Part 4 of 5: The Counter-Intuitive But Simple Secret To Becoming A Millionaire.

 

Hello ,

One of the biggest challenges people face in their lives is not being able to “do their own thing” because they need to have a job to keep a steady amount of money coming in, to take care of bills and expenses. 

They have to pay for the housing, food, car, gas, insurance, for their dependents etc. – and this amount really adds up…

For this reason, they end up working their entire lives.

Financially savvy people however, look at this “challenge” from a totally different approach and I am going to share that with you today…

This is exactly why today’s email will prove to be a life-changer for you because if you act on it, you will become a millionaire in a few short years.

Let’s get right into it.

Here’s what the rich know that everyone else doesn’t:

They know the difference between an asset and a liability.

On the other hand, regular people keep buying liabilities thinking that they are assets.

Now, you might be groaning in your head thinking “Another accounting class! I thought I was done with that in college!”

Rest assured, I am not teaching you accounting.

(I hate accounting as much as you do).

I am educating you on a very simple question you can ask yourself which will tell you if something is an asset or a much-dreaded liability.

See, an asset is simply something which puts money in your pocket.

A liability is simply something which takes money out of your pocket.

Let’s go through some examples of assets:

1. An online business which has over 100 people enrolled in it and which charged people for membership monthly, is an asset because after expenses, you are bringing in passive income.

1. A real estate investment (townhouse, condo, apartment building) which has been rented out and is more than paying for itself monthly is an asset. 

1. A dividend stock is an asset because you get a dividend check every month or every quarter, depending on which company you invest in.

Now let’s go through some liabilities:

1. The house which you live in is not an asset (contrary to popular belief). It is a liability because you continuously pay mortgage, property taxes and maintenance expenses on it.
2. Your car is a liability. This is because you pay for gas, maintenance and servicing etc. out of your own pocket. Also, your car keeps losing value every single day, making you poorer. The only case where it would be an asset is if you were driving Uber, charging fares which were higher than your monthly car expense.
3. The exquisite furniture in your house is definitely a liability and not an asset because while it might give you bragging rights and make you appear to be rich, it generates no income but keeps losing value over time.
4. Technically, hanging out with the wrong crowd and wasting your time are also liabilities because you are “spending” time and getting almost nothing out of it. 

 The shocking part of this revelation is that the rich become rich ONLY because they make a conscious effort to have more assets than they have liabilities.  When this realization hit me years ago, it literally changed my life. 

As soon as I started understanding how the “Game of Wealth” is played, I actively started buying assets.  Here’s an investment property (a townhouse) I bought in Oshawa, Canada back in 2014 – it is a 3 bedroom townhouse 15 minutes away from the city center:

I bought it for 20% down (which was around $70,000) and had the bank loan me the rest of the money.  I then rented it out to a family with 2 kids for $1,650 per month. The property was cashflowing $130 every month.  

Not a lot, but it was pure profit without me doing any work. 

The tenants lived there for 2 years after which I sold the property for a $165,000 profit.  I used the proceeds to buy another property near downtown Toronto.

Here’s another investment property I bought in Oshawa in 2015 (a townhouse). This is very similar to the one above: 

I did the exact same thing here too.  

I paid 20% down, got a mortgage for the rest and rented it out to a very nice family who had just moved in from Edmonton, Alberta.  This property was cashflowing around $170 every month. After a year, I sold the property for $120,000 more than I paid for it.  If you notice, I have kept these properties for at least a year before selling them.  

Why? 

Because when I keep it for the long-term, I get to save on taxes.  

Here’s the most important part though… Both of these properties were assets because after paying for all the expenses, they put money in my pocket. 

This also means that the rent I was charging for them was greater than the mortgage, property taxes, maintenance and vacancy factored in.

In other words, it was passive income coming into my bank account, 24/7 like clockwork.  

Now I can hear you say, “Well Yasir, you had money to invest but I don’t. How can I buy a property just like you?” 

There are 2 answers to that question:  

1. If you don’t have a lot in savings, you can easily use credit (credit lines, home equity lines of credit etc. which I used when I started out). You can also get your family members, relatives, friends and investors to pool funds with you to get there. Money is everywhere and every single day, literally trillions of dollars change hands. 

2. If you don’t have savings right now and the avenues I mentioned above can’t or won’t work for you, it just means that you are at a junction in your life where 100% of your time and effort should be committed to learning this skill set.

Once you get a decent understanding of it, the “money” will appear magically, out of thin air – I guarantee it.  

That said, I’d like to give you fair warning: 

If you aren’t getting ahead financially, there’s a very good chance that you have been buying liabilities. That flashy car, maybe a BMW M3 you bought on 6.99% interest financing might make you look really good in front of your friends but the truth is that it is a liability. It drains money from you.  It loses value continuously. It forces you to keep making those loan payments.  In essence, it takes money out of your pocket. 

By the way, I’m not saying don’t buy flashy cars – heck I used to have 2 BMWs:  

1. A BMW 335xi:

 

2. A BMW 335i convertible, which I happened to like better: 

 

So if you love flashy stuff and fast cars, go get them but make sure it gets paid through your passive income and not through your sweat equity (your 9-5 job). 

That’s how the rich do it.

Here is Rule #4: Understand the difference between assets and liabilities.

Remember, acquiring assets which cashflow is both an art and a science. 

And it is one of the easiest and rewarding things you can ever do for yourself. 

Imagine you starting out on this path today and in a couple of years, traveling to exotic and breathtaking getaways around the world because your assets are bringing in passive income that you don’t work for.

THAT is when you are financially free AND secure, without needing a job to keep the money flowing. 

It isn’t difficult – it just takes education and a little bit of persistence. 

I share my step-by-step blueprints about how to do exactly that in my Wealth Mastery Program here…

Tomorrow we’ll dive into Part 5 which is about the ONE quality all multi-millionaires have: Financial Intelligence.