The Wealth Path: Leading a life of service
The Business Advocate
By Wesley Found
In my last opinion piece for The Business Advocate, I discussed how compounding is a natural wonder of the world — a powerful force that shapes our everyday lives and creates vibrant communities. As mighty as this natural wonder is, it cares about momentum rather than direction. If we define success as financial wealth, we risk focusing too much on momentum and become blind in our direction.
Wealth creation is based on what you can offer to others. It is true that what you can offer is based on hard-earned knowledge from a lifetime of service to self-improvement. What we’ve learned, and what we can offer in return, is society’s true currency.
But what exactly is money if our real currency is what we can offer? The way we structure society, and, by extension, our economy, mirrors nature.
In nature, biomass is the total amount of living matter, like plants and animals, in a specific area. How well a biomass creates vibrant and diverse ecosystems depends on nature’s large task of allocating its limited resources in the most productive way possible.
In an economy, the total supply of money is the same as the biomass of an ecosystem. It is the wealth of ecosystems and indeed of communities and nations. For an ecosystem to create abundant biomass it needs to solve two things — a method to exchange energy and to store that energy for future use. Our financial system is undoubtedly inspired by nature.
The great leap in creating a vibrant and diverse economy was the invention of currency. It eliminated the need for, say, a lemon farmer to find someone with flour who also wanted lemons in return. In this way, currency’s value is only a method for exchanging and storing the real value of our wealth: the stuff we create as a society with our minds and hands.
Currency helps us trade the energy we put into meeting each others needs, which, in turn, grows and stores our socioeconomic biomass. But that’s where the power of money ends; it’s simply a placeholder to exchange what is the real value.
As a business owner, my first question is never about money. It’s about how I can be more productive in my desire to serve and improve the lives of my clients. Wealth is a natural byproduct. As a member of the community, I ask how my mind and hands can be used to leave a lasting impact. The amount of wealth we can enjoy depends on all of us acting as stewards of our socioeconomic biomass. Together, we decide the momentum and direction for ourselves and our community.
Focusing too much on money often leads to achieving less of it. The desire for money does not create wealth. Money flows to those who immerse themselves in providing solutions to people’s needs. It’s not about being efficient at doing things right; it’s about effectiveness in doing the right things. Money should not be the goal we pursue – it’s a byproduct of leading a life of service to others needs.