How my Generation became Obsessed With Wealth!

When I started work, earning a living to live comfortably was the goal. 
The obsession started in 1981, when Malcolm Forbes, the publisher of Forbes magazine published the first-ever Forbes 400.
Then in 1989 the Sunday Times started publishing its own Rich List - an annual survey of the wealthiest people resident in the United Kingdom. 
With the advent of Business and Money Channels, more reporters and finance analysts started publishing reports detailing the widening gap between rich and poor. Films, TV Series, reality TV and social media made the lives of the wealthy more accessible and made more people became hungrier for it.
That focus on money changed morality completely. It was not about who you are, but about what you are worth… Morals became completely non-productive in that value system.” Said Florian Homm, “the antichrist of finance”, who stole hundreds of millions of dollars from investors.
It was no longer wanting a slightly better house or a nicer car. It was the mansion, the Maserati and the jet. It had become earning millions to live a luxurious life.
Heroes and heroines were now the wealthy irrespective of how the money was made.
We now know that the rich suffer as well. We are now hearing different questions being asked about the search for money:
Is Money really what we should be aiming for?
Does money bring happiness?
Is it all right to lose one’s moral to become rich?
Many are asking these questions and soon it may no longer be cool to be “filthy rich”. In a research by Global Youth Wellbeing Index, released by IYF and CSIS in 2014, it was found young people worldwide prioritize four things:
1. The chance to start their own business
2. An education that prepares them for the real world.
3. The end of corruption and bad governance.
4. A safe and secure life
With over 30 years working with the Rich and also the Ultra Rich, I found them no different from the less rich apart from the size of their net assets often without a cent in their pocket. They have the same questions about life, death, love, the existence of God, conflicts , corruptions. They are not necessarily more happy than the “have less”.
To those asking the billion dollar question about what comes first money or family life, I say:
·       Invest in yourself and your family first
·       Become financially literate. 
·       Draw your road map and stick to it.
·       Know when you have reached your goal “O” - watch the video.
·       Focus on your life NOT how the super-rich live.
·       Live the life you have chosen not what social media and the press throw at you.
The future can be bright if we make it so.
#finance #money #education