Attract Wealth by Helping Others

Many people pursue financial independence their whole lives, yet never are able to achieve it completely.  They get a good education and work hard for years, endlessly searching for that golden opportunity to come along and make them wealthy.  Unfortunately, few achieve their financial dreams.  In fact, according to a 1980 study done by the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics and Mortality Tables, 93% of people are either dead or dead broke by their sixty-fifth birthday and require the good-natured support of family and friends just to provide for the basic necessities.  Why, here, in the greatest country in the world for opportunity, and after forty to fifty years of hard work, do most people achieve poverty?  How can it be that those who actively pursued financial success their whole lives never achieve their dream? Simply, because they pursued financial success their whole lives.  The more we pursue success, the more we drive it away.  Genuine, lasting success can only be achieved by attracting it into your life.

Anything worthwhile in life must be attracted.  Not pursued.  A story that greatly affected my understanding of this principle tells of life being like two women named Success and Knowledge.  A young man asked the question, “How do I achieve success in life?”  The old philosopher said that if you pay too much attention to Success, then you will drive her away.  But, if you pay more attention to Knowledge, Success will become jealous and pursue you.  This elusive characteristic of success applies not only to financial success but to success in all worthwhile endeavors in life.  

Take love, for instance.  Many people spend years searching for a lasting love relationship with someone.  If you are still searching for this kind of success, you might have heard people tell you, “Stop looking and the right one will come along.”  Those of us who have already “found” love know this to be true.  The love that we desired only came to us as the result of loving someone else first.  Through the act of giving, we received. The love we valued so dearly was right at hand, within us.  It didn’t materialize in our lives until we brought it out into the world, but it was there all the time.  The pursuit of love doesn’t make a love relationship appear in our lives.  We can’t make anybody love us.  We can only attract love into our lives by loving others first.  

The same insight applies to financial success, as well.  Oscar Wilde said, “There is only one class of people that thinks more about money than the rich, and that is the poor.  In fact, the poor can think of nothing else.”  What escapes them is that their preoccupation with money and the pursuit of affluence is what creates their poverty!  How then can we attract financial success into our lives?  The only way to experience authentic, lasting financial success is by making a concerted effort to make it appear in the lives of others.  If you help enough other people achieve their financial dreams, the success that you desire will find you.

This little-known secret has been published millions of times, in different words and shouted from every mountain man could climb.  Eastern philosophers use the word “karma” to describe this phenomenon.  In the west, we have often heard it stated in phrases, such as, “As ye sow, so shall ye reap”, or “what goes around, comes around.”  Throughout history, great minds have been trying to share this wisdom with us.  They all understood that what you put out into the world has a way of making its way back into your life.  The only way to get success is to give success.  Success is only possible through other people. 

As you direct your energy and attention outward, towards helping other people, it will be reflected back to you.  And the more energy you project towards the needs of others, the more you will receive.  This is the state of flow, and it is within your control.  If your energy and attention are other-centered, then you will prosper.  What you want will find you!

I’ll share with you a story of when this became vividly clear to me.  When I began working as a salesman, the first product I sold was health insurance.  The program was special in that it combined the buying power of self-employed people in order to get them better coverage and rates. Having been previously self-employed, I realized the value of this concept and the product.  The price was competitive and the coverage was comprehensive.  It took me six weeks to get licensed, and during those six weeks, my anticipation grew and grew.  I couldn’t wait to get in front of the customers and tell them how great this product was.  

My sales trainer taught us that to be successful in this business it was necessary to get fifteen appointments per week.  However, even though I had fifteen appointments every week for the first month, I was able to make only one sale per week while other salespeople were making four or five sales.  I became discouraged and thought about quitting.  Why didn’t the customers see what a great product I was selling?  I started to think that maybe it was me.  I asked the top salesman in the office if I could accompany him on a presentation. He agreed, and five minutes into the presentation, it hit me like a ton of bricks.  It was obvious that this person was there to help the customers, not himself.  That’s what I was missing.

You see, I went into sales because of the ability in that profession to make lots of money.  I obviously communicated that to every customer.  I was there to make money, and as a result, I made very little.  When I put the commission aside and started caring about the customer, I not only made lots of sales, I became the top agent in the country!  What changed?  The product, the price, the competition, and everything else was the same.  The only thing that was different was me.  And that made all the difference in the world.  Customers knew that I was there to help them achieve the success they desired, in this case finding the ideal health insurance plan, and in return often referred me to a number of other customers.  I no longer had to work hard to generate sales because the sales would come to me.  I began to develop a reputation for being other-centered which made me “attractive” to those around me.  

This principle applies to any profession you may choose to create financial success in your life.  Stop pursuing financial success.  Instead, help your customers, employees, co-workers, family, and friends achieve their desires and your desires will be realized.  Every successful person is surrounded by others who benefit from their success.  Successful people are the heroes of many.  Only by bringing success into the lives of others, can you create the attraction for authentic, long-lasting financial success into your own life.