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The Short History of Wealth …
The history of wealth is not what most people have been taught or believe IMO … so here’s my take on it …
I got into a discussion on Facebook with an acquaintance of mine there, Michael Perez. He posted this:
History shows us that when wealth is forcibly redistributed, even with the best of intentions, those people who started out with the wealth tend to be exactly the same sort of people (if not the exact same people) who end up with a wealth when all is said and done.
We can also learn from history that If we want to reduce disparities of wealth, we can teach people to generate and communicate value while also teaching them how to delay gratification and manage resources.
Then I came back with this (very long) comment …( essay???)
Michael I “THINK” I get where you’re going, but where are you getting your data???
If we look at real data what we find is that “wealth” is typically created by a single driven individual (very Graves Five value-set orientation, e.g.: Giovanni di Bicci de Medici, Mayer Amschel Rothschild, Cornelius Vanderbuilt, John D. Rockerfeller, Joseph Kennedy – or much longer ago, a very Graves Three value-set orientation, e.g.: Alexander The Great, Ghangis Khan, Attilla The Hun …). This wealth was then passed onto succeeding generations and in some cases with the knowledge of how to manage and build it further.
With enough wealth came the possibility of manipulating the system further to retain the advantages that wealth brings, including the ability to further grow the wealth. This includes manipulating the political and legal systems via the “rulers” in place at any given time, e.g.: the Pope, the King/Queen, the Parliament, the President … whomever necessary.
In addition there is clear evidence that the legal system can be bought, despite the claim and public image of fairness and “rule of law” being evenly applied to all members of society. The reality is that your legal standing greatly increases based on who you are/know, and how much money you can apply to maintaining, defining and “buying” your rights in society, both criminally and civily.
Using the ability to gain momentum via accumulated wealth, including political and legal favoritism, even greater accumulation of wealth becomes possible. This is clearly evidenced in the history books.
The “best of the best” establish forms of protection that virtually guarantee that the wealth will be retained, e.g.: family offices (the legal entity), foundations and trusts. However these require a certain degree of wealth to establish and sustain in the first place.
Further if we follow those who are “new” to wealth and lack deep and proper guidance about maintaining and passing on their wealth what we find is that seldom does it last (maybe this is what you are saying, huh?). Instead succeeding generations squander the wealth they receive, because they’ve never learned how to generate it themselves, and there is an ever widening base of distribution, e.g.: children to grandchildren to great grandchildren … and so on … eventually eliminating sufficient concentration of wealth to sustain the dynasty. This is avoided when the proper mechanisms are in place and are not circumvented by succeeding generations … i.e.: family offices, foundations, trusts, etc.
Now we see that the possibility of accumulating truly significant wealth requires A) extraordinary luck and timing, i.e.: right place/right time/right idea … e.g.: Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Peter Theil, Mark Zuckerberg … B) willingness to do whatever it takes to circumvent the normal societal constraints and systems – including the collusion of the political and legal system surrounding them to make this possible, i.e.: transferring significant public wealth into private hands, e.g.: Mikhail Kordorkovsky, Carlos Slim, Lakshmi Mittal and on a lesser scale (financially) Dick Cheny and others … (a scheme theoretically perfected by Milton Friedman and the Chicago School), or C) becoming famous enough via talent or position to create an extraordinary success and draw incredible wealth to you, e.g.: Michael Jackson, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Bill Clinton, J.K. Rowling …
However the among the most common ways of accessing extraordinary wealth are the oldest … inherit it, marry into it, or accumulate it over many generations (this is more common that is widely know about, because the scions often seem to have come out of nowhere, versus being the result of “selective” breeding programs).
Now I come to your re-distribution comment directly … there is no clear evidence that in a fair system those who did not begin wealthy, but came into wealth had any less success retaining it than others. First of all there is just no data, and second of all there is no fair system – every system on the planet today and for the last few millenia has been rigged in favor of the already wealthy.
There is however evidence that a significant number of “poor” people given the chance will do what it takes, e.g.: get the required knowledge and skill, and then work relentlessly hard to accumulate wealth if given a reasonable chance. This is the immigrant tale in the U.S. that’s been running here for centuries and has produced the world’s greatest concentration of millionaires and billionaires. The challenge today is that the opportunities for doing this going forward is shrinking … NOT BECAUSE OF UNFAIR TAXATION AND WEALTH DISTRIBUTION … but rather because of the unfair leverage held by those already in possession of the wealth.
Limiting regulatory measures have always been a greater hinderance to the generation and accumulation of wealth than taxation. In fact with enough wealth taxation is merely a bother, almost without implication (see Warren Buffet’s statement about the taxes he pays versus his secretary). However, things like patents, licensing, government oversight and regulation, e.g.: FDA, intellectual property laws … make it far more difficult today to create wealth than just 100 years ago.
None of the above is to say that we don’t need a major re-hauling of the tax codes and re-thinking of the social systems in place. But for my money I’d re-think and overhaul the political and legal systems first any day. Then I’d educate the sheeple about the revolutions that have given them the freedoms they enjoy, those they dream about … and most importantly those they have lost.
I’d add in that what I think of as “real wealth” goes beyond just addressing financial considerations. When I think of what wealth is it’s more akin to Trevnanian’s character “Nicolai Hel” in his novel, “Shibumi.”
I’ve been making noise about this idea for many years (over two decades actually, going on three) … and most recently I’ve upped the ante so to speak, by coming out directly about my focus on developing a much more “yin” approach to balance the “yang” of the society with live in, with all of its excess.
Many years ago now I began expressing my ideas about wealth and the creation of “real wealth” … i.e.: that which leads to true personal freedom and liberty, which can only become present when you remove the concerns of finance from a central position in the overall consideration of wealth. I designed and delivered a program to this effect, ‘Secrets of Wealth Attraction Success” in 2005 and presented the strategies I’d uncovered that truly wealthy and successful families pass down from one generation to the next.
The real keys to wealth creation and retention are elusive for the average person who hasn’t absorbed the lessons of wealth from the time they were in the crib … at the dinner table … and in every interaction regarding it in their life. Instead of building the mindset held by virtually every wealthy individual since money was invented, the average person in today’s society is fed a pablum of lies literally designed to detain, distract and deny them from every entering the ranks of the truly wealthy.
Think about it …
- Who would the wealthy hire if no one would take minimum wages to do what they’re unwilling to do themselves?
- Also, when you understand leveraging and compounding wealth based on the labor of others, how would it be possible to create or accumulate great wealth if no one was willing to join the masses of the working poor?
There’s more I could add, but this should get you percolating if you’re of a resonant spirit.
I’m curious what you think about it all.
Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Architect & Designer of the MythoSelf Process and Soma-Semantics
Princeton, NJ
P.S.: I want to pass along a free bonus handout from the “Seven Secrets of Wealth Attraction” program material I prepared that you can download, with some of the strategies and secrets I learned in my study of the truly wealthy, there’s nothing to sign up for, or sign in to, it’s just a link to download the PDF:
P.P.S.: I also converted the “Seven Secrets of Wealth Attraction Success” CD to a downloadable MP3 format and if you’re interested you can get that here:
Seven Secrets of Wealth Attraction Success MP3
Finding Your Personal Mythology
In this interview with Rich Schefren I talk about how to uncover and begin living your life story … Your Personal Mythology
I did this interview with Rich Schefren … entrepreneur , founder of Strategic Profits and one of the most respected and well regarded marketing consultants working today.
We did this interview to introduce some of the ideas regarding finding your personal mythology that I’ve been working on for years to his personal audience and subscribers. In it I talk about why this is so significant and how to begin the journey to uncovering and incorporating your personal mythology in your life … ENJOY!
Please leave my your comments and questions below … and feel free to share this video with your own list of family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances as well!
Life Is Not Meant To Be A Struggle …
How great would it be if you could leap beyond the things that limiit you in a single bound … like SuperMan or WonderWoman … just by engaging in a powerful dialogue designed to do just that?
Imagine this …
You are perfectly aligned internally and externally so that everything becomes effortless for you … like this manifesting your creativity becomes your natural way of operating … and you perform at the peak of your potential without striving.
What you might be doing with your life and in your life if it were like this for you every day?
But right now it just doesn’t feel like that … things AREN’T COMING TOGETHER EFFORTLESSLY FOR YOU … and some days it may even feel like everything is a struggle.
What you need is a way beyond all that, a way to go beyond the striving to make things happen, to begin operating in a way where the things you most want and need to happen for you just do.
Maybe This Is You … Or At Least Familiar To You
You’ve read all the books …
- “The Insider’s Guid To Self Help”
- “Seven Steps To Success”
- “The Secret To This, That And The Other Thing”
- “Financial Independence In Four Hours Or Less”
- “I Can Make You Thin, Young, Rich & Happy”
… whatever.
You’ve attended enough classes, workshops, seminars and training programs to earn at least two Ph.D.s …
- “Fire Walking To Power”
- “Getting Over Your Stuff”
- “Being A Success On Your Own Terms”
- “Coming To Terms With Terminal Failure”
… once again … whatever.
You hired personal development coaches and business consultants … you’ve worked with trainers and therapists out the gazoo … you’ve done the rounds with NLP, hypnosis, EFT, TFT, EMT … whatever, whatever, whatever.
You even spent weeks, months or years doing Yoga, Zen, Tai Chi, Orgonic Dynamic Prana Breathing Meditation … and the bits and pieces of your life aren’t lined up the way you hoped they would be by now … and you’re still not yet getting the results you want, with the satisfaction you desire … and you’re about at your wits end with it all.
A Bit Of My Own Story
Let me share something deeply personal with you … I get it because I’ve been there too. Back when I was in my late twenties I thought I had it all, but I couldn’t shake the sense that something vital and even urgent was missing.
I was successful, doing work that I liked, was good at and earning a great income. I was married with a two year old son who I absolutely adored, and a loving wife who was a great mother to our son as well. I was healthy, I had a nice home where we lived in a great community … BUT something profound was missing. Instead of being deeply happy about all this, I was deeply unsatisfied with my life and myself. Nothing major enough to call depression or even melancholy … more like a funk that just lingered.
I simply didn’t knowhow to organize myself to feel great about what I was doing or how to change things.
So I began searching. I did everything … the lists I wrote about things you might have tried so far could have been my own.
I sometimes felt like “this is it” that the thing I had found would be the one that would make all the difference. At other times I felt like I’d never get it. What was consistent was that nothing really seemed to make the difference I was hoping for, and I never gave up.
One day, I stumbled into meeting a man who would change my life, Roye Fraser. For the next seven years I apprenticed with him studying and learning NLP, hypnosis and his own brand of amazing transformational work, the Generative Imprint model.
It was truly an epic journey of heroic proportions, a personal “Odyessy” all my own. Along the way there were ups and downs of course, but I always had a sense of moving towards the horizon … I knew where I was aiming, and I knew I’d achieve the outcomes I’d set for myself. More than anything else I knew this was a path with heart for me and I made the commitment to stay the course.
What I found out that was the most profound thing of all was that transformation can and does happen in an instant when someone is ready for it, and when someone is skillful enough all it takes is the right word spoken in the right way at the right time.
Why I Designed My Performance Design Workshop
Performance Design workshop are for folks like you, who know there’s something more that you want and need in life, even if you’re not sure exactly what that is yet.
By engaging in simple, straightforward … and sometimes not so straightforward (remember I’m a master hypnotist) … dialogue I want to help you get unstuck – no matter where you are right now – and make leaps forward in your life. The most amazing thing about my Performance Design workshops are how simple it will all seem after the fact, when you’re living life completely on your own terms.
Here’s what you can expect when you join me and a small, intimate group for a Performance Design workshop:
- Attain great clarity about where you are in the moment, what’s limiting you, what you need to be doing next and how to take the essential first steps to begin.
- Learn how you are when you are unstoppable, a force of nature so to speak … and how to make decisions and take powerful action from this way of being
- Connect or reconnect with your deep intution, a way of knowing absolutely what is most true for you and the way forward to live you life on your own terms without compromise.
- Uncover or discover the myth you’ve been living and the story of your life … i.e.: your Life Story that is uniquely your own … then make that the basis for everything else.
What’s A Performance Design Workshop Like?
Maybe what I’m about to tell you about the Performance Design workshop will seem like conflicting ideas to you, but I want to share a little bit about what it will be like …
I’m fairly certain there will be moments where what we’re doing together will be challenging for you because I ask and even insist that you confront what limits you, or because you don’t understand what I’m doing and why I’m doing it … there will almost surely be other moments where you’re intrigued, interested and excited by what’s going on … moments in which it seems to all come together for you and it makes perfect sense.
In the course of our dialogue I can assure you that you will experience a change, you’ll begin to see yourself in a new light … and a pathway to move forward based on what is possible will open for you so you can begin taking the next steps for yourself.
The way we’ll work together in the Performance Design workshop may be the most human experience you have ever had or ever will have. The entire process I’ve built is designed to be purely conversational. Literally, just by engaging dialogue with me and the others who participate in the group you will find yourself opening up to new possibilities and outcomes in your life. You’ll feel old limiting beliefs and baggage drop away as you begin to feel new energy and motivation becoming available to you.
While you are unlikely to be able to explain exactly what happened, or how it happened, as a result of participating in the Performance Design workshop … what you, and others around you, will begin to notice is that something has inexplicably changed for you …
- You’ll begin producing results that had eluded you, maybe for years …
- You’ll start and complete projects that are filled with meaning for you and bring you a great deal of pleasure and satisfaction …
- Your relationships wil change too in subtle ways that you’ll nonetheless recognize as significant.
- Maybe most of all you’ll become aware of accessing your intuition in ways that you may have never had access to before … and you’ll trust what comes up as being right on target for you.
Who Benefits The Most From Participating In Performance Design Workshops:
- Someone driven to move beyond the status quo and wants to manifest meaningful outcomes on their own and with others
- People who are in a process of questioning where they are in their life and what’s next for them on their life’s journey
- Anyone who has a sense that there’s something important or special to be doing, but has had some trouble figuring out and defining exactly what that is for them
- Executive, entrepreneurs, business owners and professionals who are feeling a bit burnt out and looking to renew their motivation and become inspired again
- Folks who are willing to be challenged and to challenge themselves to leave behind what isn’t working and explore a personal path, that doesn’t depend on a step-by-step process
How To Make It Happen
There are three packages and ways to join a Performance Design workshop …
- SILVER – Day One of Performance Design with a month of POWER | CREATIVITY | INFLUENCE telementoring included, this is enough to kick-start anyone into gear.
- GOLD – Day One and Day Two of the Performance Design Workshop, where you’ll establish your direction on Day One and build a strategy for it on Day Two, plus you’ll also get access to a full month of POWER | CREATIVITY | INFLUENCE too
- PLATINUM – Day One and Two of the Performance Design Workshop, a full month of UA Ruby telementoring including POWER | CREATIVITY | INFLUENCE and $1MM Business Building telementoring and two months of 1-to-1 Individual Tailored Mentoring
Get All The Specific Details About Performance Design HERE …
I Know Enough Already …
Take Me Right To The Enrollment Application!
What The Single Most Important Decision You Must Make?
Almost every day I ask myself a single question (amongst others of course … but this one I ask myself almost every single day …).
“What is the contribution that I will make today?”
And, almost every day I come up with the same way to answer it too:
How can I help people make better decisions … that are their own, and not the ones they’ve been taught to believe are their own?
Now from there on out things begin taking on a life of their own!
There are all kinds of reasons I can point to as to “why” things at this point begin to spiral … but suffice it to say it’s complex ‘`~>
However I do want to share with you some ideas about how I specifically go about answering that question.
[Now remember I am a developer, designer, creator, broker and peddler of information … so these questions are always asked and answered by me within this framing.]
I think that the most amazing thing we do … dang, maybe the most amazing thing about being human … is that, we are capable of making decisions. But it ain’t as easy as all that …
Son of Nobel Prize winner, and himself a Pulitzer Prize winner for his non-fiction, best seller, “Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Braid” (GEB), academic Douglas Hofstadter who is the Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science in the College of Arts and Sciences at Indiana University, Bloomington, where he directs the Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition wrote about this in his book, “I Am A Strange Loop“ …
In the end we are self-perceiving, self-inventing, locked-in mirages that are little miracles of self-reference.
– Douglas Hofstadter, “I Am A Strange Loop, pg. 363
Now … here’s a question for you … AND I WANT YOU TO BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF …
- “Were you, even a little bit, impressed by this guy’s credentials before you read the quote I posted above?”
And, depending on your answer …
- “How do you think that influenced your expectations and perception of what he would have to say?”
Then go one more step (or league …) down the rabbit hole and answer for yourself this question,
- “How do you think what I did in framing this way set you up for what I’m presenting to you now?”
I’m bringing all this to the forefront and putting your attention on it, however, how much would you have considered those points if I hadn’t ? (… and I know the answer will vary depending on the person reading that last question and all the preceding ones too.)
BUT … you want to get that this is obvious … or at least as obvious as it’s likely to get!
So, as a practicing, applied cognitive scientist – who did his doctoral research on decision-making, specifically decision-making in contexts where the information required to make decisions was incomplete and implicit – where my personal attention is focused, is on how we are all influenced in making what we believe to be “our own decisions” … about anything and everything?
Now take this question way beyond language, and directly perceived, explicitly available information … and ask it through the lens of my focus … in relation to the implicit contextual data relative to the way all information is perceived.
Here’s what I think is the single most important decision you can make …
“Is the decision your making (or about to make)
truly your own?”
Now add in a further piece of data, relative to my life’s work …
How do you know you’ll be able to make decisions that are truly in your best interests (including those that impact the folks you most care about and love) in critical moments and situations, e.g.: crisis and chaos?
These are the moments where it most counts … when time is limited and data is even more limited … AND you’re least likely to take into account the incomplete and implicit data that significantly impacts the quality of the decisions you’re making.
So this is where I live in answering my own daily question …
How can I help the folks I work with day in and day out run their brains like they actually own them … and live lives worth living.
I hope I’ve given you some things to ponder …
All the best,
Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Architect & Designer of the MythoSelf Process and Soma-Semantics
PS – There are more clips and posts in this blog that take these ideas further and in difference directions, including the audio and video posts “we’ve” begun making (yes, there really is a team of folks who help me get my messages out there …)
PPS – If you really want to take a HUGE step forward in training your brain to make decisions that are your own … I recommend you seriously read and consider this: Getting Started … [NOTE: It’s a long piece to read, but when you’re down you’ll know more about how to bring yourself to peace than when you began, I PROMISE! … “cross my heart and hope to live”]