Everyone I’ve ever known (I don’t know too many very, very rich people) has, at some point or time, wanted or needed, extra money. Take, for example, Sarah.
She was the oldest woman I ever met.
Sarah, a patient of mine at a nursing home I worked with, was ninety-eight. She was a very small African-American woman with a beautiful braid that went down past her waist.
She told me an amazing story. She never married yet she bought her own house for cash. And she sent her nieces and nephews to college.
How?
She had a little side job, she said.
She worked in a flour factory during the day. As soon as she clocked out from that job she went to the steel mills. For another eight hours she hauled steel scrap, in a wheelbarrow, from one end of the factory to the other. Back and forth. Back and forth. While most folks were at home resting before the fire.
“Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Sometimes on Sundays if I could get it.”
She retired at age eighty-two (she had many jobs after the steel mill, she said, but she “always kept busy. I liked it thata way.”)
There are perhaps three important lessons with Sarah’s story as pertains to this series on how to make extra money:
One was that she didn’t really have a “how”—a definite plan—for making the extra money. She simply found jobs that paid the best (the second shift steel mill job was the best.)
Two, she had a powerful “why.” She was an unmarried African-American woman at the turn of the century. Women in her socio-economic group rarely owned property. But she wanted her own home. Desperately. And she got it. She also wanted a better life for her nieces and nephews who she dearly loved, “even though a couple of ‘em would try your patience…” she laughed and whispered, “but I still loved ‘em.”
The third lesson to be learned here is that although from the sound of this remarkable story we would conclude that it was horrific, back-breaking, hell on earth–it wasn’t in Sarah’s perception. “Always kept busy. I liked it thata way.”
When we make a decision to earn extra money, or perhaps build a new career or business, we MUST look at Sarah’s lessons. We have to have a strong “why” to start with (most people start with the how and then fail,) and we have to do something we like, perhaps even love.
Sarah died just a few months after she entered the nursing home.
I knew why.
Life had taken away her “why.” And she no longer could keep herself busy. I often thought that if
they had put Sarah to work in that nursing home (maybe planting a garden, repairing the roof, or digging out old stumps—something she did for fun) she’d still be with us today. Probably outliving us all.
Sarah was a gem. Sarah was as successful as any “Donald” or “Bill Gates” because she knew exactly what she wanted, why she wanted it, and she saw life as hard but very satisfying.
When she told me these stories, her voice raspy from the cancer that was eating through her, she almost glowed. She never quite said it but I knew from bits and pieces she told me that her parents—or perhaps grandparents—had been slaves. I knew she was basically illiterate.
But she was so proud of her life. She made choices, she stuck with it no matter what, and she was happy with what came her way. She didn’t want a house of gold, just a little place she could “paint any color” she wanted. It was a life well-lived.
NOW HERE’S A LITTLE FUNNY!
LIVE YOUR DREAMS! START NOW.
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