Editor’s note: This article was first published in November 2016. Warren Buffett is described as 85 years old with a net worth of 60 billion dollars, figures from 2016.
Why do rich people keep working when they could spend the rest of their lives doing nothing? How do they stay motivated once they have achieved their goal in life?
These questions come up all the time. The problem is that they are confused and badly framed from the start. In fact, there’s a certain irony in the very act of asking them.
You sit at home watching TV, or you read an article about Bill Gates, Tony Robbins or Warren Buffett, all of whom are still professionally active, working days of more than 12 hours, still spending most of their time reading, in business meetings, running their companies, and so on.
When you see an “old man” of 85 like Warren Buffett working like crazy despite having a net worth of 60 billion dollars, the first thing that springs to many people’s minds is that he must be a greedy madman who doesn’t realise he can’t take his money to the grave.
Then there’s the typical lazy party animal who has very clear ideas about what he would do if he were a millionaire, but the poor fool doesn’t realise he is the last person on earth capable of getting rich.
And if he were ever lucky enough to win the lottery, his lifestyle would consist of getting drunk with his friends, smoking marijuana and partying all day, since he would already have achieved his goal in life. In that unlikely event, he would be convinced that his dreams had come true.
Of course, history tells us that this kind of person usually burns through the money and ends up much worse off than before the lottery win, proving the saying that “a fool and his money are soon parted”. Don’t believe me? Read 10 people who won the lottery and lost it all, ending up worse off than before.
On the other side we have the successful entrepreneur. He loves doing business, taking on new challenges, creating value for society, creating jobs, finding solutions to problems, creating products. That is his hobby, and the tons of money coming in are just a side effect, “collateral damage” of his passion. Like any good professional, he likes what he does, and that is why he is good at it. And he has to stay busy, because he needs to have fun, he needs to play, he wants to keep competing for a long time.
“Do what you love and you will never work a day in your life.”
Think of it this way. If someone has a talent they are passionate about, why would they stop using it just because that talent has brought them a lot of money? If you are a good singer, do you retire after releasing one good album? If you are a great painter, do you give up after painting one excellent work? The money earned is just a side effect of their hobby.
So if you are an excellent entrepreneur, do you quit after you succeed? The answer is that they rarely do, because they stopped being driven by money a long time ago. They have a purpose that goes beyond that.
Ironically, lazy people, the laziest of all, are often the ones who, because of their own mindset, end up working far more hours in lousy jobs for many more years, while looking resentfully at those old millionaires who keep working despite their billions.
All you have to do is adjust how you see life. If your only purpose is to have fun (that thing you call fun), then having financial freedom or lasting wealth as your goal is simply an unrealistic dream.
A lack of purpose in life, a lack of passion and a selfish way of looking at the world turn you into the kind of person who will rarely achieve that utopia.
What drives Irving Kahn, a wealthy 110-year-old investor, to still be the first to switch on his trading platform and trade the markets? The answer is not money. He doesn’t need it, and he probably won’t get to touch it after he retires, if he ever does.
The “retire young and rich” books have created a terrible error in thinking which, if misunderstood, will mean you neither retire young nor get rich, mainly because anyone looking for a quick windfall usually ends up with it blowing up in their face.
The desire to retire young and rich grows as our satisfaction with life in general, and with work in particular, shrinks.
How do you know when you’ve found what you love? I have a very simple answer: when you don’t get sad at the end of the weekend because you have to go back to work on Monday, and when you’re not longing for Friday so you can rest.
And what if the only thing you like is going out partying and the only way you have fun is getting drunk? Well… hmm… phew… it takes all sorts.
See also: The main differences between successful and unsuccessful people
See also: The 4 biggest differences between how the rich and everyone else think
Featured image: DFID – UK Department for International Development, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
