The employer purchases specific blocks of the employee’s time. This makes the employer the new owner of the employee’s blocks of time.
The employee’s time can only be supplied by that employee. Therefore the employer is the owner of the employee for the designated hours sold. What’s more, is that the employer has an option on more of the employee’s time (overtime).
Don’t be offended by these facts. This isn’t meant to insult anyone, but rather provide a perspective that creates a shift in one’s mindset. One’s mindset is what controls their level of potential success.
Employees Who Want To Be Employees
I can tell you for a fact, that a lot of folks take offence to this! However, I’m not one to talk about what people are comfortable hearing. I’m interested in talking about what people need to hear, that may help them see the world differently. I want people to see the truth and accept it. This opens them up with the ability to see and understand the opportunities that have been passing them by.
One thing for certain, is the world NEEDS employees. Without their time and abilities, big businesses can’t operate. Even for the people who love being an employee, understanding this concept and others from this site, will find themselves able to create more opportunities and more money.
The simple way to explain being owned by another person, is to talk about TIME. We humans have a limited amount of time. Our time is constantly expiring and there’s no way to stop this process, until our time is completely exhausted.
We don’t know the specific date and time of our complete exhaustion of time, but we do know it is coming. So, it’s a fact that we, individually, have a deadline. The time you have left before that happens, is a set figure. OK, I’m sure you agree, so keep this in mind as we move on.
Who’s Time Is It Anyway
People may think that they’re just selling the portion of time when they’re actually at work. Unfortunately, this isn’t true.
Let’s talk about what an employee does to prepare to find a job. They use a BIG portion of their “time” going to school to be educated in a way that provides them skills and knowledge, that would be needed to get a job.
There are many different levels of education, and some very specific skills developed. In many jobs, it’s just the pre-education that you need, because the skills can be learned on the job.
In other jobs, it may require higher levels of education and they may also need to continually learn more information and improve specific skills to keep them relevant in the workplace. The time you spend on this continuing education is gone. You can not ever get it back again, and it was all for the employer/owner.
Not only did they use up that time getting educated in the first place, but they also had to spend lots of money to do it. Most likely they went into debt to get to the point that an employer would consider giving them a job.
There are many young adults that finish their education and then find themselves without a prospect of a job. This is after using up a significant amount of their most valuable commodity, “TIME”. So, you may be thinking, “yeah, but they own their knowledge now”? Well, you would be correct, but they have to be able to sell themselves and their qualifications to an employer. If they can’t do that, the knowledge is worthless.
So what is it that an employee has invested into what they are selling?
- 12 to 16 years of education (maybe more)
- The expense (or debt) of college, including food, water, and shelter
- Their 12 to 16 years of TIME
This investment total will be different for everyone, but it would be crazy to not consider everything that went into what you’re selling to the employer. Even as an entrepreneur, I need to be aware of everything it took for me to be able to take advantage of an opportunity.
Don’t be fooled by the monetary returns of employment. Time is our most precious asset, and it’s crazy to ignore any of it when considering your return on time. Yes, we all have to prepare, but that’s no excuse for considering the prep time as a free benefit to the employer.
It may not change your wage, but at least your mindset is now aware, so you have the ability to find more time efficient ways of making money.
Getting More Specific On What They Really Own
Let’s say that you’re one of the lucky ones that found an employer to purchase a portion of your time and abilities. Great! You now have a job! Now you have some money coming in and you can start paying off that student debt. But what you can’t get coming back in, is your time.
By this point in your life, you’ve dedicated a MAJOR portion of your irreplaceable time to becoming an employee. All so that an owner/employer can control most of it.
For example, now that you have a job, who decides what you do with your time while you’re on their clock (and off)? If you wanted to run to the store or go see your kids school play, can you just go do that? Of course not. Your employer bought your time. You have to perform and produce a profit for the person who owns your time. If you don’t, your employer dismisses you and finds a replacement.
Let’s say that you work for the employer from 8:30am to 5pm. Your employer bought 8 hours of your time that day. Now there’s a half an hour for lunch in there. This is your time because the owner didn’t pay for that half hour. However, the owner tells you when you can be hungry, and use that half hour of your own time to feed yourself. So who really owns that half hour?
If the owner needs you to work overtime, can you refuse to work? Odds are that you’ll be let go, because there are plenty of people that will do the overtime. So who really controls your extra time?
BTW
By the way, I don’t like the saying that some guru’s use, saying that a J.O.B. stands for “Just Over Broke”. 
The fact is, there are some jobs that provide a very large income for the employee, and it provides a nice lifestyle for the family.
There are CEO jobs that provide income that make mine look just stupid. However, most times it’s their family that has a nice lifestyle, and not the employee. I prefer “working to live”, versus “living to work”.
Their time is often spent producing, not enjoying. But they’re definitely not financially broke. Don’t worry too much about this though, because there are very few high paying jobs. It’s much like kids that aspire to be a pro ball player. Odds are highly against it happening (but it could).
Remember, most wage earners adjust lifestyle according to their income, so even though they make more money, their lifestyle cost a lot more.
The straight truth is that “about 20.8 million renter households—47 percent—are cost-burdened. More than half of these households pay over 50 percent of their income for housing alone”. This is from a Harvard University THE STATE OF THE NATION’S HOUSING 2018 study. Housing expense should be less than a third of one’s income to get by safely. “Get By” are the key works here.
Employment May Be Better
Just know that having an owner/employer is in fact, the better way to go for most people. (But it’s clearly NOT the correct choice for our readers. These people see more potential in controlling their own time.) We do have to remember how most of us were raised. We were raised to sell a portion of our future time to a new owner. Again, this is not all bad in most cases.
The straight fact is, that the world absolutely needs employees. The world would not function without employers leveraging the time of employees. So, from a normal employee’s viewpoint, it’s acceptable to sell time to an employer. From an employer’s viewpoint, having the ability to own people’s time, during specific blocks, is AWESOME!
Not everyone will be able to be their own boss. Heck, not everyone even wants to be their own boss. Anyone can be trained to be an entrepreneur, but without desire and strong focus on the mission, there would be no point.
People should be whomever they want to be. There is absolutely no right or wrong in this decision. As long as they are honest with themselves as to the reasons for their choice.
If this is a concept that doesn’t sit well with you, I totally understand. I had a few owner/employers during my days as a machinist and I hated it! But that’s me and my personality. The world isn’t a “one size fits all” world.
When I realized the big picture for myself, I hated it, but it didn’t make it untrue. I let this “dislike of ownership” reality, fester in me. I never denied it, but instead used it for fuel to become independent and financially free. Ultimately, I became my own owner at age 27. (I did some entrepreneurial things prior, but became totally free at age 27)
As I mentioned in other articles, I had no mentors showing me the way. I had nothing but my own observations back then. Being surrounded by the employee mentality my entire life, kept my options open to just employment.
Remember, “we’re the average of the 5 people we hang around most”. I could’ve searched out a book, but I hated to read back then, lol. There was no internet for self-education and inspiration, so NO YouTube!
So if you want to control more of your time, then get yourself around people who control all of their own time.
Start To Fight Back With Your Paycheck
Having an owner/employer these days is certainly not slavery. However, your potential for earning and lifestyle is absolutely limited by your employer. Given this fact, your best hope for financial freedom as an employee, is to always be working with your resources.
This means using your money in a way that gets you closer to your independence. With what money you do make, be sure you’re not spending all of it. Try to “pay your goal first” with each paycheck.
What I mean by this is to take a percentage (like 20% or more) of your check and put it into an account that has only ONE PURPOSE. That purpose is to get you free of your owner/employer. Never borrow or spend ANY of this money unless it’s used in a way that is getting you to this goal. This money MUST make money for you.
It doesn’t just take money to get to your goal. It also, and more importantly, takes your time and persistence. For instance, look at many of the online business models. Sometimes it takes very little money ($100), to create an online business.
This may not only make you a living, but can grow to make you quite wealthy. But, because it requires so little money, expect to use a LOT of your time (which you own) creating and educating yourself…… FOR YOURSELF.
A really important thing to remember is, you have to ACT LIKE YOUR OWN BOSS! Tell yourself to keep working and never quit! There are times when it feels like I’m not making much progress. However the reality is, that it takes a lot of time to create value for others, before I reap a reward.
Trust the process and the value you provide, and keep going. Force yourself to focus on what’s best for your customers FIRST. Try to always over-deliver. Now Boss yourself into staying consistent with these actions and the money will follow.
Will You Do Whatever It Takes?
For instance, once I was my own owner, I would use a lot of my time doing market research. Research on properties in my target market, looking for a house to flip (buy – rehab – resell). This again was back before the internet and back before those flipping shows on TV. So I literally had to go to a real estate office and go through a printed book of available properties.
I couldn’t take the book home, so I spent many hours studying and comparing properties in the R.E. office. This was so that when a deal presented itself, I would recognize it and take action. This is very similar to what my son did, except he did so in the new age way of Craigslist, which you can read about here.
I know this may show my age a bit, lol. However you should know the lengths I went to, in order to know my market and find a property with great profit potential. Again, this is all to show you the responsibility you take on by becoming your own owner. You just make yourself do whatever it takes to succeed. However, I would rather reap ALL the rewards of my efforts, rather than just a small portion that an owner/employer decided to give me.
Opportunity Strikes
Once I found a good property, I had to have the guts to dig into the money that I set aside, and purchase the deal. Once I purchased the deal, I had to stay diligent and disciplined with my time to get all the work done. I also had to continually dig into my “goal fund” to pay for the materials that were going into the home. I also had to pay for contractors that did work that I couldn’t do at the time.
You have to know that I was doing the plan (“paying my goal fund first”), that I’m telling you to do. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have had the money to do the deal. Be disciplined and pay your goal first, and live off the rest when your employer gives you a paycheck. Again, all actions of being your own boss / owner of your own time.
As my own owner, I had to decide how the property was to be sold and for what price. Sometimes I hired a realtor and sometimes I sold them myself. No matter who was doing the selling, I made sure the job was being done the best way possible. Why? Because I am a good owner. Whomever was my employee (the realtor or myself), it’s the owners responsibility to know the employee is doing their job and getting me to a profit.
I Love My Little Rewards
I operated financially, a bit different as an owner, than I did as an employee. The difference was that when I got the check at closing as an owner, I took a reward for my efforts. The rest went back into the goal fund. Just a little backwards, but my reward was small compared to the profit, and I love getting a reward for a job well done! (I’m such a generous owner 🙂 )
Many times, my reward was a family trip to the Caribbean and bringing along a grandmother as a babysitter for the nights my wife and I went out. Sounds expensive? Not compared to the profit. But going back to the point of the story, this process took usually between 3 and 5 months from purchase to sell and during that time, there’s no rewards (because I was disciplined).
So it can definitely feel like things aren’t working or going to slow, but trust your plan and don’t quit. You’ll get your reward when it’s due, so be a great employee for yourself. You can decide for yourself what your reward should be, but don’t be stupid with the size of reward. The whole idea is to keep as much of your money, working to make you more money.
There are things you can do online that have quicker returns, but it seems the platforms that allow you to do the work once and get paid many times into the future, take a lot of time and work up front. During all this time and work (as your own owner), you will not see a return.
However when it starts and continues to grow, the returns without anymore effort, can be far beyond what you imagined. So even if you currently have an owner, be thankful for that owner and focus on funding your goal fund. Life is a process, so be excited about the process. Life is good. Now, make it great!
