The traditional perspective is that money is your goal and a lot of money is wealth.
Before we start this discussion it will help to understand what money is. In the entire history of civilizations money is a comparatively recent invention. Wealth however has been around forever and is not the same thing as money. Money flows from wealth. We create wealth and spend money. Wealth is as old as human history. Wealth is the basic thing. Wealth is stuff we want or need: shelter, food, health, safety, clothes, cars, cell phones, travel to fun warm places, and so on. You can have wealth without having money. If you had a magic Jeanie that would on your wish make all the things you needed you wouldn’t need money.
Today I want you to look at money and wealth as two separate and very different things. And to view them as two very different goals as well. And instead of pursuing money, as is the inside the box thinking, lets start thinking about pursuing wealth instead.
Think of money as dollars in a bank account. Think of wealth as ideas first created in your head. Money is cash to buy things. Wealth is things to sell to get money, or tangible things to use to support yourself.
Still not sold, or a bit confused? Let me illustrate.
What would you prefer, $1 million in cash, or two chickens and a machete?
Before you answer that seemingly ridiculous question let me add something. You are not in downtown Atlanta, but you have just been in an airplane crash on a desolate island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Only you and one other person have survived. The other person has $1 million in cash in his Gucci briefcase. You have 2 chickens and a machete in a paper bag. OK, a really large paper bag.
You may be rescued or you may be there forever, who knows. Who has the wealth? You with two chickens who will lay eggs to feed you daily. You with a machete to clear land, build a fire, build a hut, kill wild animals and cut down coconuts. Or, the other person, the rich guy with 1 million in cash in his fancy briefcase? Will he eat his 1 million dollars? Will he burn it to keep warm? Will he throw it at the coconut trees hoping coconuts will fall from above?
So, is it better to have money or wealth? You say that’s a rigged scenario. Well is it?
Wealth I say is the ability to feed yourself and survive and then thrive. I believe that wealth resides in your mind and money resides in a bank. I say your mind is your real wealth – and your mind, not your cash is better. The product or service you provide generates money. Your product or service, not your cash is your true wealth.
“Wealth is the Chicken – Money is the Egg”
Reality is not what it always appears to be. Cash, sitting inside a tangible solid bank seems real. Wealth generating Ideas on the other hand, which are in your intangible, seemingly ethereal mind seem unreal. What is more real or better however, the tangible paper sitting in the real bank, or the unseen money in the unseen mind?
Beliefs are hard to change so let’s look at this money vs. wealth idea in yet another way to further demonstrate the benefit of pursuing wealth over money. You get money by building something people want and selling it to them. Your ability to deliver a product or service people want is your real wealth. Your wealth is your gift from above and in turn your gift back to the world.
You earn money by providing products or service’s someone wants and pays you money for it. That ability to provide the service is your real wealth. Money is passive and dead. Wealth is active and alive.
“The Mind is the truest wealth creator”
Money was not always around. For most of Humankind’s history we used to be mostly self-sufficient. We grew our own food and made our own clothes. If you wanted a goat you gave the man a bushel of your tomatoes and a bushel of your potatoes and he gave you his goat.
Since the Industrial age however money, not goods or services is the tokens of trade. In a specialized society such as we now all live in, most of the things you need, you can’t make for yourself. If you want a potato or a goat or a place to live, you have to give money tokens to get it from someone else.
What you create and sell to people; the skill or knowledge you possess is still your real wealth, not the metal or paper tokens. Money is only the bi-product of your wealth. Your wealth – your service, product or skill is your real generator of money.
Additionally, we think that we need money to get wealth. I believe however that my true wealth is my mind and the ideas it generates to devise services and products is all I need to get money. Wealth and money comes from your mind. Steve Jobs wealth was his mind. He started with no money in a garage. The product he created came from his mind. And in selling his product he generated his money.
– HOW TO CREATE WEALTH
So, how do you create wealth? Zig Ziglar said “Give enough people what they want and you will eventually get everything you want” He knew the secret of wealth vs. money. I must say in coaching people who want to start a business, or grow their business they think just the opposite. They think first what they want. And they make it even worse and focus first on money; not first creating wealth. Wealth is the service or product and skill and knowledge you have that you can provide for others. Give people what they want and you’ll build the business you want. Build your business – your wealth – and the money will follow.
Since the 1970’s too many people have come to feel “entitled” to something for nothing. The real world does not work that way. Unless you are pleased living on the bottom rung of the ladder to success – and take what the government gives you for free then you better learn the difference between money and wealth.
The only way to get money without first delivering value is to rob a bank, steal it, print it, be a politician – just kidding – or go on welfare. If none of those appeal to you then stop thinking first about money and think first what can you provide that people want and need and will pay you for it.
“Remember this….money eventually runs out, while wealth is renewable and never runs out. Wealth generates more wealth and more money”
Too bad schools don’t teach us about money and wealth. For some it takes a lifetime to get it, and sadly some never do.I hope this advice this will reduce your learning curve. Follow this newsletter, buy our short book, join our Mastermind Group Coaching group, get our private coaching on wealth and business, or meet for coffee to learn more.
” Our pleasure and our passion is to help you become wealthy “
Take the time now to go inside yourself and ask these 5 questions. One will give you your answer as to what to create others need.
- Where is my wealth? – you may have hidden it.
- What knowledge, or skill, or training do I have that others want or need?
- What do I do well, love to do, that others want or need?
- What’s broken in our world that I can fix?
- What’s OK but I can make better?
- Whats needed that I see and others don’t yet see?
Now use your mind to create wealth – and the money will follow and continue to flow.
Steve Monahan
info@SteveMonahan.me
www.SteveMonahan.me
Steven Monahan 