Are you striving for wealth or a wealthy life?
I sold my company on Dec 4, 2012 and I was wondering what the heck I was going to do next.
I was feeling really accomplished—I completed what I set my sights on. My bank account was full, I had created generational wealth, and my children and grandchildren would all get a piece of the pie. Can they create more wealth? Sure, if they want. But I felt warm knowing that they would get a solid foundation to begin with.
You can have monetary wealth too. On the surface, the steps are simple:
Mindset - The choice of making money.
Activity - You want money. How do you get your hands on it? Ray Dalio is a guy I follow who knows a lot about wealth creation. He goes into a deep dive about the nature of money. There are many other experts out there, giving out free wisdom.
Professional team - Experts who are pouring into you. I just met with my team in August and we set ourselves up for a fantastic end to the year. Jeff Evenson (TLP Coach, USMA ‘90) is focused on generating $1 billion of generational wealth*.
Look, getting money that lasts a generation can be done. But there’s more to wealth than your bank statements and credit score.
There’s something called a wealthy life. This includes components that often get overlooked: wealth in your relationships and in the mirror.
Abraham Maslow calls it self-actualization. I call it the journey to the 0.01%.
This is the mastery of business, life and self—all at the same time. Don’t do it sequentially, do it concurrently.
How do you put this into practice?
Create values to live by that give your life direction and purpose. Define these priorities and align who you are with the life you want. Thus when you get “busy” or “stressed” you have a roadmap to guide you back to your morals and true self.
Nurture your relationships. Time might be the most expensive thing we have and yet we continuously misplace it. That looks like overworking and missing quality time with those you love or putting work in front of building a life because you believe once you’re successful, then you’ll allow yourself the freedom to enjoy life.
Become more productive in your life by making smarter decisions, delegating to an A-player team, and being more efficient so your business can grow at a faster rate while you work on the business and not in the business.
In your final moments, don’t you want to be surrounded by loved ones knowing you left nothing behind?
That is a wealthy life.