Last week I had the pleasure of attending a speech by Ken Blanchard at Centrallia. He is a famous speaker and he had some interesting guidelines for business. His philosophy is money does not mean everything and being a good person in life is more important than any wealth that is achieved throughout one’s life.
When you are at the end of your life you do not look around and say I am so glad I have all this wealth. Instead what is important is all the lives you have touched throughout your life and what people think of you as a person. If I am wealthy, but to get there I had to hurt a lot of people and only think of myself throughout the process, I don’t think that is a good legacy to leave behind. I am not a religious person but I do agree that at the end of your life I will be counting my friends and family that I have touched and had an impact on their lives rather than count my money.
At the conference I met one of my customers and I asked her if she had gone to the dinner the night before and she said that she did not go as she had tickets to see Kevin O’Leary from Dragon’s Den. This is a TV show much like Shark Tank in the United States. I asked her how it was and she said that she was not impressed. Mr. O’Leary had a different style than Ken Blanchard. His style was to win at all costs and do not worry about who you hurt to get what you want. Now this might be part of the character he plays on Dragon’s Den, or this might be the real person he is.
My opinion is you can have both. You can be successful in business and be thought of as a good person, care for your employees and your customers. At the end of the day money does not buy happiness, look at all the people that have more money than they could ever spend and these are some of the most unhappy and shrewd people in the world. To me money allows you to do fun things but it does not buy happiness.
When I am at the end of my life I want to be remembered for being a good business person and a good friend. If people ask if they know me I want people to say yeah I know John he’s a good guy (and actually mean it). That would be a successful life in my opinion.
