Wanted: A Wealth Accumulation Program That Really Works!

"We have no more right to consume happiness without creating it than to consume wealth without producing it." - Bernard Shaw


Every productive person dreams to accumulate wealth for the future. Many aim for it but only a small number actually achieve it. For the many, it remains an aim and a dream.

The success of a wealth program rests on two major variables: the person creating it and the accumulation method he employs to achieve his financial goals.

For a wealth program to succeed, the wealth creator must recognize the following:

1. Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to go first. Sure, death must come, but
can we talk about heaven later?
2. All of us want to make the best of our lives while alive. The "best" may mean a lot differently
to many people, but "I shall pass this way only once...," may I make the most of it?
3. As life has evolved to be economic, "making the most and the best" will mean being able to
produce enough materially to support a consumptive life: earning sufficiently to cover needs
and wants, both for the present and for the future.
4. Present production will take care of the present. Future production will not be able to take care of the future because life is characteristically processional and recessional: "From dust thou shalt cometh, to dust thou shalt goeth."
5. There are only two ways we can prepare and have enough for the future: by chance, as in a lotto win or a windfall of inheritance, or by choice, as in a deliberate conscious accumulation effort.
6. Wealth accumulation is possible only as and after wealth is created for the present. The
remainder of the present is the seed of the future.
7. As a remainder is generated, accumulation may be served.
8. There are many forms or vehicles of accumulation that will suit the temperament, level,
lifestyle and needs of any person.
9. Wealth accumulation has time as a most critical element: the longer the time for
accumulation, the greater the success.
10. Most wealth programs fail because of:
- Creator's poor wealth attitude
- Creator's procrastination
- Creator's lack of discipline
- Failure of provider
- Failure of program
- Creator's early death, disabilty or sickness
11. The accumulation method employed must be able to address these obstacles.

But we must also understand that wealth accumulation is just the second stage in a four-stage wealth planning process. First, we must create the material for wealth; we must earn. This is the stage when we work for the "first enough" for our present needs.

Then, the moment we are able to muster an "excess", we can accumulate. This excess, the difference between the value of our earnings and the value of our needs, will be the seed of our future fund. And as many as there are excesses we generate, the same shall be the seeds that can grow to fill up our future wealth orchard.

Of course, whatever wealth we accumulate, we must be able to conserve, at least at its original value, or enhance, that it may gather substantial return to offset its diminution and gain an added value, to allow us to achieve our accumulation goals faster.

Our life curve settles at a definite natural time, or may be shortened by fate. The wealth we accumulate, irrespective of the time of our passage, cannot be part of our luggage. Hence, we must make sure that this wealth shall pass on to our heirs without creating transfer problems to those who will continue the stewardship. This facility for distribution is well within our capacity to conceive and put in place even before we go.

What we are looking for is a wealth accumulation program that will work for many of us. And since many fail, such a program must address the causes of the failure of the many. Characteristically, this program must:

1. Create a present tense of the future, to even out the sedating effects of present enjoyment.
2. Create a positive sense of wealth: feeling deserving, thinking deserving.
3. Inspire urgency, rather than procrastination.
4. Create a feeling of "investment" rather than "sacrifice" for the future.
5. Work against time running out.
6. Cushion against "system failure".
7. Prevent "program failure".
8. Factor the macro-influences of inflation, interest rates, taxation.
9. Promote personal stewardship.
10. Maximize the growth of the vehicles chosen.

Because a wealth accumulation program's most crucial element is time, its construction may be likened to putting up a physical structure where we start from the base and move up to the size and height we want. Of course, we won't proceed unless we have the design and model of the structure we want to build: a model that can withstand the tests of nature, man and time.

The trigon, a triangular structure with triangular base, is the strongest of all such models. Every wealth accumulation program must model the design and construction of the trigon.

In the next post, enter the trigon.