Why care?
Why offer value and compassion in a business offer - when you could just take whatever you can get for yourself?
In our Western Market Driven Economy there is the myth of the 'self-made woman or man'.
The Rags to Riches story, where a singular individual achieves success - despite all the obstacles- and they achieve this success by their own efforts, without help or a hand up from anyone. They did it their way. Their grit; their determination; their drive.
The Horatio Alger story, where the poor individual against all odds, by his or her own effort - succeeds.
This myth encourages a mentality of grab what you can and as much as you can for yourself- because you deserve it. It's your ideas, your work, and your sweat. You owe no-one anything.
This is a myth. And this is an attractive myth because it encourages the mentality of "I'll get all I can while I can and if you want something - get it yourself - don't bother me."
Here is the reality: -No-one achieves wealth by themselves.
You cannot create wealth in a vacuum. There is no value in a vacuum. You need an existing structure; a society with wants and concerns; a financial system, a credit system, and a society already in place that allows the individuals to have the wherewithal to act or not act on their drives and desires.
Even The leader in a Communist or Dictatorial society can't have any wealth unless there is a country somewhere that has free capital that they can spend your plunder on.
The Rockefellers, for example, couldn't have created great wealth and monopolies if there was no existing industry, no desire for coal, railroads and oil.
How could the Wall Street Billionaires have created any wealth without an existing system to take advantage of?
Warren Buffet couldn't be the richest or 2nd richest person in the world if it wasn't for the fact of a stock market and hundreds of existing companies already in place - all created by others.
Bill Gates or Steve Jobs needed a consumer marketplace, and a knowledgeable consumer marketplace- all created by the work and hands of hundreds of individuals that came before them.
Saudi Arabia and Oil countries of the Middle East would still be asleep if it wasn't for the hundreds of years of Western Technology they sell to.
Davy Crockett, the ultimate individual - "King of the Wild Frontier" - could live by himself in the woods (for the few years he did), but he wouldn't be legend unless others wrote about him - and he needed to sell those raccoon skins to someone. He needed an existing marketplace and literate society.
Everyone builds on what has gone before. Original thinkers find uses for things that no-one else has thought of - but the structure has to be there to tinker with.
This is in no way to say Steve Jobs or - pick your favorite - wasn't an innovator and we are all the better for them. The mavericks and singular individuals add to our world. We owe them; but by the same token (literally) they owe the people that have gone before them. And the markets they can sell into, that they didn't create, but were there anyway.
Everyone is in debt to those that have gone before, and the markets they sell to, whether they like it or not. If you didn't have a market to sell to - you would have no business - whether you're an entrepreneur on the Internet trying to sell one eBook or Wal-Mart.
All businesses depend on the structure others created for them, that allows them - customers.
Please -feel free to get rich, get happy, get stinking rich - but offer more back than you receive - understand what is owed. Add value and then more value to your offer. Be one more person that adds to the world, rather than subtracts from it.
There is more capital available than ever before (yes even in these tough economic times - the wealth didn't disappear that we have been creating all these hundreds of years) -more capital, more wealth, more knowledge - it is a time full of opportunity.
We have opportunity in business, in reaching out to people, in connecting to other people, helping others, teaching others, enabling others - opportunities like never before.
So - with these opportunities and this wealth - take it - and add to the value and compassion in the world. If others hadn't you would not be able to live this life. Don't be stingy the opportunities you find around you. Add value and then more value in every offer you produce.
Why chose to be one more person that subtracts from the world - when with the same effort you can add so much more?
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Martin Gover offers tools for your success at http://moreincomezone.com.
The above is from an up coming book - 'Leadership, Authority and Influence - Creating A Life of Value"
Check out his current books on amazon -.http://amzn.to/mgover
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