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Dear Reader,
There's an old story about a man who walks by a construction site and sees workmen pushing wheelbarrows, each filled with an enormous stone.
He asks one what they're doing.
"What does it look like?" he says with a sneer. "Hauling rocks."
Unsatisfied with that answer, the passerby asks another construction worker the same question.
The workman doesn't bother looking up. "We're putting up a wall."
Frustrated, the man tries one last time. "I say there," he asks the next fellow, "can you tell me what you men are doing here?"
The workman puts down his wheelbarrow, wipes his forehead and says with a broad smile, "We're building a cathedral."
There's an old story about a man who walks by a construction site and sees workmen pushing wheelbarrows, each filled with an enormous stone.
He asks one what they're doing.
"What does it look like?" he says with a sneer. "Hauling rocks."
Unsatisfied with that answer, the passerby asks another construction worker the same question.
The workman doesn't bother looking up. "We're putting up a wall."
Frustrated, the man tries one last time. "I say there," he asks the next fellow, "can you tell me what you men are doing here?"
The workman puts down his wheelbarrow, wipes his forehead and says with a broad smile, "We're building a cathedral."
Here are three men, all doing the same job. One is hauling rocks. One is putting up a wall. One is building a cathedral.
This story says a lot about the attitude that each of us brings to our lives... or could if we were willing to change our perspective.
My primary occupation, for example, is writing investment advice. One reason I write is to meet my overhead. To that extent, I'm hauling rocks.
A greater objective is to help build a publishing business. The more successfully we market ourselves, the more readers we attract, the better our business performs. To that extent, I'm putting up walls.
But the real objective of my writing is to help readers achieve and maintain financial independence. When I stay focused on that, I'm building a cathedral. (And, not incidentally, meeting my lesser goals, as well.)
Idealists will counter that creating wealth has nothing to do with building cathedrals. They are mistaken.
You can improve yourself, voice your opinions, or organize around a cause without cash. But you won't effect much change in your community - or build an actual cathedral - without it.
Contrary to what some believe, money isn't about having "more stuff." Money is independence. It liberates you from want, from work that is drudgery, from relationships that confine you.
You can't reach your potential or live life to the fullest if you spend your days swimming in concerns about money. No one is truly free who is a slave to his job, his creditors, his circumstances, or his overhead.
Wealth is the great equalizer. It doesn't matter if you're a man or woman, black or white, young or old, handsome or homely, educated or not. If you have money, you have power... in the best sense.
Wealth is freedom, security and peace of mind. It allows you to help others, to do and be what you want. It enables you to follow your dreams, to spend your life the way you choose.
Money gives you dignity. It gives you choices. That's why every man and woman has the right - perhaps even the responsibility - to pursue some level of financial freedom, whether you define that as being independently wealthy or just climbing out from under your credit card debt.
When my investment advice empowers people, when it gives them security or peace of mind, I feel good about my work. I'm building a cathedral.
You can apply the same line of thinking to whatever you do.
My friend John Mackey, for instance, is the head of Whole Foods, the world's largest chain of natural and organic food stores. It is his responsibility to oversee and grow a $13-billion corporation.
In my conversations with him, however, what really excites him is showing people how to enjoy longer, healthier, more disease-resistant lives. His firm is even launching Wellness Clubs within its stores to educate customers and offer them free classes on nutrition, diet and healthier cooking.
Will this also help grow the company's bottom line? I don't see how it couldn't. But to the extent that John and his team are helping people live longer, healthier lives, they are also building cathedrals.
Want to put a touch of glory in your life? Find a way to change your perspective, to understand how what you do - in your home, in the workplace or for a charity - meets someone else's needs or improves their lives.
The choice is yours. You can haul rocks. You can put up walls. Or you can build a cathedral.
Carpe Diem,
Alex
Spiritual Wealth is a feature available to Oxford Club members only. To hear what one reader has to say about the Oxford Club click here.
This story says a lot about the attitude that each of us brings to our lives... or could if we were willing to change our perspective.
My primary occupation, for example, is writing investment advice. One reason I write is to meet my overhead. To that extent, I'm hauling rocks.
A greater objective is to help build a publishing business. The more successfully we market ourselves, the more readers we attract, the better our business performs. To that extent, I'm putting up walls.
But the real objective of my writing is to help readers achieve and maintain financial independence. When I stay focused on that, I'm building a cathedral. (And, not incidentally, meeting my lesser goals, as well.)
Idealists will counter that creating wealth has nothing to do with building cathedrals. They are mistaken.
You can improve yourself, voice your opinions, or organize around a cause without cash. But you won't effect much change in your community - or build an actual cathedral - without it.
Contrary to what some believe, money isn't about having "more stuff." Money is independence. It liberates you from want, from work that is drudgery, from relationships that confine you.
You can't reach your potential or live life to the fullest if you spend your days swimming in concerns about money. No one is truly free who is a slave to his job, his creditors, his circumstances, or his overhead.
Wealth is the great equalizer. It doesn't matter if you're a man or woman, black or white, young or old, handsome or homely, educated or not. If you have money, you have power... in the best sense.
Wealth is freedom, security and peace of mind. It allows you to help others, to do and be what you want. It enables you to follow your dreams, to spend your life the way you choose.
Money gives you dignity. It gives you choices. That's why every man and woman has the right - perhaps even the responsibility - to pursue some level of financial freedom, whether you define that as being independently wealthy or just climbing out from under your credit card debt.
When my investment advice empowers people, when it gives them security or peace of mind, I feel good about my work. I'm building a cathedral.
You can apply the same line of thinking to whatever you do.
My friend John Mackey, for instance, is the head of Whole Foods, the world's largest chain of natural and organic food stores. It is his responsibility to oversee and grow a $13-billion corporation.
In my conversations with him, however, what really excites him is showing people how to enjoy longer, healthier, more disease-resistant lives. His firm is even launching Wellness Clubs within its stores to educate customers and offer them free classes on nutrition, diet and healthier cooking.
Will this also help grow the company's bottom line? I don't see how it couldn't. But to the extent that John and his team are helping people live longer, healthier lives, they are also building cathedrals.
Want to put a touch of glory in your life? Find a way to change your perspective, to understand how what you do - in your home, in the workplace or for a charity - meets someone else's needs or improves their lives.
The choice is yours. You can haul rocks. You can put up walls. Or you can build a cathedral.
Carpe Diem,
Alex
Spiritual Wealth is a feature available to Oxford Club members only. To hear what one reader has to say about the Oxford Club click here.
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Thank you for such a delightful insight into life in our times (this story is timeless), as well as for the smile this early AM!
I will be sharing your story with my students in todays opening finance class for the semester.
"Life is a journey, might as well make it a good one as we only get one pass through."
Well said. It's difficult at times but I try to keep a long range view of what I'm doing. Cathedral building can be difficult at times.
I applaud ALex's story! It speaks beyond the mere words involved!
Each morning I can decide to have a happy day or a sad one. I choose happy
and ask that everyone I meet have a hearty laugh at some time during that day!
It relaxes the entire body as well as the mind. Makes facing the rest of the world
and all its problems much easier!
Have a great day!
"Idealists will counter that creating wealth has nothing to do with building cathedrals. They are mistaken." Au contraire, Alex… I tend toward idealism often, and I could see nothing more ideal than helping a lot of people live better and without fear after they stop working, pay for kid's education or health care that extends lives, help people finance their own intellectual expansion and more. The analogy works just fine.
keep d gud work u guy's are doing keep it up.
Excellent philosophy Alex and agree with it 100%. Helping people lose the 9 to 5 mentality is one of my goals in life too – especially the younger kids who are not taught to manage their money only to get an education and get a good job. Except there is no such thing as a good job. Financial independence is what is required.
yes… a higher calling
… and the honorable spiritual benefits and character virtues of good works tend to be forgotten and lost today.
… surrounded by people who believe farmers cause famine, construction companies build slums, and manufacturers create nothing but pollution, it's nice to see someone defend the higher calling…
… to do the good work do-gooders won't do.
This is beautiful. So simple but so profound in its wisdom. you put everything I believe about wealth in this peace and have strengthened how I feel about the subject. I will surely be sharing this with other people. Really good one. Its a keeper.
Thomas Jefferson believed states should be laboratories of Democracy. That would be a great cathedral.