I have always had issues with the official view of determining success in various areas of life but now in this blog I want to primarily focus on the personal definition of success in the financial world and arena of Investors, Entrepreneurs and normal everyday people.
In the end how do we really measure complete success, in U.S. dollars, ounces of gold or zeros of Bitcoin??
Will this determine our final fate of whether we lived a successful life or not?
Well if you want to talk about success stories I am sure we all know “The RichDad PoorDad” one. His books really changed my whole perception towards both money and real education and I have been following him for some time ever since. But sometimes when I listen to him talking about all his wealth, real estate, gold & silver and where it’s being stashed I get a slight negative vibe. To be quite honest with you I don’t fully understand why he is still so actively, almost desperately, still pursuing wealth building as if he is just starting out.
I already know for a fact he will not be able to enjoy the vast majority of his amassed wealth in his remaining lifetime. Some of it will even be left to family members that one would not really define as being ‘successful’ and yet they will reap the fruits of all his decades of hard labour.
I am just asking the following question; (I am not promoting or recommending this lifestyle)
Is a surfer that left everything behind and emigrated to Hawaii to work at a beach restaurant for a couple hundred bucks a week but gets to live his passion everyday really all that of a loser in comparison, in all cases? Because in one case they could both suddenly die tomorrow, but if I were to ask their friends or family how did they both spend a large percentage of their time in their life?
Working parttime, fulltime and maybe even some overtime at that restaurant but then in his free time fully enjoying his passion of surfing with a community of like minded souls or after eating that suberbly prepared lobster at that very expensive restaurant with accompanying top French white wine back to work figuring out how to build even more wealth and worrying about how to preserve and protect it because he has so much of it.
Don’t get me wrong when I look at Warren Buffet he is living his life to the full as well because he is doing what he loves, just like Robert I guess but sometimes Robert sows even more seeds of negativity, fear and anxiety that although primarily true does not always positively stimulate us to finding solutions and reveals something about his inner character.
That surfer should sacrifice some of his free time to develop himself through self improvement books, improve his self discipline, becoming financially literate and changing his mindset towards money to the point where he learns how to convert his passion into a cashflow source via blogging or some social media platform. Even if he still only makes a fraction of what Robert makes that becomes his personal success story. But one thing he must never stop surfing for pure pleasure.
It is the combination of several factors that need to exist in varying forms of magnitude that make up the success story.
For me personally while taking steps to try and improve my financial status I constantly gaurd my inner state of mind and well being.
If I feel that it is being threatened negatively due to too much focus on all the bad aspects of our economy, the doomsday financial forecast, the missed opportunities, any losses I have made and how much I still have to learn, I back off. I will not allow this to ruin my ZEN. The prevailing inner state must be positive for the majority of time while I continue my learning and growing journey.
I also accept my current state and do not make myself unhappy because of all the things I cannot do. This does not mean that I nullify greater dreams or goals but the key is while pursuing them I enjoy the present state, the journey the experiences and work. In this way I feel I am already experiencing success before I reach the summit.
In addition even when circumstances are outside of my control that restrict or confine me I do not allow this to break my spirit. If I have the power and strength to revert my focus, attention and energy towards new possibilities and opportunities, then this becomes my personal success story again even if no one else does not view it as such.
In the end the most important person we need to impress … is ourselves, especially if we are constantly battling with issues of self worth. We should not need to be dependant on external validation to feel successful in our own lives.
I stumbled across this quote that really drives the point home for me.
That success story however is not only about ourselves. There is another very important unit to the equation;
How we treat those we live and work with, how we make them feel in our presence.
Somebody that was fully immersed in the world of finance and investing was Eli Hoffmann from Seeking Alpha. I suppose we could call him one of those Financial Gurus and yet his eulogy is an inspiration and example to the whole world. Truly profound and take note of what element is completely omitted in his success story.
Thank you for reading.
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4384917-in-memory-of-eli-hoffmann-coo-and-editor-in-chief
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