I have been reading some forums on why people want to be a millionaire.
There are four main camps that many of the answers fall into:

• Get whatever I want

• Never have to worry about paying a bill

• Symbol of status or success

• Ability to help others

In these discussions, it seems like the line in becoming a millionaire is a defining moment where dreams can come true. Unfortunately, for many people, they are a long way off from reaching this milestone. And, by the time that some reach it, the millionaire milestone will have lost its meaning and buying power. $1 million in 40 years will be equivalent to about $250,000 today, assuming 3.5% inflation, still a lot of money yet not enough to retire early.

Financial Perspective

One of the things that I have been noticing is that when people have reached certain milestones in life (like becoming a millionaire) the bar of what they and others want to achieve is raised as well. Every day there is something new and different that we can spend our money on. Five years ago, people would have thought it would be crazy to spend $500+ on a phone that could be used to play music and connect to the internet. People just a few years ago would have been satisfied with a cell phone that did not drop their calls. Ten years ago, people would have thought is mad to buy a 3,000+ square foot home especially if they only had one child. Twenty years ago, people would have thought it as crazy to spend $150 on a dinner for two for anything but a golden anniversary celebration. Yet, now these events are common place. Thus, as we become more prosperous as a society, the bar of what we want continues to rise.

A part of our wants is driven by wanting to improve our self-worth. We see what others have and are driven by envy to stay on even footing with others. Even becoming a millionaire is a status symbol. Yet, it does stop at being equal to others. We also look for things because of how it makes us feel. Just 15 years ago, it would have been crazy to think that someone needed a SUV/minivan to haul a family. Growing up in a family with 4 children, the biggest vehicle we had growing up was a station wagon. Now, once a family has one child, it is off to the car dealership for a minivan or SUV with the added costs associate with going to the pump. We say that it is a need and convenience to have a larger vehicle due to having a family. Yet, what part of it is due to the power we feel sitting up high off the ground? What part is it the status symbol like having a BMW or Lexus name plate on the car? So it is not just about keeping up with the Joneses but also about how we try to feel better by what we have.

I know that many people have controlled the need to keep up with the Joneses. They may have learned that they can become a millionaire by limiting their wants now. We sacrifice today for a better tomorrow. However, this just creates a vacuum of wants just waiting to be filled. This is because stopping buying things by cutting up credit cards or following a strict budget, does nothing with the underlying drive we have to acquire the things we wanted in the first place, only delays the drive. Until we figure out what drives us to consume what we do, we will never satisfy our wants. This is why many people seem to get ahead (put some money into savings) and then splurge. Look at what happens to people who win a large lottery or receive an inheritance. Many lottery winners end up bankrupt in 5 years (seen statistics indicating this is anywhere from 30% to 80% of all lottery winners).

Thus, thinking that we will have no worries or have all our wants fulfilled by becoming a millionaire is backwards and leaves many people left wondering where all their money went. Instead, we need to determine what our worries and real wants are first, to free ourselves to become millionaires down the road. If we want to feel more powerful, that can only come from within ourselves. The power we feel from being behind a car will not last. It only leaves us wanting more. For example, next time we would be looking for a bigger truck or SUV (like a Hummer).

Successful Philanthropist

One comment which kept on coming up was that we can help more people by being a millionaire. As a society, we have deemed our success based on a quantifiable measure. Did we tithe 10%? When did we become a millionaire, multi-millionaire or billionaire? It is like the motto of snowboards goes, “go big or go home”. We have a tendency to think that the biggest impact comes from having the most money (reason why we incorrectly equate money to power). We are only successful if we are a millionaire and only then can we really change things and help others.

Yet, we lose track of the impact we have in society, in the present (in the here and now). One of my beliefs is that giving comes in many forms, other than money. For example, giving is in how we use money. We do not understand how a small innocent action can impact the society as a whole. A success stories that I enjoy reading is about how Thomas Edison dropped out of school after the age of 8 because a teacher said he was un-teachable. Where would we have been if our country’s greatest inventor was kept in school languishing instead of home schooled by his mother? We consider Edison as our greatest inventor. What about recognizing his mother as one of our greatest teachers?

Yet, we do not think in terms of what our actions today do to inspire tomorrow’s generation. Rather, we want to play big or stay at home. We think that only when we see our name in lights does it qualify as a “wow” moment. A friend of mine who had financial issues came to see me as a client. When we talked about a course he taught, he did not seem like he really understood the impact that he had. He had a way of minimizing the impact he had and never sat back to observe what he has done. We may not see it in the moment, yet he had more of an impact in the lives of 1,000s of people than he could probably ever realize. A few years ago, I ran a self-improvement course for teens. Every once and a while, I run into a parent of one of the children that came through the course. I could not imagine how a weekend course could affect someone, especially as we were struggling to keep the course going. Yet, the biggest change sometimes comes in the smallest actions or words that are magnified over the years. And, by recognizing this, we can then capitalize our small actions into great things.

Thus, if we are waiting to be successful by leaving our impact on the world or hitting a milestone, we have missed the boat. Our impact is felt in what we do today where the biggest impact is propelling others to reach their goals and dreams. Being a millionaire is not a measure of success rather it is in how we became a millionaire that is more important. Did we have to trample over others to reach our goals? Or, did we help others reach their goals along the way?

Thus, we do not want to become a millionaire. Rather, the goal is in living today because it is how we live today that decides who we are and can become (whether it is a millionaire or not).

The goal is to notice the little things in life rather than the grand milestones.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 1st, 2007 at 1:40 pm and is filed under Prosperity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.