Josh Bolinger: Is it Really All About the Money?
How do you attain the ideal amount of money for your happiness?
Is the job you are at going to get you there?
One of my favorite things to do when I meet new people is to ask them what they do for a living, and then ask them what they really want to be doing. The answer is very rarely the same. I like to ask people why they aren’t doing the thing they want to do, why they aren’t using their life the way they want to use it. Often, particularly in the case of people I’m mentoring, the conversation ends with them re-focused on their goals, but keeping focus can be hard.
Why is it so difficult to make a good living? I think that part of it is the fact that it’s almost impossible to get rich working for someone else. And of course, there are a lot of voices in our society that tell you there are tricks and short-cuts, but a lot of that is fool’s gold.
Every day we see celebrities and athletes, people who seem to have found a shortcut, spending money lavishly, fulfilling themselves through consumerism and a party-all-the-time lifestyle. Focusing on these people has two terrible effects. First, it advertises the idea that there are quick and easy routes to success, bur secondly, it gives rise to the idea that when you have wealth, the best way to use it is to blow it all on toys and parties to impress other people with how successful you are.
True entrepreneurs know that the path to wealth and success is hard work at something you really care about, and when they get there, they reinvest. The most wealthy and truly influential people reach a lifestyle plateau, where they feel they have enough personal wealth, and they use the surplus to bring other people along. They support startups, they become venture capitalists, they engage in large-scale philanthropy, and in vest in the world around them.
Of course, the real trick is that helping others find their way up the ladder by investing in startups and education often makes them wealthier than they’d ever imagined.
We raise ourselves up by raising up others.
