Certainty of death. Small chance of success. What are we waiting for?” – Lord of the Rings
It’s almost as much fun as when I get the USB in on the first try.
Two pennies.
But I’ll come back to that.
One day, Aesop over at the Raconteur Report (LINK) had linked to one of my posts. The result whenever that happens is quite a bit of traffic – the Raconteur Report is pretty popular. I thanked him in the comments section over at his place. His response? Something on the order of, “No problem. It’s a big Internet.”
His reaction was typical of every rich, confident and successful person I’ve met. They want to help other people, and they want to see them succeed. I think part of that is the desire for a legacy. When you’ve already earned more money than you’ll ever spend in a lifetime (or have millions and millions of pageviews), you have to have other goals.
Really rich people have iPhones® and both kidneys.
In my life, I’ve had the good fortune to know quite a few people that were very, very, successful. The really rich people I knew who had built their own businesses had a surprising similarity: they wanted to help others become successful. Each one of them gave some of their time to do so. They had determined that success was something not to be hoarded, but to be shared. They wanted more people in the club, because those cigars made of $100 bills won’t smoke themselves. At one particular career crossroads, I spent some time with one of these friends, charting a path forward (“I’m Batman,” – Batman, in Batman).
This blog is at least partially a result of discussions I had with my wealthy friend. This first three years have gone (more or less) according to plan. Next? Well, after I get my underground volcano lair running and staffed with henchmen, you’ll see. It’s hard to find good henchmen nowadays, and even harder to insure them – the actuarial tables show a high rate of workplace-related injuries when henching.
But think of all of the pension plan savings!
My friend died not long after I started writing, and certainly before I had any lasting success. He was an early encourager. I had a few other business ideas, and I ran the ideas past him. He was encouraging, but his encouragement wasn’t in order to make a buck: his success was me being successful. Like most good teachers, he didn’t tell me what to do, he asked questions, very good questions, like:
- How big is your potential audience?
- How do you connect with them?
- Why did you lick your finger and put it in my ear?
Rich guys have figured out a secret – helping other people to be successful doesn’t make a rich person poorer. Let me explain:
The average home swimming pool is something like 20,000 or 30,000 gallons of water. Let’s use 30,000 gallons since I already did the math with that number. The economy is $21.3 trillion, per year. Let’s imagine that $21.3 trillion economy is represented by the water in the pool. How much water represents $1,000,000?
It’s 1/5 of an ounce. A shot of whiskey would be the equivalent of $15 million. 1/5 of an ounce is really small – let me give you another comparison. What weighs the same as 1/5 of an ounce of water?
Two cents. Or, as I started this post, two pennies.
You can take millions from that pool every year and no one would ever notice – like I said, this is $21.3 trillion annually. I hate to be all cheerleader-y, but it’s true – even now we live in an era of amazing abundance.
And they said Mittens didn’t have the common touch.
Yes, I know, the economy is awful for some people. Certainly, we’re faced with significant structural issues that will be challenging for years to come. But the ocean is still huge. The opportunities out there are amazing. Yes, it’s possible to make $1,000,000 a year. Heck, I went on Facebook® one time, and saw some guys that graduated about when I did. One of them had a successful restaurant. The other? Sold a successful business and was going to retire.
And, no, these weren’t Stephen Hawking-smart guys, heck, they didn’t even have wheelchairs. They didn’t even have amazing, unique business ideas, one has a restaurant, the other a small manufacturing business. They were average guys who worked very hard, and failed and failed and failed and then succeeded.
Why don’t more people make a million, or at least a few hundred thousand? Most often, we limit ourselves. I’ve written before that I don’t think that most people use even one tenth of their capability, and the reason for that is that they:
- Are too cautious – they never take any risks. For many folks, this works fine. Being a dentist has a better average payout than winning the lottery. But, you have to live with being a dentist, dude.
- Don’t believe in themselves – caution is one thing, but I have seen people limit themselves because they don’t believe in their own talent. And to think that Kamala Harris didn’t believe enough in her best
- Stuck in a mindset that success only happens to other people, and that the only success they will ever have will come when other people allow it.
- Afraid of failure – failure can be awful, debilitating, and soul crushing. Oh, wait, that’s my ex-wife, not failure. Failure’s bad, too.
- Afraid of effort – success starts with, and ends with, work. And having parents that have fifty million dollars.
- Have pants filled with raw liver – men who have pants filled with raw liver have had very little influence over world events, historically.
- Don’t have a goal – if you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll never get there. This was, from time to time, my problem. I’d achieve a goal, and then? Shrug and say, “What next?”
Hey, at least she has experience.
I’ll admit, the first time one of my posts really hit big, it was featured by Remus at the Woodpile Report (LINK). I was happy, but almost apprehensive, like a dog that finally caught a car. What the hell do I do now? I was ringing up more views in a day on a single post than the entire blog did in the first nine months of existence. My apprehension: Was it good enough? Was there enough content on the site to keep readers? What the hell do I do with this car?
I guess I have to add another two reasons people fail is that they are:
- Are afraid of success – I’ve seen people self-sabotage because the very idea of succeeding scared them. Their solution? Screw up.
- Feel unworthy of success – likewise, people who don’t feel worthy will actively avoid situations where they are successful.
I’ve been lucky throughout most of my life to not be afraid of success, but driven to achieve it, maybe a bit too much. My wife says this is one of my personalities. There is easy-going Juan DeLegator, but this one she just calls The General. The General doesn’t care what time it is. The General doesn’t care if you’re tired. The General wants results. Now. I imagine it’s just as pleasant for everyone around me as it sounds, but, honestly, I enjoy it. Plus? The General gets results.
A personal hero, plus he shows up every Christmas to remind me of the true spirit of Christmas: maneuver warfare. The neighbors will never try to sing carols here again.
My idea is that what I accomplished yesterday was fine, but what I’m going to accomplish tomorrow better beat it. I have worried from time to time that the best post I’ll ever write is in the past. Then, however, I’ll put together a post that I like so much that I find it hard to go to sleep afterwards because I’m so excited about what I just wrote. I’m sure that someone is going to laugh, or learn, or both.
It is a big Internet. It’s also a huge economy. And to go out and make more money is, generally, easy.
But success isn’t necessarily only measured in money. There’s also other things. Like food and cars and cable television: the things that money buys.
Oh, okay, fine. There’s also family. And community. And faith. The same principles apply there, as well.
See what you made me do? The General is not amused. But he’s just pitching in his two cents.
