Building Yourself
Putting Your Success Together One Piece at a Time

© Elliot Essman 2005. All rights reserved.

These pages contain the complete 2005 revised text of Building Yourself, public speaking trainer Elliot Essman's guide to living the successful life.

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4.01   Simple Arithmetic

    • You can ask me for anything you like, except time. Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821)

I've always found that the smartest people are the ones who ask the foolish questions. The other people may be too dull to know that questions need to be asked or—much worse—think they already know everything. You and I are in the smart group. We're smart enough not to feel shy about repeating and even analyzing facts that should be obvious. Life is serious business, so it's worthwhile to repeat something obvious—the fact that our time is limited.

If we spend our limited time doing unrewarding types of work, we lose forever the precious time we could have spent generating better cash flows. The more you earn per unit of time, the more cash you take in for your efforts. The more you earn per unit of time, the less time you must work to earn any given sum of money. Thus, the more you earn per unit of time, the greater your financial flexibility will be, provided you manage your money wisely.

“I knew that,” you say. But did you really? Are you being paid what you're really worth, or are you swimming against the strong current of time? Time moves on without asking our permission. Simple arithmetic tells us that our own time is a precious commodity.

By keeping the shortage of time in mind, do we become obsessed with time? Are we just slaves of time? Hardly. Only by managing time can we ever get ahead of it. Only by doing, creating and claiming our rewards for the time we spend can we ever sit back and enjoy the simple passage of time. We've got all our work done, we've squeezed twenty‑four hours out of our day, and now we can put our feet up on the desk.

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