Definitions Of Wealth
The dictionary defines wealth as:
1. [n] - the state of being rich and affluent
2. [n] - an abundance of material possessions and resources
3. [n] - property that has economic utility: a monetary value or an exchange value
4. [n] - the quality of profuse abundance
None of those definitions sound too bad, right? The quality of profuse abundance - I like that definition!
However, wealth as it is defined in the dictionary is only a small aspect of such a grand and often controversial word.
The definition of wealth can be quite divisive. Ask your family and friends how they define wealth and then sit back and enjoy the conversation! Ask any political candidate how they define wealth and you’ll get vastly different answers.
There is of course the capitalist definition of wealth which states that all wealth is earned, not distributed.
Conversely, socialism states that there is a more equitable distribution of wealth and wealth is better shared.
That being said, all political theories and ideologies aside, we know deep down at our core that there is more to ‘wealth’ than dollars in the bank.
Consider the following quotes:
“Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.”
-Henry David Thoreau
“Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.”
-Oscar Wilde
“Being rich is having money; being wealthy is having time”
-Margaret Bonnano
So wealth is:
- Having time
- Having health
- Having quality of life
- Possessing freedom
- Finding inspiration
- Having peace of mind
- Wealth is having compassion
- Being loved
- Loving
- And of course money in the bank – how much money in the bank is defined by you.
And so on and so on.
I’d argue that wealth, true wealth, may be a combination of all of these things.
Wealth, when it is defined as more than simply dollars in the bank, when it is defined as quality of life, health, peace of mind and all of those things that do often come with financial security is a fine and wonderful thing. However, each attribute of wealth i.e. peace of mind, time, passion and dollars in the bank can be at risk if one focuses one attribute to the exclusion of all others.
For example if you live solely to have more money, you’ll inevitably lose time, quality of life, and quite frequently your health.
It’s a fine tightrope to walk.
Do you focus on earning money to support a better quality of life, to have more time and so on?
Or
Do you focus on quality of life and have faith that the money will follow?
It’s the whole success before meaning or meaning before success question.
Success before meaning.
There’s a well established school of thought which dictates that you work hard, you earn a good living, build a good life and then reap the rewards of your hard work. There are various scenarios this may entail.
For many it may entail spending 20 years working a 9-5 desk job, living frugally and saving as much money as possible. The reward is then quitting or retiring and living the life you’ve always wanted to live. Whether that means traveling, spending your days in your garden or workshop or starting that small business you’ve always wanted to start.
This is the place that many people come from. They spend their lives focused on the goal of achieving financial success and freedom.
While setting and achieving goals is a great thing, the problem with this mindset is:
1. One forgets to enjoy life while it’s happening and waits to enjoy it at some future date.
2. That date may never come
Meaning before success.
Another school of thought follows the path of doing what they love and hoping or trusting that wealth will follow.
Those who follow this school of thought believe that the goal to success starts with finding a business or trade you’re passionate about. Passion and desire breed wealth.
While it’s true that passion for your business or trade will bring about day to day quality of life, satisfaction and contentment – financial wealth isn’t a given. In fact there are many people who are barely getting by who absolutely love what they do.
Another option?
I propose that there is actually a third approach to obtaining wealth without sacrificing quality of life.
Starting an internet based business, yes even in today’s economy, can provide the kind of lifestyle and complete wealth you’re seeking.
Starting an internet based business, while it takes a bit of time at the outset to get a business up and running, once it’s established and you’ve automated as much as you can humanly automate and delegated the rest – the profits are in your pocket and you’ve as much free time as you can humanly stand. Time to live the life you’re dreaming of but instead of dreaming it, you’re actually living it.
Time to pursue your passions. Yes, this third option means the business you start doesn’t have to be something you’re passionate about. You can make your business your passion, however it’s not mandatory. You can in fact sell t-shirts online, make a mint, and not give a hoot about t-shirts.
Timothy Ferriss talks at length on this in his book “The 4-Hour Workweek”.
The concept is defined as the new rich or NR as he calls them. It’s the idea that it doesn’t have to be success versus meaning or wealth versus poverty or freedom versus being chained to a desk 9-5. Life, and wealth, can be defined by you.
Starting an internet based business isn’t as simple as setting up a website and watching the profits roll in. There’s a process. There’s a science behind profiting online. It begins with specialized knowledge.
THERE are two kinds of knowledge. One is general, the other is specialized. General knowledge, no matter how great in quantity or variety it may be, is of but little use in the accumulation of money.
-Napoleon Hill
Mr. Hill also goes on to say in Chapter Five of Think and Grow Rich, KNOWLEDGE will not attract money, unless it is organized, and intelligently directed, through practical PLANS OF ACTION, to the DEFINITE END of accumulation of money.
Now specialized knowledge is something you can possess, like knowing how to take apart and put back together a 1964 Ford Mustang blindfolded. It is also something you can purchase or acquire.
You can obtain specialized knowledge by:
- Participating in a mastermind group, hiring a coach, or finding a mentor.
- Going to school or getting specialized training
- Reading everything ever published on the topic including participating in forums and chat rooms on your chosen topic.
As we move through life and make our choices it’s nice to know that there are options. You can choose to live your life pursuing financial wealth at the expense of the other gems life has to offer, you can choose to pursue health, art and happiness at the expense of financial wealth or you can decide that you deserve both. You can decide that the world and its abundance are available to you.
The internet makes it easier than ever before. It gives you access to specialized knowledge and wonderful tools which enable you to automate almost every process and system required to run a successful and profitable business.
To Your Success!
Jeremy Gislason
SureFireWealth INC
SureFireWealth.com
What do you think of this article? What is ‘wealth’ to you? Leave your comments below…
October 19th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
To me, true wealth is owning or being the master of things that can’t be taxed or takin away by the government. Even if your home is paid for…if you run out of cash the state will still take your home away from you if you can’t pay the taxes. Apparently they haven’t figured out how to tax our happiness or the things we keep in our hearts.
October 20th, 2008 at 12:16 am
I suppose there is no true definition of wealth, as it means different things to different people. However, the closest I could come to offering an opinion on it would be, that being wealthy is fulfilling your maximum potential in every aspect of the ‘Wheel Of Life’.
This would include, money, health, marriage, relationships, career, social life, spirituality…etc.
If one or more of these are not being fulfilled to their true potential, then optimum wealth is not being achieved or experienced. Obvioulsy the values would differ from person to person, but the list above is a general example and would probably be included in most peoples lifes as important to some extent.
October 20th, 2008 at 12:45 am
WWealth?
I do not know monetry wealth.
I am 74 years and in all my life have not EVER had enough money to buy more than the comodoties of levery day living, Granted I own a modest home now.
But I am wealthy in My state of Health , mind , friends, and have such peace with my self and the world.
I so love the comments that Pat makes re the CGovernment and Taxation
This is the Bain of our lives.
The lower earning people are just not allowed to be above a certain level,
But we have to be practical and wotk out the true values of our lives.
Anne
October 20th, 2008 at 1:03 am
You were one of the first people I was introduced to, online, when I started this journey. Your teachings have always been extremely useful and informative. But, I think you’ve been holding out on us [until now], because this article is beyond ‘theory’, but more ‘actuality’ of life. The simple way I define wealth is ‘biblically’: “I live to give, and I give to live.” Or, having abundance; spirit, soul and body; so that you can give abundantly. Then you get into the ‘difference’ between wealth and prosperity.
Thanks again for your unfailing depth of understanding and gift of sharing that knowledge.
October 20th, 2008 at 1:05 am
WOW!!! 100 percent true. You hit the nail right on the head. And, you know, of all the people/mentors I know who make their living online, not a single one of them is sweating this recession/depression that we are supposedly going through.
In fact, a few even joke about it, saying things like “No thanks, I think I’ll sit this one (depression/recession) out”. I agree with them. You can either give in to the fear being spread by our government and media, or choose to be successful no matter what.
October 20th, 2008 at 1:15 am
After spending 30 years of my life at sea sailing on container ships, the last 13 years as master,
I found one definition of wealth. I worked at a job that I loved, traveled the world, and spent more time home with my family than the average 8-12 working man. I worked 3+ months on and the same time off. I had a good paying job, good insurance, a good retirement plan, and I spent half of the year home with my family. I thought that this was wealth until I had a virus attach my heart, destroy my left ventricle, put me in the hospital in intensive care and gave me 1-3 years to live without a heart transplant. I survived 4 years. I waited in and part out out of the hospital for 8 months before the new heart arrived. Then I found out what wealth really was, My family support, terrific medical transplant team and support, and all the friends that I had made that help me re-ajust to a new style of living. Wealth was seeing a beautiful sunrise for the first time with a new heart, living day to day with new restrictions and out look on my daily affairs, and giving thanks to my donor’s family for the sacrafice that had to endure so I could live with a new heart.
It has been now over,12 years since that transplant, and wealth is now living day to day and enjoying working on the internet. This enables me to help pay for the high price of the drugs that I take, but I can do it from the enjoyment of my own home. So it is really how you look at life in what ever situation you are living with.
October 20th, 2008 at 2:07 am
It would be very difficult to come up with a better definition of wealth than the one by Ted C Marchion. As a surviving heart surgery and stroke patient of over 12 years, I could not have defined it better or with more feeling. Thanks, Ted.
October 20th, 2008 at 3:06 am
I think you hit it when you said wealth is a combination of things. Riches is money. Wealth is sharing your life with someone you love, watching your newborn baby sleep, and watching the sun rise over the mountain spreading its light across your favorite lake. Weath is made up of the experiences in your life that you hold dear to your heart that noone can take away. This is wealth!
October 20th, 2008 at 3:26 am
HAPPINESS IS THE TRUE WEALTH OF LIFE.EVERYTHING TAKES TIME,YOU WILL GET THERE IN THE END.
October 20th, 2008 at 5:01 am
Life can be enjoyed to the max if you have three things.Health-Your Souse-plenty of money.I am 56 charlie and getting there in the end is supposed to mean retiring with zero worries.I am running out of time as far as the finachial picture is looking.But I do have a great wife and we do have our health.While I don’t necessarily go along with the old adage that”Money isn’t everything”I sure wish I would have been interested in something when I was in highschool that I could have used to propel me as far as grades and then latter schooling.So while I agree that oportunities still exist to possibly start a new buisness on line for instance with the recent credit freeze a lot of people will be takin out of the position of even having a chance to invest even if they have an idea to promote or a nich to get into.But one piece of advise any grandparents can give to your grandkids is to get some type of college education.Because at least they will then be in a better position to start out with a sort of base.
October 20th, 2008 at 5:21 am
Wealth is to be able to” accomplished”of your needs. Includes Health and Family.
October 20th, 2008 at 5:50 am
According to me it is difficult to define wealth . But I can define “Wealthy”To be wealthy means the ABILITY to satisfy himself and others around him and continue to maintain that till death, is perfect wealth.
October 20th, 2008 at 6:10 am
Some great comments and ideas are already posted here, but this is a prospective from me.
We all seem to get confused about nouns and adjectives, but that’s o.k.
Wealth is a condition, therefore a noun. Wealthy is an adjective, describing a perceived condition of your life. Wealth is those things that you possess, which you consider to have a high value. The wealth that you possess doesn’t include the trivial or basic possessions, only the extra ones, the exciting ones. But, as some have said in their posts, basic things,,,,if you have been deprived of them, or have wondered whether you can enjoy them, again,,such as a sunrise, a beautiful sunset, can be wealth. Those basics can be extra and exciting, in some cases, and therefore be considered to be wealth.
Even the poorest (financially poor), have some wealth, as has been have stated, like relationships and daily enjoyment. Some poor folks find treasures and wealth in the simple things in life.
As to the adjective “Wealthy”. I think that folks in every income level can be wealthy in some ways, as has been referred to, in these posts.
I believe there are 7 levels of financial situations.
Destitute - includes persons who are homeless, hungry, and exposed to the elements of nature.
Poor - Unemployed/seldom employed, on food stamps, assisted housing, bare basics
Working Poor -Under-employed, have basics, often are widows, single mothers, handicapped. etc.
Middle-income - Struggle but have more than basics, struggle for more for themselves/family.
Prosperous - Can have nice homes, cars, vacations, but still have to do some budget watching.
Wealthy - Can have almost anything they desire (material-wise).
Indecently Rich - So much money that it is ridiculous,,,Billionaires. Ever think what a billion is?
Most people, in all the levels, can and do find things to treasure and adore,,therefore having some wealth.
“Politicians are like diapers.
They both need changing regularly.
and for the same reason.”
- - Author Unknown
October 20th, 2008 at 7:43 am
No true definition of wealth, as it means different definition to different people. In my opinion, the true wealth is the personal health. Without the health, the wealth is meaningless because you can’t enjoy it.
To Your Success
Bryan Hee
October 20th, 2008 at 7:44 am
First, your health is the most important thing.Having good friends, spending quality time with your family, and having time for God. All you need to do is increase your incomings and decrease your outgoings and this will help you to your financial path.
have a wonderful day.
God Bless
Angela
October 20th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
“Wealth or Succes is the achievement of worthwhile pre-determined GOALS and being well adjusted.”
October 20th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
Wealth to me is to live a few more years so that I can finish my series of e-books, subject “Leather Instruction Manuals” I have 3 finished & 4 more to write. After 4 heart attacks & 5 Stents over the last 2 years time could be running out. At 79 the ability to suplement my pension, pay the everincreasing Council Tax & afford to stay warm in the winter against the Uk Governments belief that they can continue to milk the assets of pensioners. I operate a small Niche Web site related to the Leather Industry having been a Master Designer Craftsman &College HOD during my working life. supplying top London Stores, Royalty, Film Stars, etc.
October 21st, 2008 at 8:49 am
Wealth what?
Have you smile today?
Whatever you have but no a smiling face, you are far from wealth.
Be blessed…
Isyaias
http://www.mybecause.com
October 21st, 2008 at 11:13 am
Great article. Very inspirational comments. For me it is the notion that you live in infinite abundance. That is true wealth. So wealth is a state of being. The fact that we are able to breathe, laugh, live and love makes us all incredibly wealthy.
You must have passion and then take action. The Internet is just a tool. The question is how will you use that tool. I was very moved by all of the comments I have read.
Thank you Jeremy. Thank you all for all of your insights. Be well. Stay well.
And here’s to your health and wealth.
October 21st, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Here’s a bit of wisdom from the past….
“When Health is absent, Wisdom cannot reveal itself;
Art cannot become manifest; Strength cannot be exerted;
Wealth is useless, and Reason is powerless”
Ardmore Herophiles (300 BC)