Personal Renewal: The New Rich

It’s that time of the year when the idea of ‘renewal’ is foremost in many people’s minds.

After the re-energising holiday period, the advent of the New Year seems the ideal time for re-thinking, re-prioritising and re-growth.

Unfortunately if you’re in employment, that’s exactly what your employer will be thinking too.

[box type=\”shadow\”]“Renewal requires opening yourself up to new ways of thinking and feeling”

― Deborah Day[/box]

Taking a back seat … again

There’s no such thing as ‘easing back into work’ nowadays. As a loyal employee you’ll be expected to hit the ground running, contributing to and embracing the new plans, targets and priorities that your employer has unleashed to make this a year of note.

The result, for most in traditional employment, is a rapid return to the reality of the frenetic and competitive business world – and the harsh realisation that one’s own plans for significant change and personal renewal will have to take a back seat … once again.

Busting a gut

We have been ensnared by the illusion that personal freedom can only be achieved with a pile of money and getting that pile of money comes from playing the only game we know – busting a gut to get on in business.

Conventional wisdom has it that you need to slog it out for around forty years in order to have sufficient money to enjoy a retirement doing what it is you really love to do, provided, that is, that your health holds out!

A rotten deal

It doesn’t take a Harvard MBA to work out that this is a rotten deal.

Why trade your best years, when you have the most energy, vitality and drive, working eight, ten or twelve hours a day for a cause that you’re anything less than totally passionate about, for the uncertain promise of a life of financial freedom late in life?

Life is to be lived

More and more people are waking up to the fact that life is too precious a commodity to be frittered away. Life is to be lived. These are the people that Timothy Ferris – in his brilliant book, The 4-hour work week – calls the ‘New Rich’.

It’s true that money is the currency of exchange in our world and a certain amount of it is required if you want to live life to the full … but far less is required than you probably think, unless, of course, you find yourself caught in a vicious debt trap.

We are taught (by those I call the ‘Old Rich’) that success is measured by the degree of material wealth and possessions we have. No wonder then, that we try to prove ourselves to the outside world by buying things way beyond our means.

Old Rich vs New Rich

The New Rich realise that the only true measure of success is your own level of personal happiness and fulfilment – not the amount you have in the bank or the number and size of the cars you have in the garage.

The Old Rich believe in sacrificing fulfilment today for the chance of a better retirement. The New Rich understand that a better retirement will come from living a more fulfilled life, starting right now.

The Old Rich invest in stocks and shares and insurances. The New Rich invest primarily in themselves, learning new things to increase their knowledge, capability and utility.

The Old Rich choose jobs and careers based on how much money they are likely to bring in. The New Rich choose to ‘work’ at the things that make them feel most satisfied and inspired, seeing money as a natural outcome of – and not as the  sole rationale for – what they do.

The Old Rich spend little time contemplating the purpose of their life until they have achieved their objective of accumulating real wealth. The New Rich know that understanding their life purpose and living to it is the key to a life of true ‘wealth’.

Commit to personal renewal

I urge you resist returning to the ‘same old, same old’ routine and frustrations this year.

You owe it to yourself to commit to a programme of personal renewal.

Go on … Find yourself. Invest in yourself. Love yourself.

Join the New Rich!