Enthusiasm is a very common trait among people, but endurance is not. Remember that quote when you are starting a business or trying to accumulate wealth. But it is easy to remember pithy quotes about ambition. But we tend to believe the lies about growing wealth.
Think about all of the witticisms about success that you probably believe as gospel without realizing it.
All you need is a good idea to become rich, right? An idea is about as tangible as a dream within a dream without a good business plan and financial backing.
“All you need is willpower to make a business succeed.” About 20% or more of small businesses fail within the first year.
Accumulating wealth is not easy. But believing lies make it harder.
Here are the top three lies about growing wealth.
You Must Get a Loan to Launch a Business
One of the biggest lies about growing wealth is the idea that you need to take out a loan to launch a business.
No two business situations are alike. And no one is suggesting that. My point is that you should never just assume that you need to take out a business loan without thoroughly assessing your situation.
Many people just quit their jobs, take out a loan, and myopically focus on unrealistic and sentimentally important business plans. And later they are financially and emotionally shocked by the consequences of their undisciplined decision-making.
Getting a loan to get rich is one of the biggest lies about growing wealth. If you don’t have a business plan or know what you are doing, you are just going to sink into a quagmire of unmanageable debt.
And your business dreams and wealth ambitions will sink too.
Interest Rate Prerequisites
Here are some facts about interest
The typical business loan is about $633,000 but can range anywhere between $13,000 to $1.2 million. The interest rate for a traditional bank loan or SBA loan can be as high as 13%. And the interest for a P2P loan can be as high as 100% (or more).
It is important to remember that several factors unique to your situation will affect your overall interest rate. Other lies about growing wealth, like willpower alone, enabling success, are why people don’t contemplate the consequences of business loans more than just getting them.
Your business loan interest rate will be decided on factors like how long you have been in business. New businesses are considered more of a lending risk than long-established businesses.
Your personal and business credit scores help determine your interest rate. How financially risky are your success ambitions? Restaurants are considered risky since many will fail within the first year of business.
Do you have any collateral?
If you believe lies about growing wealth, then you can get into more trouble than you can handle.
The Alternative
Put your business ambitions on hold for two to five years. Save as much money as possible. Live below your means and open a savings account dedicated to launching your business.
Take the extra time to polish your business plan and perhaps launch a smaller scale version of your business. Jeff Bezos launched Amazon out of his basement. Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook from a college dormitory. Great things start in small ways.
If you are determined to get a business loan, at least come to the table with as much of your own money. You can then revise your business loan needs and reduce your risk. And potential lenders will see you as less of a risk.
If you can prove you can invest in yourself then potential investors may invest as well.
“Money is the Root of All Evil”
Some of the worst lies about growing wealth are the ones where you are convinced you are better off without more money.
Extremely humble and religious people, or people who are afraid that they will change for the worst, have long believed this idea. The idea is that accumulating wealth is evil, a sin, or above one’s station.
The quote has been misquoted for millennia. The phrase is actually “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil,” from Timothy 6:10 in the Bible. If you are going to dedicate your life to living with as little money as possible, then at least get the quote right.
If you value money for itself, then you will always have problems. Money is a financial tool that helps you have as many options as you need in life.
When you lose a job, experience a financial emergency, and have no money, then you have few to nil life options. You need to borrow from others and get more in debt.
You don’t have to love money. Just appreciate that it is a tool that affords you life options the more of it you have.
A Home or a Car Are Financial Assets
To generate wealth, you must shrewdly invest in assets that reliably increase in value, generate cash flow, and produce returns on investment.
Unless you are in the business of flipping houses or restoring cars for sale, houses and cars are not financial assets. In fact, you have to put a lot of money in a car or house just to keep them functional.
These are one of the biggest lies about growing wealth that people choose to believe. And that is because it is easy to mistake sentimental value with financial value with something that is useful to you.
A new car depreciates in value the second you drive it off the dealership. The typical new car depreciates by as much as 30% within the first year of ownership. And you need to pay at least $8,500 annually to maintain an average sized sedan.
You will pay a lot more in maintenance costs for large luxury and foreign cars.
If you own a home, you will have to pay anywhere between the 1% to 4% equivalent of the home’s market value.
You have to put a lot of rehab money in a home or car to sell it at a profit. Most people don’t. Most people give their old car away for free or for a discount on a new car to a dealership to get a new one.
Unless you have a bulletproof business plan for house flipping or car restoration in the right market, then neither are reliable financial assets.
Top 3 Lies About Growing Wealth
Don’t let overenthusiasm put you in an endurance test to get out of a quagmire of unmanageable debt.
You are free to believe opinions but not made-up facts that could adversely affect your entire financial life. Reassess where you learned lies about growing wealth. It may not have been out of malice; for example, some people genuinely believe they should live humble, frugal lives because having too much money will make them evil.
Get advice from trained, experienced, and licensed financial advisors or businesspeople.
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Allen Francis was an academic advisor, librarian, and college adjunct for many years with no money, no financial literacy, and no responsibility when he had money. To him, the phrase “personal finance,” contains the power that anyone has to grow their own wealth. Allen is an advocate of best personal financial practices including focusing on your needs instead of your wants, asking for help when you need it, saving and investing in your own small business.
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