you are limited by time to how much you can earn. Like the employee, there’s only one of you and only so many hours in a day.

If you are a business owner, your liabilities increase substantially, but so does your income. Now you have others who trade their labor for wages. If you are a good businessperson, you will earn more than your employees. The better a businessperson you are, the more employees you can hire and as a consequence, your income increases exponentially.

Your education will often dictate whether you spend the rest of your life working for others, working for yourself or having others work for you and how much money you earn. This is why I want to educate you to the truth.

The Great Equalizer and The Fourth Way To Make Money

What if you could earn more money than an employee and still have a steady income and “security?” What if you could make more money than the entrepreneur without being limited by his time constraints? What if you could make more money than a boss without incurring any of his liabilities?

Before you consider ways to earn more money you’ll first need to stop losing the money you already earn.

We’ll cover that in tomorrow’s lesson.

 
To YOUR Success,

Business & Marketing Mentor
Phone: 805-874-2410