What are Assets and Why are They Important?

When I was younger I read the book “Rich dad, poor dad.” After reading it the first time I literally thought what does any of what this guy said mean? I thought great have assets, not liabilities. But like most people, I thought well where do I begin?

Fast forward 10 years and I finally understand what Robert Kiyosaki said in the book. Throughout my professional career, I have had the privilege to have met many great mentors who have guided me financially. Now, I want to share what I have learned from them.

I have written a few articles regarding investing and how to make easy my recommendation would be to read Investing Made Simple first.

What are Assets?

Now, to the fun part! Let’s first define what an asset really is. The dictionary definition is: An Asset is a property owned by a person or company, regarded as having value and available to meet debts, commitments, or legacies.

Okay, I’ll admit, that’s a pretty fair and accurate definition. But let’s break down what that actually means.

For me, an asset can be a lot of things. It can be stocks, bonds, cryptocurrency, etc. But it can also be other LLCs you have opened up, real estate, and even other companies you have invested in. Now that you know what an asset is how do we get these assets.

How to get These Assets?

Now that we have defined what an asset is let’s discuss ways we can get these said assets. The quick and easiest way to get your foot in the door is to invest in stocks and index funds. This is a really good way to build up equity and quickly. Setting aside $500-$1000/month and investing in blue-chip stocks (i.e. Apple, Microsoft, Walmart, etc.) or my personal favorite index funds (VOO, SPDR, VTI, etc.) can really help you jumpstart getting your equity base built up. From there once you have built up that and you have extra cash and access to more money you can start looking into owning real estate or investing in local businesses in your area.

The key thing here is to keep things slow and steady. Don’t try to grab for too much too soon. Slowly build up your asset base and play the long game. Do not try to compete with anyone else’s economic status because this is your money, not theirs.

How to utilize your Assets to get more assets

You’re probably wondering how you even get started with taking advantage of utilizing your assets. Well, let’s talk about it. I can only go off of my experiences here so with that I post this warning and take what I say after this sentence with a grain of salt.

When I started out I had opened up an LLC, got the bank account opened up, and then opened up an investment account within that LLC. After that every month I would deposit $1,000/month into the investment account for my LLC. I started out investing in Index Funds and then after a while started investing in other companies (i.e. Apple, Microsoft, Walmart, etc.).

I picked the safest stock picks I could get my money into because again the name of the game here is to build up your asset base. From there when I was able to get a solid base I started working with friends to find other ways to get more assets.

So, we began an Airbnb co-hosting business, a good article on that is here. When we did that, and here’s the kicker, I opened up another LLC. That LLC would be my eventual Airbnb co-hosting business and had my LLC own part of that LLC. That way my LLC now has equity in another LLC (another asset yay!). I won’t get too detailed on what transpired after that (writing an article on that later!), but do understand that that is one example of how you can make this work. You just have to rinse and repeat from there with other businesses and industries.

Takeaways

Hopefully, this article was able to give you a little bit of an insight into how powerful assets are. Asset building is probably the biggest ticket you have to gain wealth quickly. Good books that I would recommend reading on this topic if you are interested in learning more are; Money Master the Game by Tony Robbins, Unshakeable by Tony Robbins, and as mentioned above Rich Dad, Poor Dad By Robert Kiyosaki.