Minimum Wage to Millionaire

By Wade Bryson

Wade Bryson is a former idiot who absolutely should have failed at life. It would have to be considered a miracle that the consequences of his poor decision-making did not permanently wreck his ability to achieve success. If Wade can do so much damage to his future and still come back and achieve the level of success that he always dreamed of, then you can too. As the most unlikely successful man, it was his ability to ask for help and an incredibly open mind that continued to move him to a better path. This book is a product of all the mistakes and the lessons learned along the way. While the beginning of the book is meant to exemplify how far off track you can be, the core information is comprised of the most effective strategies that brought success. Successful people have used similar techniques and applied the same attributes that Wade uses in this book. There is always more to learn, but following the advice that is in this book will at the very least prevent you from making some of the same mistakes that prevent success. At best, it will give you insight and direction toward success that you didn't before possess. As the title suggests, Minimum Wage to Millionaire does focus on the material aspect of success. While money isn't everything, it is important. The trick is to more easily and effectively acquire the money. The more successful you are, the more money that will come your way. The answers are inside.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 11, 2019
• ISBN: 9781642982640

Book preview

You are already a millionaire in the making

Every working American, working a full-time position for enough time, will earn more than a million dollars during their lifetime. At the time of this writing, an entry-level worker is earning ten dollars per hour in Alaska. At that rate, that’s 400 dollars for a full week of working. That’s 20,000 a year. After fifty years of work, that equals one million dollars. That doesn’t take into account any raises, bonuses, or windfalls. So, you actually are a future millionaire. It will just be up to you what you will do with that million dollars. Will you give it away as fast as you take it in? Or will you hold on to it, saving more as time goes on and allowing your money to work for you, pardon the old cliché. The social security administration has a running tally of how much you have reportedly earned during your working career. How much of that do you still have? Your net worth is how to measure what you have financially. Is your net worth equal to 10 percent, 50, or 100 percent of what you worked so hard to earn? One of the first questions I asked as I learned this rule of wealth is how someone can have a net worth equal to 100 percent of what one has earned. A person has to have a place to live, eat, and to buy clothes and other things.

Housing is the cornerstone of this principle. If you pay rent, every month that you pay rent 100 percent of your money goes to someone else. Once the month is over, there is nothing to show for it. All the rent money is gone forever. On the other hand, if you own any kind of dwelling, every month that you pay a mortgage or loan payment, a portion of that money goes back to you in the form of equity. Even the most rundown lowly mobile home in the worst trailer park can be an asset to you if you are paying down a loan. It’s not the best case, but it works. It’s where I started. I knew I was not going to pay rent on an apartment when my son was born. I used a small insurance payment and everything else I had to put a down payment on a trailer. I still had to make lot payments and insurance premiums, but every month I gained just a little bit more ownership of my own place. Owning a more permanent home has the additional advantage of growing in value as well. Living in your own home that you pay off and take care of can grow your net worthwhile you are sleeping in it.

You are going to earn a million dollars over the course of your life. Increasing your earning power through education or work training programs could easily turn that into multiple millions. Even working a second job to supplement your income can be enough to boost your wealth to a comfortable level if your profession doesn’t have the highest wages. The more important factor in determining your future wealth is what you do with your money. If you spend everything you make, your money cannot grow and work for you. A person making hundreds of thousands of dollars will still be broke if they spend more than they make. Debt and interest payments can easily overtake monthly income if not kept in check.

After being in business for a few years, I had grown it so that a couple of million dollars passed through my hands each year. That sounds like a lot, but I had let my debt get out of control. All the profit I should have been making was going to creditors. It wasn’t till I paid off the debt I was able to build up my net worth. I’ll talk about the negative and positive aspects of debt in a later chapter. You will earn a million or more in this lifetime. The goal should be to retain as much of the money as possible that you have earned. Others will be more than happy to take it from you. In fact, they try their hardest to do so. Easy credit, no payments till next year, the newest gadget—there will always be something to tempt you into giving up your hard-earned cash. Altering your spending habits, from frivolous spender to a thrifty saver, will be a difficult transition but will mean the difference between ending up wealthy or not. Who do you want to give your money to, the banks and credit card companies or yourself? You are going to earn a million dollars or more during your life. Are you going to keep it? One of my mentors once told me making money is the easy part; holding on to is the hard part. And that’s the whole secret. That’s the trick. That’s what wealthy people do that gives them the financial edge. You simply must hold on to the money that comes in your life. I know that this is easier said than done. Start small with the least amount you could set aside; before you know it, that small amount will begin to add up.

This is the thing that took me years to learn. I always spent every cent I had. I borrowed every dime that I could. I paid a huge amount of credit interest. Even though I was making a lot of money, I wasn’t holding on to any of it. In the beginning, I was making enough money to hold on to but was not keeping anything. It took almost losing everything to stop and realize I needed to make a change. I needed to approach my finances in a different way. I had been a business owner for years. I was supposed to know what I was doing. I had to admit that I was doing something incorrectly. There had to be a better way.

What would you do for one million dollars? Would you do something bizarre or crazy? Maybe even something illegal. How about the prospect of changing habits or behaviors, and maybe even some aspects of your life to earn $1 million? It’s far less drastic than some of the crazy answers I’ve heard over the years. I always knew I would do anything for a million dollars. I told you how badly I wanted to be a millionaire. I was going do whatever it took.

Even with my track record, I did not do anything insane or two crazy. I eventually figured out that if I learned from people that were self-made entrepreneurs, I could use their wisdom and knowledge. If I duplicated their strategies and efforts, I could potentially get the same results. I needed to pay attention and keep an open mind. Importantly, it also takes a willingness to accept change. I was running in the wrong direction; my actions and financial decisions weren’t getting me any closer to my goals. Making positive alterations in my life was far easier a step to take toward achieving the wealth I desired than any far-fetched plan or some illegal scheme. And believe me, I had a lot of crazy ideas. Fortunately, I had mentors in my life and no money early on to do anything too permanent.

Another way to look at it is, how long and how hard are you willing to work while you search for achieving a new level of wealth? What are you willing to do to create a better life for yourself? You and only you get to decide what life you want to strive for. Do you want a better job? Do you want a better place to live, or a better car? Then you must be better. Are you willing to put forth better efforts to achieve those goals? You will earn more than $1 million during your working career even as an entry-level employee, with the average income being $2 million over a lifetime. For the average income earner, your decisions, your habits, your lifestyle will determine how much of that money you keep. How much of it is invested in your home, your family, and real solid assets? How much of that money is wasted on indulgences and conveniences? Are you cooking dinner tonight for twenty dollars, or are you going out to dinner for fifty dollars? Earning a couple million dollars over your lifetime is the easy part. The question really is, how much of it do you want to keep?

You can’t be old and wise without first being young and dumb

Igraduated high school by the skin of my teeth. The guidance counselor had to make up a class for me to pass. That led me to a post-high-school career of entry-level minimum-wage jobs. Selling clothes and making pizzas is hardly a way to success. Even though I was good at what I was doing, at least in my head, my jobs didn’t require any skill or specialized training. Therefore, I was not paid an extraordinary salary. I didn’t know it at the time, but I wasn’t even a good employee. Poor attendance, poor work ethics, and worse yet, a know-it-all attitude made me a bad employee and coworker. The fact that didn’t know how bad I was prevented me from being even a successful entry-level employee. I cannot remember which tally was higher, the number of jobs that I quit or the times that I was fired. The number was too great. I did like going out with a bang. I had some memorable terminations in my early years. To all those employers, I am truly sorry. When I became an employer later in life, I always viewed the quitting-with-flair moments my employees subjected me to as my penitence for all the bad I had done during early employment.

I joined the navy once I had exhausted the few opportunities I had available to me. I even failed at that. After just a few short weeks of what was at that time the most challenging and difficult experience of my young life, I quit once again. It had proven to be too tough, and I was not up for the challenge. The first chance I had, I raised my hand and got the hell out of there. It wasn’t quite that simple though; the navy doesn’t just let you leave because you don’t like it. I had to endure a separation unit, which was as close to slave labor as I hope to ever come. One might think that this would toughen me up and instill some ethics in me. Something that challenging usually does, but not with me. My stubbornness that eventually became an asset prevented the growth that should have come from that experience. I just went back to my old habits, back to delivering pizzas and waiting tables, along with a few other entry-level positions. I still wasn’t moving forward in life. I spent every dime I made smoking weed and going on as many dates as I could—definitely the worst financial decision a guy can make. After all, I did live in my parents’ basement. They had a pool, cable, and food, all rent-free. It seemed like the life for me. That was false; it was my parents’ life, the one that they provided for me. It wasn’t mine. I had not earned it. I just felt entitled to it.

I did, however, make it to college, courtesy of my parents. They were generous enough to fund a semester at the local state school. I went off to that adventure with the same wide-eyed and naive approach that had prevented me from achieving success before. I again botched that. I dropped classes that were too hard and skipped the ones that came too early after nights of partying. I even quit the one job that had funded my skirt-chasing, pot-smoking habits that had become the norm for me during that period of my life. The only class I did well in was speech, which seemed like a fluke but proved over time to be one of my greatest strengths. That became the most positive gain out of the whole experience. Correct that. It was the only positive gain. Halfway through the semester, my parents informed me that my father had gotten a job in Alaska and the whole family would be moving there at the end of my first semester of college. That became the end of my college experience. I don’t believe I attended too many classes after that. I was one month away from my twenty-first birthday and on my way to Alaska.

I felt like these embarrassing but real and accurate details were important to share with you, to understand me a little better as you continue reading about my transformation from complete idiot to the man I am today. A person would have to try pretty hard to be as arrogant yet ignorant as I was during those important post-high-school years—important because those years lay the groundwork for your