A Lesson on Money from Scrooge McDuck

In the late 1980s there was a string of hit Disney cartoons that aired in the after-school hours on weekday afternoons. There was the Gummi Bears, Tale Spin, Darkwing Duck, Goof Troop, and Chip and Dale’s Rescue Rangers.

As a cartoon-loving kid, I was in my glory. I loved all those shows, but my favorite was Ducktales.

Ducktales revolved around Donald Duck’s nephews and his Uncle Scrooge McDuck. It was a classic cartoon and I still enjoy it today with my own kids.
So what does watching Ducktales have to do with achieving financial freedom?

I’ll explain.

Your feelings about money and work (and everything else for that matter) are the result of many different experiences and influences.

How your parents dealt with money issues. Your friends and their families. What you read in a book or saw on tv. All of these influences intermingle and come together to form your opinions and feelings.

Sometimes the littlest of things can have a big influence on you. I had one such moment while watching an episode of Ducktales as a child.

The episode revolved around Uncle Scrooge in a series of flashbacks to his childhood. (I’m going on memory with this so forgive me if I get some of the details wrong).

One flashback shows Scrooge as a young duck without a lot of money (he would go on to be the richest duck in the world so you can suspect these flashbacks to show a hint of how that happened). Scrooge found himself a job shining shoes, and wouldn’t you know a customer comes in who looks like he just walked through a patch of wet cement and let it dry.

Well Scrooge spends literally hours cleaning this guy’s shoes until you could see your face in them. By the time he finishes he’s out of breath, his back is killing him, and the store is closing.

He proudly stands up and holds out his hand expecting a mighty tip for performing such an amazing service. Instead the man thanks him, hands him a single coin and walks right out the door.

Scrooge is pissed! He busted his ass shining those shoes and he got paid chump change!

He stomps his way all the way home, slams the door on his way in and sulks around until his father asks him what is wrong.

Scrooge tells him the story and his wise father simply tells him, “Scrooge my boy…you have to learn to work smarter, not harder.”

The next day Scrooge goes back to work with a brilliant idea. He creates a simple machine that allows him to use power he generates by riding a bicycle to polish shoes for several customers at a time. With his increased efficiency he quickly starts earning some nice tips.

Scrooge just learned his first lesson about money. If you want to make enough money to achieve financial freedom, working hard isn’t enough. There are millions of people who work themselves to the bone their whole lives and still have nothing to show for it.

Working hard is important, but working smart is more so. You see, there’s a limit to how much any one person can accomplish no matter how hard they work. And working yourself ragged will only leave you frustrated and burnt out.

If you want to take the next step toward financial freedom, you have to learn to delegate or outsource tedious tasks to others. Automate time-consuming processes and leverage the work of others wherever possible.

In future posts we’ll talk about tools you can use to automate your online business, including autoresponders and PLR content.

In the meantime start making a list of tasks that eat up your time while providing little return for your efforts. These are opportunities to automate or leverage your way to success.

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