Acquiring Wealth – What Have We Learned
No writer, hopefully, is so foolish as to say “Here is a sure shot guaranteed formula for achieving riches.”It is true that a lot of books and programs are marketed to the gullible with just such claims. But, there are probabilities. It is more likely that we will be more successful if we get a high school diploma, then a college degree, then a graduate degree. We are more likely to get the job if we show up for the interview wearing a nice suit and a tie. But we never know. We play the probabilities, and more often than not, we are right in doing so.
If you have read this far you already know my prescription for success, both for individuals and for companies. It is no sure shot easy-does-it guaranteed stomach flattening sex life enhancing formula for riches. I would rather believe that it is a formula for facing the hard realities of the world as it actually is.
My advice for gaining personal material wealth (no guarantees):
One: Develop your inner self; search your soul, for a worthy purpose, one that will be motivating to you, to your family. Meditate about it. Pray about it. That purpose must be beyond you. It must be worthy to and for others. Then the Great Spirit will be with you.
Second: If you don’t already have one, you must develop an absolute sense of right and wrong, a value system that will cause others to trust you over the long term. Work only for a company that also displays a clear purpose and value system.
Third: Build trust. Expand your circle, your radius of trust. The more people trust you, respect you, and like you, the wealthier you will become. Build your own “brand equity.”
Fourth: Learn, learn and learn. Then practice. Lean some more. This is the age in which human competence is money. Of course, there is no one-to-one guaranteed translation, but over time you can count on the more competent in any field earning more money. You, and only you, own the responsibility for your own competence. You can’t blame anyone or expect anyone else to take care of your competence. Become the “world’s greatest expert” in whatever you do.
Fifth: Motivate yourself. Again, it is no one else’s job. Constantly set goals for your growth and development and for visual achievements. Reward yourself. Be your own behavior manager, creating antecedent stimulus events to elicit behavior that leads toward goals, and positively reinforce your own behavior. You are the mice in the maze and you control the cheese.
Sixth: Innovate. Constantly seek improved ways to do things, no matter what you do. If you collect garbage, study the truck routes, study the equipment, study the motions workers go through, eliminate waste, speed cycle times, measure, graph, set goals, find better ways. If you can do that collecting garbage you can do that doing whatever you do. Let people know about your innovations. Teach them to others. Write them up in a case study. Maybe they are so significant you could form a company just based on those innovations.
Seventh: Work harder than anyone else. This is the bad news. Generally, those who work harder, study harder, contribute more to the success of the organization, end up making more money. I know it is frustrating. And, yes, I know some people just win the lottery even though they are lazy bums. But, if you’ve read this far, you aren’t counting on that.
Eighth: Don’t confuse spending with success or wealth. Remember, Warren Buffet lived in the same old house in Omaha well into many billions of net worth. It is easy to spend money. But building long term sustainable assets is not so easy and has little to do with the car you drive or the size of your home.
Ninth: Take breaks; don’t stop. So, you are looking forward to retirement when you can lay back, play golf, go sailing and be a bum? Forget about it. First of all, our expectations about retirement are based on a fifty year old idea developed around the time that social security was created that defined the retirement age as sometime around sixty-five. That idea was created when our life expectancy was around sixty-five to seventy. Therefore, Social Security was no problem. But now, you will live to be ninety! Maybe longer. You are going to quit being productive and earning money when you have another twenty five or thirty years to go? Don’t be ridiculous. People who are productive, learning, contributing and earning are happier than those who aren’t. Don’t plan on making yourself miserable.
If you do these things, there is a very high probability (that’s the game we play, remember) that you will be healthy, wealthy and wise.
Each of the above steps can be translated or applied on the level of the organization. Strategic planning is planning for continuous improvement on the scale of the organization and over the long term. Of course financial resources must be reinvested in plant and equipment and other material components of the organization’s process. But, at least fifty percent of the value added by any organization today is added by the people. Maintaining that value requires investment. All innovation comes from the minds and motivation of people. And while the investment in human capital does require investment of funds in training and development, spiritual and social capital require little financial investment. Rather, they require investment in the behavior and actions of leaders. This may be the hardest thing of all.
How do you decide to reinvest in social, spiritual and human capital? I suggest that the management teams, at several levels of the organization, complete the self audits in each of the previous chapters.Then add them up, and have a planning session in which you review the results, brainstorm alternatives for enhancing the areas in which you need to improve, and reach consensus on actions to invest (not necessarily money) in each form of capital.
Wealth and Happiness
Everyone wants to be a millionaire, or is it billionaire now? But will you really be happy if you have a million or a billion? Will you be happy if your financial wealth exceeds your spiritual or social wealth?
There is research that answers this question. It says that if you make millions, you will not be any happier than someone who has very modest wealth. The pursuit of millions to achieve happiness is the pursuit of illusions.
The case can be made that happiness is found in fulfilling one’s purpose. Martin E.P. Seligman has studied mental health, what he calls positive psychology, as opposed to the more usual topic of psychologists, mental illness. Seligman presents the common sense hypothesis that more people are likely to achieve a healthy psychological condition by pursuing health and happiness, rather than continually seeking a solution to their problems. He has conducted an exhaustive study of happiness and arrived at a description of the conditions leading to what he calls authentic happiness. Authentic happiness is distinct from temporary pleasure and is much more than the sum of continuous pleasurable events. In other words, if money, candy, sex or other pleasure inducing events were all that was required for happiness, then the person who could acquire the most of these pleasures would be happiest. The data says otherwise. The extremely rich are no happier than those who are just moderately well off. Easy access to sex or candy or any other instant pleasure does not cause one to be “authentically happy” – happy with oneself and one’s life.
Seligman says, “The belief that we can rely on shortcuts to happiness, joy, rapture, comfort and ecstasy, rather than be entitled to these feelings by the exercise of personal strengths and virtues, leads to legions of people, who in the middle of great wealth, are starving spiritually. Positive emotion alienated from the exercise of character leads to emptiness, to in-authenticity, to depression, and, as we age, to the gnawing realization that we are fidgeting until we die.” On the other hand, his research found that “The positive feelings that arise from the exercise of our strengths and virtues, rather than from the shortcuts, is authentic.” “Authentic happiness comes from identifying and cultivating your most fundamental strengths and using them every day in work, love, play and parenting.”
What you believe about the nature of community is also an important indicator of both success and happiness. Studies of authentic happiness have indicated that a strong social network is one of the highest causal factors. Those who live in the middle of a block of houses have a stronger social network, and report that they are happier than those who live at the end of the block.How many times have you heard people say “it’s all in who you know?” Well, there is a lot of truth in that.
Our culture has conditioned us to seek ease. Every advertisement of the vacationer laying on the lounge chair on the beach, beer in hand, beautiful bodies in abundance and free from care, seduces us to seek leisure. We want the most comfortable car, the most comfortable house, the safest neighborhood, the safest retirement fund, and every labor saving device that responds with a click of a remote control. But do these things lead to either happiness or the deep satisfaction of knowing that we are growing and developing? No, they are only those immediate pleasures that we confuse with authentic happiness.
The ability to create unity of our material, spiritual, social and intellectual selves is like the harmonious pleasure of a well played melody. This is the sacred hoop, the unity of the five circles of wealth.
