Working On Me

Shortly after posting my eight ways of getting rich, I was challenged on whether I had failed to include employment – working for someone else – because I didn't believe it was a way to get rich.>

On the contrary, it is an excellent way to get rich (although only a small minority of employees do ever accumulate significant wealth), and I did include it. I see it as part of the fourth way:

Entertain or exploit some other personal skill or talent

As an employee, you use your personal skill or talent on behalf of another person or organisation, and that for me defines employment – and for that matter, contracting and consultancy too.

Why, though, do so few employees become wealthy compared with – say – entrepreneurs? It may have a little to do with earning levels, although many employees outearn their entrepreneurial peers.

I think, though, it is more to do with perceived security. The employee generally feels secure; after all, they are not taking the risks the entrepreneur does. If they turn up every day and do a good job, they feel they'll be pretty safe in terms of their future income stream. Few entrepreneurs will take this view. The ones who last know all about creating a financial cushion, about making provision for the potentially harder times ahead. They tend to better control and plan their spending because they have more at stake, and in the long term, that's where the wealth takes root and grows.

But there's no reason why an employee could not adopt similar habits, and from even modest employment build substantial wealth.