I grew up poor – by the age of seventeen I had lived in eighteen different places, and was drafted into the army. I thought I had a great life, and I did. When I was fourteen, my family lived in two rooms in a residential hotel or boarding house. I had lots of friends and we had great fun. We were poor, but we didn’t really notice it.

Across the road from the “hotel” was a broken down, empty old house, with a circular dam with five foot high, concrete walls, in ramshackle, deserted grounds. The good news was that the water supply had never been turned off!

Turning Poverty into Paradise

I got all my friends together and we decided that we would have a swimming pool. We cleaned and scrubbed that slimy, green dam for five days, drained it, and filled it with sparkling, cool water. It was a dream come true that hot summer. We were so excited, we could hardly contain ourselves.

We cleaned up the “garden” surrounding it, and everyone showed up with swimwear, towels, and suntan lotion.  It was a wonderful summer.

We swam and played and enjoyed ourselves. We could have whined that the rich kids had sparkling, blue, real pools, with pool boys and gazebos, but I think we had more fun.

And we really appreciated what we had, because we had created it ourselves.

You’ll Appreciate What You Earn

Statistically, people who win money or inherit it usually lose it (and many sink into deep depression.) Easy come, easy go. We don’t appreciate what we don’t create and earn.

Instead of whining about what we don’t have, we can turn life’s lemons into lemonade, and create the lives we want.

I know rich kids whose parents worked hard to buy big houses with huge pools, and the kids complained and hardly used the pools.

We’re surrounded by unlimited opportunities, and as far as business goes, the fastest and easiest way to take full advantage of the wonderful gifts lying all around us is through the use of Joint Ventures.