How To Earn $10,000 Per Hour

March 10th, 2008 · No Comments · Subscribe to this feed

Steve Pavlina wrote an article several years ago entitled How to Earn $10,000 in One Hour about being on the look-out for opportunities that pay large dividends in the long run. As an example, Steve relates how he got the idea of implementing Chikita eMiniMalls (a way to sell products online for a commission for the non-webmasters amongst you) on his website. It took less than an hour and was relatively simple to implement, but in the long run should bring in thousands and thousands of dollars per year in extra income. That is a $10,000 hour. It’s getting a brilliant idea, publishing an interesting and useful article that generates royalties for years to come, networking at an industry conference and getting a lucrative job offer as a result, or spending an hour researching that next killer stock that will make you a millionaire (a man can dream…).

My $10,000 Hours

Steve’s article got me thinking about my own current and future $10,000 hours. The first that comes to mind occurred a few weeks after I started my first job out of college. At the urging of my father, I instructed HR to invest 10% of my salary into my 401k. The problem was, I had no idea how to invest the money once I got it in there, so I initially had it put in a stable value fund paying a paltry 3 or 4% (there were no Target Retirement Funds in that plan). Uncomfortable buying investments I didn’t understand but also aware I should be investing a lot more aggressively than what amounted to a CD, I headed down to my local bookstore. I ended up buying a copy of Straight Talk On Investing by Jack Brennan. A short book, it only took me a few hours to read from cover to cover but those were hours well spent. I learned not only that stocks were my best bet for financial security, but also the value of keeping down expenses and having a diversified, balanced portfolio. So valuable was this book for me, in fact, the hours spent reading it will likely end up paying hundreds of thousands of dollars per hour if not millions. Imagine being paid $1 MILLION per hour just to read a book. It sounds insane but it’s true. The knowledge I gained that day will probably net me over $1 million in additional net worth over my life-time.

Spotting Your Own $10,000 Per Hour Opportunities

You probably have your own $10,000 hour story. Maybe it’s a few hours you spent educating yourself about investing or maybe it’s that over-time you pulled last mont at work that netted you a big fat raise. The point is, these opportunities are out there. Often it’s something as incredibly simple as an inspirational book or magazine article. Other times, it can be something as complicated as a new business venture or idea for an invention. But you’ll never recognize them when you see them unless you’re prepared for it. You should constantly upgrade your knowledge, skills, business network, investment knowledge, and be on the look-out so you recognize these opportunities when they arise. After all, a single $10,000 hour is worth 200 $50 hours. That’s over a month of work! It’s well worth the effort to be prepared. What are some of your $10,000 hours?

Like what you see here? Subscribe to my feed for more great content every day!