I'm about to embark upon a journey with four other women.
It all started after I read The 4-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferris, and then The One Minute Millionaire by Hansen & Allen.
It seems that if these two systems could be synthesized, you'd have yourself a perfect system.
Both books are wonderful and horrible. Timothy Ferris could be the perfect genius or the perfect asshole. And if you read the reviews of One Minute Millionaire, one of the biggest criticisms is how they can brag about how ethical their questionable methods are.
I won't give you a detailed summary of each book. Rather, I'm going to identify the points that for me are the most compelling.
In the 4-Hour Work Week, Ferris illustrates the following points:
The most successful people do what they do best, and that's all they do. They don't file, they don't often run menial errands, and so on. Those of us who have been on the bottom rung think this is elitism. But think of it a different way. Those of us who splinter our time between work, family, errands, housework, hobbies, and so on never get really far on any one thing. Even at work, if we have to do a multitude of tasks that divert us from our core purpose (the reason we were hired), we're not going to be as good as we would be if we could devote 100% of our energies to our core purpose.
Two techniques he uses are following the 80/20 principle religiously and outsourcing everything in his life that he doesn't have to do or doesn't want to do.
In The One Minute Millionaire, Hansen & Allen illustrate the following points:
It is far more effective to build wealth through partnerships than to go it alone. When two people with common goals come together, you don't get twice the impact - you might get 4 or 5 times the impact. There are synergies. Both brings their strengths and ideas to the table. And you also get the power of combined & leveraged capital. And of course, you get access to each other's rolodexes, so your networking & connections capacity explodes exponentially. In the book, I believe they formed a group of 4 or 5 people.
When you are in it to do more than just build wealth, and are in it with a higher purpose, the Universe, God, the Divine, etc. is on your side, and again, everything is multiplied exponentially. You get more and better ideas, opportunities open up, your intuition works better, and so on.
So I was talking with a colleague about how much easier it is for rich people to launch their philanthropic ideas. Sure, you can do it without money - you fundraise, you submit grant proposals, you hustle . . . it's a very common way for the common person to launch a cause.
Because we work in a social services nonprofit, we can't help noticing something:
People with good ideas are a dime a dozen. Most of them fall into the "Somebody oughta . . . " category, but there are a few gems who actually work their butts off and get their ideas launched. But for every one who launches a good idea, there are at least 50 people who run into road blocks. They can't find other people who believe in their ideas, or they can't raise enough initial money to get the idea started. Often, good ideas fizzle out because they're just another good idea.
People with a lot of money and good ideas are another story. Where we work, if one of our very wealthy donors comes in with an idea, they also come in with some money to launch it. The success rate is very, very high. Most of our city's very best philanthropic programs came about because someone with money saw the need.
Well, my colleague has grand visions about some societal ills she would like to see addressed.
And as for me, my daughter has been talking for three years - yes, THREE years - about the orphanage she is going to run when she grows up. She's only seven years old, but she's been talking about this in great detail for three years - what the kids will eat, how they'll each get a present for their birthday, how she's going to have a HUGE bed so that the children who are scared can crawl in with her to sleep, etc.
So I proposed the idea to a colleague of mine that we join forces and explore wealth-building. Neither one of us have much to start with, except that we're out of debt and we're employed. I have the advantage of co-owning a home, and being in a marriage that provides another income. (Well, he's worth a lot more than that, but that's another post.) She has the advantage of having access to some immediate capital.
We decided that our first goal was to make ourselves financially independent, meaning that we don't have to work full-time to live, basically. Then we'll turn our attention to building wealth for our causes.
We decided to invite three other women to join us. We're having dinner together next week to talk about the vision and mission of this group. We selected the other three women very carefully. The three criteria were: 1) They had to have some philanthropic visions of their own, 2) They believed in a higher power - God, the Divine, whatever, and 3) We like them.
They each bring talents & skills - one of them is a real estate agent who also has her facilitations certificate and her conflict resolution certificate, the other is a top-notch admin support person who is very close to getting her Communications degree, and the third woman - well, I don't know her that well except that she's sharp, smart, funny, and kind.
Anyway, this ought to be a good adventure, or at very least, a learning experience!
