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Being rich is having money; being wealthy is having time

By Gbenga Adebambo
15 July 2017   |   1:36 am
Someone said, “Your salary is the bribe they give you to forget your dreams”. I believe there is an iota of truth in this quote because most times, if care is not taken, we become so much busy with our job that we have little time for our dreams.

Steve Jobs was “ejected” from Apple, a company that he started with Steve Wozniak but was later reinstated when it was very glaring that Apple couldn’t move forward without his unique gift.

“Control your own destiny or someone else will” – Jack Welch

Garth Brooks said, “You aren’t wealthy until you have something money can’t buy”. Life is not all about money. It is living out on something that outlives you. The true worth of a man is not measured with money, it is measured by the object of his pursuit. John C. Maxwell said, “Most people are capable of making a living. The significant thing is making a difference”. Life is about making an impact, not making an income.

Someone said, “Your salary is the bribe they give you to forget your dreams”. I believe there is an iota of truth in this quote because most times, if care is not taken, we become so much busy with our job that we have little time for our dreams. Many people run aggressively after money and forget that the true purpose of having money is to give us ample time to pursue the critical things of life: Like our relationship with God, relationship with family, the pursuit of our passion, personal development and the realisation of our dreams. Any money that does not give you time to pursue those critical things ultimately becomes a curse and not a blessing! Some people relentlessly pursue money at the detriment of their dreams and passion. This mad pursuit of money is actually a reflection of internal poverty and inner misery.

Barack Obama said: “Focusing your life solely on making money shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. And it will leave you unfulfilled.” Your ambition is poor if it is all about making money. Money is not the end; it is a means to the end. We are not to be running around working all the time for money. We are to sit down and design a model of how our money can work for us while we focus our time on critical life issues. Someone once said, “Some people are so poor, all they have is money!”

I would like to emphatically say that there is nothing wrong with making more money in life. You only need to earn money in a way that gives you freedom to pursue the critical things of life. Obviously, with money comes the power to hire others to do your work, so that you can focus on your dreams and passion. Warren Buffett said, “If you don’t find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die.” The poor chase money while the rich attract money. Chase people’s needs and not money. Great people attract money, mediocre people chase money.

In their best-selling book, The One Minute Millionaire, co-authored by Mark Hansen and Robert Allen, they both concluded that wealth is freedom and summarily listed out the six types of freedom: money freedom, time freedom, relationship freedom, spiritual freedom, physical freedom and the freedom to pursue our passion. Wealthy people spend much of their time on their dreams and passion and not working to earn salary.

Myles Munroe said, “Wealth is given to fulfill purpose and Divine assignment. You were not born to make a living but to make a difference.” The more you spend your time in working for salary, the more impoverished you become in the long run. The easiest way to make more money is not to work for money but to let your money work for you.

Kevin Ngo said: “If you don’t make the time to work on creating the life you want, you’re eventually going to be forced to spend a lot of time dealing with a life you don’t want.” One of the critical evidence that you are in the wrong place or with the wrong people is that you will not have time for essential things. When the ambition of a man is chasing after money, wealth becomes elusive. The rich makes us see money as something to be pursued while they attract money and then go on leading more productive and impactful lives.

The foremost tech revolutionist Steve Jobs has this to say on his dying bed: “I reached the pinnacle of success in the business world. In others’ eyes, my life is an epitome of success. However, aside from work, I have little joy. In the end, wealth is only a fact of life that I am accustomed to. At this moment, lying on the sick bed and recalling my whole life, I realise that all the recognition and wealth that I took so much pride in, have paled and become meaningless in the face of impending death. In the darkness, I look at the green lights from the life-supporting machines and hear the humming mechanical sounds, I can feel the breath of god of death drawing closer … Now I know, when we have accumulated sufficient wealth to last our lifetime, we should pursue other matters that are unrelated to wealth … Should be something that is more important: Perhaps relationships, perhaps art, perhaps a dream from younger days. The wealth I have won in my life I cannot bring with me. What I can bring is only the memories precipitated by love. Material things lost can be found. But there is one thing that can never be found when it is lost — Life. Whichever stage in life we are at right now, with time, we will face the day when the curtain comes down. Treasure love for your family, love for your spouse, love for your friends. Treat yourself well. Cherish others.”

Jim Rohn said: “If you want to have more, you have to become more”. Personal development is really critical to the achievement of your goals. Success is about learning to become the person capable of succeeding. Success is not to be pursued; it is to be attracted by the person you become. We must learn to work harder on ourselves more than we do on our job. If you work hard on your job, you’ll make a living; if you work hard on yourself you can make a fortune. Spend more time working on yourself than you do working to get money. What you become is far more important than what you get.

I have realised over the years that the poor keep their money and waste their time while the truly rich people spend their money and save their time for more important things! Save your time to pursue your dreams, your vision, your passion and your personal development. Farrah Gray said, “Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs.” Your dreams get you into the future and add excitement to the present; invest in it.

Peter Lynch said, “In the long run, it’s not just how much money you make that will determine your future prosperity. It’s how much of that money you put to work by saving it and investing it.” You become financially free when you no longer have to work for money because money is working for you. It’s not how much money you make, but how hard it works for you, and how many generations you keep it for. Investing money intelligently will ultimately put you ahead of others by giving you ample time to pursue critical things of life. Don’t be too busy making money that you forget to make a life. Busy people don’t make more money; they actually make more ‘stress’!

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