seasoned entrepreneurs to high school students, and whenever I ask,
“How much money do you want to earn?” I get all kinds of answers,
but usually the number is quite high. When I ask, “How did you pick
this number?” I frequently get the familiar answer: “Don’t know.” I
then ask, “Can you tell me your definition of a financially wealthy
person?” Invariably, I get numbers that start at a million dollars and
go up from there. When I ask how they arrived at this, they often say,
“It sounds like a lot.” My response is, “It is, and it isn’t. It all depends
on what you’d do with it.”
I believe that financially wealthy people are those who have
enough money coming in without having to work to finance their
purpose in life. Now, please realize that this definition presents a
challenge to anyone who accepts it. To be financially wealthy you
must have a purpose for your life. In other words, without purpose,
you’ll never know when you have enough money, and you can never
be financially wealthy.
It isn’t that having more money won’t make you happy. To a
point, it certainly can. But then it stops. For more money to continue
to motivate you will depend on why you want more. It’s been said
that the end shouldn’t justify the means, but be careful—when
achieving happiness, any end you seek will only create happiness for
you through the means it takes to achieve it. Wanting more money
just for the sake of getting it won’t bring the happiness you seek from
it. Happiness happens when you have a bigger purpose than having
more fulfills, which is why we say happiness happens on the way to
fulfillment.
THE POWER OF PURPOSE
Purpose is the straightest path to power and the ultimate source of
personal strength—strength of conviction and strength to persevere.
The prescription for extraordinary results is knowing what matters to
you and taking daily doses of actions in alignment with it. When you