We did translation work where we were paid by the letter. I want you to think about that for a moment. For each letter we translated, we got money. So I would sit down in front of my computer, and I would press the keyboard, the first key, the first letter on the first page. There would be something in Japanese, and I would translate it into English. For instance, “The purpose of life is…" And I would type “T," and hear this sound: ka-ching (the sound of a cash register!), then H, ka-ching, E, ka-ching, space bar, ka-ching. We charged for the spaces. And so I’d type, ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching.

When I stopped typing, the sound would stop.

I’d type from morning until night, because every time I stopped typing, the sound would stop. I did that for three years before I realized that it wasn’t a very good business.

I didn’t feel it was a very good business because there was no accumulation. I want you to think about that for a moment. No accumulation.

You want for your business to accumulate.

In other words, making a dollar today should be easier than making a dollar yesterday. And making a dollar this week should be easier than making a dollar last week. And making a dollar this year should be much easier than making a dollar last year.

Making a dollar should be easier this year than last year!

Most people in their businesses are experiencing the opposite, true or false?

It is getting harder to make a dollar than it used to be.

That is a problem, because you are not experiencing accumulation. You are experiencing “decumulation," where the value you are creating is going down.

You want to be creating systems that help you create that value. Those systems create sustainable value, because the system itself is valuable.

You need to create a sustainable system of value creation

So if you have created the system, the system continues to be valuable, even if you are not there.

In fact, society gives the biggest rewards to those people who are able to create systems and structures that create ongoing value when they are gone.

Think about that. If you can create a company that creates value, even if you are not there, society will give you huge rewards.

They’ll buy that company from you, and the best thing of all, they will pay you a multiple of the profits of that company when they take it off your hands.

Then you can create the next system that will create value on an ongoing basis. So, if you have a company that can make a $1 million a year, they can give you $10 million or $15 million for it right now. Then you can go build the next system.