Wealth and Poverty–Some Words From the Wise

Poverty Levels Indicate Greater Gap Between The Haves and The Have-Nots

A lot has been made in the past few days about the newest poverty figures released by the U.S. Census Bureau. They show poverty has increased among just about every segment of society, but more rapidly among minorities. In fact, the only group not affected seems to be seniors. And the simple reason for this is Social Security. So all the recent attacks on that beloved institution are probably going to backfire. The truth is that it’s doing what it was designed to do, keep millions of elderly Americans out of poverty.

The Thoughts On Poverty In America from Brzezinski.

Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Advisor, appeared today on MSNBC’s Morning Joe show,  which features his daughter Mika as co-host with former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough. After discussing some foreign affairs areas, Mika asked her father his take on the recently released poverty figures. He said they were distressing and added:

But I worry about the other side of that, which is the one percent of the richest, who have the benefits of tax loopholes, and of preferential arrangements, and whoop it up without any responsibility, social responsbility, for our lives here in America. This is a prescription for social conflict as well as economic paralysis.

I still nurture the conviction that the residual assets of America are still there, that this society has the capacity for self-renewal and self-reflection, but we’re going right now through a kind of lunatic phase in our politics.  Look at the comments and speeches and perspectives shared with us by putative Republican presidential candidates. It’s literally frightening. These people are living in some sort of never-never land of illusions, slogans, passions, convictions, very unrelated to reality.

We’ve been very lucky because we’ve been a democratic society in which everyone felt they had a chance of rising. Today, social advancement from the lower to upper classes is faster in Europe and China than in America. We have right now a stagnant social, highly differentiated society in which the rich are getting richer, absolutely socially indifferent, they evade taxes right and left, and we’re indifferent to it. As I’ve said, this is a prescription for social unrest and economic paralysis.

Though I haven’t always agreed with Dr. Brzezinski’s sometimes hawkish foreign policy positions, he is certainly one our deepest and most erudite thinkers on many subjects. I think he illuminates in a very succinct way some of the issues facing us in today’s economic situation. Granted, he’s pretty partisan, but he also has never been slow to attack fellow Democrats when he feels they are in the wrong. In fact, though he was an early supporter of Barack Obama, he has recently criticized the President for a lack of leadership in the Middle East (Brzezinski was largely responsible for the historic Camp David accords during the Carter administration), and for depending too much on speeches instead of action.

Brzezinski also likes Warren Buffet’s economic approach and says it should be a model for Congress. I think it’s important with all the inane opinions and historically inaccurate distortions being thrown around, for us to listen to some of the more sensible, saner thoughts from our wise elders.

Jerry

Take Your Full Dose of Inspiration/Motivation

Prosperity Teaching Can Be Like A Mental Antibiotic

I have noticed a somewhat disturbing phenomenon, which I have been guilty of myself on occasion. This is when someone notices a very positive improvement in their life or financial situation after taking a particular training or ongoing series of programs or tools–and then, feeling what they had been doing worked, stops doing it. This occurred recently with two members of my Moneylove Club. Because I attract people who are already motivated and success-oriented, I have a very low attrition rate for the motivational information industry, so I noticed when these two star members decided to end their monthly subscription. Both had reported very positive and very prosperous results after being members for a year or so. Both gave glowing testimonials about the audios, and both indicated they might want to come back sometime in the future.

Here’s my issue with that, and it is very analogous, I believe, to the situation with antibiotics, where many people want to stop taking their prescription before all the pills or capsules are gone, just because the symptoms are gone. The reason doctors strongly advise us to take the full dosage even when we feel better is backed by scientific evidence. Just because you feel better, doesn’t mean all of the bacteria that caused the problem are gone. A few always survive and have a very short reproduction cycle, and the ones that survive may be the strongest of the strong, the kind of bacteria we are increasingly seeing with built-in defenses against antibiotics. So by stopping short of taking all your antibiotics, you may be guaranteeing a return of the illness that will be even worse than the first bout because it will involve antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Taking all of the recommended dosage is actually practicing preventive medicine.

And when you are taking a dosage of positive information, inspiration, motivation and it seems to be working, the worst time to stop is when you see an absence of all the former obstacles to success. This is exactly when the motivation-resistant mental molecules can rear their ugly little heads and fill your mind with negative thoughts, fears and doubts–and cause a major relapse of poverty consciousness or breakdown in self confidence. But it is human nature to stop taking your medicine when the problem appears to have disappeared. I’ve done it, we’ve all done it–and often regretted doing it.

Phasing It Out Slowly

Now there is certainly a time, to usually be self-determined, when you are well on the road to recovery, when it is time to start phasing out your medicine, whether it’s a physical or mental dosage. But “phasing out” is the key phrase here. Your body and your mind do not function as well with sudden and dramatic transformation. “Cold turkey,” is not a concept that works in these situations. This is why I always suggest that someone who is perhaps listening to one of my audios every day, sometimes more than once a day, that rather than stop altogether when they feel they’ve achieved their primary goal, they slowly diminish the dosage–maybe listen once a week or even once a month. I will have attended three workshops on prosperity consciousness myself by the end of summer. I know the principles these teachers will be focusing on, and at least one of them was originally inspired by Moneylove–but that doesn’t mean I won’t be getting valuable information, and perhaps hearing some things in new ways with fresh ears. Even if you have mastered something you’ve studied, some kind of maintenance regimen can keep your momentum going, and prevent you ending up with a mental wall that restricts your imagination.

We need to remember that poverty consciousness and negative messages have been filling our subconscious minds for decades. The immediate battle may be won, but the war lasts a lifetime. I know because they’ve told me, that those former audio subscribers still listen to some of the audios, and read this blog, and may even peruse the pages of their battered old copy of Moneylove from time to time. But some people, exercising their human nature, believe periods of low self esteem and negative results in life are permanently curable. No, these are conditions we have to manage and monitor. Due diligence in this regard will prevent relapse. I have great belief in the human spirit to triumph over any adversity, but I remember a famous psychologist once telling me that he thought the greatest mental disease was the belief that you didn’t need any help from anyone else.

Let’s all have fun getting well together!

Jerry

Prosperity-Mouthing

It’s Time For A New Prosperity Consciousness Paradigm

“Paradigm” has certainly been an overused term in recent decades, describing all sorts of patterns and models of behavior and concepts. One of the most disturbing models in recent months comes from what I like to call the “anti-prosperity pundits.” These are often media types with partisan agendas using scare tactics predicting financial doom.

Now there is no doubt we are currently facing some major economic challenges. But the way to overcome any obstacle or challenge is not to whine, “Woe is me.” Of course this form of poor-mouthing goes back to the Old Testament and one of its oldest books, The Book of Job:

Job 10:15: If I be wicked, woe unto me; and if I be righteous, yet will I not lift up my head. I am full of confusion; therefore see thou mine affliction;

Poor-mouthing is a plea for sympathy, and usually refers to claiming one is less financially successful than the truth in the form of an audit would reveal. I see it a lot in coaching clients to become more prosperity conscious, and reflected in the email questions I get from Moneylove Club members.

Coming back from my own financial oblivion, which I describe in the appendix of the Moneylove Manifesto, available in a free download on this page, and which is still a work in progress, I am even more aware of the need to switch from poor-mouthing to prosperity-mouthing. I notice that many people seem to relish declaring they are poorer than they really are. Time after time, someone complains to me about how badly they are doing, and then I find out they own substantial property, or have a house worth more than any money owed on it, or have major credit available. If you can go out and borrow $10,000 or more right now, you are in better financial shape than most people in the world–by far. Credit is an asset, and should come with bragging rights: “Wow! I can borrow whatever I need because financial institutions find me trustworthy and believe in my financial future.”

If you listen to politicians and much of the “glass-is-half-empty” media, it would be pretty hard to have an optimistic view of your own prosperity potential. Unless you counter this by starting your own program of Prosperity-Mouthing.

“Cash Talk” Instead of Trash Talk and Crash Talk

As we approach the July 4th holiday, here’s my personal Declaration of Independence from any bad economic news, speculations, and doom scenarios:

I just had my best income producing month in 15 years!

Now, I am hardly all the way back in my comeback, but I am doing better this month than last, and better this year than last–and it doesn’t matter how small or large that improvement is. Like the U.S. economy, it is trending in the right direction. You can find all sorts of negative stories and headlines out there today, a veritable cornucopia of poor-mouthing. But with the slightest of efforts in the right direction, you can also find a treasure trove of positive news. I just checked this out by going online, and right away I found one of the most encouraging stories I could imagine on the U.S. economy, involving the city I considered my home for ten years, Miami, Florida.

The huge, cash rich Malaysia-based Genting Berhad. one of the world’s largest casino operators, has just placed a bet on the future of Miami as a global economic center with a $3 billion investment in resort/casino projects. And casino gambling outside of Seminole Indian operations isn’t even legal in Florida at this moment! All over the world, people with lots of cash are placing large amounts of it in U.S. investments. Sadly, they have more faith in our economy than we often seem to. If I had surplus cash right now, I would be exploring some Miami possibilities, as I happen to agree with this Asian corporate giant’s optimistic outlook for that city.  I guarantee you Miami’s movers and shakers aren’t gong around moaning, “Woe is me.”

Back during the Great Depression of the 1930s, our culture was filled with positive music and movies and books that helped people cope with all the negative news. And all comparisons with today’s difficulties are ludicrous. With all the built-in safety nets, and much, much lower unemployment rates, and much, much higher universal standards of living, we are living in amazing abundance today. But because so many people seem to take great joy in poor-mouthing, perhaps it’s time to have more of those rags-to-riches movies, and songs like “We’re In The Money.” In fact, the next Moneylove Club audio is going to focus on that song’s lyrics and three other positive songs that can affect our prosperity consciousness and set us on a path to prosperity-mouthing on a regular basis.

And if you’ll excuse my getting biblical on you again, let’s replace that “Woe is me,” energy with some “Blessed am I,” instead.

Jerry

Prosperity Time! Time Prosperity!

It’s All About The Exchange of Time

What kind of life you have is often predicated on how well you’ve exchanged time. One of the key components of prosperity consciousness, I have always believed, is valuing your time even more than money. Many of us have made too many poor bargains in this exchange.

Poor Bargains

What do I consider a poor bargain? Well, certainly working forty years at a job you despise for a few years of financial comfort in retirement is one of the poorest bargains of them all. But even an hour spent in doing something you don’t like, that devalues and depresses you, that doesn’t speak to your highest purpose and highest good, is far from worth any amount of money you are paid for that hour.

Another aspect of this is illustrated by a Facebook post I just wrote:

Every minute you listen to a pessimistic, negative friend

 or politician or pundit, requires at least ten minutes of beauty,

 truth, and wisdom to replenish your inner peace and higher consciousness.

In recent blog posts, and on my latest Moneylove Club audio, I’ve discussed The Law of Subtraction, and the importance of being very selective in what  you choose from the overwhelming onslaught of information and data now available to us. What you choose to let in, what you choose to eliminate. And this all has to do with time. Prosperity Time can be declared as a designation for your life right now, but you have to first declare in your own mind that you are willing to practice Time Prosperity–the treasuring of time as your most precious commodity.

What Makes Time Precious?

I’ve recently discussed two Triple Tests related to this. One is something I’ve discussed for many years, since writing Moneylove. That is based on my affirmation:  ”If it doesn’t bring me profit, pleasure, or knowledge, it isn’t worth doing.” Isn’t this the essence of life? Doesn’t it cover most of what is important to you? But perhaps more at the heart of things, there’s the original Triple Filter from Socrates. This is to use Truth, Goodness, and Usefulness as criteria for what you listen to and let into your consciousness.  I discuss this at greater length in the preceding post from last week. But measuring how you spend your time in terms of whether it’s true, good for you, and useful is a Prosperity Time/Time Prosperity way to go.

Many of the poor bargains people make go back to an original misconception: that money is limited, but time is not. In fact, the exact opposite is true. There is an infinite amount of money out there, but we don’t nearly have enough time to enjoy it all. Those who are truly and usefully prosperous, in every sense of that word, have grasped that time is the most important element in a life well-lived. How well we use it, or how badly we abuse it, will determine our outcome.

I wrote a cartoon gag when I was in prison that speaks to this very issue of what’s really more important, time or money. It shows one convict speaking to another in their cell, saying, “Instead of seizing the day, I seized the day’s proceeds.”

In all you do, Take Your Time! And I’m not referring to slowing down here, though that may be a factor that can enhance your life experience. I’m talking about Taking Your Time! Possessing it.  Seizing and savoring each moment. Appreciating and loving as many moments as possible. And, most of all, using time well–exchanging it for what you truly want.

Jerry

Moneylove And The Mental Room With A View

You May Need To Create An Internal Gatekeeper

So, did you answer the question I posed at the end of my previous post?

“What am I taking in that I would be better served leaving out?”

I like the word “cacophony” a lot. It means a bunch of discordant sounds coming at you, wails, hoots, whistles, etc. Too much to take in and make any sense of. I also like that it sounds, in its first two syllables, a lot like “caca,” which is a word that describes unneeded stuff flowing out of you. Today we are all being inundated by a cacophony of noise that fills our ears and minds and time so that there is no room for anything useful to easily gain entry to our consciousness.

I suggest that we all need to create a mental room with a view. In other words, we have to stop the blockage, eliminate the traffic jam, cut down on the cacophony. Emails are an excellent place to start. I have one email address I use just for blogs, newsletters, and websites that offer interesting courses and information on marketing, blogging, publishing, etc. This is not spam, but sites I have visited and found interesting enough that I wanted to keep track of what they were doing. At last count, about 30-40 emails come into that address every day. I rarely open more than one or two. I calculated that it takes three to four minutes to read one, and I’m a very fast reader. That would be at least two hours a day that I really don’t want to put to this use. So I ignore most of them. One of these days, I tell myself, I will go in a clean up this site, where 11,596 emails now reside (I do keep much better tabs on my primary email address, where friends and colleagues and clients get a quick response).

There is no doubt I am missing out on some interesting information, but there is even less doubt that I need to have an internal gatekeeper to keep stuff out that isn’t necessary or doesn’t arouse extreme passion by virtue of its essential nature or life-changing insight. It reminds me of a button I once wore when I would go to parties, “I’m available, but very picky.” We need to be very picky about what we let in, which is why I’m devoting a whole audio to my Law of Subtraction as the next edition of the Moneylove Club.

With the Internet bombarding us with more information than even a genius can process, we need to up our selectivity game in substantial and serious ways. If you have downloaded my free online book, The Moneylove Manifesto, you will see I cover this subject in a bit more depth and even offer several strategies that can create space in your mind to allow for great new things to come in once in a while. A closed mind won’t bring you all you desire. But a completely open one will quickly create that cacophony of discordant sounds, a virtual logjam, that will clog your imagination and ability to think and create. So a gate would be useful, and every gate needs a gatekeeper. In this case, some strategy or system to make the choices you need to make. And it doesn’t matter what that particular method is, as long as you use it consistently, as long as it keeps out the stuff you really don’t need or want, as long as it makes room for wonderful surprises and new passions.

A quote I discovered recently and like a lot:

Books are infinite in number and time is short. The secret of knowledge is to take what is essential. Take that and try to live up to it. -Swami Vivekananda

So maybe it’s time to make a list for yourself on “What is really essential to me?”

Jerry

Being “In The Know” About The Law of Attraction

New Thoughts Stimulated By A Powerful New Source

That source is the very successful composer/performer/coach, David Friedman, whom I had the pleasure of meeting recently as well as attending one of his concerts and a workshop he presented on Finding Your Inner Voice. The preceding post talked about David and his work at bit, but was written before I had the opportunity to interview him at length for The Moneylove Club audio series. To get a greater sense of who he is and the major impact he is having on prosperity consciousness, check out his brand new website. And commit to reading his powerful, insightful new book, The Thought Exchange.

http://www.thethoughtexchange.com/excerpt.html

The kind of teacher and coach I most appreciate is one who stimulates my own new perspectives and new ideas on familiar territory. Just a couple of comments from my interview with David did this–see what they do for you.

I don’t have some of the money and you have some of the money–we all have all the money.

We have everything in the bank of our interior. And as soon as we forget it’s there, and think it’s something we have to attract, it’s not there.

So for me, the opposite of forgetting we have everything is being “in the know” about The Law of Attraction. We often hear that phrase, “in the know,” used to separate us from someone with superior knowledge. “Those in the know go to this restaurant.” or: “If you were in the know, you wouldn’t do it that way.”  But the truth is we are all “in the know,” but perhaps some of us just haven’t realized it yet.

David Friedman suggests the term, The Law of Noticing, might be better than The Law of Attraction. And I agree, especially as someone who has been talking about the value of paying attention for over thirty years now. If we pay attention and notice what we already have and are already capable of having, we don’t really have to do anything else.

The Law of Attraction isn’t about having to do anything to attract what we want. The Law of Attraction is a universal force, always operative, always in our lives, and the more we are open to discovering it, the more it works for us. Each of us has the same opportunities to be “in the know”.

Jerry

Moneylove Clarification Via Warren Buffet

World’s 2nd Richest Man–Prosperity Conscious?

My friend and longtime Moneylove fan and Moneylove Club member, Richard Levine, just sent me some Warren Buffet quotes.

Richie, an entrepreneur, successful business owner, and fledgling stand-up comedian, can be found telling jokes on the interesting website Old Jews Telling Jokes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTqHoHJpN74

Richie wondered whether Warren Buffet was out of synch with my Moneylove prosperity philosophy by living frugally, and saying things like “Don’t waste your money on unnecessary things.” Buffet lives in the same simple house he bought fifty years ago in Omaha, Nebraska, eats a peanut butter and jelly sandwich every day for lunch, and definitely likes to live simply and very inexpensively. But he also is one of the most generous men in human history, giving many billions to worthy causes, and now joined with Bill Gates and others to make a major difference in the fight against poverty, ignorance, and disease.

And while I do think it can be useful to spend money on luxuries or even frivolous fun things, I also think it’s perfectly fine to just buy what you absolutely need–especially if you choose to do so, and know you can also have anything in the world you want, as Buffet does. Yes, he is not leaving his children anything in his will, but he has already provided for them–they each have millions of their own, and probably have inherited his healthy attitudes about money.

The Truth About Prosperity

Warren Buffet is living his truth, and exemplifies the concept that prosperity isn’t about money at all. I say in Moneylove, “The richest man in all the world is the one who has a good time earning his daily bread.” This is certainly true for the actual 2nd richest man in the world. Just look at the expression on Warren Buffet’s face when he talks about the joy of investing and building his companies.

And if there was ever any doubt, just ponder this Buffet quote:

The happiest people do not necessarily have the best things. They simply appreciate the things they have.

Jerry

11 New Questions For 2011

Asking The Right Questions

I’ve been surprised at how many very successful people have asked me whether or not I am going to do a list of questions like the 110 questions I did for 2010. I have been doing lists like this for many years, and one big difference in that edition was that I had every one of my coaching clients send me their answers to the questions. As you can imagine, this gave me an amazing head start in figuring out what someone most needed to dramatically increase their level of success in the world. And if you would like a PDF copy of that list, which I’ve revised so that it is timely and current, just send me an email address I can send it to. JerryGillies@gmail.com

You see, I haven’t done a brand new list for this new year–there’s no need to, and it would be hard to come up with, say, 111 questions that are more appropriate, insightful, or effective than the 110 that are already ready and waiting for you.

I obviously was profoundly affected by a workshop I took with a psychiatrist named Dr. Edward Askren in the 1970s titled, “Asking The Right Question.” He felt that this was the secret of success–not getting all the answers, but asking the questions. I have found this to be true. I have had many hundreds of people come up to me through the years to tell me how my questions have changed their lives. But this is only true because they have been willing and able to ask themselves these questions and give themselves the answers. I remember Dr. Wayne Dyer seeking me out when I was living in Florida and telling me that a list of 100 questions I suggested couples ask each other in my early relationship book, My Needs, Your Needs, Our Needs,  was the best tool he had ever found to use with his marriage counseling students at St. John’s University.

But Here’s A New List Anyway

So if someone was to come up to me and accuse me of something I really would never want to be accused of, what would it be?  I think it would be “resting on my laurels.” This term is usually used to describe someone who has stopped trying or creating new stuff because he or she is satisfied with their past accomplishments and successes.

Well, I like to celebrate what has worked for me in the past, but am always willing and sometimes even striving to come up with new surprises. And so, waking up a bit fuzzy-headed this New Year’s morning, before even having juice, a vitamin, or brushing my teeth, and completely off the top of my head, I decided to create the following list of provocative questions, eleven of them, for you to add-on to the 110 Questions.

1. If you knew for an absolute, guaranteed fact, that you would be financially independent as of January 1, 2012, and forever after that, how would you change your plans for 2011?

2. If it was you doing business the way you do business, with yourself, what would be the most important positive trait that would keep you coming back for more?

3. What do you think is the most important question someone just meeting you in 2011 would like to ask you?

4. What is the most significant question you would like to have the answer to in 2011?

5. What is the most surprising, revolutionary thing you would really enjoy doing in 2011 that would really boggle the minds of the people who think they know you?

6. Who is the one person you would like most to surprise in 2011? How and why?

7. What is one thing that happened in your life or in the world in 2010 that you would most like to completely forget?

8. In addition to surviving it, what are three things you really deserve applause and commendation for doing in the past year?

9. If you were to write a comedy monologue about 2010, what is the one subject or event you definitely would want to include?

10. If you were keeping count, how could you assure that 2011 would produce a lot more of your smiles than 2010 did?

11. If a competent observer looked at the way you operated in 2010 and said, “That’s something you could be doing a lot faster in 2011,” what would that something be?

More Fun, More Love, More Dancing

Those are my three top answers to, “What would you like more of in 2011?” So have fun with these questions, love doing them and love yourself for the unique answers only you can come up with, and dance as you think about them.

Happy New Year, Happy New You, Happy New Everything!

Jerry

Become a Master of Circumstance

Your Search For Meaning and Viktor Frankl

As we explore our prosperity consciousness, one of the first admonitions is to find your path, your own true purpose, the meaning of your life. When we discover and manifest what we are supposed to be doing, the prosperity usually follows without further effort.

I’m a big fan of psychiatrist Viktor E. Frankl, who died in 1997 at the age of 91. His book, Man’s Search For Meaning, is surely one of the most recommended books ever. And it is one of those rare books, at least for me, that you can go back to again and again, always finding something new, always encountering something you didn’t notice or pay attention to on an earlier reading. For me, it was this passage about life in a German concentration camp during World War II:

“There were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the typical inmate.”

Maybe I hadn’t noticed it the first time around because I wasn’t in the same circumstances as the second time I read it while I actually was a prison inmate. Frankl was definitely a major mentor for me in triumphing over 12 years of incarceration, as he too discovered that the only way to accomplish this was to develop a powerful inner, spiritual life. True, I never had the physical hardships or hopelessness present in Auschwitz for him, but the concept is the same: As much as possible, ignore the physical reality and create your own inner reality.

But the phrase that leapt out at me during a very recent reading, that I hadn’t even focused on in prison, was “the Plaything of Circumstance.” And in another comment, I think Frankl gave us the clue on how to avoid merely being a plaything, tossed around on the tide of whatever circumstance comes along. He said:

Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

Frankl always provides large helpings of food for thought and in the two sentences above there is a whole workshop’s worth of wisdom. We have to exercise our power to choose in the space that follows the stimulus, and not just go on automatic pilot and become that plaything of circumstance. One of the essential freedoms I talk about is The Freedom To Decide, and this is exactly what Frankl illuminates when he says that our growth and our freedom lie in our response, and that we do have the freedom and the power to choose that response–as long as we take that space between the stimulus and the response to do it.

This reminds me of John Kluge, whom I featured in the post preceding this one. He talked about playing his luck, but he could just as easily have been talking about making that choice between the stimulus and the response. For him, the stimulus was running into a young man he knew while walking along a street in Washington, D.C. The young man said there was a possibility the old Dumont Broadcasting Network was for sale. Kluge took this stimulus and made a choice, to buy that network. It turned into Metromedia, one of the biggest communications empires ever created, which Kluge eventually sold for two billion dollars.

Kluge certainly was no plaything of circumstance, but rather a Master of Circumstance. He had an accidental meeting as the circumstance, the stimulus, and he took the space following it to choose, to decide, to act or respond. And right there may be the ultimate formula for success.  Let us all aspire to be Masters of Circumstance!

Jerry

The Richest Man In The World

Profit In Studying The Superstars of Prosperity

Over thirty years ago, I started suggesting that a very useful practice in prosperity consciousness was to start studying the words and thoughts and feelings of millionaires and multimillionaires. Fifty years before that, these prosperity superstars were mostly unknown, or, at the very least inaccessible to the average person. But in the age of television, more and more millionaires were becoming very visible, mostly as guests on talk shows.  For the first time, we could actually tap into the wisdom of wealth. Now, of course, with the Internet, this is even more true. You can even Google the various significant quotes of such people as Bill Gates and John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie.

I used to give homework assignments at my Moneylove Seminars to get an issue of Forbes magazine devoted to the profiles of the richest people in the world, and just study what they did and had to say. What better way to find out what works in increasing one’s financial success than to find out what worked for those who have done it already?

And one of the very wealthy people I suggested was worth studying was John W. Kluge. He also inspired my whole concept of Playing Your Luck, which can be found on page 24 of my Moneylove Manifesto, along with one of my favorite quotes by him:

If you want your kid to succeed in business, maybe you shouldn’t send him or her to business school. Teach him to play cards, instead. Card playing teaches you that luck is important, but how you play your luck is even more important.

Kluge died last week at the age of 95, after making a major impact on the communications industry through his company, Metromedia, as well as impacting several institutions with huge philanthropic grants, including Columbia University, the University of Virginia, and the Library of Congress. When he was alternating with Sam Walton, founder of Walmart, as The Richest Man In The World, with a fortune estimated in the 1980s as $6.5 billion, he often expounded on his theories about luck and the importance of playing it well, good or bad.

I actually worked for the man briefly in 1971, when I was a newsman at his New York radio station, WNEW. Though I never met him and he surely never heard of me. I didn’t do nearly as well as another former employee of his, his third and much younger wife, Patricia. When they had a very amiable divorce, still remaining close friends, she got what was the largest financial settlement in history. Instead of having to carve up his major communications empire, John gave Patricia the interest on a billion dollars as her annual income. Of course, interest rates were a lot higher then, so I’m not sure if they might have adjusted that arrangement in the interim.

I also had a very slight and indirect connection with Patricia, a sort of six degrees association. One of her closest friends in the horse country near Charlottesville, Virginia, where Patricia now runs Kluge Estates Winery and just lowered the sale price on her home to $52 million, is Rita Mae Brown, the gifted author, who was a friend and very big fan of Moneylove. In fact, as a result of reading my book, Rita Mae went out and bought a Rolls Royce with her first big TV movie script paycheck. Rita Mae, who first became famous as the author of that iconic coming-of-age-as-a-Lesbian novel, Rubyfruit Jungle, first bought her farm near Charlottesville to share with her then live-in lover, Martina Navratilova of tennis fame. Isn’t this an interesting world we live in?

The Wisdom of John Kluge

I think John W. Kluge had a lot of valuable insight into being successful, even though he had his ups and downs in business. Although I can’t say I feel too terribly sad about the fact that he slipped from number 1 or 2 in the world, to number 109 in the list of billionaires put out by Forbes in 2008.  Another of my favorite Kluge quotes:

My whole thrust has always been going into a business that I would like.

I mention in the Moneylove Manifesto that Kluge was a poker player. He came out of Columbia University in 1937 with a then fortune in poker winnings of $7000. He had the following cogent comment on gambling and risk taking:

“I think the ability to gauge risks is crucial. I never ordinarily take on things that I can’t see some end to, where you pile risks on risks. We are seeing a time where risks on risks are being liquidated. There’s just an awful lot of excesses. I think when this period is over, the people who have gone through it will be a lot more seasoned. One is very fortunate if one learns that early.”

Cogent and prescient, considering the dot.com, housing, and financial bubble busts of recent years. That quote is from 1990. So, at 95, a long and interesting, and rich, and useful life has ended. Who could ask for a better epitaph?

Jerry