The Million People(Dollar) Question
One of the several reasons for starting my own enterprise was to achieve financial independence. The aspiration was to create sufficient wealth so as not to have to worry about the basic needs and wants of life. For this purpose, I locked a financial value that I wished to achieve for myself in 5 years time (2022 tick-tock).
Some of this inspiration came from a Jim Carrey interview in which he stated that he wrote a ten million dollar cheque to himself dated five years from that date. This was before he had got his first break in Hollywood. He carried this cheque in his wallet. Five years later, he signed a movie (Dumb & Dumber), one of his biggest box office hits, which matched the cheque he had carried for all these years.
I thought I would do something similar to achieve the financial independence I was yearning for. Thus began the search for growth, the ambition and the hunger for this target fed me and I used to work every day of the week. However, this hunger was of a gnawing kind, one that was eating me on the inside bit by bit. This was because of a clear misalignment between what I really wanted and what I was chasing.
I am driven majorly by the yearning to create a difference, to impact lives and this greed for growth felt empty and soulless. One day I took out that cheque I had written to myself and I tore it to shreds because I hated the way it made me feel and act.
On that day, I replaced the word dollar with people. Since that day (I believe it was sometime in early 2018). I have since chased a goal of impacting 1 million people directly through my work by 2022.
It’s a bit miraculous but some doors that were previously closed magically opened up, work became an act of worship, key partnerships developed organically, and happiness & peace in my life returned. I attribute the shift in mindset, one of service and of chasing impact rather than money to be at the core of all this.
My experience has been if you create a difference in people’s lives, prosperity and happiness come about as a natural byproduct of it. Maybe next time you feel stuck and are facing dead-ends everywhere you look, ask if your work is creating a difference in people’s lives. If it is, then stay the course and doors will open up soon. All the best.
