Making a Million Dollars is So Simple – But Why Can Most Only Dream About It?

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Other than FMF’s famous equation, there are no two other simpler ones that you will find to making a million dollars than these.

The first one is to find a billion dollars and start an airline company.  The only problem is that you need to find a billion dollars first. I trust that you too have a resource like the rest of us?

The second one is even simpler.  Find a way to make a buck, then repeat it a million times over. Simple enough? You bet.  And if you want to make a Billion bucks, start selling a burger for a buck, and then sell over a billion of them like McDonalds publicly claims it has under the big golden M sign on their restaurants.

I understand you may not have the $750,000 cash on hand that McDonalds corporation wants you to have in your bank account to own a franchise. So let’s have a look at a few more reasonable ways of getting there shall we?

Opportunities:

• Complete a paid survey online and make $10.  Do it just 99,999 more times and you will have a million bucks.
• Write an E-book and sell it on your website for $24.99.  Sell 40,000 copies and you are a millionaire.
• Complete a chore for a neighbor, such as baby sitting or mowing the lawn.  Say you make $45 per task.  Simply do it 22,222 times and you have your million.
• Freelance on the side and sell your spare time at $50 bucks an hour.  Put in 20,000 hours of work, or the equivalent of 2,500 – 8 hour work days and there you have a million dollars. That’s less than 7 years!
• Before wandering off on creative tangents, the entire foundation of the retail business revolved around the simple concept of buying widgets for $1 and selling them for $2.  Buy some product in bulk and sell it at a margin. Do it over and over and you will sure make your million.

As you can imagine, there are countless roads to get to a million dollars, some better than others, some a quicker path than others.  But the point is that there are roads!

Why Do Most People Never Get Anywhere Near $1M?

Hours long of discussions can take place to address this question.  But let me outline just a handful of reasons that come to mind immediately.

Conflicting Priorities – What I mean is scarcity of time.  We all have the same amount of time, and we are all continuously challenged to fit all of our priorities in the limited time that we have.

Although many use the lack of time as an excuse to not embark on the million dollar journey, I find that this is a very genuine reason for many and one that I can totally respect.

Who says money is everything in life?  Who says only a million bucks or more can be construed as “enough” or “a lot of” money? For many, less is more.

Lack of Desire – Some simply don’t want a million bucks.  But what I find is that many really do want it if someone was to hand it over to them. In other words, they don’t want to mow their neighbor’s lawn 22,000 times. That’s why the lack of desire translates into laziness for me many times.

Limiting (Self Imposing) Beliefs – I see this one a lot.  As a result of mental conditioning due to one’s upbringing, society or general environment, many have come to believe that earning one million dollars is beyond their reach, and that it is only meant for those who are either truly gifted or lucky in life.

Education & The Know How – The lack of education or “know-how” can preclude one from the apparently elusive million bucks even if they have a strong desire, the mindset to succeed, and no conflicting priorities.  The good news is that the desire, capacity (availability of time due to low or no conflicting priorities) and right mindset compels one to acquire the education or “know-how” to achieve their dream.

Note: When I speak of education, I don’t necessarily mean formal Harvard university training.  Education (or learning) can be accomplished in a variety of forms.  If you want to succeed as an internet marketer, an MBA from a top 10 school might help, but will likely not get you there by itself.  An investment in an internet marketing training course may better serve.  Similarly, learning from an expert mentor for free who has been there and done that will also likely get you there.  Education doesn’t have to cost money, but it will cost you time and effort.

The good news is that most of the barriers that come to mind can be overcome.  The bad news is that there are several other external factors beyond one’s control that can severely impact the road to a million bucks.  I never said the journey was going to be easy.  Very few things worthwhile having in life are easy to come-by, and a million bucks is one of ‘em.

And as if there aren’t enough potential complications already, to keep things simple, I have conveniently skipped the discussion over taxes, potential risks such as litigation, or one of several other externalities that can impact the equation under discussion.

The point I am conveying is that making a million dollars is not that complicated of a task. And the bottom line is that your piece of the pie is out there if you want to go grab it.  But can you?  Do you want to? What is preventing you?

~ This was a guest post I had published on the Free Money Finance blog back in February.  Because this blog is relatively new, I want to ensure my readership doesn’t miss a beat

11 Responses to “Making a Million Dollars is So Simple – But Why Can Most Only Dream About It?”

1. krantcents says:

   June 6, 2011 at 12:36 pm

   All it takes is a plan and working it. Start saving and opportunities will appear to invest the savings in. I established my goal and 7 years (38 years old) later, I achieved it. In most cases, too may people are unwilling to do what is necessary to achieve the goal. It takes hard work and sacrifice.

   Reply
2. SB (One cent at a time) says:

   June 6, 2011 at 7:39 pm

   See, I don’t wanna be your critic, but for average Joe, are these points relevant?

   * Complete a paid survey 99,999 time, I will spend time with family instead!
   * When is the last time you bought a book for $24.99?
   * I don’t wanna mow the jack next door to get $45, forget about 22,222 times.
   * We pay Indian software companies $50 bucks an hour for writing code for us (major bank). Freelance work for $50 an hour, unless you are genius, you won’t get it
   * to buy and sell in bulk, first thing I would need is a place to keep. where this money will come from?

   Point is not to cut you off, but we should be more realistic. Unless you have a brilliant brain or a million already to make another million, you will be millionaire a bit slowly. You need to spend and invest wisely, and utilize your time properly.

   Love to hear your counter comment

   Reply
   • Sunil says:

     June 7, 2011 at 2:16 pm

     Welcome SB and of course these points are relevant to Joe or Jane. I consider anyone to be able to replicate what I have personally done, and most of my writing is from my own experience.

     To your points –

     1) sure you can spend time with family instead. you can’t have everything in life. something has to give / compromise right?

     2) I spend hundreds on educational material. do you expect to gain knowledge/wisdom w/o spending? If so let me know the secret

     3) sure you might not want to, but I can find you many others who will gladly take that job

     4) I don’t consider myself a genius, but I command much more than those numbers

     5) you will figure out a way if you wanted to do it – trust me

     I see where you are getting at, but that is fundamentally the challenge with many. It is easy to default to the safe and conservative way of “making it” while living an average life of compromises. There are ways to expedite exponential wealth creation – examples are all around you. Neither do I have a brilliant brain, nor was I handed a million dollars. I appreciate your thoughts.

     Reply
   • Chukwuka Okwukwe Chukwuka says:

     June 18, 2011 at 4:29 pm

     SB, though I’m not even an amateur in this Money making thingy all over the internet, I’ve got Sunil’s back because he was clearly stating a point and creating examples of what you can do to get a million bucks.

     Constructive criticism, though.

     Sunil, nice article. We want the money but we don’t want to work.

     Reply
     • Sunil says:

       June 18, 2011 at 7:50 pm

       Welcome to the community Chukwuka – I agree, everyone wants the money, but very few are willing to work for it. I didn’t get the memo that it was our birth right 😉

       Reply
3. Jeff says:

   June 7, 2011 at 8:37 am

   Nice article and I do see your point that there are many paths to a million dollars.

   But an important reason that I see that is missing from your list is the lack of motivation. I find myself wanting to do other things because it benefits me now instead of working for something that you know you can’t get overnight. How do you overcome this?

   Reply
   • Sunil says:

     June 7, 2011 at 2:09 pm

     Jeff – welcome to the blog. Personally I don’t consider motivation a reason, rather an excuse. How do you overcome anything? If you want anything bad enough and believe in what you are doing (there are many examples around us for validation), then you will do it. Motivation is something that comes from within. Knowing what the long term potential is, why is it that you are still not motivated? That is a question you need to answer for yourself.

     Reply
4. Setup a Pro WP Site says:

   June 7, 2011 at 10:37 pm

   Your greatest enemy is YOU! It’s true…

   Reply
   • Sunil says:

     June 8, 2011 at 4:29 am

     Welcome to the blog and you are Bang On!

     Reply
5. Deneil Merritt says:

   June 14, 2011 at 11:55 am

   I love this article but what got me after the article is the comments. SB had very weak excuses and the other person I don’t know their name was spot on. “Your greatest enemy is YOU!” I been my worse enemy for years and slowly realized it. Anyway, it doesn’t matter what you do to make a million dollars just get out there and start doing it already.

   Reply
   • Sunil says:

     June 14, 2011 at 12:26 pm

     Welcome to the blog Deneil – keep us posted on your progress. All the best

     Reply