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V.I Question Can Money Bring Greater Happiness ?
Posted by Omar Abd Alaziz | 6:56 AM | Happiness | 0 comments » Can money bring happiness?
This question must have been deliberated since money was invented.
As this question is too broad for a short article, we shall focus on the narrower question of whether people are happier when they have more money.
A very common belief in many societies is that money does lead to contentment and happiness. Indeed it was published by D Myers in American Psychologist in 2000 that when people were asked what they believed they needed to have in order to be happy, one of the most pervasive answers is simply 'more money'.
What makes people think that more money will result in greater happiness? I have found the following three explanations are the most widespread:
1. Having more money allows one to realize more of the sought after things such as more spacious and finer cars and houses, going for more holidays and to exotic places, or to indulge oneself with luxuries.
2. Having more money allows oneself and one?s family to better weather through unexpected serious illnesses and disasters.
3. Having more money allows one to be able to perform more good for others who are less fortunate.
We can attribute the first explanation to the fact consumerism.
In a consumerist society, economists hold the view that consumption can stimulate a nation?s economic growth. Equipped with this blessing from the authorities, sellers unashamedly promote lavish and unnecessary consumption. Being able to have the means of living a life of luxury is seen to a status symbol of success, of having accomplished the desired goal. There is therefore the compelling need to keep up with the Joneses.
In a non-consumerist society such as Bhutan which is a very poor nation in the Himalayas, instead of promoting gross national product, the kingdom promotes gross national happiness. The outcome is that people seem to be happy despite the fact that they are actually very poor.
We can attribute the second explanation to the fear of not having the necessary amount of money to survive the unforeseen financially draining events that may occur.
In a communist nation, the basic needs of the people are taken care of by the nation. In a socialist nation, the basic needs are also well provided for all, whether they really need them or not. In order to counter communist and socialist influence, a capitalist government had also implemented systems where welfare of the so-called needy is well provided for. However, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the economies of the Eastern Block nations, big strains on the resources on many socialist nations due to welfare systems, as well as the disappearance of the life-long employment system in almost all nations, a greater need for self-reliance becomes inevitable.
The third explanation can be viewed as a natural desire for people to want to contribute to the less fortunate. While this altruistic practice does not provide any material benefits to the givers, does provide the givers with non-tangible benefits.
This explanation is greatly enhanced by the giving by two of the world?s richest men - Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. However, many do not appreciate that their giving is consistent with the way they accumulate their wealth. Bill Gates, being a very hands-on man, contributes not only his money, but his time and energy, for his charity work. Warren Buffet, on the other hand, being a hands-off man, trusts his donation with Bill Gates, whom he believes will do greatest good for the money that he gives away.
These two men had shown that to be truly happy with how you give your money away to do good, you will have to do it in a way consistent with the modus operandi (mode of operation) in your life.
From the above discussion on the three explanations why people believe money can bring happiness, it is no surprise that research findings on whether money brings happiness has been mixed and sometimes conflicting. The following research results are note-worthy.
1. According to the paper Factors predicting the subjective well-being of nations by Diener, Diener and Diener in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (1995), while there is a strong relationship between income and satisfaction at the lower income levels, the relationship becomes insignificant at the higher income level. This suggests that once the income rises above the poverty level, further increase in income does not increase happiness level by any significant level.
2. According to the paper The funds, friends and faith of happy people by D Meyers in American Psychologist (2000), while the U.S?s per capital GNP was more than twice that of Ireland, the levels of happiness were about the same. This suggests that people in a rich nation may not be happier than those in a poorer nation.
3. According to the paper A dark side of the American dream: Correlates of financial success as a life aspiration by Kasser and Ryan, in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (1993), the more a person values money, the less satisfied he will be when he gets it. This suggests that in order to be happy, we need to value money less.
This question must have been deliberated since money was invented.
As this question is too broad for a short article, we shall focus on the narrower question of whether people are happier when they have more money.
A very common belief in many societies is that money does lead to contentment and happiness. Indeed it was published by D Myers in American Psychologist in 2000 that when people were asked what they believed they needed to have in order to be happy, one of the most pervasive answers is simply 'more money'.
What makes people think that more money will result in greater happiness? I have found the following three explanations are the most widespread:
1. Having more money allows one to realize more of the sought after things such as more spacious and finer cars and houses, going for more holidays and to exotic places, or to indulge oneself with luxuries.
2. Having more money allows oneself and one?s family to better weather through unexpected serious illnesses and disasters.
3. Having more money allows one to be able to perform more good for others who are less fortunate.
We can attribute the first explanation to the fact consumerism.
In a consumerist society, economists hold the view that consumption can stimulate a nation?s economic growth. Equipped with this blessing from the authorities, sellers unashamedly promote lavish and unnecessary consumption. Being able to have the means of living a life of luxury is seen to a status symbol of success, of having accomplished the desired goal. There is therefore the compelling need to keep up with the Joneses.
In a non-consumerist society such as Bhutan which is a very poor nation in the Himalayas, instead of promoting gross national product, the kingdom promotes gross national happiness. The outcome is that people seem to be happy despite the fact that they are actually very poor.
We can attribute the second explanation to the fear of not having the necessary amount of money to survive the unforeseen financially draining events that may occur.
In a communist nation, the basic needs of the people are taken care of by the nation. In a socialist nation, the basic needs are also well provided for all, whether they really need them or not. In order to counter communist and socialist influence, a capitalist government had also implemented systems where welfare of the so-called needy is well provided for. However, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the economies of the Eastern Block nations, big strains on the resources on many socialist nations due to welfare systems, as well as the disappearance of the life-long employment system in almost all nations, a greater need for self-reliance becomes inevitable.
The third explanation can be viewed as a natural desire for people to want to contribute to the less fortunate. While this altruistic practice does not provide any material benefits to the givers, does provide the givers with non-tangible benefits.
This explanation is greatly enhanced by the giving by two of the world?s richest men - Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. However, many do not appreciate that their giving is consistent with the way they accumulate their wealth. Bill Gates, being a very hands-on man, contributes not only his money, but his time and energy, for his charity work. Warren Buffet, on the other hand, being a hands-off man, trusts his donation with Bill Gates, whom he believes will do greatest good for the money that he gives away.
These two men had shown that to be truly happy with how you give your money away to do good, you will have to do it in a way consistent with the modus operandi (mode of operation) in your life.
From the above discussion on the three explanations why people believe money can bring happiness, it is no surprise that research findings on whether money brings happiness has been mixed and sometimes conflicting. The following research results are note-worthy.
1. According to the paper Factors predicting the subjective well-being of nations by Diener, Diener and Diener in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (1995), while there is a strong relationship between income and satisfaction at the lower income levels, the relationship becomes insignificant at the higher income level. This suggests that once the income rises above the poverty level, further increase in income does not increase happiness level by any significant level.
2. According to the paper The funds, friends and faith of happy people by D Meyers in American Psychologist (2000), while the U.S?s per capital GNP was more than twice that of Ireland, the levels of happiness were about the same. This suggests that people in a rich nation may not be happier than those in a poorer nation.
3. According to the paper A dark side of the American dream: Correlates of financial success as a life aspiration by Kasser and Ryan, in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (1993), the more a person values money, the less satisfied he will be when he gets it. This suggests that in order to be happy, we need to value money less.
References:
1. JacobEducation.com
2. DemystifyCancer.com
3. JacobGan.com
1. JacobEducation.com
2. DemystifyCancer.com
3. JacobGan.com
How often do you get up in the morning and feel great?
For most people, the answer is not very often if ever at all. The standard mode is getting out of bed because you have to and from there living the rest of the day with a low level feeling of unease.
Joy and generally feeling good doesn’t even enter the equation, we tend to just keep busy with all the endless things there are to do and then look forward to the weekends as a reprieve. It’s not much of a life!
So here are 5 top ways that you can begin to do to feel good right now:
1. Accept that you are worthy – for one reason or another most people grow up with a sense of worthlessness. It usually stems from being made wrong as a child by your parents or guardians and is carried through into adulthood. It gets ingrained into the psyche and becomes an unconscious belief that is not questioned. So begin by noticing how you feel when you accept that you are worthy;
2. Understand that the you as a representative of the world, are abundant – when you look at nature, the birds, trees, grass, sun, air, you see that there is an abundance of stuff out there and it never stops. In fact it’s always growing and giving more, each single plant has a multitude of seeds and will produce many more plants as long as there’s fertile soil around. So when you consider that humans are simply one living organism in the world in the same way that cats are a living organism, then doesn’t it make sense that the same principles that cover all of nature would cover us also? By understanding this, you accept that the nature within you is exactly the same nature as in everything and that is one of abundance!
3. Look to add value in everything you do – why is it important to add value in what you do? Because we feel good when we give. There are people out there that still look to always take as they feel that they need that to enhance themselves in someway, however when you understand the above (that you are abundant), you can then start to give. Now I’m not saying that you have to give something physical, it’s about adding value and value is not something physical often. It could be something as simple as smiling at someone as you’re walking or doing something that you wouldn’t normally do at home, like possibly making your bed before you leave for work in the morning. It could be anything, but you’ll know when you’ve done it because it has you feel good.
4. Allow life to be as it is, through “Acceptance” – you may find yourself in a situation that you’re not really pleased about, so what do you do? You can resist, complain and get stressed about it, which doesn’t actually change the situation, or you can accept it fully. Note that accepting things as they are isn’t about condoning, you can accept something without agreeing with it. For example you see a lion kill a zebra, you may not like it but it’s simply the way it is and you can’t change that. In most situations we have 4 choices, we can struggle and complain, we can remove ourselves, we take action to change it or we can accept it fully. Acceptance means there's no “inner” resistance to what shows up. For many people, as soon as an obstacle arises, they become resistant, and go into a negative state and try to fight the obstacle. All this does is creates stress and pain and you end up doing more damage to yourself in the long run.
5. Be grateful – gratitude puts you in touch with the abundance discussed above. Even when you think that you’re circumstances are really tough and you’ve got nothing to be grateful for, there is always something. For example, if you’re reading this, it means you’re alive and have your senses, this is a miracle in itself. Also you’re sitting at a computer with an internet connection, someone created these amazing devices and we get to enjoy them. The list is truly endless, it’s just a matter of whether you’re willing to look and the thing is, you start to feel great when you begin to appreciate anything and everything.
So the next time you notice that you’re not feeling so good, think of just one of the above and practice it, you’ll be feeling great in no time and loving life.
For most people, the answer is not very often if ever at all. The standard mode is getting out of bed because you have to and from there living the rest of the day with a low level feeling of unease.
Joy and generally feeling good doesn’t even enter the equation, we tend to just keep busy with all the endless things there are to do and then look forward to the weekends as a reprieve. It’s not much of a life!
So here are 5 top ways that you can begin to do to feel good right now:
1. Accept that you are worthy – for one reason or another most people grow up with a sense of worthlessness. It usually stems from being made wrong as a child by your parents or guardians and is carried through into adulthood. It gets ingrained into the psyche and becomes an unconscious belief that is not questioned. So begin by noticing how you feel when you accept that you are worthy;
2. Understand that the you as a representative of the world, are abundant – when you look at nature, the birds, trees, grass, sun, air, you see that there is an abundance of stuff out there and it never stops. In fact it’s always growing and giving more, each single plant has a multitude of seeds and will produce many more plants as long as there’s fertile soil around. So when you consider that humans are simply one living organism in the world in the same way that cats are a living organism, then doesn’t it make sense that the same principles that cover all of nature would cover us also? By understanding this, you accept that the nature within you is exactly the same nature as in everything and that is one of abundance!
3. Look to add value in everything you do – why is it important to add value in what you do? Because we feel good when we give. There are people out there that still look to always take as they feel that they need that to enhance themselves in someway, however when you understand the above (that you are abundant), you can then start to give. Now I’m not saying that you have to give something physical, it’s about adding value and value is not something physical often. It could be something as simple as smiling at someone as you’re walking or doing something that you wouldn’t normally do at home, like possibly making your bed before you leave for work in the morning. It could be anything, but you’ll know when you’ve done it because it has you feel good.
4. Allow life to be as it is, through “Acceptance” – you may find yourself in a situation that you’re not really pleased about, so what do you do? You can resist, complain and get stressed about it, which doesn’t actually change the situation, or you can accept it fully. Note that accepting things as they are isn’t about condoning, you can accept something without agreeing with it. For example you see a lion kill a zebra, you may not like it but it’s simply the way it is and you can’t change that. In most situations we have 4 choices, we can struggle and complain, we can remove ourselves, we take action to change it or we can accept it fully. Acceptance means there's no “inner” resistance to what shows up. For many people, as soon as an obstacle arises, they become resistant, and go into a negative state and try to fight the obstacle. All this does is creates stress and pain and you end up doing more damage to yourself in the long run.
5. Be grateful – gratitude puts you in touch with the abundance discussed above. Even when you think that you’re circumstances are really tough and you’ve got nothing to be grateful for, there is always something. For example, if you’re reading this, it means you’re alive and have your senses, this is a miracle in itself. Also you’re sitting at a computer with an internet connection, someone created these amazing devices and we get to enjoy them. The list is truly endless, it’s just a matter of whether you’re willing to look and the thing is, you start to feel great when you begin to appreciate anything and everything.
So the next time you notice that you’re not feeling so good, think of just one of the above and practice it, you’ll be feeling great in no time and loving life.
In this world of crisis, it's easy to feel helpless. This is a reminder that everything you do... every movement you make in your own life... effects the world. You can make a difference!
I received an email this morning from a dear friend about the horrors going on in Burma. The deadly Cyclone has already killed up to 100,000 Burmese, and has left tens of thousands more in imminent danger of death from hunger and disease. Although the world has responded with emergency supplies and aid, the Burmese military regime is blocking all efforts to get relief to the people. Burmese Buddhist monks, prominent and student leaders, and others, have issued a public appeal for the UN to stop waiting for permission from the Burmese military regime. This email was a plea to click on a link that sends a letter of appeal to the Chinese UN Ambassador to use their power to apply pressure to persuade the Burmese government to allow the UN to move in and immediately dispatch relief.
As I read more about the disaster, both natural and political, I found myself feeling overwhelmed, flat out helpless . . .not knowing where to begin. I began to feel a separation of my world and theirs; a sort of disconnect from the reality of the people of Burma. I began to feel small and helpless and fragile. How can I possibly help and how to begin…? I clicked on the petition… to try to feel like I’d done something effective with my mouse and moved on. But, I was left feeling like it wasn’t enough this time.
So, how then? How do we begin to help the world in crisis? How do we start to address the huge problems, the massive disasters that show themselves in the media everyday? How do we start to become helpful and effective without bringing the burdens and anger into our own daily lives?
And then, I remembered one of my favorite quotes:
“Let him that would move the world, first move himself.”
– Socrates
So simple and so right. Just move… begin. DO what you have been intending to do in your life. Everything. This might sound trivial, but just the exercise of YOU moving… will begin a snowball, a world wide butterfly effect.
The term Butterfly Effect derives from science. The idea is that tiny changes within a complex system lead to big results that are impossible to predict. So, in layman terms, the flap of a butterfly’s wings could create tiny changes in the atmosphere that lead to high winds somewhere else on the planet. A tiny movement here… creates a landslide over there. And so it is with your actions; a small accomplishment here… could cause a huge positive movement over there.
A butterfly in the Amazon flaps his wings because he has to… unaware of his effect. We have the ability to flap our wings with purpose. So begin now… today. Put intention and focus behind your actions. Commitment to what you’re doing, to what you do is the key. If you’re building a house, really build the house. If you are teaching children, really teach and know why you are doing it, know what you are creating. Put all of your energy into everything that you do. Even if you’re just washing the dishes, really wash the dishes with a sense of purpose, a sense of the big picture. If you commit yourself to your every action, you will connect with your sense of purpose. And that sense of purpose will become your wings. It begins inside you. Your intention, your purpose to do good in your life will have a greater effect somewhere else. So everything you do… no matter how small or insignificant it may seem… will have an effect.
Take a look at your intentions. Are you doing everything that you can? Do you have a list of “to dos” that are slipping by you undone? Have you been meaning to donate your time to a cause but just haven’t done it? Consider your reasons for procrastinating and begin to understand why.
Just begin to move yourself. Now. And know that your sense of purpose, your wings, can make a huge difference in this world.
As I read more about the disaster, both natural and political, I found myself feeling overwhelmed, flat out helpless . . .not knowing where to begin. I began to feel a separation of my world and theirs; a sort of disconnect from the reality of the people of Burma. I began to feel small and helpless and fragile. How can I possibly help and how to begin…? I clicked on the petition… to try to feel like I’d done something effective with my mouse and moved on. But, I was left feeling like it wasn’t enough this time.
So, how then? How do we begin to help the world in crisis? How do we start to address the huge problems, the massive disasters that show themselves in the media everyday? How do we start to become helpful and effective without bringing the burdens and anger into our own daily lives?
And then, I remembered one of my favorite quotes:
“Let him that would move the world, first move himself.”
– Socrates
So simple and so right. Just move… begin. DO what you have been intending to do in your life. Everything. This might sound trivial, but just the exercise of YOU moving… will begin a snowball, a world wide butterfly effect.
The term Butterfly Effect derives from science. The idea is that tiny changes within a complex system lead to big results that are impossible to predict. So, in layman terms, the flap of a butterfly’s wings could create tiny changes in the atmosphere that lead to high winds somewhere else on the planet. A tiny movement here… creates a landslide over there. And so it is with your actions; a small accomplishment here… could cause a huge positive movement over there.
A butterfly in the Amazon flaps his wings because he has to… unaware of his effect. We have the ability to flap our wings with purpose. So begin now… today. Put intention and focus behind your actions. Commitment to what you’re doing, to what you do is the key. If you’re building a house, really build the house. If you are teaching children, really teach and know why you are doing it, know what you are creating. Put all of your energy into everything that you do. Even if you’re just washing the dishes, really wash the dishes with a sense of purpose, a sense of the big picture. If you commit yourself to your every action, you will connect with your sense of purpose. And that sense of purpose will become your wings. It begins inside you. Your intention, your purpose to do good in your life will have a greater effect somewhere else. So everything you do… no matter how small or insignificant it may seem… will have an effect.
Take a look at your intentions. Are you doing everything that you can? Do you have a list of “to dos” that are slipping by you undone? Have you been meaning to donate your time to a cause but just haven’t done it? Consider your reasons for procrastinating and begin to understand why.
Just begin to move yourself. Now. And know that your sense of purpose, your wings, can make a huge difference in this world.
You won’t win today’s wars with yesterday’s weapons
In evolutionary terms, it’s called the Red Queen's hypothesis. It states that there exists a constant arms race in every area of your life. Simply put, we live in a competitive world and if we do not evolve and improve faster than our competition, we will lose. The misconception that most people share is that if they simply “get better” at something, they are on the right path to success. This is not true. It is possible to get better at a game and still lose that game. In fact, the tendency is that every participant in any given game gets better, yet still there is only one winner. The reason for this is that everyone playing will get better simply by playing. This process is built into each and every human being. The longer anyone does anything, the better they will get at it. This is the very thing that creates the Red Queen effect. You need to realize that everyone in the game is getting better at it as they play. You must put energy into your improvement just to keep up with everyone else. To win, you not only need to improve, you must do it faster than everyone else in the game you are competing against.
Let’s look at this from the perspective of two men who decide to have a running race. Jim and Karl are both 35 years old. One night while remembering their glory years in high school, they make a competitive bet. They agree to race each other in a one mile running race. The race is set three months from the time of the bet. Jim gets a personal trainer, and hires a nutritionist that came highly recommended by an ex-hockey player who lives next door to him. Within 10 weeks, Jim is running the mile faster than he was in high school. On the 12th week, he loses the race against Karl. How? Not because he didn’t improve, but because he didn’t improve more that Karl had. So how did Karl train? That’s the million dollar question. If Jim would have had those answers while he was training and could have improved on that technology, he would have won the race.
I see this in the business world time and time again and it seems that no one can figure out what is happening. The President of Acme Widget Company will sit down with his VPs completely confused at how month after month his sales people get more training, his costs of doing business get lower, and his product defect rate lessens, yet they lose market share every month. The answer is that they are sinking simply because all of their competition is swimming faster than they are.
When you understand how the Red Queen works, you come to understand the hidden economic factors of the Nth Step. You are about to understand the one thing that most of your competition will never discover on their own. In most cases, putting 90% of your energy into a project is wasting 90% of your energy. I know of no better way to waste resources than to put 90% into something. Never will you rob yourself of more than if you give it 90%. Sadly, this is how most of the world operates.
Sam owns a software design company. Sam is looking for new contracts and finds a request for proposal posted on the internet. Sam has no idea who his competition will be, how many other proposals the client will receive, or what the contents of the other proposals will be. The only thing Sam knows for sure is that there will be one proposal that will win the contract, and every other proposal will fail. This is a classic example of second place being nothing more than the first loser. Only by winning will Sam be able to recoup the costs of writing the proposal.
Sam pulls out his calculator and figures out how much this proposal is going to cost him to generate. His team will spend approximately 90 man hours to complete the proposal. He bases this off of his experience generating proposals similar to it. Sam pays his staff of all sub-contractors $150.00 per hour. Sam will spend about $13,500.00 to generate this proposal. Sam calculates the estimated profit, if he gets the deal, to be between $325,000.00 and $340,000.00. In the past, Sam has closed the deal 1 in 5 times in similar situations. This is because he is in a specific niche market and his team is well known in that market. Sam then calculates the estimated profit (at the low end) of $325,000.00 against the theoretical cost of needing to write 4 more proposals like this ($54,000.00) before he will land a contract. The numbers tell him that if he plays and stays in this game, he will make about $271,000.00 - This is where most business people stop and put the calculator away.
Sam isn’t done with his calculator yet. Sam understands the economics of the Nth step and wants to figure out what it would cost him to do something that he is sure his competitors will not have the resources to do. Sam has already figured out that a proposal will cost him $13,500 to generate. Sam has also just figured out that it would only cost him 10% more to deliver a software demo CD-ROM with his proposal that would serve as a proof-of-concept. Because Sam has written software like what’s requested in this proposal before, he has already written 70% of the code needed for this project. For an additional $1,500.00 he can pay his staff to organize the already written code into a demo CD-ROM that will literally “show” his client what they can expect. The $1,500.00 represents the cost of the Nth step and he would be a fool to not invest it. Sam adds in the additional 10% to his proposal costs that his competitor’s proposals will not include.
Sam won the contract. Sam played smart and played to win.
In the example above, the losers would have been better off to have only invested 15% into their proposal as they would have still lost, but they would have only lost 15% rather than the 90% they did lose. Realize however that even at a 15% loss, after 7 proposals, they will burn through 105% of their budget and they would do this for nothing as they are guaranteed to lose all seven proposals with an investment of only 15%.
The moral of the story isn’t in holding resources back. The moral of the story is to find a game you can compete in and give it 100%. Ask yourself if you are prepared to lose $90,000.00 because you wouldn’t put in another $10,000.00? Are you prepared to work 9 hours for zero results because you wouldn’t put in that extra hour it would have taken to assure winning? Are you willing to risk your bet because you didn’t do everything you could to assure you would win? How often have you set yourself up at the 90% mark and suffered the consequences?
Unfortunately, it doesn’t stop there. Not only do you need to constantly be putting more energy into advancement than your competition simply to survive but you need to acknowledge that the rules of the game are continuously changing as you play. This is the other reason why the winners are always the innovators. They are the only ones that can keep up with the changes in the terrain as they run the race.
At one point in the history of auto racing, all of the tires were the same. One day, someone got the bright idea that if it rained, they should put tires on the car specifically designed for maximum performance in rain. One day it rained, one race car had rain tires, and it won the race. You can imagine that it wasn’t too long after that day that every racing team had a set of special rain tires ready to go for the next time the course got wet. And so the cycle continued as racing teams looked for other ways to temporarily get a leg up on the competition. This is the evolution of the race car.
Make no mistake, history repeats itself. The inner workings of the human brain have not changed in over 40,000 years. This is why history repeats. It makes me laugh when world tragedy hits and everyone cries about how they wish they could have seen it coming. If you want to make better predictions than a psychic on how the United States of America will either evolve or fall apart, start reading about the fall of the other great nations in history. The parallels are so close that it’s comical in a tragic way. People evolve slowly but technology evolves faster and faster by the day. People today behave the same way towards each other as they did 40,000 years ago. They just use different tools and technology to do the same things to each other today. The basic rule is that human nature repeats over and over again as technology evolves faster and faster to better carry out that human nature.
This is a very important concept to keep in mind when you are getting advice from people “who have been there before you.” When it comes to them telling you about human nature, pay close attention. When they start talking about how you should go about doing things, question everything they say. They ran the race years ago and the rules have changed because the technology has changed. The person who sits in the corner office got there 15 years ago. The rules for getting there today are totally different and in most cases, they have no idea what those rules are.
So where does that leave you? Feeling a little uneasy because you don’t have the roadmap to success that you thought you had? You were simply going to follow what everyone else did to succeed? It should actually make you feel better. Why? Because like no time ever before in history, the playing field is level. With the help of the internet, we have seen large corporations destroyed by groups of people at home, with a computer, while in their underwear.
Welcome to the 21st century! You want to win? The winners are the ones who are constantly improving and they are doing it while the competition sleeps. The winners are testing everything, finding new ways to win tomorrow’s game, and they rewrite the rules as they do it. You must learn how to learn and invest enough to win or you will not survive.
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