Your profession pays the bills, but your business is what will make you wealthy.

Most people consider their profession and their business to be one and the same thing. When it comes to personal finances, though, there’s a difference:

Your profession is whatever you do 40 hours a week to pay the bills, buy groceries, and cover other living costs. Usually, it gives you a specific title: “restaurant owner,” “salesman,” etc.

Your business, on the other hand, is what you invest time and money in to help grow your assets.

Because a profession only covers your expenses, it’s unlikely that this alone will make you wealthy. To achieve wealth, you must build a business while working at your profession.

Take, for example, a chef who’s gone to culinary arts school and knows all the tricks of the trade. Although her profession – cooking – provides enough money to pay rent and feed her family, she’s still not growing wealthy.

So she invests in a business: real estate. Whatever extra money she has each month, she puts towards buying income-producing assets – apartments and condos she can rent to tenants.

Alternatively, consider a car salesman who invests each month’s leftover income into stock trading.

In both cases, the professions provided enough income to survive on a monthly basis. However, by putting their extra income into their businesses, these people are also growing their assets and making strides toward wealth.

Your profession often funds your business initially; therefore, it’s wise to keep your day job until your business starts to show sustainable growth.

When that starts to happen, your assets – and not your profession – become your main source of income.

And that, indeed, is the sign of true financial independence.

Your profession pays the bills, but your business is what will make you wealthy.