The other day my friend hooked me up with Eben Pagan’s Self-Made Wealth and in it he said one thing that stuck in my mind – A friend of his once told him “That making money is much easier than keeping it.”
How true that is. So many of us are looking to make more money to solve our problems but with more money new problems arise and they are not ones you might expect.
One obvious one is tax. Now that’s not really a problem as long as you’re aware of it.
But so many people overlook this.
I’ve had numerous friends tell me they were shocked to see how much they owed when they got their tax bill in the mail.
While they enjoyed the fruits of their newfound wealth, they had neglected to allow for this.
Oops.
Just the other day on Yahoo I saw that Ozzy Osbourne, the lead vocalist from the British heavy metal rock band Black Sabbath and star of his own reality show, was hit with a $1.7 million bill by the IRS.
Luckily as he is estimated to be worth $100 million it’s pocket change for him but it just goes to show you that even millionaires run into trouble.
Another issue that you find with more money is that you don’t value it as much as you used to.
What does this mean?
Before you might buy one car and keep it for 10 years or until the wheels fall off but now you have 3 cars.
A sports car to go cruising in, a high class SUV for the family outings and a sedan to go to work.
Do you need three cars? No. But you figure, what the heck – after all, I can afford it.
Again the problem is a lack of understanding money.
Each car comes with its own costs. Insurance goes up.
Upkeep goes up.
And one of the silent killers – gas prices.
My friend’s cousin, who earns $12 an hour, decided to purchase a Cadillac SUV with her husband who isn’t rolling in money either.
Now they are stuck with a gas guzzling tank and considering she has to drive almost 70km a day, you can do the math.
She already is complaining about the cost of gas.
How will this story end? Badly, if you ask me.
Then there’s the affect success has on you.
Success, for many of us, can go to our heads. We start thinking we have all the answers.
That we’re a little better than others.
It’s a fatal flaw and one that has cost people millions, if not billions, over the years.
Success is like any other thing.
If you take it for granted, it won’t be with you very long.
Success is a wonderful thing but it has some surprising consequences that catch some people off guard.
So while we could all benefit from reading books on how people succeeded, we may be able to learn even more from autobiographies of people who succeeded but threw it all away.
The lessons we can learn from such people may just save us from the same fate.
Adrian Shepherd