Summary

The article emphasizes Grant Cardone's advice that focusing on making more money rather than saving is key to escaping poverty.

Abstract

The author of the article shares their personal struggle with saving money despite not being a big spender, only to find their investment account depleted due to life's unexpected expenses. Inspired by motivational speaker Grant Cardone, the author realized that the traditional advice of saving money is insufficient for achieving wealth. Instead, Cardone advocates for earning more money as a more effective strategy. The author took this advice to heart, leveraging their writing skills to create a successful side business, which resulted in significant earnings that could be invested without touching their regular income. The article encourages readers to assess their own skills and explore ways to increase their income, suggesting that this approach can lead to financial stability and the ability to enjoy life's luxuries without guilt.

Opinions

Traditional financial advice focusing on saving may not lead to wealth, especially when faced with emergency expenses.
Grant Cardone's philosophy that making more money is more crucial than saving is considered profound and life-changing.
The author criticizes the average mindset of doing the bare minimum and relying on a savings account as an emergency fund, which hinders real financial progress.
The article suggests that many people are held back by laziness and comfort, preferring to watch Netflix rather than pursuing additional income streams.
The author promotes the idea of using one's skills to create a side business as a practical way to significantly increase earnings.
The success story of the author, who earned over $20,000 through content creation, is presented as evidence that Cardone's advice works.
The author encourages readers to take action and start converting their skills into cash to improve their financial situation.

Accept 1 harsh Grant Cardone truth or you’ll always remain poor

Do you always feel like you can never save any money?

Like, you want to save. You try to save.

But you can’t?

For close to two decades, I tried to save my way to riches, and you know what I was left with?

Zero savings.

I found this so frustrating for the longest time and I just couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t making any progress.

I loved the idea of investing. I wanted to save, I wasn’t a big spender, but at the end of the day I kept winding up with nothing in my investment account.

Then I heard one simple line from one of my favorite motivational gurus and it changed my perspective on everything.

It also resulted in an increasingly fat investment account.

Allow me to explain.

Angry about never getting ahead? Read on. (Licensed by the author under the Unsplash+ License)

The 1 harsh Grant Cardone truth

Grant Cardone is the author of some of my favorite motivational audiobooks.

Any time I’m feeling lousy or unmotivated, I listen to one of these audiobooks to get my blood pumping again (affiliate links below):

(By the way, if you’re new to Audible you can try one of these for free with my affiliate link here).

Now one point Cardone harps on in almost everything he produces is this:

“Stop trying to save money. You don’t need to save more money. You need to MAKE more money.”

It sounds simple, but it’s actually really profound — and I’ll explain with a concrete example from my own life.

Your typical financial guru will tell you to get a boring commuter job, stop buying lattes, invest in the stock market, and maybe you’ll have some cash in 35 years — if you make it that far.

Well I’ve tried that and, as Cardone predicted, gotten nowhere.

Emergencies and investments

You see, the problem with trying to save your way to riches is that you never make enough so that your investment account is sacrosanct.

It’s just too easy to dip into it when things are tight.

Yes, you might be able to scrounge 5–10% of your net salary to “save”, but then, you know, life occurs.

Maybe your kids start playing competitive sports (*raises hand*), maybe you need a new roof (*raises hand*), or maybe your furnace craps out (*raises hand again*).

Opsie. Empty savings account again.

And that’s to say nothing of the crushing inflation and high interest rates that are already taking a huge bite out of our paycheques at the moment.

If you’re already scrounging to save, at best you’ll be average.

At worst, you’ll be poor.

So how do you avoid these scenarios, neither of which feels all that enticing to me?

How to make more money

If this is the harsh reality, why aren’t more people out there busting their butts to build side businesses and make more money?

It’s pretty simple, actually.

Most people are lazy.

Most people are comfortable.

Just comfortable enough to not have to work more than the average 9-to-5er. Just comfortable enough to have an excuse to stay in their rut.

They do the bare minimum, watch Netflix all night, and then repeat.

Then their savings account becomes their emergency fund and they never wind up making any real gains.

I’d finally had enough of that cycle.

One day, I sat down and actually put some thought into it. I considered my skills and how to leverage them to make more.

As a writer and former journalist, I knew my path to freedom was via content creation.

I’d messed around with get-rich-quick schemes before — sports betting, options trading — you name it.

Scams.

Finally, I accepted that if I wanted to get ahead, I’d actually have to do some work.

And what was the result?

More than $20,000 in earnings in a year, most of which went into what is now a protected investment account that I never touch.

The extra money I made side hustling gave me breathing room in my regular life and allowed me to build a nice portfolio on the side.

I never had to touch my day job salary to build the portfolio, and I don’t touch the portfolio because my day job can now cover life’s little surprises.

Now I have about $7,000 invested in stocks and another $7,000 in cash to deploy, with no plans to take that money out of my tax-sheltered account (the other money went to tax-deductible life expenses).

What will you do?

It’s more comfortable just to stay in your comfort zone, even though it probably isn’t that comfortable at all.

But what if you decided right now — TODAY — that you wanted to do better for yourself and your family?

What if you sat down, figured out what you bring to the table, and started thinking about how to convert that into cash?

Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to get the damn latte?

Friends, thanks so much for reading! If you enjoyed this piece or found it inspiring, please give it a clap or two so others can find it! Got an experience to share? Let me know in the comments!

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