Today I want to share with you what I consider to be some real secrets of long-term success and wealth.

People often associate money with success so having loads of money means you’re also successful, and often that comes with great power. So, people who are successful have money, and they have power. Now even though I coach businesses and I’m creating more money, I don’t equate having money with success. Strange, right?

To me, money is useful, super, super useful, but it is not going to solve all your problems. It is a magnifier of both positive and negative aspects of your life.

For example, if you have relationship problems, communication problems, problems with people, with your family, if you’ve emotional problem in controlling yourself, then having a lot of money is only going to magnify your problems. It’s not going to make you better. In fact, it gives you more things to worry about, when you have a lot of money.

Where is the evidence of that?

There are countless examples where people got extraordinarily wealthy, but they divorced. Their children don’t get along, they argue over money all the time, and there is a bit of infighting. In fact, I’ve heard of one family, two sons, before their father took his last breath—fighting over inheritance on his deathbed. And that’s happened.

History shows (you can Google for yourself plenty of examples), where having won the lotto just creates factions in families. People get divorced; families don’t speak to each other; they borrow money and don’t repay, and some even want to know why you have all this money and not sharing it with them.

So, to me, long-term success is built on much more than just wealth. There is so much more about success than just money and just about power. What is the foundation for long-term success?

Hope

If you don’t have hope for the future; if you don’t have hope for opportunities; there is no success really, because you will not do anything. You won’t invest in anything. You won’t take action on anything because you’re not hopeful for a better opportunity. Even if an opportunity is right in front of you staring you in the eyes, you wouldn’t recognize it because you don’t have hope for the future.

However, you need to take a chance. You need to take risks. If you don’t have hope for the future that is something that will get in the way of you being successful. To build your confidence, you need to find meaning and purpose in what you do.

You need to ask yourself, “Why do I do what I do? Why?” There has to be a greater meaning and purpose.

So Victor Frankl in his book about the Holocaust and how he survived the Holocaust is all about hope, and the sense that all the suffering as an awful lot of meaning somehow despite what he’s going through.  If you can have hope in that; if you can give meaning and purpose to your staff, to the people you associate with, you can inspire them. You can help them work harder. You can help them realize what they’re doing is not just a chore; then assist them to go beyond what they think they’re capable of.

The second aspect in a very, very vital foundation to long-term success is:

Faith

Without faith, there is no success. To be successful, you need people to believe in you. For example, if you’re starting in business and you don’t have friends; if you don’t have a family who believes in what you do; if you’re not surrounded by people who believe in you, it’s a very lonely journey. At the first setback, you can probably talk yourself out and overcome, but when you have friends and family to support you through those setbacks, it’s inspiring.  It will help you to get on your way to long-term success.

You also need to have faith in others.  You need to have faith in other people because without that you will never delegate. You don’t believe anyone else can do it as good as you; you believe that people are here to rip you off. Or you believe some other nonsensical thing like that. What that means, is that you must do everything yourself.  And you can only go so far when you do it on your own. So, you need to have faith in others.

You also need to have faith in your ability to create value for your customers. You need to have confidence in your ability that what you create will be appreciated by the market. There are no guarantees in life; that is something you will just have to take on a leap of faith.

And last but not least is:

Love

Love of people. Why you do what you do.  If you don’t do it out of love for other people, your intent to serve and to bring value to their life; to make their life better; if you’re only in it for money; sooner or later people see through that. If you’re not genuine about your love of people and wanting to serve your customers in a real away, you will only get so far. There will be no long-term success.

You also need to have a love of God, a higher power–a higher institution; a love for your country; someone greater than just your immediate circle; your friends and yourself.

Why is that?

Because that gives you a sense of guidance. When nobody is watching, what do you do? What’s your sense of value? When you have the love for a greater being, you will have the love for God. When no one’s watching, you will still abide by that sense of value. And that is the definition of character.

You do what is necessary. You do the difficult job even when nobody is watching.

So, we’re seeing people with a large success like Tiger Woods. He has a lot of money; a lot of power; he’s a super talented golfer, but he lacks the sense of love for a greater being, and he does not have a sense of character, and that is ultimately his downfall, and that affected his wealth.

Lastly, you need to have a love for yourself.

If you don’t love yourself, you cannot love others. If you don’t love yourself, basically you become needy; you will be drawing in rather than giving out.  You need to enjoy yourself. Forgive yourself, and love yourself. So, love for yourself is again super vital for long-term success.

So, where’s the evidence of all these, Hope, Faith, and Love?

Why do I believe it to be necessary for your personal long-term wealth and success?

In China, there is a dynasty of business people we call, Jinshang.  Jinshang built a business dynasty; a group of business people from the Shanxi province. They built an empire that lasted almost 500 years. And they built a lot of businesses around the principles of hope, faith, and love.

Let me give you an example:

So, Love:

They had a policy that any of their business associates, if you remained a partner within their business, were not allowed to visit a brothel. You are not authorized to have more than one wife. You have no right to take concubines. They treasured your love for your wife and your family, and that was one of the key secrets to their success. This was directly in contradiction to people around that area:

Wealthy people, particularly in those areas, generally take multiple wives, they womanize, they take concubines. But this dynasty of business people had a family law or business law within their business empire that they could only have one wife.

That’s love for family. They believed when you have multiple love interests it creates division. When you have division, you have infighting, when you have infighting you lose money, you lose your wealth. That’s how they sustained their dynasty for hundreds of years. One only wife.

Now, Faith:

One thing that you might not know: When you go and buy 100 grams of tea from a shop they give you 100 grams. However, if you bought from Jinshang, they give you 110 grams—they were tea traders.

Why did they do this?

Because they believed that transportation caused wear and tear.  So if you bought 100 grams, they gave you 110 grams, just in case some goods fell off the tea brick or some wear and tear happened that prevented you from getting exactly your 100 grams. They wanted to make sure that you never got less than what you paid for.

That is faith! Their belief in their customer. In the short term, they might take a loss, but in the long run, they gained trust. That will have long term success. So, that’s faith for the future. That’s faith in humanity.

Then they had Hope!

For hundreds of years, before modern day planes, they were trading overseas. In fact, they had branches in Russia, in New York, in London—before most businesses in China started trading overseas. Now you see Chinese companies abroad. They’ve been doing that for hundreds of years before.

So, this concept of hope, faith, and love works. It works tremendously well. And that’s why I emphasize these things as the foundation for success. It’s not just about money. If you’re interested in creating long term success for yourself and your family, abide by this foundation, and you’ll be right.

I hope this article has been useful to you and, please put your questions and comments below. I’ll personally answer your questions. I hope you enjoyed the article, and I’ve added value to your business. I look forward to serving you soon.

Until then, count your blessings, grow your mind, and make this world a better place.

Take care.