Hello and thank you for joining me for part 2 of this series where we talk about a new way to look at money. Money has the power to change your life and transform your future and to undervalue it’s worth is to rob yourself of the opportunity to live the life of your dreams.
Last week we started this discussion by talking about apples. Namely, is an apple just food, or can it be more? The power of an apple isn’t in the energy your body can take from consuming it to power your body, the power of an apple is in the seed.
Lets say you have been consistently reading blog posts on GreeneIncome.com and have developed a new appreciation for the potential in the power of money put to work. With this new appreciation in your arsenal you’re able to avoid eating your apple and instead you plant the seeds (now I know technically you can eat an apple and then plant the seeds after but for the sake of this analogy lets assume you have to choose one or the other). If you can get 5 seeds out of your apple, you may be able to get an apple tree to grow out of one of them. With close attention, due diligence, wise management, and careful planning, you’re able to keep this tree alive until it reaches a mature status.
Your new mature apple tree may take several years to produce fruit, but once it does, lets say it produces 5 more apples a year. Now instead of eating that original apple, you can eat 5 new apples, every year, for the rest of your life. Not bad right? Anyone can see your self-discipline and careful planning has already paid off and you’re better for it. But what if we don’t stop there?
What if we plant the seeds of all 5 apples this tree produces every year? What if out of those 5 yearly apples we are able to produce a new tree every year? Think about how fast this adds up. Soon, very soon, you’d have entire orchards of apple producing trees. More apples than you could possibly eat. More apples than you could give a way to all your friends, more than enough apples to supply you with plenty of apples for the rest of your life. Instead of buying apples to eat, you can sell your extra apples for other things you like (perhaps that cool new car?). These apple orchards can change your life, transform your future, open doors you never would have known you could have opened. You could go from that hungry guy to “that apple guy”.
Why? Because you waited. This is what we call “delayed gratification”, and the wealthy understand the concept and teach it to their children. Because when you make your apples work for you, your wealth builds exponentially. Because you didn’t enjoy eating the apple, you now have more apples than you need.
This example may be a little over simplified, but it stresses the principle of delayed gratification and compound interest. Money works the same way. More specifically, money generated through the purchase of real estate works the same way.
If orchards and orchards of apples numbering more than you could count sound appealing to you, keep reading about how you can acquire apples, plant them, help them grow, and replant them time and time again until you have more than you know what to do with and are giving them away.
The secret to wealth building is delayed gratification. Eating the apple right away feels good in the moment. But you aren’t eating just an apple. You’re eating your orchards. You’re eating your future.
Farmers have to learn the art of farming. Those who manage livestock must learn the art of husbandry. If you want to invest in real estate, you need to learn how it works.
That’s what sites like this are for. That’s why knowledge matters.
So what is money? Well it can buy you stuff, sure. But it can also be planted. Put to work on your behalf. Money planted wisely is money multiplied. With time on your side and a firm grip on the principles of real estate ownership, who knows how large your orchards could grow? As Robert. H. Schuller once said:
“Anyone can count the seeds in an apple, but only God can count the number of apples in a seed.”
The power of an apple is in the seed. The power of your money is in where you invest it.
Join me next week for a case study of just how quickly money can grow when you invest it wisely and continue to do so.
