by elmads

Let’s be real, everyone needs money, it doesn’t matter what each and one of us believes at, everyone still needs money. You, your family, your relatives, your friends, your neighbours even the stranger you just saw a while ago needs money too. You might ask the questions how about those billionaires with overflowing money? well, those people do not need money for their daily living anymore, but they still need it for a larger purpose. See for example Jeff Bezos, he doesn’t need more money for his own basic needs, but he needs it to finance his childhood dream of going to space. And for the most of them, it is a means to create and build something to further improve human lives.

Humans need money not because we are greedy, we need it because it just so happens that money is the medium of trust and understanding between people. It is a medium of exchange for us to acquire what we really need in life. What do I mean by this? The paper money we use now could have been sea shells, stones or beads that we could have used as a means of exchange to buy groceries, pay our electricity bills and rent. It is a tool of sustainability for our basic necessities of life, and also acts as an aid into achieving our own perceived purpose in this world. Such as, for educating people, helping the needy, starting a business that cater the needs of the masses, and other more.

With this, I just thought of the 3 basic paths that we could take to reach the the amount of money that we want for ourselves and our family. And, those three basic paths are Employment, Sales and as an Artist.

Employment

Everyone knows that money is important that’s why almost a third to half of our lives are allocated into working for money through employment. Unfortunately, not everyone will have the same amount of income. I remember when I was young, most parents in the Philippines have the same teachings. And that is to study hard, get good grades, then pass all required examinations, then find a good employer, get a job, have a good to high salary and an look for an employer that will give great benefit and pension plan. This has been the norm for decades now, don’t get me wrong it is actually a great way to attain a comfortable and secured financial life.

Salaries through employment has always been relative to a country and industry. These discrepancies, the demand for required skills and intellect led into the formation of high income, middle income and low income earners. Everyone’s goal is to have a good enough income to sustain their daily lives and also have some extra left for other endeavours and leisure. For employees to increase their income, they would need an essential criteria to have a higher position and pay, and that is usually through formal education. The university undergraduate degrees, postgraduate degrees (Masterals) and PHDs.

But as humanity progress forward, technologies advanced, made our lives easier and population boomed. Competition in the labour market have been tighter than before and overtime, employment have shifted significantly to off set these changes.

There is this phenomena called the “Degree inflation”, jobs before do not require degrees for hiring their potential employees, but are now requiring one. This means that the past employees on a specified position didn’t have any undergraduate degrees, but the new entrants will now be required to have a specified degree to land into that same job. If this continuously happens, which is, then it would strengthen more the necessity for the younger generations to have a college education to have a job.

Unfortunately, this still doesn’t give a high certainty that their income will be enough to sustain their essential life needs. Just like what I have said, different country and different industries vary in salaries. This is why it is important also to survey which industry would be able to give us a better pay, then get a specific degree that is required for us to be able to join those high paying industries.

This is the reason why college degrees alone may not be sufficient enough, the next step will be to have an advanced formal education, such as Postgraduate degrees and most especially PHDs. Some jobs will not require it yet, but we cannot deny the fact that the trend is moving towards that direction already. Supply and demand forces are at play in the labour market, the increasing number of people competing for employment and in a world of rapid changes has been happening. Specializations has been needed now than ever due to these changes.

The advancement in our education will always be worthwhile, because it can yield and land us a high level position that can guarantee a high paying salary, the pinnacle of employment. Examples are Judge, Neurosurgeons and Chief Executive Officers.

This is what most employees who wants sky high salaries, are aiming for. The way to it, is to continuously have a higher education and skills development that will be valuable enough for us to be able to land that high paying position. This also called “Climbing the Corporate Ladder” and “The Virtuosos – The highly specialized”

This only a small portion of the employment story as this is a subject of vast subtopics and levels. Basically, it is only a simple pathway that we could take in order to reach that high paying wages as an employee.

Sales

This is a skill that will surely guarantee a hefty return when mastered. This is a no brainer, because all businessmen in today’s world know sales. They are the ones who sell products and/or services to people. They cater the wants and needs of the community, region, country and sometimes the world. They understand what people require, and grab the opportunity to provide it while having great income in return.

Sales is a broad field. People can be in sales while being employed into a company or government agency, while there are individuals who start their own business and be entrepreneur themselves. Both is feasible and have their own advantages and disadvantages

• Sales and employment – the good part of this is that they will still receive a basic salary, the best part is the commission. Sales persons receive a part of income for every product they sell. For example, when financial advisors successfully sell an insurance, they’ll be receiving a percentage of that exchange as a commission. That’s why the more they are able to sell, the larger the money they will be having through commissions, while still having the basic monthly salary as an employee. Some companies require a college degree and a license to be employed.

• Starting their own business – entrepreneurs in their own rights. They start their own business, operate it and allocate its capital. They provide the wants and needs of the people, which they are passionate and knowledgeable about. Some of them have the acumen into understanding the attention and the psychology of individuals, which translates into good sales of their business. Not all businessmen will be successful into starting their start-ups. Studies show that 90% of start up businesses fail, a very low probability indeed, but the ones who continuously learns and improves consistently will see success overtime.

“A winner is just a loser who tried one more time.”

-Geroge M. Moore Jr.

Starting an own business and becoming successful with it grants one of the largest salary or return, if not the highest compared to being a high paying employee. Nevertheless, with that level of success comes risk, stress, time and hard-work than others. This is why loving what we are doing is essential when entering this space.

Celebrity

Being a celebrity doesn’t just mean becoming an actor or an actress, celebrities are also the singers, dancers, writers, sculptors, painters, youtubers, TikTok content creators, Instagram personalities, sports players, and other more. These are the famous people in an industry, mostly entertainment and sports.

They are the people who really are passionate about on what they do, they are the masters of their craft which they honed and are continuously honing through time. In terms of their income, the level to reach a good income from it requires tons of effort at the start, because income from it is unstable. Celebrities are mostly project based. If there are no one takes them for a project, then there will be no income for them.

Being a celebrity doesn’t require an undergraduate degree. What is required is the skills of their craft, such as acting for actors, creativity with painting for painters, content video creation for youtubers and others more.

They are being paid for the services they give either to direct contract like a concert, or for every products they sell, such as statues and paintings.

Celebrities become a high income earner when they reach popular levels (high demand for their intellect and skills) and when they set foot on the world stage. The problem they mostly encounter is the consistency of becoming relevant to the industry and maintaining a good reputation to the public. The problem with this is, their privacy shrinks as they become more popular.

High Paying Jobs Effort Vs Risk At the Pinnacle of their Career

I’ll be basing each categories on the highest pay that it can achieve.

Employment I’ll be using doctors, Sales it’ll be businessman, Celebrities it’ll be the popular international celebrities like Bruno Mars.

• Employment has High Effort High Certainty – The higher the position the more work and responsibilities will be required for them to do. As an employee the pay will always be constantly as what the contract dictates, hence a high certainty of a high paying job.

• Sales has Medium Effort Medium Certainty – A businessman who has achieved a business that operates without requiring to much of his help will give him a more extra time to work things for himself. His employees will be doing the work for him and will be reporting to him at time to time, while still be able to receive cash in flows to his bank account. That being said, the certainty of income will not always be as high as an employee because if there will be problems to the operations and the economy, then there might be a time in which the business owner will need to take a pay cut for himself or worse, sell the company.

• Celebrities Medium Effort Low Certainty – Celebrities, at the top of their game do not sometimes make more of their craft, but mostly produces or trains the next generation of artists within their industry. These celebrities will not need to grind as hard as what they did during their early and prime days. They already have established a reputation that people will remember forever. Mostly the royalties and trademarks they’ve made through out their careers will be able to give them continuous cash flow, but these are still uncertain compared to having a stable source of income. People could just forget and stop buying the works of these people overtime as new and more popular artists in their industry overshadows their former glory which is a happens consistently with celebrities. That’s why most of them invest and/or start their own business to have a more stable cash flow and get royalties from their work.

Below is a chart to visualize the three categories based on effort and certainty.

Legend:
3 = High
2 = Medium
1= Low

To sum it up

Employment is essential for most of us as it is the initial path to attain financial stability, but it is not the only way to achieve a stable and consistent cash flow. We could also be employees while expanding into sales and be an artist of sort. For instance, we can be employed, sell products online and do YouTube videos, these 3 endeavours immediately capture employment, sales and creativity.

That being said, there will still be a problem in doing this, and that’s the amount of time and effort that we will be doing for it. We have to realize that merging these 3 will significantly eat away almost all of our hours in a day including our energy.

Self-awareness is an important aspect of our lives, because we might find that being focused on one endeavour is right enough for us. If we are happy in what we do then by all means we must be best at it, and attain our full potential in that specific field. We do not need to become a jack of all trades kind of person if we are not one, what we need to be is the best version of ourselves with the contentment, happiness and fulfilment in what we do.

This is why being self-aware is crucial, we certainly do our jobs for money, but to be happy is to love the things that we do. Love of the game gives us an immense boost in what we do, the burning passion, energy and the continuous actions being taken because of it, where on the eyes of other people seem impossible to do.

Do what you love, do what you want to do and most especially do you. Becoming an employee for life is great, becoming an entrepreneur is wonderful, and becoming a celebrity is awesome. Either we do one, two or try all of them, it wouldn’t matter, as long a we find the things that will suit ourselves and help us achieve the highest possible income we could ever attain in our lives, with fulfilment and happiness.

Knowledge is my Sword and Patience is my Shield,

elmads

This blog is for informational purposes only and not a Financial Recommendation. Not all information will be accurate. Consult an independent financial professional before making any major financial decisions.