Today, I’m kicking off a series of emails on “money blocks”.
Money blocks are basically bad beliefs you have about money that hold you back from making more money.
There’s obviously a lot of different blocks people have around money.
But there are a few that come up over and over again.
And one of those blocks that comes up over and over again is the block we’re going to talk about today…
“I have to work hard to make a lot of money”
Out of all the emails I got yesterday, this one was the most common.
So here’s my thoughts on it…
The idea that you have to work hard to make a lot of money is deeply ingrained in certain people based on their upbringing.
I know I have it from growing up in a blue-collar family.
I know many friends of mine who are Asian, Indian or who had immigrant parents have this belief as well.
In families like this working yourself to death is seen as a badge of honor.
They think you should be exhausted at the end of the day.
They think you shouldn’t be having fun…
And they believe that putting in a hard day’s work is the most important thing in life.
If you grew up in a family like this, I’m sure you know what I’m talking about…
But here’s the thing…
Hard work alone is not going to make you more money.
If you want proof of this, look at all the people who work hard that are broke.
Take for example the guys who just finished the landscaping at my house.
For two weeks they were killing themselves in the blistering Texas sun for 10 hours a day.
They were moving heavy rocks…
They were digging for hours…
They were on their hands and knees leveling the dirt off…
Do you think this “hard work” is making them rich?
Nope.
I’d bet most of them live paycheck to paycheck.
But by any objective measure they work a lot harder than I do.
And I’m sure they’re exhausted at the end of the day.
But it doesn’t translate to money.
Why?
Because hard work and money aren’t necessarily correlated.
I’ll explain this more in a second, but first let’s look at the flip side of this.
Let’s look at making a lot of money without hard work.
Earlier this summer, my business partner Stefan and I decided to launch the LITE version of Copy Accelerator.
People in the LITE program are on our weekly calls, they have access to our training videos, and they get to attend the 2 live events we have every year.
So it’s a killer deal.
And when we launched the LITE program, we had 51 people sign up.
And each of those people will pay around $12,500 over the course of the year to be in the program.
So that’s over $600,000 for us.
Now here’s what’s interesting…
Did launching the LITE program take a lot of work on our part?
No.
In fact it couldn’t have been easier.
We basically did a week’s worth of emails for it.
And people signed up.
Not only that, but there’s no extra work for us going forward.
The LITE group just gets access to stuff that Stefan and I were already doing.
That’s what I call “easy money”.
We simply leveraged our Copy Accelerator program, and our email lists and made an offer that was appealing to a lot of people.
So as you can see, it’s not really about hard work.
Making a lot of money is about providing something of value that people are willing to pay for.
When I wrote an upsell for Mike Geary and he paid me $53,000 for it, did I work hard to do that?
No, it took me like 2 days to write.
But Mike paid me more than my dad makes in an entire year for that upsell copy.
Why?
Because that new upsell probably made Mike more than a million bucks over the last few years.
So he saw value in it.
I’ll give you another example…
There’s a relatively unknown guy named Max Martin that is worth about $260 million dollars.
You’ve most likely never heard of Max, but you definitely have heard of his work.
Why?
Cause he’s the guy who writes all the biggest pop songs you hear on the radio.
So he writes songs for Taylor Swift, Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, Katy Perry, The Weeknd and a bunch of other superstars.
Think about that…
This guy is worth a quarter of a billion dollars simply from writing hit songs.
Do you think he’s working harder than the guys who did my landscaping?
Of course not.
In fact he could be the laziest guy on the planet.
But he has a skill that people are willing to pay a LOT of money for.
That’s why he’s rich.
So again it goes back to what I said earlier…
Making a lot of money is about providing something of value that people are willing to pay for.
It has nothing to do with how many hours you work…
Or how much effort you put in…
Or how tired you are at the end of the day…
It’s about providing something of value that other people are willing to pay for.
That’s how money actually works.
And how you can make a LOT more of it without working harder.
Hope this was helpful for you.
As I said I’m gonna do a whole series this week on these money blocks.
So be on the look out for the 2nd one tomorrow morning.
Enjoy your Tuesday.
– Justin
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