We are all trained to be the worker bee. We all buzz around the honeycomb, day to day, 9-5 in our W-2, while the Queen Bee buzzes around and watches us work. How do we become the Queen Bee?
One of the reasons why you are a worker bee is because you have a worker bee mindset. It’s cyclical. You are working 8-10 hours a day, 5 days a week, 52 weeks in a year and can expect to do so until you are 67 years old. The traditional way is to move up the corporate ladder, make a little more money and build up your nest egg in the hopes that you can fully enjoy the benefits for once you “retire”. You have your salary, benefits, and can support your family, but what if you want more?
What if we told you that everything you’ve been working for is meant to keep you as a worker bee – not to teach you how to become the Queen Bee?
What if we told you that you were merely a worker bee, but there was more than being just a worker bee?
What if we told you that there is a better way and that the wealthy people know about it, but we don’t?
Would you want to know?
At the very least you should consider whether or not the worker bee life is for you.
As two traditional worker bees with two young children, we started to think – do we need to wait until we are 67 to touch our retirement accounts? Do we have to wait for our children to graduate college before we can prioritize our life and happiness? Is our 401k nest egg going to be worth it when we finally get a crack at it? Will we even be alive long enough to get there? With the onslaught of the pandemic, nobody could foresee the aftermath and where the world would end up. It really amplified our appreciation for time, health, and happiness because as we all witnessed firsthand, it could all be taken away from us in the blink of an eye.
We are lucky to have met all of the amazing entrepreneurs and investors to show us that there could be so much more. The lesson was simple: why not create passive income that we can enjoy while we are still building our nest egg? Why wait until we are old and tired? We don’t have to do that. One of the biggest lessons we have learned is that it is possible to generate more income and life flexibility by finding ways to earn passive income.
There are so many options out there – you can invest in real estate, investment funds (stocks, bonds, mutual funds, etc.). We realized it was so much more effective to re-invest the money that we’ve built from our worker bee jobs to create wealth. This way, we could start to enjoy the fruits of our labors sooner, and even better – we could start to build a foundation for our son and daughter to build upon too! We began with our first investment property and had access to the passive income without having to wait until age 67.
The worker bee model isn’t the only one and the wealthy knows it.
This doesn’t mean that we don’t believe in working hard in our daily jobs. Quite the opposite – our regular jobs are what allow us the stability to sustain our daily lives. But we try to remind ourselves to keep looking out for new and productive ways to use our income to create more opportunities for ourselves and our kids. We work actively so that we can invest passively.
But how do we break the cycle? How do we learn how to break the nest egg and use it for ourselves? What do you do when you have been trained to get a good job, make money, and work hard?
Knowledge is power. We have to open options for ourselves by learning what’s out there. Begin with the basics. Find out what the wealthy have that we are missing. They are not working hard towards wealth. They are investing their way there – and we need to do the same. Cash is a depreciating asset – don’t let your nest egg depreciate.
Consider how banks operate. Let’s say you saved up $10,000 in your savings account. If you are lucky, the bank may pay you 0.5% interest rate, or $50 per year. However, most do not. The average bank pays around 0.06% or less. This equates to $6 per year! What do the banks do with the money you have stored in their bank? It’s not just sitting there doing nothing. They are actively investing it and generating more money using your money. If you think about it, you are lending your bank money and charging them 0.06% interest. There is a clear winner here. Don’t let the bank invest your money for their benefit – figure out what it is that they are doing with your money, and do it yourself. Learn how to become your own banker and have your money working for you instead of working for someone else.
Foundations are built brick by brick. We did the same – one brick at a time. We are finding our way by learning from those around us who figured it out – and you can do the same. Find someone who did it and ask them questions. Keep asking and keep finding new ways to have your money working for you and not against you. Keep educating yourself, keep learning. The more you know, the more you grow, and the bigger your nest egg grows – until you are the Queen Bee!
