Right now.

My lovely wife bought me a magazine yesterday, a periodical devoted to entrepreneurs and management-type people. It has key points on the cover like "Learning from the young rich" and "Motivation is the key to success". Bono's there with his weird glasses looking out of place with the corporate blue backdrop and non-rock'n'roll typeface floating around his head.

I've read more than half of the articles in the magazine now, and all of them seem to have the same premise, a familiar one I find in a lot of business literature;

You want money now.
I've got money. I can tell you how to get money.
It's a spiritual thing. It's a people thing.
You should do what I do.
And here's an advert for what I'm selling.
This is how I do it. You should do it like this and make money now.

Thing is, a lot of these guys have good ideas I agree with. Great ideas. Common sense business ideas that no matter how many times they are reiterated with catchy slogans ("The attitude that matters is gratitude!"), people forget them. So what's my problem with this style of advice? Two things!, one small and one not-as small.


Firstly, they try to up-sell the advice. I have no problem with people making sidelines by tutoring and mentoring - far from it! But it rubs me the wrong way to have your left-hand page article outline a generalised problem that every business person faces at any time in their career, and mirror that with a full page advert on the right-hand page with the solution to that very problem. It's akin to psychic hotline adverts sitting opposite ambiguous horoscope warnings.

But that's just editorial nit-picking. My main concern is this.

Everyone wants me to be rich now.

The tone I get from this magazine, and most other "business" related media, reads like personal inquiry and assumption about lack of drive and success. Am I thriving right now? Am I making my next sales call to push that cash cow over? Am I reading this from my personal jet while taking a day trip to France? No? Why the hell not?!

It sounds like everyone wants instantaneous wealth right now. Everyone wants to teach me how to find this secret stash of cash right this very minute, as soon as I get off my lazy ass to get motivated and do it! It's easy, you just need to listen to me now and use these methods now and you'll get money now. Now. Now!

Except.

I don't want wealth now.
I wouldn't know what to do with it.

Maybe I will in ten years time. When I've got more experience. And the contacts and network to put larger plans into place. With legitimate channels to invest that wealth into business ventures.

But I don't want it now.

And this is where I have a large problem with these guys. For all their good ideas and innovative philosophies, not one of them ever, ever mentions the word "work". Let alone coupled with "hard". Or "lots". Or even "a little bit of".

Now, I'm not accusing anyone of getting more than they've worked for; I'm hardly in any position to make that kind of statement. They are where they are for the work they've done, and I am where I am for the work I've done.

What I don't like about this is that it endorses the concept of the entrepreneurial mindset being solely to find the quickest way to raise personal wealth. The shortest line from point A (poor) to point B (money-hats). And - though I can't definitively prove this - this seems to be what people want to hear. They don't want to hear that you have to work long and hard to set up legitimate and pragmatic businesses. They want to hear about one day work weeks and private jets and retirement funds bursting twenty years before they're due. This must be the prevalent desire of the entrepreneur market, otherwise I wouldn't have all these successful business people consistently trying to sell this idea to me.

What would we all do if we had our instantaneous windfall, right now? Regardless of how I answer that, I doubt that whatever I lay down would be nearly as effective or long-lasting than what I will do with that wealth once I have earned it through experience and perseverance. I need to learn how to use that money before I own it, and thankfully I won't own it until I've earned it the old-fashioned way, over a good length of time.

"So the bars of West Hollywood, London and New York are awash with people throwing their lives away in the desperate hope of finding a shortcut, any shortcut. And a lot of them aren't even young anymore, their B-plans having been washed away by beer and vodka years ago.
"Meanwhile the competition is at home, working their asses off."
-Hugh MacLeod

There's a lot to be said for windfalls. If you want to rely on them though, start investing in the lottery.

-Anthony


i once thought i had a windfall, but it just turned out to be gas