How do you measure real wealth?
Is it the car you drive? Is it the house you live in? Is it the wealthy friends you gather around you? Is it your neighbourhood? Is it the size of the ring or the length of your powered boat? Is it the bank balance or the portfolio?
What Is It?
For whatever it is to you will determine whether you are simply creating riches or creating beyond riches.
I want to take you to the next level of wealth and riches – so allow your mind to open just wide enough so that you can grasp the concepts that I’m about to share with you. I want to take you beyond riches.
And to demonstrate the truth and vital necessity of this for your future wellbeing please allow me to share with you a story….
In 1923 a group of America’s greatest leaders and richest businessmen held a meeting at the Edgewater Beach hotel in Chicago. Among them were Charles Schwab, head of the largest independent steel company; Samuel Insull, president of the world’s largest utility; Howard Hopson, head of the largest gas company; Ivar Kreuger president of the International Match Co., one of the largest companies at the time; Leon Frazier, president of the Bank of International Settlements; Richard Whitney, president of the New York Stock Exchange; Arthur Cotton and Jesse Livermore, two of the biggest stock speculators; and Albert Fall, a member of President Harding’s cabinet. Twenty five years later nine of them(those listed above) ended as follows. Schwab died penniless after living for five years on borrowed money. Insull died broke living in a foreign land. Krueger and Cotton also died broke. Hopson went insane. Whitney and Albert Fall were released from prison. Fraser and Livermore committed suicide.*
Who amongst that list of wealthy men went beyond riches?
For I too have known men in my lifetime who have had everything that the world could supply, and yet in their pursuit of all that they possessed they lost their family, they lost everything.
My Story
I at one point in my young working life was heading in the same direction. I was so heaven-bent – though through my attitudes that I displayed to my family it was more like hell-bent – to pursue success that I was leaving my family behind or rather driving them away. For when I was younger I was always racing towards success. Always in a rush – and many times going nowhere fast. Now that I’m older I find myself pacing. I tackle a large goal and divide it up into small daily steps. Then I simply get to work on a consistent daily basis. The result?SUCCESS without the stress and balanced with family life.
But first let’s back track many years for it is upon this foundation that my personal road has been paved and led me to discovering and uncovering the source of beyond riches.
I can never wipe the image from my mind of my two, five, and eight year old children walking the streets with their mother and I, with a handful of pink advertising cards, for our brand new business venture. With their little hands they deposited these cards into mail boxes in our local community.
The air was filled with laughter and excitement as we ventured out as a family into the unknown business world to see what wonderful things would come.
Retrenchment Leads To A Decision
I had recently been retrenched for being too good at what I was doing for the organisation I had been working for (yes that does sound weird, but jealous management sometimes don’t make sensible decisions), and on that day I declared to my family that I would never again work full time for another man. And that was the day I looked around my house and saw what I had – a mop, a vacuum cleaner and some cleaning fluids – and I decided to start our own cleaning business.
So rather than forging out on my own, every one of us as a family were involved from the start, and within a week of operation, after we as a family walked the streets distributing those pink advertising cards, we were up and running and profitable in our own business. That business sustained us as a family for the next three years before I sold it on to a friend.
And in one sense that action has guided me throughout the years; to include my family in my business ventures – with differing levels of commitment – and strike up a balance that has included both business and family.
Balancing Business & Family
I wanted to include my family in my business activities as much as practically possible, so that they could receive a well-rounded education and an opportunity to develop life and faith skills that would carry them on and into adulthood. I also enjoyed their company immensely, and it was for them that I was always building, always growing.
I did this in a number of ways throughout the years…
When I travelled the world to strike up book deals with publishing houses, for my self published books, my travelling companion was my fourteen year old daughter.
When I decided to start a web design company I approached my fourteen year old son to be involved in it, and it wasn’t long before my eldest daughter became one of my star salesmen.
When I hired a business coach, and met with him on a weekly basis, I invited both of my teenage children to participate in the twelve month program.
After selling my web design clients I guided those same children as they launched their own businesses.
In my current venture my youngest daughter heads up our team of professional women, and my wife is actively involved in all that we do in the business world.
Has It Been Easy?
No.
At times it has been extremely tough, particularly when we’ve had to make difficult business decisions. But I have never shielded my children from these struggles. They have been in the thick of it. They have watched their father and mother face troubles and yet overcome them. They have seen them handle difficult clients, insurmountable challenges and yet rise above them – sometimes gracefully and yet at other times not so well.
They have seen the successes. They have observed the mistakes. They have sensed the joy, and they have felt the pain.
They have tasted beyond riches.
The Results?
We as a family thrive on open and unashamed communication one with another. That is our greatest strength.
And my two eldest children, now in their twenties are travelling on their own entrepreneurial journeys – strong, assured and capable.
Sure they make their own mistakes – but I know that by training them up in the ‘real’ business world, they are best equipped to build a wonderful life for both them and their families, on and into the future.
And now I have placed before me the joy of imparting these same lessons to my grandchildren.
It has always been my vision to see myself as the eagle – gently but purposefully removing the feathers from the nest so that my children could do one thing.
The very thing that our journey together, in business and life as a family, has prepared them to do – and the one thing that they were born to do – soar!
Beyond Riches
And that’s what leads me to beyond riches. For no matter how much money I make in the days ahead, the richest and most precious things I can obtain in the journey called life – is my family, the love of my family, and the opportunity of taking what we have – financially, physically, spiritually, mentally and emotionally – and begin to share the riches that we are so blessed to have with those less fortunate than ourselves around the globe.
To impart. To empower. To enrich. To give. To inspire. To teach. To guide. To be the ones who not simply provide the fish, but who in fact teach others how to fish so that they too can teach others to fish – and it will feed them for a lifetime and provide them beyond riches.
* Rich Dad, Poor Dad – Robert T. Kyosaki P.50
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