Just because it doesn’t glitter doesn’t mean it isn’t gold!
Just the other day I heard of a woman who helped her boss start a new business. She was with him for twenty years, starting from Day 1. She opened up in the morning, she closed up at night. She knew the business better than he did. So he could and did leave most of it in her capable hands while he travelled, enjoyed holidays, etc.
There was almost nothing about that business that she did not know. Because she was a modest, hardworking person, she never asked for much. She didn’t have a share in the company. She didn’t even have a pension plan or a medical aid. Yet she lived for that job. It was her life.
After twenty years of this, however, one day she asked herself what she was working for. There was no pension, no incentive, just a monthly salary that wasn’t even that great. Her kids were grown up and she and her husband wanted to travel more. If she’d had a stake in the business, she would have stayed on, because she did enjoy it. But her boss never thought to give her a reason to stay with him. And it would not have been hard to do, nor would it have cost him much.
So he received the shock of his life when his right hand woman, his stalwart, his indispensable partner, resigned and left a month later.
This woman was worth a lot of money to him because she looked after his business as if it was her own. Financially he would be unable to afford to replace her with anyone of that calibre.
What was his mistake?
He just never thought about what she meant to him, or how he would manage without her.
He didn’t give her anything to work towards. No profit share, not even a savings scheme for her retirement. Not even medical aid. He assumed she was there forever, because she was always friendly, smiling, helpful.
He was lucky enough to find her in the first place, but not lucky enough to realize what he had. He may not be that lucky again. (Actually he wasn’t unlucky, he just couldn’t be bothered to think about it.)
It was almost like having her for nothing. For the cost of an employee’s modest salary he got a bargain: a person who in reality was a partner. And because she was ‘for nothing’, he did not respect her enough to realize that he had a lot to lose if she left.
If gifts come to us without a big fat price tag, we do not realize what we have.
People who are modest and unassuming do not blow their own trumpets, and we do not recognize the gold beneath the day to day exterior.
If the truly valuable people in life position themselves as humble and do not boast, we assume they have nothing to boast about.
And this is why we don’t just undervalue the gold in our lives, but we also get caught by scams.
Because the other side of the coin is the swaggering big-talking marketing types who might be selling us wealth creation or investment or corporate transformation or whatever, but are really only selling one thing: themselves. Massively overvalued. At a premium. And with great success.
That is the opposite end of the spectrum. The other danger. People who fall into the first trap usually fall into the other one too. What they save on their unrecognized gold they squander many times over on a lot of big talk that does not get results.
Next week we will look at her mistake! Think about it in the meantime ...
The lesson? Anything we do not examine, we do not truly know or appreciate. We have no idea how brainwashed we are. So we fall for the prettied-up, the advertised, the hyped, the glamorized. With stars in our eyes we fall into the trap. Meanwhile, tapping us on the shoulder, is the true gold. The gold we do not recognize. The gold of the truth. True value.
I would give away everything I know about wealth creation if I knew that it was truly understood. If I knew that people realized what they were getting. But because we have been so brainwashed and led astray, I have to put a price tag to it. It’s the only way people appreciate what they are getting. Become one of the few who truly examines life, wealth, etc, and you will benefit beyond belief. You will find the truth, abandon the expensive myths that steal your money, and create happiness, health, wealth and joy in your life!
Hannes Dreyer
Wealth Mentor
Wealth Mentor