Raindrops, Wealth, and Success.

"I want to be wealthy". "I want to be rich". "I want to be famous". "I want to be a movie star". "I want to be president". "I want to be CEO of this company". "I want to own this company". "I want to go out with Judy". "I want to date Tom". "I want to graduate from college". "I wish I had some money". "We should be rich by now as smart as we are..."

Have you said these lines a few times, a few hundred times, maybe a few thousand times. It's hard to understand why you don't succeed when you're the one not succeeding. It gets frustrating. Failure is like one of those Chinese finger traps; the harder you pull to get your fingers out, the tighter it gets. Once you've been trained and brainwashed into thinking you're doing all the right things with your life, it's hard to change things. But you can. Stop whining about what's wrong and get off your butt and start doing something.

A lot of people don't realize that they're failing. A new study was just released that points out that 2% of the wealthiest people own 50% of the wealth. That means that a lot of people are not doing nearly as well as they could. Some people claim that money is the root of all evil. Some people even say that it says so in the Bible; it does not. Money is not the root of all evil. If you have money you can choose to use it for good or bad purposes. I don't measure success by how much money you have, but make no mistake about it, having money to do the things you want to do and need to do is very important.

So why are most people failing and why don't they realize it? Because if you follow the normal "plan" and get a regular job and settle down with a house and family, you will probably retire in debt, or not very well off. Just like Don Quixote and his windmill, we keep getting up every morning and going to work, giving someone else the best years of our lives. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against working a job, but only a small percentage of jobs will lead to accumulating any wealth. Some jobs take you away from your family with long hours and travel, and for what? A good majority of people are just one paycheck away from financial disaster. Why? Because we're taught from day one that the "proper" thing to do is grow up and get a job. Put that together with how credit happy we are and it's not long before most people are so far in debt that they'll never get ahead.

There's a popular country music star that has a song on his latest CDs with a line in it about an old girlfriend telling him to get a "real job" and stop wasting his time playing music and dreaming about being a star. Had he listened to her, a lot of talent would have been wasted. He didn't listen to her. He had determination and kept trying to achieve his goals. He's a top headlining act now. But what makes him different that the thousands of guys and girls playing in smoky bars and honky-tonks tonight? In some cases nothing - he played those places too. In most cases everything - he wasn't afraid to be a success. He saw himself succeeding and always thought he would. He worked hard at his craft. At each step along the way, when he had the chance to shine and standout, he did so. There are two very important lessons here: one - don't listen to anyone who tells you to "settle" or give up on your goals; and two - fear of success is the hidden little gremlin that stops most people from succeeding. I know it sounds strange, but fear of success, often disguised as something else, is the main cause of failure. There was a Pogo comic strip where Pogo said "We've met the enemy and it's us". How very true!

Change usually comes slowly (the country star mentioned above seems like an overnight success to most, but in fact, he's been playing and moving up in the music world for years). Change often comes with a price (like the country star's ex-girlfriend). Don't give in and never, ever give up. Remember the ocean, with all its raw power, size and depth, is just a bunch of raindrops. Concentrate on the raindrops and you'll make your ocean.