Getting Paid Vs. Paying Yourself

By Yosef Solomon on Apr 29, 2010

In this economy, finding a job we enjoy, pays us well and keeps us at the head of our industry is rare. I’m fortunate enough to be in this position, but I know many others that are struggling “getting paid.” We’ve been taught since day one that in order to make money, we should be employed and/or have an occupation in which we are the employee.

The idea of paying ourselves is often dismissed as impossible or as really difficult to accomplish. But what if more people embraced this “radical” ideal of paying ourselves. This would ultimately mean that each of us would need to be an entrepreneur of some sort and have investors, customers, or clients paying us. I agree. This is exactly what “paying yourself” means. So the real question is, why aren’t more people paying themselves? The answer to that is at the end of first paragraph

Most of us have been told our whole lives that we’re the employee, rather than the employer. From kindergarten to college, it is assumed that once we graduate, we get a “good” job working someone else. My question is, why can’t we all come up with a million dollar idea, get funded and sell that company for more than what we started with? Easier said then done right? Yes, but I guarantee that if more people tried this model, we’d see a shift in the economy.

Bigger companies like Wal-Mart, Viacom and Time Warner, would begin to disseminate while smaller more niche focused businesses would take over. Why is this important? Because it puts us (the majority) back in the drivers seat. We’ve seen this shift from big to small in the marketing world. Companies are now trying to reach customers by infiltrating our social networks, through sites like Twitter and Facebook. What if we could apply this to the general economy. What if we could shift other sectors of the economy into more specific and local oriented agendas? We’d probably see more development almost every community as a whole.

Thinking of an idea, executing it and selling it for millions is definitely a hard task. But so is getting a good job we enjoy? It may not seem like we’re putting much effort into finding a good job because we are desensitized to it. It is the norm to be looking for a job right now because they are few and far between. However, by trying a different route and capitalizing off of what we know, creating profit to pay ourselves shouldn’t be out of the question.