Why Stop Focusing on Poverty?

MARCH 6, 2023 - What is it about poverty that draws people into it so badly? Is it forces acting upon us and causing poverty? Is it the lack of will to fight against it? Perhaps most people just have the wrong FOCUS.

A young man went to a seminar and saw a prominent business man speaking. He loved everything the man said, and at the end of the talk, he found himself drawn to the speaker to ask him a question. The speaker was gracious and asked what the young man wanted to know. The young man said, "How did you become so successful?" The speaker said, "Meet me tomorrow at the beach at 7am. Don't be late." The young man thanked the speaker and agreed.

The next morning at 7am sharp, the young man was at the beach, and he saw that the business man was already standing there waiting for him. The business man asked if the young man was ready to learn the secret to getting rich like he did. The boy said "YES!" So the man told the young man to follow him.

The business man walked into the ocean, first up to his knees, then his waist, then his neck, and when it was almost over both their chins, he asked the young man, "Are you ready?" The young man said, "YES!" And the business man, in one strong move, pushed the young man under the water and held his head under the water as the young man tried to push away with all his might! The young man fought and pushed for a full minute, and the business man did not release him. After about half a minute more, the business man pulled the boy out of the water and dragged him back to the shore gasping for air!

The young man was very upset! He yelled at the business man, "Why did you try to drown me?" And the business man said calmly, "The way you fought and focused on your ability to get air into your lungs when I deprived you of it is the same intensity and focus that it takes to become successful. You have to focus on the thing you want so intensely - like the air you need to breathe - in order to really become wealthy like I have become. Only when getting wealthy becomes this important to you will you actually focus and do the things it takes to become wealthy in your own life."

The moral of the story is that poverty is a condition that is a matter of focus. You may not believe this yet, but if you begin the journey towards wealth, you will find that - just like anything - if you focus on it, you can make it. Things that are planned and tracked are accomplished. Things that are just "tried" or "dabbled in" will most often never get realized.

We must choose to focus on building wealth, even if – especially if – we are in a state of poverty right now.  It is powerful that this focus is a choice. Your choice of focus is within your grasp and control even if nothing outside of yourself can actually be controlled. This is not some mystical force, it is a matter of focus. Starting today, we can choose to focus on wealth (and creating it) or focus on poverty and remain captive of it. It's our choice.