PURPOSE of WEALTH (Pt4): PROGRESS
Hey there, Alexer! We hope you're as excited as we are for this fourth installment of the Purpose of Wealth series, especially today when we're talking about progress. And what is progress, if not the optimization of life? The constant improvement or replacement of that which underperforms.
Progress has been baked into our DNA since our inception. Those who are able to adapt, evolve, and make progress in any form eventually survive to write the future. This desire to make life better, easier, and live more fulfilled and happy lives has been at the core of who we are as a society. The true purpose of wealth is to do just that, because money and wealth are the latest iteration in the game of progress.
But here's the catch: it all starts with you. Personal progress. A person's second life begins after they realize that what's ahead of them is under their control. Unlike the past, the future is yours to create. Your life will change once you realize that as individuals, we have the power to decide who we want to be and what we want to do.
The foundation of this idea is the concept of self-improvement. Do anything for long enough, and you become good at it. Study how the best do it for long enough, and by emulating them, you can get good at it. One can alter their own future by changing the present. The purpose of wealth is to provide you with the tools you need to alter this future to the best of your desire. It's you. It's always you that has to choose, for you are living for yourself, and you are your greatest resource.
That's why they always say investing in yourself pays the best dividends. Personal progress means spending time, effort, and money so that your ability to navigate the world improves, and as a consequence, your reality follows. One can't fix the world before they fix themselves. So, Alexer, fix yourself. Fix everything about you. Fix your health, fix your relationships, fix the money, and then use all of that to change your life.
The most valuable secret anyone should know is to seek progress, not perfection. As long as you live, please remember this. Once you get yourself to a point where you are comfortable in your life, then you can use the wealth you have at your disposal. We're talking financial wealth and wealth in terms of knowledge to improve the reality of those around you.
But it's kind of hard to track your progress if you're not measuring anything. With the Alo app, you can do exactly that. We created the Alux app to be your own executive coaching tool right in your pocket. Together, we work to understand your emotional wellness, financial wellness, physical health, relationship health, and your intellect. We work hand in hand to enhance them all with customized learning paths designed for you and your journey.
Scan the QR code on-screen right now to get yourself a yearly subscription for 25% off: Inner Circle progress. The last thing you want in life is to reach the other side of the river and know that everyone you care about is still stuck back on the riverbank. Over time, we've learned to measure wealth and success differently than just through money. Measure wealth, not by how much of it you possess, but by the abundance of wealth around you.
What's the point of having all the blessings in the world if you can't share them with anyone? It is your duty and your responsibility to use your wealth to improve the lives of those you care about, in the same way you wish someone did for you when you were starting out in your growth journey. At some point, you'll hit a crossroads. One option is to keep going ahead the same way you used to and get the same type of rewards you deserve, making the same kind of impact. Who knows, maybe you'll slowly and gradually improve.
The other comes with an interesting proposition: to go bigger, to go after the goals you can go after on your own. These are larger impact goals. They require more moving pieces than you can manage. Making $100 million will require a different type of approach than the one that got you to the first $1 million. It's the same with happiness and even with health. If you got yours, we feel it's time to mobilize the troops and see what can be done for the well-being of your inner circle.
If it's not the money, then it's your knowledge and insight that will prove quite valuable for these people. Use it to improve your inner circle's ability to navigate the world. What better way to use your wealth than this? You start off with yourself, move on to your inner circle, and only then can you expand to your local community. Progress. This is where you become an actual force.
The purpose of wealth is to allow you to facilitate real change in your community. So what is holding back people just like you? What tools would have served you well growing up? What steep hill were you forced to climb that you didn’t have to? There's an old saying that goes, "It takes a village to raise a child." But who takes care of the village?
If each of the village members takes from the village enough for them to get away with it, what happens to the village in the long term? We're all brought up by communities, and it's our duty to aid in the process of development of these communities so that they can keep doing what they're doing. What communities need above everything else isn't money, although money does help; it's tools and instructions on how to use those tools. Don't give them fish; teach them how to make their own fishing rods, how to catch the fish, how to make sure they fish in a sustainable way, and then check up on their progress.
It is up to you to change the game. You didn't like what school taught you? Well, help them to teach better. Your community didn't support you? Well, don't perpetuate that practice. No, instead be what the community should have been to you when you were starting out. The community only changes if those who changed already stay and help the community to do the same. If you're able to help your community thrive, well guess what? Your solution works with other communities too.
Progress through distribution. Progress is the result of multiple iterations with new and improved tools and insights. If you were able to fix yourself, your inner circle, and above everything else, your community, then it's super likely that your solutions can be deployed en masse to alleviate the pain of others. That's effectively how and why the world keeps getting better and better every year. There are people out there who figure out smart solutions and then distribute them globally, and because of everyone's small contribution, the world is less shitty than it used to be.
Everything around you is the solution someone found to a problem that was so good it was mass distributed. We live in the age of comfort, that of connectivity and information abundance. It's never been cheaper to produce anything than it is today, and at the scale that we can do it now. Use the leverage of scale to help those you can help. You're under no obligation to do so, but after you solve wealth, you'll begin to realize that what you're actually craving is impact through utility.
We all eventually die, and we want something to live beyond us, which takes us to the last type of progress: future progress. This is progress through innovation. You are effectively financing the future. How amazing is it that you could have this kind of impact, that your ideas matched with your wealth and other people's efforts could actually create a new future for everyone?
People think the world will get better on its own, but that's not the truth. Things get better when time, effort, creativity, and money come together to make it better. They say the only way to predict the future is to create it, and time and time again, we've seen people do just that. As long as you live, remember that the light bulb didn't come from the continuous iteration of the candle.
If one finds themselves in the fortunate position to have amassed wealth, what higher purpose could that wealth serve than pushing humanity as we know it forward? Look at wealth as fuel for progress and deploy yours toward whichever progress phase you find yourself in. And as for those of you still sticking around until the end, we've got a bonus waiting.
Beyond progress is truth. We're all hungry for truth; we always have been. All the progress we do in all of its shapes and forms gets us closer to that truth. What that truth is, nobody knows. But as time progresses, so does our understanding of it. We don't like illnesses, so we want to cure them. We don't like when others treat us poorly, so we try to cure our social issues. All of this progress just so we can afford to shine a bigger, brighter light so that more of that truth is revealed to us.
We are tiny beings stuck on this floating rock that's been revolving around a giant flaming ball of gas for 4 and a half billion years, or at least that's the best estimate of our truth. The more you think about it, it all falls away when you zoom out on the picture and realize all of the progress humanity has made until this point is so it allows us to find more of the truth, and through it, progress even more.
But before we conquer the unknowns of the universe, we need to find the truth within ourselves and expand from there. The more we do, the more society rewards us because of it. So what is there for those who've already won the wealth game? Well, there's only one thing left for society to give them: something far more valuable than money itself, and that thing is legacy.
And that's what we'll discuss in the last installment of this Purpose of Wealth series. If you've made it this far in the video and have successfully watched the first four episodes, please write “four out of five” in the comments. We appreciate those who do!