What I Learned About Buyers and Sellers In Baby Boy
There are two types of people in the world – buyers and sellers. The first time I heard this was in a movie directed by John Singleton called Baby Boy. The movie starred some well-known actors such as Tyrese Gibson, Ving Rhames, and Taraji Henson. It even had a small appearance by Snoop Dogg.
Jody, played by Tyrese Gibson, made a few comments to his best friend Sweetpea, played by Omar Gooding, that resonated with me. Jody claims to have figured out life. He decides to change his life by becoming an entrepreneur selling women’s clothing. Paraphrasing Jody’s words, he argues that the whole world moves forward with transactions, commerce, and the pairing up of buyers with sellers. The really successful people in the world are mostly sellers. Everyone else is a buyer and is trying to play catch up. For now on, Jody is going to be a seller.
Are you a buyer or a seller?
If you are a net buyer, then you can count on living with a perpetual trade deficit. Your expenditures will always exceed your income, and this leads to debt.
So what’s wrong with debt?
The United States has lived with a trade longer than I have been alive. Overall, the US imports more goods and products that in exports.
The US federal government is also in deficit. Government expenditure has exceeded annual tax revenue for years. Funding senseless wars have not helped this matter either. As of this writing, the US National Debt Clock shows that the national debt is over $21 trillion (not including social security and medicare) and is still growing. Politicians talk about the growing debt but seem incapable of doing anything about it. The government simply cannot stop spending.
Americans love to consume. It seems to be in our DNA. This explains why the savings rate for Americans is so much lower than the savings rate for Chinese and Japanese citizens who like to save a significant portion of their salary.
This consumption imbalance has to stop because it leads to excessive debt, financial ruin, and a future you really don’t want to face.
How Do You Turn Things Around
So how can YOU personally change the game?
For starters, you can reverse your personal trade deficit by becoming a seller.
If your income only comes from the salary you draw from an employer, then you are not maximizing your income potential. In fact, your income is capped at an amount your employer determines.
However, if you are an entrepreneur with a product or service for sale, then your income is only limited to the number of customers you can reach. This is good news. There are over 7 billion people on the planet. That’s a lot of potential customers. Develop a product or service that is desired by even half of 1% percent of the planet and you will never want for money again.
That fact is, if you are a seller, the sky is the limit for your income potential.
The path to wealth and getting out of the rat race ends with Pillar 3 of wealth creation – Entrepreneurship.