How to Get 50,000 People to Work for FREE
50,000 + Men haul tons of dirt every day–for no pay!
Check out these photos by the brilliant photographer Sebastiao Salgado from the now played-out Serra Pelada gold mine in Brazil. Salgado spent months photographing workers in this vast mine during it’s peak of production during the 1980s. According to him, between 50,000 and 100,000 men would show up every day to do backbreaking labor FOR NO PAY!!
All day in the blazing sun, these men strapped heavy bags of dirt to their shoulders (think: sacks of concrete) and climbed out of the pit—the height of some of our tallest skyscrapers, on rickety ladders. When they got to the top they would find a place to empty their bag of dirt and then run back down the steep jagged slope into the maw of the mine.
Why did these men kill themselves to haul the dirt away for free? Because if (and that was a very rare “if”) if a laborer happened to be working at a particular spot when a vein of gold was discovered he was given a chance. Each worker at a strike site was given the chance to carry (1) one specially packed bag of dirt to the surface—a bag of dirt that could change the impoverished, malnourished, broken man forever.
Inside one bag was a gold bar worth nearly $90,000 in our current western
Reaching the Top–Note how small and distant everyone and everything is beneath this worker
economy. Just imagine how much that would have been worth to a peasant living in rural 1980s Brazil!
The workers would hastily sling their bag over their shoulders and rush to the top ground level. After tearing open their sacks, all but one would hang their heads and shuffle back down into the pit knowing it could be weeks, months or or even years before another strike; and their chances of being present when one happened again were slim.
These men worked day in and day out–hoping that one day, chance would find them. Unfortunately, their bodies typically broke down and they died long before.
How about you? Are you waiting for chance?
The average American household spends $540 every year on lottery tickets. If you buy lottery tickets, even if it’s “just for fun”—stop it, now! Every time you buy a lottery ticket you’re hauling a bag of dirt up that hill. And your odds of winning are much worse than the workers in the Serra Pelada gold mine.
Instead, invest at least $540 each year (just $45 each month) in increasing what Brian Tracy calls, “your Earning Power.” Read books on your field, take classes, and go to seminars. Commit to consuming (not just buying) at least $540 worth of personal development material each year.
It’s easy! In addition to online courses everywhere, check out audiobooks through ITunes or Audible.com. A short 15-minute commute will consume an average audiobook in less than 2 weeks and that equals 26 books a year!
How about you? Are you ready to stop breaking your back hauling dirt and waiting for your chance? Invest in the one thing that always pays the highest profits and which can never be taken away from you–your Earning Power!
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