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Business/Finance See other Business/Finance Articles Title: An invaluable lesson on wealth “Generation Crybaby” needs to learn An invaluable lesson on wealth “Generation Crybaby” needs to learn by Mark Ford From Mark Ford, founder, Palm Beach Research Group: The average Nicaraguan is born in a shack with a dirt floor. He earns roughly $90 per month. “E,” my handyman/gardener in Nicaragua, does better than that. He makes about $150 per month in salary and another $50 in tips and side jobs. In the U.S., E could earn that same monthly amount of $200 in two or three days. I don’t believe I’m personally responsible for this “inequality” of wealth. Nor do I believe that any government-sponsored effort to redistribute wealth would work. And yet, despite any good reason, I want to pay E more. Why is that? I don’t believe that making more money will make him happier. When I observe E’s daily life—how much he laughs, how often he seems comfortable, etc.—it seems as if he’s doing as well as most much wealthier Americans. Yes, E would be very “happy” if I doubled or tripled his salary. But that wouldn’t make me happy. It wouldn’t make him any more capable of earning more from anyone else. It would simply make him feel entitled to being paid more for the same work. So instead, I gave E the opportunity to do extra work around the house. I told him I’d pay him $5 per hour—quadruple his hourly rate—for any “extra” work he did. He rose to the challenge. He began by learning to paint walls and windows. Then he learned how to change the air conditioner filters and do a bit of plumbing and electrical work. Eventually, we switched him from hourly pay to job-related pay. This gave E the chance to learn how to estimate his time, write up bills, keep receipts, and even negotiate (with me!). Today, he has the house I would have liked to give him, but he got it with his own efforts. It wasn’t a gift, and he knows it. He used some of the money he made to build and stock a little store that sits in front of his house. His wife works there. It provides his family with a second income. In his transformation from pool boy to entrepreneur, E faced an obstacle greater than his lack of skills… E went to grammar school (the only school they had) during the Sandinista (communist) years. This taught him two very dumb ideas about wealth: Everyone is entitled to an equal share of it. (“To each according to his needs.”) Those who have more than others should give it up. (“From each according to his means.”) These ideas move quickly into thoughts like: “It is the responsibility of wealthier people to share their money with me.” “It is the government’s responsibility to make sure they do.” In the old days, I sometimes saw these ideas flickering in the back of E’s mind. Back then, when he wanted something—a concrete floor for his house or money for his daughter’s birthday party—he assumed he could ask me for it and I’d give it to him. I soon realized that by giving him money when he asked for it, I was giving him a very bad idea: that the path to wealth led to me, his patron. He didn’t want to have more money like me. He wanted to have my money. He saw money, then, as a never-ending supply he could just get from someone else. Since I was the only wealthy guy he knew then, it made sense that he based his strategy for growing rich on “101 ways to talk Mark Ford into giving me money.” I’m proud to say E now has another idea about how to get money: by offering his professional services and charging as much for them as the market will bear. I’m still his biggest client, but he has done fix-it jobs for other homeowners in our community, and he has his store for extra income. All this said, wrongheaded ideas about wealth are not unique to communist countries. They exist in every country of the world, including the U.S.: If you think you’re entitled to be taken care of by the government, it’s probable you’ll spend some time and effort applying for government handouts. If you think all the profits of a company should be distributed to its workers, you’ll never be happy with what you earn. If you think no one is entitled to more money than you, you’ll spend your time trying to get people you know to give you some of theirs. None of these ideas will make you wealthy. Rather, they will make it harder to become wealthy. Every minute you spend wanting money you didn’t earn is a minute wasted and a bad habit reinforced. The lesson here is about opportunity. In Nicaragua, E has elevated himself well above abject poverty by changing his mindset about how he acquires wealth. E learned the first step in the path to wealth begins by recognizing that all wealth must be earned. E could well have bemoaned his financial fate. It wasn’t his fault he was born poor in Nicaragua. But he didn’t. He got to work. E also learned he needed to acquire financially valuable skills. By learning painting, carpentry, etc., he was able to quadruple his compensation and start his own business on the side. How are you doing? Have you achieved all of your financial goals? Or, like millions of other Americans, are you struggling? If you need more money, follow E. Begin by taking personal responsibility for your financial future. Then develop one or more financially valuable skills. And then build on that by acquiring marketing and selling skills. These skills will make you a more valuable employee. They’ll also form a solid base on which to build your own second or third stream of income. Poster Comment: I'm glad I was not born in the Mississippi delta. Delta mud squishing thru my toes seems icky. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: BTP Holdings (#0)
Good article on teaching a man to fish, thanks.
“The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.” ~ H. L. Mencken
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