Wealthy Mindset Series #20

Philanthropy and Networking  

As you know, one of the most important keys to creating wealth is the right attitude. In Series #19 we spoke about how the wealthy do charity work and give back to the community. The biggest philanthropists are the wealthiest people.

In this series today we will talk about how the wealthy network with other high net worth people in their philanthropy and develop business at the same time.

Many years ago I used to do business coaching for financial planning and accounting firms. Besides earning money from my coaching clients, I was able to support their philanthropic interests. The more money they made, the easier it became to give back to the community.

One of my individual coaching clients was a vice-president with Merrill-Lynch. Let’s call him Nick. He decided to serve on the board of a local charity to give back to the community that was responsible for providing the clients that invested with him.

As it turns out, by demonstrating his interest in philanthropy by serving on the board, he ended up meeting other wealthy people who also were charitably inclined; they also were board members on the same charity. They got to know one another while serving on the board of the charity, and they also learned what each other did when they were not at the charity.

Some were in manufacturing, some were in retail, some were in real estate, and some were in construction. All of them were very successful in their field, and they also had the time to serve on the board of the charity.

A motivational speaker named Jim Rohn used to say, “Your income will be the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” And Nick was spending time with very wealthy people. As time passed, some of them started doing business with Nick, and his assets under management grew substantially.

And it also turned out well for other board members. The person in real estate found properties for the person in construction. The one in manufacturing decided to build a facility on property the realtor found for him. The person in construction consulted for the one who wanted to build his manufacturing plant, and so on.

Not only was serving on the board of the charity good for the community, it was good for business of the board members as well. See where you want to serve your community and how that might impact your business.

In the next article of the series we will talk about how wealth is not a zero sum game.

To your prosperity,

Rennie