MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS.

In one of Robert Kyosaki's Rich Dad books, I remember him saying, "Mind your own business" by which he meant you should concentrate your efforts on building an income for yourself aside from work.  At the time, I thought this a remarkably simple yet profound statement.  Think about how much time we spend in life working hard to make other people rich.  Shouldn't we pay more attention to making ourselves wealthier?  

Recently I was reminded of this advice when I was passed over for a promotion at work.  I was very disappointed, since I've been working hard for the past three years and thought I'd be the logical choice for the job.  Well I didn't get it and I've gotten over the ordeal, but it did get me thinking about priorities.  I realized I'd become lax in "minding my own business."  

As I mentioned earlier, I've worked hard and invested a lot of effort over the past three years at my job, while not spending much time on my investments.  During that same period of time, my earned income increase a very modest 6%, while my investment income grew by a whopping 300%!  Just think about that a minute.  With a great deal of hard work, my earned income only went up 6%, while with very little effort, my investment income increased by 300%.  A 300% increase is fantastic, but how much more could it have been had I been "minding my own business" or putting as much effort into my investments as I put in at work?

So in a way I'm kind of glad I got passed over for the promotion because it frees up more time for me to work on building my investment portfolio.  Going forward, I'm very excited about my investment plans for 2018.  I've already created new spreadsheets for the upcoming year and identified additional investment opportunities which I think will boost income dramatically.  In the mean time I'm putting some of the money I earned on Swagbucks to use with the purchase of a stake in NLY.  I won't get my first dividend payment until January 2018, but I figure a new stream of income is a great way to kick off the new year.