Should You Be Looking To Become Rich Absolutely?

My answer to this question will help you understand what you really must target in your life.

Photo by Alexander Mils on Unsplash

I spend a lot of time reading. It can be articles on Medium or books. This passion for reading also leads me to read a lot of content and exchanges on sites like Reddit or Quora. My goal in this case is to find out what people think about many different and varied topics.

As I read the contents of these sites, I get more and more the impression that getting rich for retiring early at around 30 or 40 years of age is an absolute goal for many people. Of course, I understand that this makes some people fantasize, but deep down I wonder and I would like to ask you the following thing:

Should you be looking to become rich absolutely?

This question may surprise you if wealth and its conquest are obvious goals for you, but I ask you to give me your attention for a few more minutes.

Becoming Rich Is Not An End In Itself

Indeed, have you ever wondered if being rich is a real end in itself and if it should really be a goal for you?

As always, everything will depend on your aspirations, which will not be the same as mine or those of your neighbor. Nevertheless, there are some fundamental truths in life. And for me, the next one is an essential one:

Becoming rich is not an end in itself

From my point of view, if you only look to become rich throughout your life, there is a good chance that you will never succeed because if you look closely at the great fortunes of this world, you realize that it is something else that has brought them to where they are.

Reading the biographies of Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk or Steve Jobs, you will notice that money has never been an end in itself for these great men. On the contrary, money has rather been a means by which they have been able to pursue ever higher goals or dreams.

Money and wealth came to them as they reached ever higher goals. All these great entrepreneurs have visions of incredible things to achieve and will put all their energy into achieving their visions.

You Just Have To Try Being Useful To As Many People As Possible

The visions of these great men always concern things that will revolutionize the lives of a very large number of people in the world. For example, you can think to Jeff Bezos with his Amazon who brought most of the items you can buy on Earth within a short time to more than 300 millions of people worldwide, or Steve Jobs who revolutionized the world of mobile phones by making available to men the equivalent of a computer in their pocket via his iPhone.

These brilliant entrepreneurs have become rich by seeking above all to be useful to as many people as possible.

Idea, Plan, Action… Success?

So they never asked themselves whether they should become rich or how they should do it. They simply took the following path:

Idea Plan Action

To transform their idea, or their vision in the case of their wildest ideas, they developed a plan or plans showing them that they needed money and therefore investors to carry out their actions. These then allow them to bring their ideas to life and why not achieving success.

Their idea being useful to a huge number of people, they then became de facto rich. So you can see that the wealth came in a second time. Proof, if necessary, that this was not their primary motivation, once their wealth had been reached, they continued to put themselves in danger by setting themselves ever more ambitious and difficult objectives.

Wealth Is Only A Means

You must therefore understand that wealth is only a means of allowing you to have time in your life. Wealth will make it easier for you to carry out your projects. Wealth will make it easier for you to be entrepreneurial. In short, wealth will bring you a certain freedom.

Nevertheless, it is not a life goal for me. It is simply something that rewards your willingness to bring value and be useful to the greatest number of people.

The world’s wealthiest entrepreneurs have all followed this journey. I think you and I should follow the same journey in seeking to help others. The rest will follow and will only be a way to go higher afterwards.

My answer to the question asked in the title is therefore obvious following my demonstration: