Planning to be rich is hard

Most of the richest people I know didn’t plan to be that way. They mostly fell into it.

Most of the time poor and stressed people I know plan to be rich. What gives?

One of the mistakes that many people make is being too literal in looking at how other people succeeded and then building their business plan around it.

The former head of the CSIRO used a great analogy to explain why success is hard to replicate.

His analogy was of an ant climbing a big tree. At every point of the climb, the ant is faced with decisions such as left, right, go around an obstacle, go back to find another path etc. At some point the ant is on a leaf high up in the tree.

When we find successful companies we think that if only we could replicate the path the ant followed then we too could succeed.

Yep, but it doesn’t work that way. Working backwards from the end point is only mapping a route which can never be taken again.

Sure, getting big is a good ideal, and investors like to hear how their investment will pay off. But the fact is that getting big is about hundreds of small steps, each of which may not appear to be bringing you growth, but as a whole make you big.

If you turn down sales because they don’t meet your objectives of getting rich, then you may have just turned down one of those incremental steps that help you. Not bringing in cash flow is not good business.

So I say follow your dreams, but don’t set them so high that they feel unachievable.