I want to share a passage with you from a conversation I had recently on the podcast with Tony J. Robinson:
Robert (me): I was going to say, you’re the perfect example of that, right? What if you didn’t have that real estate to fall back on when you had gotten let go from your job? I mean, you probably could have found another W2 job. You’re relatively young, well-educated, you’re a smart guy, hard worker. I’m sure you would’ve been able to find another job. But the point is, you didn’t have to because you had your real estate on the side. And I think you’re right. A lot of people have this false sense of security from a W2. But what I always think of about is too is, that’s just one source of income.
Sure, there’s some sense of security from a W2. But when you’re an entrepreneur, you oftentimes have more than one stream of income. So even if you lose one of them, you still have all the others. Maybe you make a little less money, maybe you need to tighten your belt a little bit, not spend as much money, but at least you still have all these other streams. In real estate, if you have a bunch of big portfolio with a bunch of properties, if one or two properties goes down, you get fired, say, from those properties, you still have the other three, four, five to support you. And it’s not that way with a W2. You’re either in or you’re out.Tony Robinson: Robert, I’ll never forget. My first job out of college, I was working for this big corporation, right? They’re like a Fortune 100 company, right? And after my first year, the time for my raise comes up and I’ve been crushing it, man. I was killing it, staying late, going into work early, just doing all this stuff you’re supposed to do when you get out of college and it’s your first job and you’re trying to crush it. And I got a 2% raise, 2%. And I’ll never forget. I was sitting there in the office with my boss and sweet lady, loved her to death. And she was super excited to get me this raise. She was like, “Tony, you did such a great job this year. We really wanted to reward you.” They hand me my raise letter and it was 2%.
And of course, I smile and I say, “Thank you. I’m appreciative.” But as I was walking away, I was like, “Man, I’m worth way more than 2%.” And what I love about being an entrepreneur and working for yourself and being in control is that I get to decide what I’m worth, I get to decide how much money I make on a monthly, weekly, annual basis, right? It’s up to me to go out there and bust my ass, do the work that’s necessary. And as long as I’m providing value to the marketplace, I know that I’m going to be compensated in a way that’s equal to the value that I’m providing. Not based on what some corporation feels that I should be getting, but on the value that I know that I provide, that’s why I love the journey of being an entrepreneur, man.
Now, let me ask you, are you worth more than 2%?
Are you worth more than 2%?
So much truth in this letter! 🦾🚀 Thanks Robert!