Financial success comes from the power of accumulation. This power has to do with how adding a little on a constant basis can build into a fortune over time. It requires the vision to see where small efforts every day can lead to great accomplishments over time. Learn this and apply it and you will realize tremendous accumulation of wealth.
Nature is Our Teacher
Nature teaches us the value of gradual accumulation. While some natural processes such as volcanic eruptions and earth quakes can massively change the landscape in a short time most of the change that occurs in nature occurs through gradual accumulation.
Mighty glaciers hundreds of miles across are built one tiny snow flake at a time. Thousands of miles of beaches are made up of billions and billions of grains of sand, each one eroded from stone by wind and water, one at a time. The immense Grand Canyon was eroded by wind and water one millimeter at a time over millions of years. In fact most of the face of the earth was carved and formed from the gradual forces of tiny rain drops and snowflakes. Never underestimate the power of the constant force of tiny steps repeated over and over.
Accumulate Value Not Stuff
When we speak here of accumulation we are not talking about stuff. No one becomes wealthy buying lots of stuff. Millions have squandered thousands of dollars on consumer items. They hold no value and they bring no return. When we speak here of accumulation we speak of accumulation of wealth through the discipline to save on a constant basis and to wisely invest what has been saved.
Value Investment Rather Than Status
Part of the pressure that causes many to spend their hard earned money on stuff is that they think it buys them status. People want to drive expensive cars and houses, wear lots of expensive clothing and own lots of recreational toys because it brings them status. It is however a hollow status. It does not endure. The stuff that people spend their money on holds little value in most cases and earns no return.
If you invest your money in value rather than in status you will see great returns over time. Like tiny snowflakes those dimes and quarters you save and invest will over time create massive fortunes.
One Small Step After Another Will Travel a Thousand Miles
The great Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu is often credited with the axiom A Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins With a Single Step. He may as well have said that a journey of a thousand miles is made up of many single steps. People have walked around the world but have done so one step at a time.
You can build wealth in the same manner, one dollar at a time. People are by nature inpatient. They want to see immediate results. They want immediate gratification. People do not want to wait decades to see the gradual accumulation of their investments turn into a fortune. They want it now.
For most of us however it will not happen now. It will only happen over time. I once suggested to someone that if they invested carefully and lived more frugally they could create significant wealth in as little as ten years. The response was total surprise and frustration. Who wants to wait ten years was their response. I then suggested to them that the ten years will pass one way or the other. Ten years from now you can be just as poor as you are today if you do nothing differently. However, if you apply the discipline to save and invest on a regular basis over those ten years when they have passed you will have a tidy sum.
Many people look back over their lives and wonder where the time and the money went. They lacked the vision to use discipline today to build the fortune of tomorrow.
Learn from nature and from those who have applied the power of accumulation. Begin today to save and to invest. Day by day, dollar by dollar, it will grow. It may take a decade, it may take more than one decade, however long it takes, the time will pass either way, in the end you will either have a fortune or you will have nothing. The vision you have today and the discipline you apply over the time that passes will make the difference.