My Journey to Wealth
From a young age, we hear statements such as: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”, “Get an education”, “Find a good job”, “Save money”, “Buy a home”, “Invest or save at least 10% of your paycheck.”
There’s a running theme in these statements, a theme that I argue is one of the very root causes of the health issues endemic to our society. From childhood, we are conditioned to build decisions around financial gain. Think about it… how many big decisions in your life root back to money? This is not, on its own, an inherently bad thing. I certainly am not one to make the argument that a certain degree of happiness cannot be bought. Let’s face it, there are certain basic needs we have as humans which become easier to obtain with a minimum level of income (food, clothing, shelter, etc.). However, I will argue that the focus we have on financial wealth as a society plays a large party to what I perceive to be a lack of focus on physical, mental, and emotional well-being.
Like anything I write, it comes from a place of personal accountability to the story I am telling. I have been guilty of the above motives for years. I followed the path I thought I was supposed to follow. I went to college, got a career, went back to college for an MBA, started a business, worked myself nearly to death in the name of the almighty dollar, bought a home, then another, then another, then another (those closest to me know I am addicted to buying houses), lost my business, started another, and continued to play the proverbial chess game of financial maneuvering for nearly 2 decades. All of this was with the goal of getting a certain dollar amount to my net wealth that is supposed to bring ultimate happiness. The ironic thing is that I achieved that dollar amount years ago. I’ll never forget the moment I looked at my account statements and realized I’d done it. You may be shocked to hear that it was quite honestly the emptiest victory I have ever achieved. As I sat there, 70+ pounds overweight, carrying the burden of a stress that was 100% self-imposed, struggling in the relationships that should have mattered most to me, drowning in alcohol and food as a coping mechanism for an allostatic load that had become unbearable… I felt… empty. I had done it. I had built financial wealth… but at what expense? Had it been worth it?
The answer to that question requires me to look backwards. Retrospect gives us a gift. It gives us the ability to take a 30,000-foot view of a situation that we once were so rooted into that we may not have been able to see our hand in front of our face. If one has the self-awareness to look retrospectively at where they have been relative to where they think they are going, it can yield clarity in decisions that otherwise seem muddy. My 30,000-foot view answered the question… no, it wasn’t worth it.
I had convinced myself that the end game was freedom. I convinced myself that sacrificing it all to build financial wealth would yield freedom. But I had missed a crucial point… if your goal is true freedom, then you need more than money. You need your health. You need your wits. You need your loved ones. I was building my perceived path to freedom in spite of myself rather than in support of the person I thought I wanted to become. And as I inched closer to the number in the account, I thought necessary I continued to shave off pieces of myself that inexorably removed any opportunity I might have had for true freedom.
Through this experience I learned something. We need to reframe our outlook on what it means to be wealthy. I’ve come to believe that true wealth is that which cannot be taken from you, wealth in knowledge, wealth in your health, wealth in your mindset, wealth in your relationships, wealth in your body, and so forth. If you put the work into building wealth in these capacities, then the rest will fall into place.
If you are still here, then I’d like to offer four forms of wealth that cannot be taken from you.
Wealth in Knowledge
We value money and we value things. But those can be taken away. It may be a cliché, but ‘knowledge is power’. It cannot be taken, only re-purposed. Go read a book, take a new certification, start a new hobby, or learn a new skill. Study language, become a student of philosophy and physics, listen to podcasts, pick the brain of someone smarter than you.
The knowledge you will gain from these experiences will only grow. It will compound, exponentially. The dots might not always seem to connect. Topics may not seem related and what you are learning may not always seem applicable to your immediate experience. But I promise you that it all interconnects. It will all come together in the end. And sometimes when you very least expect it, a bit of knowledge you picked up along the way will be the very thing that saves you.
Wealth in Health
How many times have you chosen an extra 30 minutes at work over a 30-minute walk? A cheeseburger and fries on the way home after a late day rather than taking the time to cook a well-rounded meal? A cup of green tea with your spouse over a few beers with your colleagues to talk about the next big business deal? We are conditioned to believe in the rise and grind mentality. Depriving ourselves of sleep in the name of a few extra hours on the laptop is a celebrated behavior. Self-care has become a four-letter word.
If looked at as individual instances, these innocuous moments may not seem like a big deal. But the truth is that each decision you make is a small interest payment toward the outcome you’re ultimately going to achieve.
Obesity is endemic. Problematic use of alcohol is becoming more common. The valuation of companies like Uber Eats soared during pandemic (you don’t have to leave your Zoom conference to have a fatty fast-food meal delivered right to your home office).
Your health is something that only you can give yourself and only you can take away. Money, real estate, investments, and savings all come and go. However, if you start taking care of your physical well-being today it will serve you for the rest of your life. It will provide you the energy to fight even when things are hard. It will yield the vitality to wake up in the morning ready to take on the challenges which will invariably present themselves. Most importantly, your health will be yours whether financial times are good or bad.
Wealth in Mindset
What if all our mindsets shifted from that of financial gain to that of just being a good person? What if tomorrow everyone woke up and tried to do right by each other? What if we saw obstacles as opportunities to grow and challenges as the path to a better world?
We are all driven by our own ego on one level or another. However, building a mindset embodied by a drive to build strong communities, strong bodies, strong families, and a wherewithal to push through challenging times will give you a wealth in a skill that no one can take away from you.
I challenge you, starting today, to remove the phrase ‘to me’ from your vocabulary. Stop thinking of the world or happenstances as happening ‘to you’. Start thinking of them as things that simply are happening, and you can either choose to confront or choose not to. Your job is not happening ‘to you’. The financial market is not happening ‘to you’. Your relationships (good and bad) are not happening ‘to you’. They are simply things that are happening. Build a mindset that believes in your own ability to confront challenges. Reinforce a mindset that believes the destination is in the journey and everything happening is designed to help you learn and grow as a human being. Establish a mindset that is willing to help and be helped.
This cannot be taken from you. With or without financial wealth, a reinforced and stoic mindset will stay with you and help guide you through any challenge that may arise.
Wealth in Relationships
I struggled to include this in the list. I struggled because relationships are a two-way street. Technically they can be taken from you even when it’s not what you want. I decided to include it all the same because my message here is about growing wealth which goes beyond money. I believe that too many of us use work to justify behavior that is negligent to our relationships. I know I was guilty of this for years while running my first business. My phone was glued to my hand, a few extra minutes on a call took priority over the moment I was in with my child, and late nights online took precedence over many family dinners. I justified my behavior. I said that I was doing this in the name of growing financial wealth and stability for my family. I said it was for all our own good. I watched as those closest to me slowly and painfully pulled away while I spent ‘just a little more time at work’.
The truth was, I was costing myself something that could not be replaced. There will always be more money to be made. There will always be a ‘next job’. There will always be an opportunity to start the next business. If you keep your mindset right, there is no reason you can’t make a living in today’s hustle economy. But the love you have from those closest to you is not something any of us should sacrifice in the name of financial wealth.
I acknowledge that you cannot control how others will act in a relationship. I realize that sometimes relationships go awry for reasons that are out of your individual control. The thing I do truly believe however, is that we do control our own actions. We do control how we treat others and how we show up for those we love and care about. Choose to be present in the moments you have with family and friends, decide to be accountable to those you love, resolve yourself to hear the needs of those closest to you and accommodate within reason.
With or without money, life is easier when you have love and community. But your ability to build and deserve those two things rests solely on you.
In Summary
Money comes and goes. The financial market will ebb and flow. You may start a business and perhaps it will succeed or crumble. Chances are you will experience loss at some point regardless of how hard you work or how diversified you made your portfolio.
Of this, however, I am certain… If you focus on building wealth in the things that cannot be taken from you, then you will always have the skill to regain whatever wealth you may lose. And in my humble opinion, that is where true wealth lies… in the knowledge, mindset, physical health, and relationships we have which allow us to achieve whatever it is in this world we are setting out to achieve.
—
This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
***
From The Good Men Project on Medium
What Does Being in Love and Loving Someone Really Mean? | My 9-Year-Old Accidentally Explained Why His Mom Divorced Me | The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex | The Internal Struggle Men Battle in Silence |
Join The Good Men Project as a Premium Member today.
All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.
A $50 annual membership gives you an all access pass. You can be a part of every call, group, class and community.
A $25 annual membership gives you access to one class, one Social Interest group and our online communities.
A $12 annual membership gives you access to our Friday calls with the publisher, our online community.
Register New Account
Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
—
Photo credit: Shutterstock