You need to have patience, as there is no overnight success. Failure is also caused by our desire to rob the system, to jump the steps. We want things to happen as soon as possible, and when anyone presents us with a short cut to wealth, an easy way out, we jump into it and fail, because there are just no short cuts to wealth. As a result we fail again and again because of short cuts. When that happens over and over again because of our actions, the negative impact failure has on our confidence prevents us from trying again and it makes us give up on our dreams. You must understand that it is a journey, and that it takes time and lots of work.
Wealth is accumulated; this is why there is no short cut to wealth. When you get a lot of money in a short period of time, it can kill you or you will lose it as quickly as it came, because you don’t know how to accumulate it. You don’t know exactly how to create wealth as it came to you by luck, and this makes it hard to manage it.
I sometimes ask people how they expect to successfully manage millions if they find managing thousands or less stressful. This is very true in the knowledge and understanding of money. When you know how to create it from scratch, you will successfully manage it. There is no shock, and as you’ve learned over time how to manage your money you become successful in your financial management.
When you do successfully create wealth on your own, you can successfully manage it. You are more prepared not to fall prey to bankruptcy, you are aware of the hard work that goes into creating wealth so you won’t misuse your money, you won’t waste your money, and you will spend your money wisely, on the things that make you happy and make life worth living.
Look within yourself
Think a little about yourself. It is all about what you want to give to the world, what part of yourself you want to share with the world. How do you want the people out there to recognise you, know about you? Develop it, package it and sell it to the world, share it with the world and get the value back from other people. It is about expressing yourself, who you are.
All you want is within yourself
On life’s journey you may find that the road less travelled is really the path within ourselves whereupon we become what we already are. If you want to become a doctor, you have to be a doctor within yourself through your strengths, like caring, etc.
It is your strength; it is your best qualities. This is what enables you to be a doctor in reality, in your physical life. When you do it for money, you become a bad doctor. I am not going to try to explain what life is here, but this says everything about what I believe about life, and what I think life is. We are complete and all unique; we are one with the universe, with everything in it. What we are experiencing and what we call life is who we are; we are experiencing ourselves for the first time through consciousness.
If you buy a car, you experience it through your feelings. You see, what you are experiencing is not the car, it is the feelings which were already there within yourself. The car is just the trigger; it enables you to experience yourself; it is an awareness of what we are and have always been. We realise the parts we don’t like about ourselves, and we replace them by choosing to exist on their opposite side. From hate we move towards love as we realise that hate is not nice and it is destructive, and on the other side love is enjoyable, it is constructive. This is called evolving, this is what is happening. That’s what I believe.
I travel the road deep within myself. I want to do things and experience things, as doing things triggers feelings within me through which I experience more of myself. Then I can fix the destructive elements about myself by replacing them with the constructive ones. That’s why I want financial success. I want to experience myself at that level, at a wealthy level. I hope you want that too. If you do, try to seek to discover yourself. You do that by expressing yourself, by focusing on your natural strengths. These are the strengths you discover through living an active life, living the truth, and expressing your authentic self, which is the true you.
We live to increase, we live to grow
I feel alive when I feel in control, and experience quality of life and certainty when I am free and doing what I want to do. I depend on my financial resources to do the things I want to do. I am always looking for opportunities to increase my resources to be able to live and do more of the things I want to do.
It is about taking your position in the society, and being somebody to the outside world. I know I am somebody but I want to see it in my everyday life. I want to be more than just Phillip; to be at
least Phillip the doctor, Phillip the lawyer, Phillip the politician, Phillip the carpenter, Phillip the musician, Phillip the farmer, Phillip the preacher, Phillip the businessman, Phillip the investor, Phillip the author, Phillip somebody, and so on.
At the moment I think I am just Phillip the son, the brother, the friend, the stranger, the person. This is how I relate to the world. I feel I must take a better position in this world, and be more important. I think I am capable of being more in this world. That’s my judgement; what’s yours? Are you somebody to the world yet? Or are you just a daughter, son, friend, brother, or sister? You must grow from that level, and be somebody to the outside world too. That’s your career. Be known for what you do, so get out there and be somebody.
Increase your value
Always look for opportunities to learn and increase the value you give to the world. This is how you increase your wealth. When you are just sitting and not adding value to yourself through knowledge, skills and experiences you won’t be able to provide any more value than you can now. You cannot expect or be able to ask for more value from other people when you have no added value. You just have to accept what’s given. It is very important that we always create things, try new things, gain experience and add and improve on our values to be able to have more value to share with the world, and get wealth in return.
Are you paid for the eight hours or for the work you do? If you were paid for the eight hours you must be earning the same salary as all your colleagues because you are all there for eight hours, but since that it is not the case, some people are paid more than others. You are being paid for the work you do, and not the hours you put in. The more valuable you are at what you do, the more returns you can expect for your value. Even when you are self-employed, it is important that you make yourself valuable. Businesses don’t get the same returns. It all depends on the value of the work you do. Using your same strengths, choose a career that gives you an opportunity to be more valuable when you reach the market with your product or service.
True wealth is not average
You will not comprehend the concepts discussed in this book if you want to live an average life. You will not understand it because this book is about people who want to achieve great success, and not just an ordinary life. Wealth itself is not ordinary or average living, it is achievable to people who believe in their greatness.
It is not wrong to want to live an average life; it is a question of self-preference. However, when it comes to wealth, it is not achievable when you are an average person. It is not for ordinary people because ordinary people do ordinary things, and average people do average things. You will not achieve great things when you do average things. This is the truth about wealth. You cannot be ordinary and expect to achieve wealth, unless if it is inherited or is through the lottery. You will not achieve wealth when you do ordinary things.
It is not me who chooses things to be this way, and it is not you either. It is the order of the world. People who achieve greatness do great things. You will not understand this book if you are not looking to achieve greatness and live your best life. You must bring on your A-game when you want true wealth. It is about doing great things, expressing your greatness, and showing great things about yourself. This is how you achieve true wealth, the wealth that this book refers to.
Wealth itself builds your character. You become more independent, you become a leader, you become influential in the community you live in. Wealth is abou
t not being average. An average life is boring for people who choose their destiny, people who become wealthy. These are the people this book is all about, people who don’t wait for the future to happen, they create it.
An average life is when you do nothing about your future, when you just wait to see what happens. This is not what self-made billionaires are made of. They hate to be average. This is what drives them to greater achievements. This is you, and this is who you should be to find real success. You must strive not to be average; you must strive to rise above human achievements. This is what will make you put in the hard work.
So, in short, wealth is not about being average. If wealth is what you are looking for, you start by not being the average you. You don’t put in average work and expect wealth. It won’t happen. You don’t do average things and expect great things in your life; it is not possible. You must be more than average to achieve notable success. You become great from within. When you are a great person within, when you are not average within, your greatness will eventually come out. Everyone will start noticing the great person you are in the things you do. Your greatness will show in whatever you do. So, you must go deep within yourself to find the greater parts of your personality, your strengths, and express them. This is how you become wealthy.
Having balance
When it comes to balance in life, we are many things. There are two things that we are mostly; we are creative and social. The creative side is the productive side, it is the work side, it is the producing and the exchanging or selling of value, it is about making a living. The social side is about relationships, family and friends, it is our social needs. Achieving a balance between the two, in both your financial needs and social needs, will help you succeed in your quest for success because you will enjoy yourself, you will be satisfied and fulfilled, and you will have support for your dreams.
People who work so hard and ignore their social lives suffer and don’t enjoy themselves, and sometimes give up on their dreams because they don’t enjoy the journey. It gets lonely, while people who have good social lives, those who give equal effort and energy to their financial life and social lives, enjoy their journey. They get the support they need, they don’t give up easily, and they work hard and play hard.
Remember it is not about the destination, it is all about the journey. There are also people who ignore their finances and become too focused on their social lives. You know, people for whom life is a party, or they are only worried about looking for a man to marry them so they can have babies, and so on. They end up with no real success but a big bag of problems in the form of all the baggage that comes with social responsibilities. We must try by all means to maintain a balance between the two as they play an important part in us reaching our dreams and goals.
Urbanisation and modernisation
These are important words. Human civilisation is based on these words. People may not talk that much about them, but humankind is always striving to catch up with these words. The acceptability of everything in this world is related to these words, which are to do with the measure of values. Poor people are playing catch up to these words, while rich people are living the life that comes with these words. They sum up wealth. Everything points to this when I start thinking about wealth; what is it, and if we can define it. I know it is a combination of values, but there is more to it. Why does it seem like we are chasing it? Then I got my answer. It is because everyone is playing catch up.
I was fortunate enough to be born in a transitional period. I experienced and observed the whole transition and modernisation of things. In fact, any period of time is a transitional period, so the world is always changing to be more modern and more urban. Therefore everyone has seen this transition. I am just saying I am lucky because I’ve experienced both rural and urban life, and have studied the changes. I saw the difference in plain black and white. I saw the transition from rural to urban because I’ve lived in both environments when I was still young, which made me more fascinated and caused me to question things.
This is what I observed. In the rural area, I had my chance to plough the soil, fetch firewood, take care of livestock, and walk distances for other resources. Life was easy but not soft. It was easy in the sense that we didn’t have to buy that much, as we did a lot of things ourselves. You could live well for the whole month without doing any shopping, while it is impossible to live a day in an urban area without paying for anything. Then the transition came when I moved to the so-called urban areas.
Now in the urban area, I have to buy my food, pay rent for a place to live, and pay for transportation. Everything is improved in the urban area, it is modernised, and everything carries the touch of a human being. It is processed, value is added to everything, the water you drink has been cleaned and is available right in the house. You don’t have to walk distances to fetch water, which means you now have to pay for it. You don’t have to walk long distances anymore, as you can catch a taxi to wherever you want to go. You just have to pay. You don’t have to plough the soil for food, or have any livestock. You would not be able to keep them in an urban area anyway. You just have to buy food. You can find all the meat you want at the supermarket. There is no more fetching wood for fire; you just need to pay for electricity and all you need to do to produce heat is to use your fingers to flick on the switch of a heater.
Observing all this, I noticed the difference between these two environments. Although life was easy without money in the rural area, the quality of life is so improved in the urban areas that many people will not want to go back to rural life. We get so addicted to urban life that we don’t care if we live in boxes made of zinc, just for the opportunity to be near to urban life, even to have just a little taste of modern life. Even rural areas can be modernised, but based on the history of the country, most development is still centralised, and most urban resources are still centralised. It is only that in cities and towns, this results in overcrowding and leads to squatter camps, lack of adequate distribution of resources and a government that struggles to provide basic needs to its people.
Life in an urban area is easier compared to rural life; it is just tough compared to rural life when you have no money, which is what this book is teaching you how to create, by being useful to the next person. Urbanisation is also vital because it allows the sharing of resources, which is vital to accommodate the growing population. It is also cheaper to do business in an urban area because you have access to a lot of people in a short distance, which saves you on the cost of doing business and exchanging values. There are also prospects of personal growth in an urban area compared to a rural area.
When I further observe this I notice that everyone is always trying to play catch up to the level of modernisation, which means wealth is closely related to modern life. When we desire wealth, we in fact desire modern life, an easy way of living. Think about all this, and understand that living well in an urban area requires that you have money. You need to create value, and you have to add value to natural resources and exchange it with other people to be able to live well in a modern area.
This means that what you are after, what you want to catch up on when you talk about wealth, is that you want wealth in your life. You mean that you want to catch up with modern living, because you’ve been left behind. Most of us are playing catch up; we want that modern life. But to reach it you have to create value. Start today. Use your mind to create value to exchange with other people for the modern life you want to live, which is wealth. In simple terms, the creation of wealth is catching up with modern life. This is another way of looking at wealth which may help you in understanding it and therefore being able to create it. Wealth is modern; you create it for yourself by coming up with modern ideas, products or services that improve the quality of life for other people by creating value that is attractive and modern to other people.
This is what I want you to take away from this. People are attracted to modern life; it is valuable. Wealth itsel
f is modern living, which is why you should create modern value to share with the world to be able to achieve your own wealth. Start thinking of ways in which you can apply your strengths to make a difference and provide value to other people; value that makes life easier, that’s all of us are after; an easier way of living, and an easier way of doing things. Start your thinking processes from this perspective. Seek to solve the human challenges you see around you and make it easier for other people, then charge for your solutions to those challenges. That’s how you create your wealth. Every business is offering a solution to human challenges. Even urbanisation and modernisation is a solution to the challenges that were faced by people in rural life. So where do you fit in this modern life? What can you do for us? WHAT’S YOUR CONTRIBUTION? That is exactly what will bring you wealth.
Take the initiative
Wealth is about taking the initiative. I told you that wealth exists in your thoughts, and in your ideas. This requires that you take the initiative; you make things happen, you put ideas into actions. That’s all you have to do. You don’t moan about problems, you don’t complain about challenges, you take the initiative and solve them, for yourself and the world, then you can ask for payment. People who succeed in life always take the initiative; this is what you must do if you want success.
Money- Wealth Creation Guide Page 28
