SLOW AND STEADY

NEVER SPEND YOUR MONEY BEFORE YOUR HAVE IT

Thomas Jefferson: author of the declaration of independence and third president of the United States.

Here’s the cold, hard truth: Unless you get really lucky, or you have a rich uncle who likes you that best and dies, it takes a long time to accumulate a lot of money.

If you view this fact as a reason to give up or simple not try, you will miss some of the greatest lessons life to offer. The lessons are learned in the journey, not in the destination. Throughout this book. Salomon has shared with us nuggets of gold, riches of his wisdom, and given us an understanding of the treasures in life we can accumulate while on the path to wealth.

THE POWE OF PERSPECTIVE

Thomas Jefferson, one of our wisest founding father, stated, “Never spend your money before you have it. ” This is excellent advice, yet so many ignore this truth. Day after day they use their credit card to make purchases with the intent of paying for them later. Why? Because they, like most of us, are part of the immediate gratification generation. We want it now, and credit cards allow us to have it, Jefferson would be appalled.

I believe that one of the reasons we are in such a rush to accumulate wealth, which we believe will in turn provide for a better life, it that we are discontented with our current existence. Why is this? If you are reading this and are living in the developed world, you are already enjoying a better, more comfortable, easier life than most of the world. We have a propensity to forget, on a daily basis, how lucky we are even without a lot of money.

I’m just like everyone else. I face the same temptations, harbor the same desire, have big dreams, want nice things, and occasionally feel that I deserve more than I have. When these thoughts percolate to the top of my mind, I remind myself of several things. In the next twenty-four hours, approximately thirty thousand people, mostly children, will die of starvation. Thirty thousand! Over a billion people hhave no access to safe warer. In some parts of the world, any home over five hundred square feet is considered a mansion. Ninety-five percent of humanity lives on less than ten dollars a day.