If we read Genesis carefully, we see that the earth already existed before the first ‘day’ of creation. The earth existed in a state that was void and without form (Genesis 1:2). The word ‘day’ is not mentioned until God said, ‘let there be light’. [The bible tells us that the light is what God called ‘Day’].
So, what is light? Light in the Hebrew simply means knowledge or illumination. Conversely, the word for darkness, which God called ‘night’ in English means ignorance. Hence, day means knowledge and night means ignorance.
Thus, what God is trying to tell us in Genesis is that knowledge is the pre-requisite to going from chaos to order. Moreover, without the presence of knowledge, ignorance rules; and where ignorance rules, things are surely to be empty and void. [So, let’s not be ignorant…it is not bliss but blightful].
Now consider this: The sun and the moon did not make an appearance in the story of creation until the 4th day (see Genesis 1: 14-19). Hence, what we consider the 24-hour day did not even exist until the 4th ‘day’ of creation. This is clear, since the 24-hour day is ruled by the rising and going down of the sun. Furthermore, the bible itself states that the heavenly bodies were given for days and years (Gen 1:14). Since the concept of our measure of time did not show up until the 4th ‘day’, it is clear that the bible was not referring to our measure of time at least in the first 3 ‘days’ of creation.
When Moses writes about the ‘day’ in Genesis 1, he is not referring to the 24-hour day as we know it, he is taking about a period in which the knowledge of God was in operation to turn the earth from a choatic mess into an oasis fit for mankind.
Consider this as well: When God is active on the earth, it is called day. And when he is not actively working, it is considered night. Consider the words of Jesus when He said: I must work… while it is day. The night is coming when no one can work(John 9:4). Again, the bible calls the time Jesus is meant to return to be active on the earth as the Day of the Lord (anyway I digress…so let’s get back on point). [I can write more about this if enough people are interested].
With regards to creation, how long each ‘day’ or period of creation lasted in terms of our 24-hour day is up in the air. This is indeed because time can be quite relative (especially in the eyes of God and man). What we do know for sure is that it was not six 24-hour days. If we engage science, it is clear that the earth has been around for a long time (something corroborated by the bible in the book of Genesis when we realize that earth existed before the first day).
The fifth word in the English version of the bible is the word “created”. If you do a deep dive into meaning of the word in the Hebrew, it gives a treasure trove about creation which I will discuss below.
The word created has many words associated with that can be joined together to form three sentences as follows: The first is to ‘signal creation‘. The second is to ‘miraculously dispatch‘. The third is a ‘token of what is to be shaped or molded‘
Without going into exhaustive detail (I will if enough people ask), it is God the Father that signaled for creation to begin. It is God the Son that miraculously dispatched the Holy Spirit. It is God the Holy Spirit who shaped the universe. Hence, we see that the first time the concept of the Trinity shows up is in the very first sentence of the bible.
Now, the final sentence is especially important. A token is a representation, a part, or skeleton. When we plug this third sentence into the words, In the beginning God created, we get the following: In the beginning, God (the Holy Spirit) made a token of that which is to be shaped.
This helps us to understand that when the Holy Spirit started the process of creation, neither the earth nor the heavens were made perfectly. It was simply an outline that was made. This should not be shocking to anyone as the bible itself says ‘the earth was without form and void’ (Genesis 1:2).
With this understanding, we no longer have to go with the thesis that the earth was without form and void (Genesis 1:2) only because the perfect earth God had previously made (Genesis 1:1) was destroyed (there is no evidence of this in the bible). We don’t have to believe that the earth was being re-made and that this is the 2nd iteration of the creation of man.
We can simply admit creation was a process. God speaking things into existence does not mean those things happen in a split second. Speaking things into existence simply means that the irreversible process was simply set into motion.
In reality, we know this in our hearts. If everything was instantaneous, then why did creation take 6 ‘days’?
Spoiler alert: The days here does not mean the 24-hour day. You will have to stay tuned for another blog for me to explain.
How would you feel if you did not get a real raise in 46 years? Well, this is exactly the situation the American Middle Class found themselves in between 1973 and 2019! Don’t believe me, just take a look at the chart below. Yep, it shows that real wages in 1973 and 2019 were exactly the same at $23.24.
The blue line is the actual pay that people take home once you adjust for inflation. You’d never know this by looking at your paycheck though. Most people would simply concentrate on the orange line, which is what they see on their paycheck and think they are making more money per year. Inflation takes into account that things get more expensive as time goes by (another way to think about it is that your money is worth less in the future).
Real wage is just the nominal earnings (what you see on your paycheck) adjusted for inflation. What does this mean? It means that if inflation is 3% per year, then just to earn the same amount as the previous year, you need to get at least a 3% raise. Otherwise, you are actually earning less in real terms.
What’s the first reason people are pissed? It is because they haven’t gotten a real raise in their life!
To make matters worse, productive in the same time period (1973 – 2019) has gone up by 62%. In other words, workers are getting more stuff done (either through sheer effort or by leveraging the latest technology) but they are not seeing the benefits in their pay. What do you call it if you are working harder and harder, producing more and more, but you don’t see any benefits at all. Some call it unfair…other people might call it slavery by another name!
What’s the second reason people are pissed? It is because they have actually earned a raise but not given!
Good and honest hardworking Americans have been slaving away at their work only to make the executives at their companies richer and richer. How much richer? Well in 1979, the average CEO made 35 times more money that the average worker. That has now ballooned up to more 275 times the average worker with estimates to date putting it closer to ~300 – 500 times.
What’s the third reason people are pissed? It is because all their hard work is only lining the pockets of people of a few!
While the Middle Class did not understand this, what they began to see is that they just couldn’t afford things no matter how hard they worked (this is because rising real prices were cutting into their stagnant wages). The issues facing the Middle Class has gotten so bad that even smokescreen & mirrors that usually cloud the wage issue such as: (1) blaming the poor for taking away their benefits (2) Laziness (3) Undocumented immigrants (lowering wages) (4) Politics (5) The people at the top are just too smart and deserve it (5) Fear of losing your job (6) Add you own…are no longer working.
What’s the fourth reason people are pissed? The people realize they’ve been lied to!
People in the UAW are beginning to say: Wait a minute! If these guys are able to offer a 20% raise across the board, doesn’t that mean that they have been holding back on my pay for a few years now? How did the money magically appear?
More and more people in the Middle Class are beginning to say: Wait a minute! Something is wrong here! I am making 6-figures and still need to penny pinch. I can’t afford what my parents used to comfortably afford, and I can’t seem to get out of the financial hole!
Why is this happening now? Perhaps it’s because the folks at the top got too greedy. Shafting the smaller poor population is one thing, but shafting the huge middle class is quite another (If the middle class feels shafted, then America feels shafted). Why did the people at the top get too greedy? Perhaps it’s because Wall Street continues to demand more and more of companies in this insatiable drive for increasing profits. Are profits bad! Heavens no! But profits that are not fairly distributed is bad for the society as it creates a class system that leads to social unrest and unraveling.
What can fix this? Just pay people fairly. It has taken the American Middle Class almost 50 years to see what wrong (a testament to resilience of the American people). Let’s not explain these concerns away with some political ideology. Let’s not take another 50 years to solve the problem. The society would have torn itself to shreds and the American dream would have become a nightmare!
The employment system we have today was implemented during the Industrial revolution. As the world shifted from an agro-based economy to industrial manufacturing, a lot of people migrated from the countryside to the centers of production (cities). As motorized equipment replaced people in the field, and new industries came into existence, more and more people started working in the factories.
To make sure that factories had a stream of qualified employees, public schools were developed, and standardized tests were administered to ensure quality control. To ensure factories ran without interruption, housing complexes were built, steam powered horns (first alarm clocks) were introduced, and the modern workday was introduced out of necessity.
In those early days, the working environment were unsafe and working conditions merciless, and something would often happen that prevented the worker from carrying on. In that scenario, the factory worker would retire to his quarters or be retired. Hence, retirement was about being used up and leaving one’s post to someone else.
In this system, the employees worked many hours, sacrificing their health, mental wellbeing, and time with family. They did this all for a fraction of the cost of the ones who managed and owned the factory. While the entire society ultimately benefited from the work of the employees, only the business owners and those running the business became wealthy. Instead of paying the workers what they were actually worth, they would be paid what was just good enough to make the employees stay. While owners make the money, workers are there to make the owners money
This system still exists today. We go to school and earn a degree that qualifies us to enter the workforce. Just think of the word workforce. The employees are the force that do the work. For many people, the workforce is more like the work-forced. They feel forced to work jobs and take positions that they do not like just to make ends meet or for the sake of security. Can you relate to this?
After being forced to work for many years, they are forced to retire, whether they have saved up enough money to retire or not. If you think that is not the case, just ask a person who is over 60 years old how hard it is to find a job, though they may be mentally and physically capable. And who are the people who have built up wealth and living large? It is no other than the executives and business owners and founders. Note that executives are business owners because they run the business and own equity in the business.
In the U.S alone, the chief executive officer earns roughly 265 times the pay the average worker earns. Is this chief executive adding 265 times as much value as the average employee? It is debatable. Is he 265 times as smart as you are? I doubt it. Is he working 265 times harder than you are? Certainly not! He has the same 24 hours as you do, and he also has to sleep.
All the above is why it is unwise to try to build wealth following the societal norm of going to school, finding a job, and then working in a steady and secure job. It is unwise because the education system today is built to churn out employees and not employers! For too long, the education system has not focused on the critical areas necessary to be a successful business owner: Financial acumen, personal development, leadership, and relationship management.
My aim in saying this is not to rail against the system, although I know I sounded that way. It is to jar you away from your comfort zone and clue you into what you must do to build wealth.
The trail of wealth does not belong to the employee, it belongs to the business owner.
In life, it is not a question of whether you will sacrifice, you will! The question is: What are you willing to sacrifice? Will you sacrifice the chance for wealth and a rich life for security and comfort? Will you sacrifice time with family and friends for more time on a dead-end job? Will you sacrifice your energy to make progress towards the life you have designed, or will you sacrifice it for the life others have designed for you (and then being frustrated and making excuses).
If you are going to live, why not choose to live the best life possible? If you are going to sacrifice, why not let it be on something worth your sacrifice? You know that not everything you are doing will lead to the life you have envisioned. This is the time to act with wisdom and cut out those things that are not aligned with where you want to be tomorrow. Don’t be lazy and procrastinate on what you need to do. Now is the time to cut out those activities and those relationships that are holding you back instead of moving you forward.
Now is the time to seek out those conversations, relationships, and activities that will propel you forward. So, I ask you, who are you speaking to and what are you speaking about? Are you talking about your goals and dreams and how to get there or are you always complaining about your boss? All these things make a difference!
Since you are reading this blog, I believe you have a vision of building wealth and living a rich life. For me, a rich life goes beyond wealth. It involves prospering in my relationships, impact, charity, and health. No matter how you define wealth and a rich life, if you are going to achieve it, then you must get rid of these three limiting beliefs. Limiting Belief One: I can’t achieve wealth because of where or to whom I was born. Limiting Belief Two: I am not capable of achieving wealth. Limiting Belief Three: Wealth is evil.
While I help eliminate these limiting beliefs throughout the book: How to build wealth and live a rich life, I want to share three stories that will help debunk these limiting beliefs now.
Chris Gardner
Ever heard of Chris Gardner? He was one of four children raised by a single mother who worked multiple jobs to make ends meet. Chris was born into a poor environment. Not only were they financially poor, but the social environment was equally broken. His biological dad was not around, and his stepdad was abusive and an alcoholic. He hardly spent time with his mom as she was working all the time. Moreover, she was twice sent to prison for different offenses. Hence, he spent a lot of his childhood bouncing between relatives and foster care. This kind of environment and upbringing took a toll on Chris. He himself went to prison and was homeless. If there is anyone that should have held onto Limiting Belief One, it was Chris Gardner.
Yet today, Chris is a multi-millionaire who founded a brokerage firm called Gardner Rich, a firm he started as a one-man operation in his apartment and later sold for millions. He is involved in numerous philanthropic activities, including helping to fund low income housing in San Francisco, the city where he was once homeless.
How did he turn things around? It started when he chose to speak to a man driving a red sports car, asking him how he got to own one. When he learned that the man made $80,000 a month as a stockbroker, Chris decided he was going to do the same. He saw a chance and he decided to take it and never looked back. Rich Gardner is the man portrayed by Will Smith in the movie, Pursuit of Happiness.
It is not about the hand you have been dealt; it is about the chances you are willing to take. Life is filled with opportunities. Look for the windows of opportunities and take it when you find one. Wealth always leaves a trail behind. If you know what the trail looks like and follow it, wealth is certain
JT Foxx
Ever heard of JT Foxx? As of the writing of this book, he is considered one of the best sales closer from stage. While most speakers are overjoyed to move 10% of their audience to action, it is purported that JT Foxx is able to close well over 30%. He is worth hundreds of millions and working on reaching a billion.
What is so astonishing about JT Foxx being the best closer on stage is that he was once a stutterer into his teenage years. If anyone could have held onto Limiting Belief Two, it is JT Foxx. When he left Canada, he started off with very little money and quickly ended up in debt. But in the course of a few short years, he went from negative net worth to multi-millionaire.
If you ask JT Foxx how he did it, I have no doubt that coaching or mentorship would come from his lips. He chose to learn from those who were where he wanted to be. He has an insatiable desire to improve himself. If you want to know more, I suggest you pick up his book, Millionaire Underdog.
Though you may not be capable today, it does not mean you won’t be capable tomorrow
JT started to turn things around in Chicago, the same city where Michael Jordan made his name as arguably the greatest basketball player in history. The interesting thing is that Michael was one of five children. And Michael’s dad, an avid sports fan, encouraged his children to play sports. So why did Michael become such a great basketball player? You can say that he was simply born with his capabilities, but if you say so, then you would have to explain why his other siblings did not become world beaters in sports since they came from the same gene pool.
Here is what I have found that I want you to know and imbibe: What you develop and practice is what gets engrained in your DNA! Therefore, it is not a question of nature versus nurture. The reality is that whatever you nurture becomes your nature...what are you nurturing?
So, no! The ‘gods’ were not favorable to anyone. No one is born with an unfair advantage. If you do the work, you will get the results. If you don’t do the work, you don’t get the results. And guess what, no matter who you are, it has been documented that it takes 10,000 hours of practice and development to become insanely great or become an outlier in what you choose to do. Read Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, to find out more.
You should not ask if you are capable. You should ask how you can become capable
Frank McKinney
What about Frank McKinney, the multi-millionaire real estate developer? He was kicked out of many schools and graduated high school with a 1.8 GPA. After moving to Miami, he started to change his beliefs about wealth. He started by noticing that people were playing golf and tennis at all times of the day while he was stuck shoveling sand into the bunkers (sand traps) of the golf course.
This baffled Frank. No one who frequented the club seemed to have a day job, and he wondered what they did to make money. After learning that some of the people invested in Real Estate, he decided to do the same. Though he had no experience, he took the leap and invested money in a property that turned out to be a crack house. Long story short, he turned his first $50 investment into millions as he developed his capabilities, practiced his craft, and decided not to follow the crowd. Today, Frank McKinney uses his wealth to help build self-sustained villages in Haiti – providing shelter, clean water, access, and opportunity to thousands.
Imagine a world where everyone fulfills their wealth potential – a world where people’s needs are met, so that they can fully focus on meeting the needs of others. Our world would look very different. Challenges and nuisances such as malaria, smog, and extreme poverty may very well become historical textbook references. Think about how wonderful it would be to talk about the time people had malaria or had diabetes.
But this won’t happen if people are worried about what they will eat, whether they can pay their mortgage, or concerned about affordable healthcare.
Episode 1 of the Wisdom for Millions series focuses on the subconscious belief that holds many of us back from fulfilling our greatest wealth potential.
Before you answer, I want you to consider the following: In the book of Genesis, the first use of the word ‘free‘ occurs when God tells man: “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat;but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
What does this tell us? It tells us that freedom has boundary conditions and that some things are out of bounds. In the biblical text, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was out of the bounds. So, what is freedom? If we deconstruct the word, we find that is comes from two words: free and domain. This means that to live in freedom is to live within a domain where we are free. Naturally, this means that there must be domains where we are no longer free but live in bondage. In other words, freedom has bounds.
Therefore, living in freedom does not mean that we get to do whatever we want to do! When whatever we are doing leads to bondage in our lives, we are no longer living in freedom but living outside of it.
Freewill on the other hand is different. Freewill simply means we are free to choose based on our own will. In the biblical story in Genesis, God gave man freewill but then set the bounds of freedom. He gave man the right to exercise his freewill to choose whatever he wanted, including the choice to live outside of freedom. When the man Adam exercised his freewill to live outside of freedom, he lost the ability to do whatever he pleased. In fact, he was booted out of the domain where he previously lived.
This tells us that when we exercise our freewill to live outside of the free domain that God has set, we lose our freedom and drive ourselves into bondage. In other words, when we fail to respect the bounds of freedom, we lose it.
So, back to my question: Do Americans truly live in freedom? The answer is maybe! In reality, Americans have freewill (free to choose), but the choices Americans make decides whether they live in freedom or whether they live in bondage.
Given the increasing levels of gun violence, mental illness, obesity, racism, and political extremism we see in America, it could be argued that Americans have mistaken freewill for freedom. As such, they are allowing their freewill to steal away their freedom, leaving them in bondage to these aforementioned societal woes.
Remember how Adam exercised his freewill against the free domain God had set and so he put himself into bondage? Likewise, we cannot exercise our freewill against God’s boundary conditions and possibly expect to continue to live a life of freedom.
You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free
There is strange thing happening in different parts of the world right now…in places as far as Nigeria and Japan. Students are disenfranchised. They are graduating from college only to find out that they can’t find a job. It isn’t that these student haven’t attained the right grades or are less qualified. It is simply that there are much fewer positions available than there are prospective candidates.
When this happens, the students, who have sacrificed so much; who bear the dreams of financial and societal progress for their families, start to feel a mix of betrayal and hopelessness! Here is how young people are responding in different parts of the world:
In Nigeria, many students, after trying as hard as they can to find a job but cannot, simply resort to using their smarts to steal from others (both home and abroad).
In Japan, the graduates do whatever they can to position themselves as the best candidate and end up working for “black companies” (companies that exploit and severely overwork their employees so much that it has led to instances of people dying on the job due to work exhaustion).
In South Korea, the graduates live “Hell Joseon”, a term used to describe the anxieties and discontentment the youth feel concerning the lack of upward mobility in society regardless of ability or work ethic.
In India, there are ever increasing episodes of suicides amongst students who cannot cope with the failure to attain perfect exam grades.
To turn the tide and change what is happening across the globe requires the following:
First, we have to give equal weighting to education and enterprise (the weighting has shifted crazily towards education). The reality is this: Everyone who has an education needs an enterprise (business) to find employment opportunity. Without enough enterprises, it puts undue pressure on students to be perfect to be chosen for fewer and fewer job opportunities, and it gives companies the upper hand to set employment conditions.
Second, we must stop teaching our children that businesses are evil and that the people that run them are evil. Why would anyone want to start a business and become successful only to be deemed as an evil or terrible human being in the end? When the end of owning a business is opprobrium, it is no wonder that people shy away from starting them. Perhaps this is part of the real reason why so many businesses fail…it could be that the owners are sabotaging their own efforts due to this societal conditioning!
Third, we must incentivize people to start businesses AND let people know of the incentives. This is something that is prevalent in places like the U.S but few people know about. For example, many people in the U.S do not know that companies generally pay a lower tax rate than individuals.
Consider what the bible says: The great God who formed everything gives the fool his hire and the transgressor his wages (Proverbs 26:10). In other words, God just doesn’t want us to pull in a wage or a salary, He desires for us to be owners. This way, we are not so foolish and so sin against ourselves and society at large.
During my coaching and counseling sessions, I usually get told the symptoms or effects of the issues people are facing. It is my job to help them recognize and understand the root causes(s). It is up to me to help accurately define the issues and to segregate the effect of the problem from its root cause. A problem well-defined is a problem half-solved – John Dewey
When coaching business clients, one of the questions I ask is: Why are you in business? More often than not, my clients are shocked because they think the answer is obvious. Then they give me the classic answer: I am in business to make money OR I am in business to feed my family.
Both answers are wrong! No one is in business to make money or to feed their family. These two things are effects of being in business and not the cause. The reason every single business exists is to serve and meet the needs and wants of people. The better an organization is at seeking to understand the wants and needs of people, and then doing all they can do to meet those needs and wants, the more successful the business will be; the more the business will grow; the more money the business will make.
What I find interesting is that the concept of serving to succeed is nothing new! In fact, it has been around for centuries. You hear it in the words of Jesus when He says: The greatest amongst you will be your servant (Matthew 23:11). Others have modified the saying by stating: It is not about a title but a towel. Again, Jesus says that the greatest commandment from God is to love (Mark 12:28-32). Love can be defined as selfless sacrifice to serve and meet the needs of people. With this definition, it is clear that the reason for business to exist is to love. So, what do you know…it seems as if love (rather than money) makes the world go round after all. The better a business is at ‘loving’ their customers, the more money the business will make. The effect is money but the cause is love!
How can you effectively love people if you don’t study them, ask them questions, see what their likes and dislikes are? How can you effectively love people if you don’t understand them? Taking time to really know your customer needs and wants is essential to business success. If you stay customer focused and do all you can to serve them, you will win with them and they will gladly pay you for the value you add. This is how you win in business.
In conclusion, remember, love never fails (1 Corinthians 13:8).
SuperChamp 