Hard Work Doesn't Build Wealth

Do you feel stuck? You're working hard, but you're not getting ahead. In fact, you're working hard and it seems like you're getting further and further behind. I was there for so long and I don't know what your job is. Maybe you're a teacher, maybe you're like I was. You're a trash man. Maybe you're a doctor, you're a lawyer, maybe you're a blue collar worker, maybe you're a white collar worker. But it feels like the harder you work, the further behind you get. Well, I've got a solution for you. Because today you're going to learn why hard work is not the key to success and wealth building. Now, I believe in hard work. I believe in hard work because hard work makes me a better person. But I don't believe that hard work is going to guarantee my success. I do believe that hard work is going to guarantee that I'm going to be exhausted eventually. And so what I need to do is I need to figure out what does equal success. I'm going to read a verse to you in scripture and I'm going to share with you from that verse some of the ideas and lessons that I've ascertained from that. And it's in Ecclesiastes, chapter 10 and verse number 10. So first of all, when you think about the book of Ecclesiastes, understand the purpose of the book of Ecclesiastes. The book of Ecclesiastes was written by King Solomon. The book of Proverbs was written by King Solomon. The book of Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, the Proverbs of Solomon were written early in his life while he was still yielded to God. Then he went through this season where he married all these pagan heathen women. He let them turn their hearts away from God. Turn his heart away from God. And then after that he let it. He let them turn his heart away from God. Then he became, he came back to his senses and he repented at the end of his life. And he wrote this book called Ecclesiastes. This book of Ecclesiastes is written by a guy who loved God, backslid, came back to God and now has a new perspective on life. And so the theme of the book of Ecclesiastes is this. If you live your life for life under the sun, you've wasted your life and tortured yourself. That's the theme of the book of Ecclesiastes. That's why it says over and over, this also is vanity. Empty. It's waste. And Vexation of spirit, torment, torture. So if you live your life only for the things that happen under heaven, under the sun, you've wasted your life and tortured yourself. That's the theme of the book of Ecclesiastes. And it ends with, let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God, keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. So that's the conclusion that Solomon came to at the end of his life. So Solomon was the wise, wise man. He was the wise child. Then he became the wise fool. Then he became the wise old man from experiences that he could have avoided. Okay, so here's what he said. In Ecclesiastes, chapter 10, verse 10, it says, if the iron be blunt. And when it says iron there, that word iron is talking about an axe. But we could just call it a tool. If the iron be blunt and he do not whet the edge. Whet means to sharpen the edge. Okay. And you do not wet the edge.

Then must he put more strength. But wisdom is profitable to direct. What does that mean? It means if a person is chopping down a tree, they're like. They're like they're chopping down a tree with an axe. If they don't sharpen the axe.

They'Re gonna have to put more strength into chopping down the tree with a dull axe. It's harder. You're gonna work harder chopping down a tree with a dull axe than you are chopping down a tree with a sharp axe. So what he's saying is, don't work harder for hard work's sake. Sharpen the axe. And then it says, wisdom is profitable to direct. So there are some things that we can do to sharpen the axes, the tools that we have in our toolbox. You've heard me teach this before. Like, mindset times skill set times tool set equals assets, and income follows assets, right? So mindset. We want to sharpen our mindset tools. We want to sharpen our skill set tools. We want to sharpen our tool set tools. So what does it mean to sharpen my mindset tools? It means that I have to learn how to think better. It's really fascinating, and I know I do it a lot, but I'm going to do it again anyway. It's fascinating to me that in Genesis chapter one, God gave us so many success principles. And one of the success principles that I found in Genesis chapter one is what I call the four levels of value, right? So the four levels of value are the lowest level of values. Implementation. Implementation. We use our muscles. The resources we use is we use our muscles.

Over time.

To create money. Well, if. When we're talking about building wealth, wealth is a spiritual outcome.

The essence of money is not materialistic at all. The essence of money is spiritual. The essence of wealth is spiritual. It's spiritual because you have to do something for somebody other than yourself. You have to be consumed with someone other than yourself in order to create it. It's spiritual because of the message that it carries. $100 bill is worth more than a penny because $100 bill says $100 dollars. A penny says $0.01, which means 1% of $1. So therefore, it's spiritual because of the message it carries. And language is something that only spiritual beings have. Monkeys can't count money, Dogs can't. Dogs don't have money. Eagles don't have money. Lions don't have money. Why? Because they're not spiritual beings. They are bahema. And it is what it is. We are. Adams, what is an Adam? An Adam is Aleph. Dalad mem. Dalad mem is blood. Aleph is God. We are a godlike creation with flesh and blood. The life of the flesh is in the blood. So if I'm using my muscles. My muscles are a physical resource, and I'm using them over time. Time is a limited resource. I'm multiplying a limited resource times. I'm sorry, a physical resource times a physical times a limited resource. And I'm attempting to produce an unlimited result. It can't happen. You don't have the right ingredients. It's like. It's like putting pickles and ketchup and mustard and eggs and peanut butter in a bowl and stirring it up and putting it in the oven and hoping to get chocolate cake. It can't happen. The ingredients are wrong. Okay? So if I am operating down here and I'm working really hard down here, I'm going to make somewhere between minimum wage to $80,000 a year. How did I come up with that? So I'm gonna make minimum. I'm gonna make minimum wage. I'm gonna make minimum wage. Marami, can I get another pin because I press too hard. It's me. It's not you. Okay, So I get excited and I talk loud and I talk fast and I start pressing this and it's just grinding down, grinding down my tips on my markers. Thank you. So. So minimum wage in 80,000 a year. How do I come up with those numbers? Well, minimum wage, the government's gonna guarantee that you get so Much, Right, right. And people are fighting. I love what Jim Rohn said. People are fighting for a higher minimum wage. Why do you plan on staying there that long?

Like why don't you fight to earn more than minimum wage? It's. Anyway, just a thought. Okay, so minimum wage, you're making tacos at Taco Bell. You're going to make minimum wage, whatever that is, I don't know what it is. $8 an hour, $10 an hour, $12, $15, whatever it is, minimum wage, 80,000 a year. If you work on high end cars you might make 80k a year. Okay, but there's a cap. It doesn't matter how much harder you work on this level, there is a limit to the amount of money you will be able to make. Hard work does not equal wealth. Okay, so what's the next level? The next level is unification. What's unification? We use our management skills on this level to create wealth management skills. In other words, we're no longer the person who does the thing where the person who manages the people who do the thing. And so that's how we make our money on this level. We're going to make somewhere between on the low end, 40k a year for managing Taco Bell, up to what, 250k a year if we're a mid level manager, Lockheed Martin. So that's, this is better income wise. But the one problem with that is if a company's paying you to be a manager, especially at that level, they want you to know they know they own you. Right? They own you. They don't just want you to know they own you, they want you to know they know it. Right? We own you. We ain't paying you this much money so you can go to your kids soccer game. Right? Okay, so wealth doesn't matter how hard you work down here, working harder is not going to make you wealthy. Now you can live down here your whole life and still be wealthy. Because wealth that you create is going to be determined by what you do with the money that you make, not how much money you make. Okay, so but you're not going to create wealth by working harder down here. Wealth doesn't start to be created until we get above the line.

So what's this level? This level is communication and on this level we use our mouth.

To create money. I mean we could also write, but we're just communication. Okay, so on the low end you're going to make $100,000 a year. And on the high end you could make hundreds of millions of Dollars a year.

Hundreds of millions. You sell cars, you can make 100 grand a year. Selling cars, you make 100 grand a year. Selling insurance, you make 100 grand a year. Selling real estate, you can make more than that. But if you're an A list actor, an A list singer, or you're a songwriter like Dolly Parton, you can make $100 million a year. Huh?

Communication. Here's what's interesting. All of us can sharpen our mental axes. How do we sharpen our mental axes? By reading books. You ain't going. What? You ain't going to sharpen your mental axe by watching Netflix. You ain't going. You're not going to sharpen your mental acts by listening to music. Generally speaking, you're not going to sharpen your mental acts by going to the club. You're going to sharpen your mental acts by reading books that teach concepts that are useful for you that you don't currently know you're going to. You're going to sharpen your mental acts by surrounding yourself with people who are thinking at a higher level. And when you do those things, what happens is you get exposed to ideas. I think about. I think about Joel. I remember Joel Bauer. He's one of my business coaches. And I remember when I first heard of him, it was probably back in 2009, maybe 2008, and I was talking to James Malincheck, and James Malincheck said, yeah, Joe Bauer. Joe Bauer trained. That trade trains everybody. Joel Bauer's trained. He's trained Tony Robbins, he's trained.

Jordan Belfort. He's trained Kevin Trudeau. He's trained Robert Allen, Mark Victor Hansen. He starts naming all these people. I'm like, how come I never heard of this guy if he trained all those people right? I mean, I'm fairly in the know. So I start looking him up, and sure enough, he's trained all these people. So I said, okay.

I got all excited. So I started searching him out. I found he had a course online. It was $2,200. I'm like, I'm getting this. And, like, I don't know what kind of buyer you are. I'm hyper. When I'm ready to buy, I'm ready to buy. And I'm ready to experience what I bought right now, right? And so. And so I bought Joel's course, and I think it was called the Persuasion Masterclass. Big, thick manual, whole bunch of DVDs, whole bunch of CDs, and I'm like, yes, let's go. And so. And his Book how to persuade people who don't want to be persuaded. And I'm going through all of this stuff, right? And I'm watching the videos. And when I was watching the videos, I thought, hmm, this is not as good as I thought it was gonna be.

Oh. And I paid $65 to get it overnight delivered because I wanted it the next day. I wanted it that day, but they didn't have same day delivery, and I ordered it at night. So, okay, I can wait until tomorrow, but I can't wait any longer. Right? So I thought this wasn't that good. And what's interesting is I went through the entire course, and it was good. It was good. But the video part wasn't great. But I realize now why it wasn't great. Because he did it in a studio in front of a camera, and there was nobody in the room. So because I'm not putting Joel on blast, I'm going to bring this thing home here in a minute. So in 2021, Joel. I think it was 2021. Might have been 2020, 20, 20, 2021. Joel and Peng Joon, Peng Joon's friend of mine from Russell's inner circle, they were doing an event in Los Angeles. It was a free training for people who are speakers. I'm thinking, why would they do a free training for speakers? I was so confused by that whole thing. It didn't make sense to me. But I said, I'm gonna fly to California and go to this event just to see what they're doing. I wasn't going to buy anything. I already had Peng Joon's course. I already had one of Joel's courses. I wasn't going to buy anything. I just went because I wanted to see what they were doing. And when I watched Joel Bauer present in person, I was blown away. I was like, what am I watching? It was. It was like. It was like. It was like watching Picasso paint. Picasso. Did Picasso paint, or was he a musician? Okay. I was like, I hope I didn't just make a musician do a painting. Okay. So it was like watching Mozart compose, right? It was like. It was beautiful. And so. And he was making us. I was at the table before he got, like, when he got ready, I could see he was winding down for the offer. I like, I don't care what he's selling. I don't care how much it costs. As long as it's less than $150,000, I'm buying it. I'd already decided that. And I got up to the Table. And I think. I'm pretty sure it was only, like $7,000. I'm like, oh, I'm all in. Now, why do I. Why did I tell you that story? I tell you that story because the reason I bought, I feel like I'm fairly good at speaking. I'm not the best in the world, but I'm good. I feel like I'm really good at teaching.

And when it comes to selling, I feel like I'm pretty much one of the best in the world. And I'm not patting myself on the back. I'm just saying I'm like, one of the best in the world.

But I said, this is a guy who can help me sharpen my axe.

And so one of the things that we have to understand is regardless of what level of effectiveness you are operating on, there's always a way and a place and an environment in which we can make ourselves more effective by increasing our efficiency. Now, here's what happens when you increase efficiency. Well, here's what happens when you increase effort without increasing efficiency, you become more tired and less effective over time. Are y' all tracking? This is why hard work is not the key to wealth. Because the harder you work at what's not working.

The less effective you are and the more exhausted you feel over time. And so if you spend, like if you could, with a sharp axe, you can chop down a tree, let's say, in 10 minutes. With a dull axe, it takes four hours. You're way more tired, way more sore, takes way more time to recuperate. And the amount of time you will be able to continue to operate like that gets shorter and shorter and shorter and shorter and shorter. That's why people, as we get older, working hard at jobs, they're are not producing the wealth that can help us sustain our family or catapult our family into another financial category of peace and prosperity, if you will. It makes us feel hopeless as we get older because the ax is not sharp. And it's like, I've been working at this for a very long time. I should be farther ahead. I should be further ahead than I am right now. I've been working at this. I've been working hard at this for a very long time. I can't believe I'm not further ahead. I've really, really, really, really been, like, really doing everything in my power to make this work. I can't believe I'm not further ahead. Well, the reason that happens is because we're increasing effort without increasing efficiency. Do you realize every book oh, back to the Joel Bauer story. Remember I said I bought the course and it wasn't that good? I thought it wasn't that good, right? But even though I thought it wasn't that good, I got one idea, one idea from that course that the next month, like, literally the month after I bought that course, that one idea from that course made me $27,000. A month later from one idea I got from that course that in my opinion, the course wasn't that great. Now, when I bought his masterclass, the $7,000 masterclass, that was phenomenal. That was on another level. So you say Myron Woody, and I'm not promoting Joel Bauer. I'm just saying when we put ourselves in an environment that sharpens our axe, our skill, our mindset axe, our skill set axe, what does that look like? One of the best ways to sharpen your skillset axe is to learn a new principle from the mindset. You go apply it in the marketplace, see how it works, get the feedback, and then you go back and do it again.

I have learned more in the last year. I've read Darrel Eve's the YouTube formula. I've read Sean Cannell's YouTube secrets. I've. I've read. I don't even know how many books I've read on marketing and sales, some more than I can count. But I've learned more about producing YouTube videos and growing your audience on YouTube by doing YouTube than I have from all those other things. Like, I. But. But it was the other things that I. I took the stuff, I went and applied it, and then I learned the lessons from the application of the things I learned. That's sharpening the axe. Sharpen your axe, your skill set axe, your mindset, your mindset axe, your tool set axe. What does sharpening your tool set axe look like? It looks like. Like growing into technology as technology advances.

So I grow into technology and I use technology as technology advances. I don't hide from it. I don't run from it. I'm not afraid of it. I use it. I don't believe all technology is good. Like, so, for instance, me, I don't want. I don't want. I don't. I don't really want. Siri. She interrupts me while I'm doing Bible study a lot. I don't want Google home. I don't want Amazon, Alexa. I don't want. I don't. I don't have any desire whatsoever for that level of intrusion by. From a company that I don't know what Their full motives are right. But I know they exist.

I know.

Somebody said, if you are using a product, like, if you are getting some kind of service from a company and you don't know what the product is, you are the product.

Right? So Facebook, like Facebook. How can Facebook be free? How can you go in and create groups and reach people and communicate with people all over the world? And it's free. It's free because you are the product. They're. They're. They're. They're giving you access to the world, but they're gathering your data and then selling it to people who are willing to pay for that data.

Right? So you, like, if you're using a service for free and you don't know what the product is, it's because you are the product. They're not doing that. They're not doing you a solid because they like you. I'm gonna do you a solid, right? Like, I know. I know the reason YouTube pays me is because I help them get what they want. What do they want? They want people to click on videos, watch the videos, and stay on the platform for a long time. So if you are a person who can get people to click on videos, watch videos, and stay on the platform for a long time, then you are a person that YouTube will put your videos in front of their audience, and then they will pay you when those people watch it.

You know what's crazy to me? This is crazy, but this is the. This is signs of the times that we live in. YouTube pays me more money per month for creating YouTube videos than I've ever made at any job in a year. In any job I've ever had in a year.

Why? Because I sharpened my axe.

I spent literally thousands of hours practicing and becoming the person who can communicate. Hundreds and hundreds of hours. Like teaching kids on a Sunday school bus.

You're not getting paid for it. Nobody said, oh, what a great bus captain. Yay. None of that.

Like, do the work and let the work turn you into the person who can do the thing. And as you're going, keep sharpening your ax. I promise you what will happen for you, like, if you will. Like.

Here'S what's cool about using, like, the tool set acts, for instance.

So I'm gonna put myself on front street so y' all can know who you're dealing with. I'm a pretty smart. I'm a pretty smart dude. You are smart, too, so don't get excited.

But if I had to pass a 9th grade grammar test.

To save my grandmother's life, I don't think she'd make it.

Right. I'm just like, I can't pass. Like, if I had to pass a 9th grade algebra test, probably ain't happening.

But guess what? I know how to use technology.

I know how to use automation, and I know how to use delegation to achieve things efficiently and effectively with the help of technology and people that I could not do by myself.

Here's the thing, though. If you're gonna sharpen the axe so you can create more wealth.

Number one, it takes time to sharpen the axe. That's the bad news. The good news is it takes less is it takes less time to sharpen the axe than it does to chop down the tree with a dull axe. That's the good news.