Here are some words from Jason Criddle that can be found on Quora. You will be able to find the original question that was asked of him in bold, before his response.
If Jeff Bezos gave you a billion and told you to not spend a penny for one year to get a total of 10 billion, would you listen?
Yes.
But that is because I am smart and know about money. I don’t need to be so greedy and money hungry that I would not be willing to wait an extra 365 days for 10X the amount.
I imagine most of your answers are going to be from people with all kinds of reasons and excuses for why they wouldn’t wait a year…
And when you read those answers, regardless of how intelligent and thought out that person may think their answer is, you and I will know EXACTLY why that person is broke and why they will never be offered a billion, a million, or any substantial amount of money from anyone.
Even someone who talks about the interest that can be earned from a billion dollars obviously missed the math class on compounding interest. If they were lucky enough to earn 10%, their billion dollars would double in 7 years, giving them $2-billion dollars.
If they wait an extra year, they will make an extra billion PER year, and have around $25 billion in the next 7 to 10 years, with $100-billion in the bank before the impatient person ever breaks out of the low double digits.
No one thinks about what can be built or invested with a billion dollars, or even ten billion… all they think about is the things they can buy immediately, with little knowledge of proposing value to others, or finding intelligent ways to make their money last for generations.
Wealthy people build assets. Those assets are in the forms of businesses or property, and earn income… from all over the place. Those wealthy people will turn the billion into ten, and the ten-billion into hundreds.
The others, well, they won’t. Which is why they will remain broke.
Any person with half a brain that could possibly find themselves in such a hypothetical situation should learn two things really fast:
- How to grow their money,
- and how to make more than they could ever spend,
- by building businesses and assets that provide value for others, while producing income for the owner.
If they don’t, it doesn’t matter how much money you give them… they will lose it all. And probably more.
CEO of SmartrHoldings and SmartrMarketing
International best-selling author.
Published on Forbes, Quora, and many more popular online publications.
