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June 16, 2021
by Llewellyn Daniels

When are you rich?

In his book You were born rich, Bob Proctor tells the following story. 

In 1923, at the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago, eight of the world's wealthiest financiers met. These eight men controlled more money than the United States government at that time. They included:

The President of the largest independent steel company;.
The President of the largest gas company;
The greatest wheat speculator;
The President of the New York Stock Exchange;
A member of the President's cabinet;
The greatest "bear" on Wall Street;
The head of the worlds greatest monopoly;
The President of the bank of International Settlement;

  • Indeed, one would have to admit that a group of the world’s most successful men was gathered in that place; at least, men who had found the secret of “earning money.”

    Fast forward 25 years.

    The President of the largest independent steel company was Charles Schwab. He lived on borrowed money for five years before he died bankrupt.

    The President of North America’s largest gas company, Howard Hopson, went insane.

    The greatest wheat speculator, Arthur Cutton, died abroad, insolvent.

    The President of the New York Stock Exchange, Richard Whitney, was sent to Sing Sing Penitentiary. It is one of the oldest penal institutions in the United States.

    A member of the President’s cabinet, Albert Fall, was pardoned from prison to die at home.

    The greatest “bear” on Wall Street, Jesse Livermore, died a suicide.

    The head of the greatest monopoly, Ivar Krueger, killed himself.

    The President of the Bank of International Settlement, Leon Fraser, also died a suicide.

    Money is an illusion. It is a servant at best.

    Servants of our fellow human beings. So are you and me. The question is: Should we be the servants, or should it be MONEY in any way, shape, or form yesterday, today, or in the future.

    Enough of that. Let’s drop some diamonds — Adam style (What? You don’t know who Adam is? See the bottom of this article).

Evaluate your current reality

How am I learning from my environment?
How do I optimize that learning?
Does it inform my strategy?
Do I document and analyze my failures?
Do I write down and analyze my successes? 
Do the previous two exercises inform my strategy?
Are there times where there are exceptions from my own personal journey?

So all the thinking until now has been internal factors. Those are the things that you can control.

You cannot control the external factors, but you can choose how to receive and filter their signals.

Those with Power

That would be People, Nations, Religion. You can add some more.

They Create Evolutionary History

We are not talking about Darwin here. The net is thrown wider. 

Never Questioned - that is a diamond right there.
They Define what IS — Right or wrong, Good or Bad, Old or Young, Beautiful or Ugly, Normal or Unusual, Sinful or Godly, Healthy or Sick.
Manufacture standards and norms — On Society. They use many channels where information can be dispersed for consumption. Sometimes recklessly. This has been happening since the dawn of civilization. Heck, even before that. How would we know?
Create Shared Paradigms — The FOUR fundamental paradigms are discussed in any serious study of Social Theory.
Eventually leads to Perceptual Influence — This is an important concept that leads to many other ideas that help us understand human behavior. Understanding human behavior is one of the keys to getting to the famous phrase, ‘Know Thyself.’

This information only goes down ONE level of the body of knowledge that I mentioned in my first article. Please see the link below.

Thank you for taking the time to read this — next, Perceptual Influence and Unconscious Framing.

This is the third article in my series to establish a daily writing habit. You can find the first one here. I introduce Adam in my first article.