Rich Dad, Wise Son

Here’s the story of a rich dad who wants to teach his son how fortunate he was. But it was the dad who learned the lesson, from his wise son.

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We discussed true riches on The BIGG Success Show. Here’s a summary of that discussion.

Here’s a great story by that great author, Anonymous. One day, the father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country. The dad’s sole purpose was to show his son how poor people live, so the son could appreciate his good fortune.

They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family. On their return from their trip, the father asked his son:

“How was the trip?”

“It was great, Dad.”

“Did you see how poor people live?” the father asked.

“‘Oh yeah,” said the son.

‘So, tell me, what did you learn from the trip?

“I saw that we have one dog and they had four.”

“We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end.”

“We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night.”

“Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon.”

“We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight.”

“We have servants who serve us, but they serve others.”

“We buy our food, but they grow theirs.”

“We have walls around our property to protect us; they have friends to protect them.”

The boy’s father was speechless. Then his son added,

“Thanks Dad, for showing me how poor we are.”

We develop our point-of-view from our experiences. Obviously, we want to learn from our experiences, but we need to be careful not to take away the wrong lessons. The two of us frequently remind ourselves of this. Here are the lessons we takeaway from this story.

Nurture your child-like nature

Try looking at the world through the eyes of a child. Look at things as if you were seeing them for the first time. Fight that cynical urge, if you have one. Be innocent again.

You just might like what you see and be more grateful for what you already have! That’s what the wise son taught his rich dad.

Embrace your wonderful world

Do you have a sense of wonder about the world? This is another one we continually work on, and we remind each other when one of us slips.

A great starter for this one is Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World. A sense of wonder will make you feel young at heart which will help you maintain a child-like nature.

Our personal check on gratefulness

When one of us has one of those days when the only luck we seem to have is bad luck and we get negative on life, we check ourselves with a question:

How can we expect God to bless us with more if we’re not grateful for what we have?

And we find it too funny:

When you look for blessings, you find them.

It’s a focus thing. Focus on negatives and energy flows to negatives. So you get more negatives. Focus on positives and energy flows to positives; you get more positives.

What are you thankful for today?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Here’s to your BIGG success!

George “The Professor” & Mary-Lynn

Co-Founders, BIGG Success