Would a million dollars change your life? I’ll answer without guilt or hesitation: absolutely. But JT, this is a spiritual blog, how could you write about making money!? That’s evil! You’re an evil capitalist pig!
Relax… Breathe… In… Out…. Okay now that you are relaxed and feeling spiritual, let’s make some money! I’ll show you how to make $1 million and all it takes is the ability to make a single dollar and an open mind.
Why a Single Dollar?
Let me just preface this that there is nothing inherently wrong about making money. Money is necessary. In fact, money is the very thing keeping you alive. Money, at its core, is a resource, and you need resources to survive.
It’s when money runs your thoughts, emotions, and ego drives that it can cause a whole host of issues. If only the masses knew that wealth is gained through simplicity, rather than frantic chasing.
If you possess the ability to make $1, then you can make $1 million. Why is that? Is $1 million not just a million one dollar bills? Okay, so then it’s not necessarily a matter of earning money, because you are capable of that. It’s more of a matter of retention. You must keep the money you make.
I bet if I kept every dollar I earned since I was a baby I would have well over a million dollars already. In a culture fueled by materialism, we don’t have an earning problem, we have a spending problem.
How To Make $1 Million If Our Desires Work Against Us
You will never out-earn your spending habits if you don’t solve the inner root cause of your desiring-ness. Couple your egoistic desire for MORE with a couple of credit cards and you have the recipe for being a broke bloke who can’t afford to shine their shoes, am I right?? *crickets*…
So then, we must first start by finding the root of our desires.
Desire stems from Our Egoistic Need For Survival
You may rationalize desire as being necessary, especially when it comes to survival, that primal urge for sustenance, like craving a steak. Man, I love steak…
(Quick aside, if you’re looking to lose weight and gain definition, I’ve found that a lower-protein approach to eating has served me better and helped me stay in athletic shape. See: Low-Protein Diets: The Secret To Slimming Down And Looking Toned).
I remember when I first witnessed my ego freak out over its primal urge for survival. I quit my full-time job in hopes that putting my back up against a wall would help me spiritually manifest my goals.
I was completely wrong and jeopardized my life because I had no income coming in. I had fears I’d be evicted from my apartment and be eating pizza out of a dumpster. It’s funny now, looking back at how my ego jumped to such a dramatic conclusion.
But in that moment, I saw that I did not have control over these emotions. They came up spontaneously. I began to question, if that’s not me, then what am I? I must be the thing that’s witnessing the ego’s freakout.
Desire blocks You From Seeing Reality
That may seem hard to believe, but the more spiritual work you do to transcend your desires, the more you start to see the reality of what’s really going on. That reality is simply this: things manifest into your life automatically. When you were a kid, did you have to do something to acquire food or money or was it just given to you? It was given to you.
Well, that continues as you get older too. It’s just that your desire blocks you from seeing that reality.
Everything falls into your life, not by your desiring-ness, but by the grace of God and nothing else.
Life is really as easy as that sounds. By letting go of your desires, you start to see automatic manifestation more and more. It’s like you become a magnet that attracts gifts from the universe.
Steps to Making $1 Million
Now that you’ve realized that to make $1 million, you must first quiet that internal part of you that craves, you are now free to take practical steps toward your goal. Here are 3 practical steps on how to make $1 million:
1) Maintain a Job
Don’t be like me and quit your full-time job without having a means to support yourself. Even if you want to start your own business, NEVER put your life in jeopardy while relying on hope that it’ll all just work out.
The only time you should quit your job to pursue a business is if you have consistently (month over month for multiple months) replaced your income that supports you.
Notice, I’m not saying you need some 6-figure career to make $1 million. Choose a career that meets your standard for making a living. If you’d rather take a lower paying job because the high paying one is too stressful, then do so. If you’d rather take a more stressful job because the pay is worth it, then do so.
It’s all about finding the right balance of working, having personal time, and making money to support yourself. You can make $1 million with basic income as you will see shortly, but maintain a job at all costs.
2) Don’t Take on Debt
Debt is literally this: You’re on track to making $1 million, but then put 2 vacations, your wedding, and expensive furniture on credit cards. Now you have to pay all those debts off before you can even get back on track to making $1 million. Congratulations, you’ve successfully sabotaged your path to wealth that was easily laid out for you.
Getting wealthy is a straight and narrow path. The problem is we deviate from the path every time we take on debt. What could have taken you 10 years to become a millionaire, now will take you 30. Was it worth it? Probably not.
At its base level, debt was created to satisfy our desires immediately and pay for it later. Isn’t that what we see with financing options (ie. Put $0 down for a low monthly payment of $299). What they don’t tell you is that you’ll be paying that $299 for months or even years, also owing interest.
So, instead of just paying $5000 upfront of money you earned, saved, and being done with it, you pay $8000 total once your financing term is up, and you’ve been hooked to make payments regularly. It’s like being poison dripped! Before you know it, you’re financing multiple things and paying thousands every month while being left to wonder where all your paychecks have gone.
Focus on keeping your money, not adding to the list of payments you owe.
3) Don’t just Save, Invest and Invest Wisely
I don’t really like the term “saving”. If you just stash your money in a checking or savings account, you will do better than most people, but inflation will eat that money and make it worthless over the span of your lifetime.
Instead, invest your money and have it do all the work for you. Investing is like taking your money and giving it some alone time to make babies, then those babies grow up and make more babies. Eventually, that money will keep growing and compounding, leading to $1 Million.
The more you invest, the more you will gain in the long-run. It’s important to place your investments in something with a high yield (return) and is safe from a lot of dramatic market downturns. Say something like the S&P 500.
(This is just general investing advice. Investing is a huge topic of discussion and a qualified investment professional could better answer your questions on where to place your money for your situation).
For me, I value simplicity, and keeping my money in a proven investment that has returned millions of dollars for Americans consistently is where I choose to place mine.
I stay away from risky investments like single stocks, cryptocurrencies, house flipping etc.
The beauty of investing is you don’t need to put a lot in the investment to become a millionaire. You can put as little as $300/month over the course of 30 years and still make it out on top. Obviously, the more you invest, early and often, will shorten the time it takes to make $1 million. If you are young, time is on your side.
Wealth grows in Proportion To Your Integrity
No one gets rich quick without paying the piper. Today’s lottery winner is tomorrow’s cautionary tale of ruin. Only those with integrity and strength of character are able to maintain their wealth.
By growing your integrity through spiritual dedication, you learn the proper ways to build wealth, land a high-paying career, create self-sustaining businesses, make sound financial decisions, and avoid pitfalls that lead to ruin. You gain a long-term perspective so that your wealth grows over time rather than being stuck in the cycle of living paycheck-to-paycheck.
So relax, you’re well on your way to making $1 million. When you achieve it, you’ll realize it’s not the money that brings true fulfillment. That’s just the icing on the cake. The real fulfillment comes from becoming the person capable of earning it.