Today is the first day of my two-week vacation. As day one commenced, I could not think or even do until I attacked my piles in my office. Such is the case when digging through files, you find ‘things’…old calendars, business cards you never filed, receipts you never submitted for reimbursement, clipped articles and old notes on seminar you attended. Today, I found some notes from the Acton Institute seminar I attended for church leaders in DC this year. It was a few tips thrown out to participants from the book "How To Succeed in Business without Being White" by Earl Graves. Here are some:
- It doesn’t matter how big your paycheck is because you don’t own anything.
- Income is not wealth. Ownership is wealth. Your wealth is your true net worth.
- If you are in business and you are not helping anyone less fortunate than you, then you don’t deserve to be in business.
- Anything that takes you away from your core mission will hurt you in the long run.
- Greed is having more than you need.
- Money is neutral is can be used as a weapon or it can be used as a tool. And know this…doing nothing with it is evil too.
- Our poverty is a poverty of poor stewardship not one of lack.
On that note, just an fyi that April is Financial Literacy Month and for me that means our church is going to do something to educate the community on money and the use of it. Why is this important? Well, for starters our people for the most part just don’t know how to handle money. In addition, there are over 26 million people in the United States currently without checking accounts, savings accounts, or credit cards, financial education has never been more important. Today’s "unbanked" Americans may never realize the dream of home-ownership, build credit, or reach their financial goals without adequate financial education.
I am starting a Jr. bank account for my son Sam so he can learn to understand that Mom and Dad are NOT the bank and that money DOES NOT grow in our pockets.
Here are some great sites to help out with info.
