The Fifth Principle of Wealth

As I mentioned yesterday, this principle of wealth is mentioned briefly in a Bible parable which you can read in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew.

The Parable of the Talents

This parable tells of a very wealthy man who is going on an extended journey. Before he leaves, he calls three of his servants to him and divides his wealth among them based on their ability. To one servant he gives five talents, to another servant he gives two, and to the third servant he gives only one talent. Then he leaves for his journey.

Now before you start thinking that the third servant got the raw end of the deal, let's take a closer look at what was being given. A talent was equal to 6,000 denarii. A denarius was the payment for a single day's work. So, he was entrusted with an amount equal to over nineteen year's worth of wages. For a minimum wage employee in Washington State today, that would be over $380,000 (if you ignore all the overtime laws and requirements). So, this was no small amount of money.

While the master is gone, the first servant uses his master's five talents in trade and increases them to ten talents. The second servant uses the two talents he had been entrusted with to trade and increases his talents to four. The third servant, however, feared losing the one talent he had been given and buries it in the ground and awaits his master's return.

When the master did return, he calls his three servants together to receive an accounting of what they had done with his wealth in his absence. When the first servant reports and shows his master the full ten talents he now possessed, the master commended him by saying, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things." When the second servant reports and shows his master the four talents, he received the same commendation.

When the third servant reported, showing his master the one talent, and telling him of what he had done to preserve it, he was severely chastised, being called a "wicked and slothful servant." He was told that, at the very least, he should have given the talent to the money-changers where the master would have earned interest on it. The talent was taken and given to the first servant and the third servant was cast out.

While there are many important truths that can be gleaned from this parable, let me call your attention to one that most people do not take notice of. In all his wisdom, the master did not divide his wealth among his servants equally. The test question is: "What basis did the master use to divide his wealth among his servants?"

This is the same reason why today's wealth is not more evenly distributed. It isn't because of education. Some of the wealthiest people today didn't complete their college degrees. It isn't because of popularity. Look how well yesterday's "nerds" are doing today. It isn't because of environment. People have come from the poorest of conditions to create millions of dollars. It is because of the Fifth Principle of Wealth:

Wealth flows to those who have

the ability to properly use it!

Someone once said that, if you gathered up all the wealth in the world and divided it evenly among the people of the world, within a very short time the majority of the wealth would end up back in the hands of those who were wealthy to begin with. You see a wealthy person is not wealthy because of the money they have. It is because of the person they became as they accumulated that wealth. You could take all their money away (and many wealthy people did go through bankruptcy at least once) and they would earn their way back to where they were before ... or better! I like equate it to learning to ride a bike - once you figured it out, even if you get knocked off, you know how to get back up again.

The reverse is also true. Those people who have not increased their "wealth-ability," even when they are given enormous sums of money, quickly end up right back where they started. Lottery winners are a perfect example of this. People who are in debt and living paycheck-to-paycheck suddenly receive millions. Their financial problems are solved, right? WRONG! The majority of them end up BANKRUPT within two years of their winning.

Increasing the balance of someone's bank account on this level without increasing their ability to deal with wealth of this magnitude is very much like trying to pour a gallon of water into a six ounce glass. You will never have more than six ounces. You have to enlarge your capacity to receive.

This is the purpose of The Millionaire Marathon! It is NOT a get-rich-quick scheme (but you can increase your wealth as quickly as you choose to). It is a system to take you from $0 to over $1,000,000 in only 28 steps at absolutely no financial risk to you while increasing your "wealth-ability" in the process!

To find out how you can get started running The Millionaire Marathon, e-mail me at themillionairemarathon@hotmail.com and I will tell you how to get started.