Money, money, money!

For as he thinks in his heart, so is he. Proverbs 23:7

Life doesn't give you what you want – it gives you who you are.

You have to grow and become the person who can occupy your destiny.

Evelyn Adams of New Jersey, USA, could be considered a very lucky lady. She won the New Jersey lottery not once, but twice – first netting $3.9 million in October 1985 and then, incredibly, another $1.4 million four months later. 27 years down the line however, Evelyn is broke and lives in a trailer park.

Evelyn’s is not an isolated case. There is also the story of William "Bud" Post who won $16.2 million in the Pennsylvania lottery in 1988 but now lives on Social Security and food stamps. Suzanne Mullins won $4.2 million in the Virginia lottery in 1993 and is now deeply in debt. Michael Carroll, a 19-year-old British garbage man, won £9.7 million (more than $15.5 million) in 2002. Nearly eight years later, he was broke and back to working as a garbage man. 16 year old Callie Rogers won £1.9 million ($3 million) in July 2003. In 2009, she was facing bankruptcy. To make ends meet, she started working three cleaning jobs and moved in with her mother.

And the list goes on and on.

On the other hand, we hear of stories of people like Walt Disney, the man who faced failure, repeated setbacks, disappointment and eventually went bankrupt only to turn it all around and create an annual $35 billion dollar company, Disneyland.  Donald Trump, who was 10 million dollars in debt and filed bankruptcy in 1997, turned it all around to become a billionaire and star of the hit Television series “The Apprentice”. Bill Bartmann, who lost $3.5 billion in paper wealth and his status as one of the richest people in the USA when his debt-collection company, Commercial Financial Services, collapsed in scandal 12 years ago, but is climbing back. The 2011 revenue of his current company was $15.4 million.

What makes the difference?

What makes the difference between a millionaire who makes a comeback and a lottery winner who descends back into their poverty, or worse?

The difference is in who they are.

A millionaire is a millionaire because that is who they are.

They think like a millionaire, they act like a millionaire.

A poor person is poor because that is who they are.

They think and behave in ways that perpetuate their poverty.

We see it in the lives of wealthy families where there is an inadequate succession plan. The patriarch of the family dies – the founder of the company, the one who worked hard to amass the wealth. The children or other family members take over and within a short while the company folds and all the fortune is gone.

The patriarch established the company because of who they were. The process of building up the company contributed to making them who they were. It shaped them into the type of person who could initiate, run, sustain and grow a company.

Many of us fantasize about winning the lottery or somehow getting a huge windfall of money. We believe that having more money would solve all our problems. All our troubles would be over! We would be happy, successful, fulfilled.

This however is very untrue. When the above lottery winners were interviewed, they said that winning the lottery was the worst thing that had ever happened to them. They said that having money had caused more problems than it had solved.

This is because there are no shortcuts in life.

Life does not give you what you want – it gives you who you are. You have to grow to become the person who can occupy your destiny.

If you want to be a millionaire, you have to grow in your knowledge about finances and how money works. If you want to move forward in your career, you have to advance in the skills, expertise and experience that are relevant to your field. If you want to have a great marriage and good friendships, you have to grow in your understanding of people and relationships. You have to take the time. You have to make the effort.

You have to invest in your personal growth.

What is your dream?

What areas in your life do you want to experience better results?

Are you willing to do what it takes to make your dream become a reality?

Learn more about growing to occupy your destiny in the next post.