Where to Find Wealth, Happiness, and Success

A beggar had been sitting by the side of a road for over thirty years. One day a stranger walked by. “Spare some change?” mumbled the beggar, mechanically holding out his old baseball cap. “I have nothing to give you”, said the stranger. Then he asked, “What’s that you are sitting on?” “Nothing”, replied the beggar. “Just an old box. I have been sitting on it for as long as I can remember.” “Ever looked inside?” asked the stranger. “No” said the beggar. “What’s the point? There’s nothing in there.” “Have a look inside,” insisted the stranger. The beggar managed to pry open the lid. With astonishment, disbelief, and elation, he saw that the box was filled with gold.

I am that stranger who has nothing to offer you and who is telling you to look inside. Not inside any box, as in the parable, but somewhere even closer: inside yourself.

“But I am not a beggar,” I can hear you say.

I read that on Amazon.com, and they credited it to Eckhart Tolle.

I though it was a terrific parable. Now, I won’t be as good, or as fluent, but let me speak from my personal experience for a moment. I have been chasing wealth and success, looking for the recipe and the “right ingredients”, for quite a few years. I have read over a hundred books, and own over fifty in my personal library, on wealth, success, or related topics. I have spoke with countless people on the topic, from all different levels of success: some were just getting started, and some already measured their net worth in the millions. Here is some of what I have noticed in others, and in myself as well.

At the start of the road, most of us are looking for a recipe… a secret formula… that magical investment that the rich use that easily and automatically creates wealth. We just want the wealthy to share the formula with us, give us that one hot stock tip, so we can do it too.

At the beginning of the road, most of us think that if someone wealthy was just generous enough to tell us how to do it, then we could do it too. Well, that is right, and it isn’t…

See, there is great wisdom in the saying: think what wealthy people think, do what wealthy people do, and you will have… what wealthy people have. To tell you the catch, let me repeat a quote I have said before… “It is simple, but it isn’t easy”. When you study enough wealthy and/or successful people, and when you read enough autobiographies of great men and women, you start to notice commonalities. However, what you notice in common is not really a secret. Let me use as an example a ‘typical self-made millionaire’.

First, he (and it could be a he or a she, but for simplicity’s sake I will just say ‘he’) starts out growing up relatively poor. Generally, he has obstacles and hurdles to overcome that are larger than what most people can imagine facing themselves – larger than life atrocities... Maybe bankruptcy, maybe parents disowned him at a young age and he grew up on the streets, maybe deaths in the family at an early age, maybe a broken home for whatever reason, maybe embarrassment at growing up dirt poor, maybe his family being thrown out of their home to live on the streets, perhaps little formal education because he had to quit school and work to help support the family, maybe he barely escaped persecution in a savage country and escaped to America where he couldn’t even speak the language, maybe labeled with mental or other disabilities, etc. These obstacles become a rallying cry – they harden his resolve that he is going have the good life – that he is never going to let that happen to him as an adult, or he is going to make sure that his children never have it as tough as he did. Maybe his parents were complete failures, and it hardens his determination to be a huge success.

Personally, one day before school my Mom and Dad told my sister, brother, and I that they would have a surprise for us after we got home. I was in about second grade, my sister one grade behind me, and not sure if my brother was in kindergarten, or not in school yet. Anyhow, being kids, we got all excited. “No, don’t make us wait, give us the surprise now. Tell us before we leave for school. Please, please, please, please, please!!!” “Well, okay. Mommy and Daddy aren’t getting along, and we don’t love each other any more, so Daddy is moving out and we are going to get a divorce. But don’t worry, everything will be just fine.” Well, I talk to my sister and brother about it now, and they don’t remember that day, but I do. I remember crying all day long at school, trying to hold back and/or hide the tears, and I remember trying to figure out what I had done wrong that caused it. You see, kids don’t think logically about that kind of stuff – they don’t understand. Kids are simple, and they think the world revolves around them, so they must have had some role in anything that happens. Especially if the reasons behind something like a divorce aren’t broken down and explained to them in a way they can understand. Anyhow, moving right along to growing up in a single parent household…

I remember wearing sneakers that were held together by tape until my mother’s next payday (I learned later that my father was an alcoholic, and he never did help much with alimony or financial support). I remember being made fun of because I wore the same clothes too often – because I was lucky if I owned five sets of school clothes. I remember being laughed at because back when I was in school the kids on the school lunch program were easily identified as the poor kids by their punch cards and/or the line they had to wait in to get them.

When you have it worse than many people can imagine, one of two things tends to happen. Either you end up the exact same way yourself, or something inside you snaps, and you decide that you are going in the exact opposite direction. You decide that you will find a way, no matter how hard it is, to succeed, or be wealthy, or to not abuse your children, or whatever that opposite might be.

Enough of my personal story, and now back to our typical self-made millionaire. Once the decision is made to have it better financially than he had it growing up, he doesn’t know how he will become wealthy, but he knows he will find a way to do it somehow. Next, he starts working extra hard, ten to twelve to fourteen hours a day, five and six and seven days a week. He works harder than the next guy, and longer hours, and more days, with fewer vacations, sometimes holding two jobs, or running a business of his own on the side, and insists on doing everything he does to the best of his ability. At some point, he starts following a formula - he lives below his means, and he saves and invests the difference. Sooner or later, he typically finds his way into a field or business that he is passionate about, and he enjoys his work or business (which helps make the long hours and sacrifices come easier). He is generally a fair person, of the highest integrity, who tries to make sure that he always takes good care of his customers and honors any commitments that he makes, even if it occasionally hurts his pocket book to do so. He gives back out of his blessings, either to his church, or to those less fortunate, or to whatever causes are near and dear to him. His dedication shows, and eventually he starts to get promoted, or his business starts to grow and improve. The more he earns, the more he is able to save and invest, and his net worth starts to grow more noticeably now. He continues putting in the long hours, and hard work, and building wealth, for ten to twenty to thirty years. Eventually he starts to treat himself and/or his family a little better, and he starts to show some of the signs of success. One day Joe Average American finds out a little about what our typical self-made millionaire has achieved, and says, “Boy, you sure are lucky!” Yes, typical self-made millionaire sure is lucky. He got up earlier and went to bed later, worked harder, and gave it 110% effort 110% of the time. He built his success from the ground up, most of it by his own blood, sweat, and tears, especially in the early years. He did the things early on that others wouldn’t do, so that later he could do the things others couldn’t do. Meanwhile, Average Joe was enjoying the average American’s seven hours a day of TV, doing just enough at his job to keep from being fired, and never considered living below his means or starting up a side business because it would be too difficult. Yes, typical self-made millionaire sure was lucky!

So, now let me circle back to the beginning, and tie some things together. I said, “At the beginning of the road, most of us think that if someone wealthy was just generous enough to tell us how to do it, then we could do it too.” I proceeded to say, “Well, that is right, and it isn’t…” Now you see, what I mean is, the ‘how to’ is different for each person – we all have different passions and talents, so we must have different businesses, and get into different investments, etc., but the path we follow is similar. We first make a decision, and our ‘why’ has to be huge; it has to give us a burning desire that makes us willing to do whatever it takes (within moral, ethical, and legal limits, of course), because it will be simple, but it won’t be easy. Then we figure out some things, and work long and hard for many years, and make sacrifices, and figure out more things, and continue working long and hard, and figuring out things, and, eventually, one fine day we end up “LUCKY!!!”

And even before “the beginning of the road”, I shared Eckhart Tolle’s story about a beggar, and Eckhart said that we need to look inside ourselves. What I am sharing is that I think we need to look inside ourselves to see what kind of lives we lead – that we need to make conscious decisions about who we are and who we become, so we don’t get to the end of our lives and find ourselves left with a lot of wasted potential. Wealth, happiness, and success don’t come from ‘secrets’, and they don’t come from the outside world; indeed, where they come from is inside ourselves. They come from having the right mindset. They come from having the intestinal fortitude to make tough decisions, and to stick it out when times get tough. They come from overcoming our fears, and having integrity in all that we do. They come from deciding to be happy, and then doing it.

I was talking to my sister recently about goals and dreams, and she said “Well, not everyone is like you. Not everyone wants to be rich, you know”. My reply was something along the lines of “Dreams and goals don’t have to be about getting rich! They are about figuring out what is important to you, and deciding what you really want to do with your life, and then making a plan and going for it. Your dreams can be financial, or they can be spiritual, or they can be about a career choice, or anything at all, as long as they are yours!” What breaks my heart, though, is seeing so many Average Joes that spend seven hours a day watching TV, that never pursue any dreams or goals at all, and knowing there is a good chance that they will get to the end of their lives and look back and regret all of the things they never did, never tried, and all of the dreams they had that they didn’t make come true. That is really sad!!!