One of the best ways to create substantial wealth is to set up your own business. However, not everybody has the skills, confidence or entrepreneurial flair to build a business from the ground up, or even to buy an existing business and grow it. Being an employee puts a definite cap on how much wealth you can create. No matter how much you are paid per hour, there is a limit to the number of hours you can work. In a business, you can leverage your time and financial resources by employing other people and borrowing money to expand. There are no limits to the wealth you can create.
The ability to succeed in business has less to do with academic qualifications and more to do with business acumen. If your ultimate aim is to establish your own business, make a list of all the skills and experience you will need to do this. Leadership, management, sales and marketing are critical areas in which to have experience. According to Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, the best way to acquire the skills you need is to ‘work to learn, not to earn’. By this he means choose jobs not on the basis of what they pay or what the career prospects are but on the basis of what they can teach you which will be useful in your own business. This might mean taking on jobs with low pay and low status. For example, you might choose to work on commission in a sales role for a company that has an excellent reputation for training their sales people, simply to acquire these skills. The sales role is not a career. It is a means to an end; the financial freedom that comes from eventually running your own business.
