Delayed Gratification

Delayed gratification. That's a phrase that few people like to hear—we are the "give it to me and give it to me now" generation. Literally, we don't often think along the terms of "grow” rich. We want to start a business and have it do what Google did. Everybody wants that. But can you plan on that? No.

Can you plant an oak tree in your yard and have it reach majestic heights of 100 feet in one season? No, the person who as a young person, or as a new occupant of a place, plants those seeds—or plants those saplings—plants for a very long time… many, many years of shade and beauty and enjoyment.

But those first few years the tree was kind of weak and kind of catching ahold; and in the same way, so is your business life, your financial life, your investment life, your estate life. It does take forethought and foresight. It does take investigating and finding out what you would want.

Now, this is what you would want for the future, not what anybody else would want. And you do that knowing that the allotted course of the human is to be a child, to grow through the fire of youth, to slow down, become more balanced in middle age, and to trail off the face of the earth.

Unless the Gods intervene, bringing somebody an early death, that is the process—and nothing that we have any consciousness about, except for the ever-renewing presence that we call HoloMagic, that we call Infinite Intelligence, that we call God, has ordained any changes. Other than that, everything has a life—be that measured in the billions of years for galaxies, or much less.

Do you know that there are insects whose whole lifespan is encompassed in a single day?

Phew! But we're not any of those, neither Gods, nor galaxies, nor insects. We’re human beings. We have to think, we have to plan. And we recognize that in the beginning years we are sowing for the ever-coming years. We will not need to do this again and again and again, but we need to do it in the beginning.

That's the concept of delayed gratification. The jewels, the diamonds, the cars, the trips—oh, I know. I know how bad you want them, and I know you want them now. But I know you're strong enough and smart enough to know that delayed gratification is your route to fulfillment leveraged over. You wouldn't even be reading these words if you weren't that smart.

This is what they mean when they say, "40, 70, 100 times over." From the seed grows the plant that produces thousands and thousands more seeds, and thousands and thousands more plants, and continues to grow larger and larger every single year.

My friend, Napoleon Hill, says it’s “compound interest on top of compound interest”.

Embrace it. It's just like "discipline." It's just like "thinking." Investing, "delayed gratification", is a very good term, and an absolutely essential concept you must have to consciously think and grow rich.