There are many books that have been written on building wealth or getting rich.  Some are claimed as hidden secrets, and others are common sense.

You can find all different kinds of advice, such as:

• Save 10% or more of your income.
• Invest in low-cost mutual funds.
• Buy real estate and let renters pay off your mortgage.
• Start a business and invest all of the proceeds back into the business at the beginning.
• Get a good education and move up the corporate ladder.
• Diversify your assets into many categories and watch it grow.

You can probably think of many more.  There are many different philosophies on how to build wealth.  One thing being right doesn’t make another thing being wrong.

There are some people who worked in a corporate job and steadily invested in a 401k and built wealth over time using compounding returns.  There are some people who focus on entrepreneurship and are able to build a business that generates a great income.  There are some who actively invest.  There are some who use real estate and leverage to build wealth and income.

These different things have all worked for different people.  There is one common thing between all of these strategies.  I recently heard Dave Ramsey offer this advice, and I don’t always agree with Dave Ramsey.  I don’t agree with him on his dislike for buying gold.  I strongly agree with this piece of advice that I heard him offer recently.

Do This One Thing

So, what is it?  What is the advice from Dave Ramsey?  It is this:

DO SOMETHING!

That’s right.  If you want to build wealth, then do something.  Take some kind of positive action.  It doesn’t mean to be reckless.  It should still be done with some planning and intention.  But when it comes down to it, you need to do something.  And there are many people in this world who don’t get around to doing much of anything.

You can talk about investing in stocks or bonds or gold or fine art.  But if you never actually take the step of setting aside money and investing it, then you aren’t going to get anywhere.

You can research real estate on Zillow all day long and figure out where the housing prices might be a good deal.  But if you never actually buy a piece of real estate, then all of your research isn’t going to be profitable.

You may try to start a business and fail, but it usually isn’t that big of a deal if you don’t sink too much money into it upfront.  It is worse for the person who thinks about a business constantly and never actually tries to sell anything.

Doing Something in Any Area of Life

This advice of just doing something doesn’t just apply to building wealth.  If you want to get married, you have to do something.  You can’t just sit at home and wait for the perfect person to show up at your door.

If you want to write a book, sit down at your computer and write a chapter.  Set aside a schedule.  If you write one chapter per week for 6 months, then you can have the draft of a 26-chapter book after 6 months.  If you talk about it and never do it, it won’t get written.

If you want to gain a particular skill, you have to start practicing it.  There may be some methods of practicing that are better than others.  But the most important thing is to start doing it.  You can and should make adjustments along the way.  But you can’t make adjustments unless you start doing it.

Just Do It

Nike was on to something when it came out with this slogan.  There is something to be said for just doing it.

Again, this doesn’t mean being reckless.  It doesn’t mean taking all of your money and “investing” it at the roulette table in Vegas.  You should still think things through and plan for roadblocks.  You just can’t let the hurdles you think of stop you from doing something.

If you think of a roadblock that scares you, then think about a way around it.  Think of a way to minimize your risk while still doing something.  Or think of some kind of a variation that takes away the roadblock and allows you to make progress.

Stephen Covey talked about 4 quadrants:

• Important and Urgent
• Important but Not Urgent
• Not Important but Urgent
• Not important and Not Urgent

It is the “important but not urgent” quadrant we are talking about here.  It isn’t urgent that you start putting 10% of your money into a retirement account, especially when you are in your 20s.  But it is important.

So many people in this world just fail to take action.  They could take a few minutes out of their day to do something important that isn’t urgent.  When you do this in life, you usually get compounding results, just like building wealth.