All about making wealth

By Herbert Vego

WHAT does it mean to be truly wealthy?

To the poor, it means acquiring possessions they have always hoped and prayed for. Ask a lotto bettor why he gambles his bottom peso. He would probably say, “To win and live comfortably forever.”

To others, wealth is being able to make dreams come true; it is synonymous with freedom from want.

The late Steve Jobs, an American billionaire who died at 56, viewed wealth as a tool for funding creative ideas.

He left a transformative legacy. As a co-founder of Apple, he revolutionized six major industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.

While suffering from pancreatic cancer that would eventually end his life, he wrote, “In the end, wealth is just a part of life I’ve gotten used to. But now, lying in bed with my illness and looking back on my entire life, I realize that all the recognition and riches I’ve gained are meaningless in the face of death.”

Do you wonder why Enrique K. Razon, now the richest Filipino billionaire, is still building new corporations? One of them is MORE Electric and Power Corporation (MORE Power).

Like the late Steve Jobs, Razon believes that true wealth means having total freedom to build industries that could pave the way for the less fortunate to find wealth, too.

Most people think that true wealth is having lots of money with which to buy material things. But wiser people understand that it is not so much about buying more things as it is about doing more than they are already doing.

Imagine yourself growing old, retired, sitting on the porch, contemplating how you lived your life and what you are most likely to regret: not buying an expensive home? Or not spending more time with your kids when they were young?

Time is our most precious commodity. If you lose money in a bad investment, you can always try again until you succeed. But once time is misspent or lost, you can never get it back!

To quote an ancient proverb, “Better to throw all of your fortune down a deep well than to squander one moment of time.”

Even though many highly paid professionals have the money to buy and do what they want, some reach old age without enough savings to retire on.

You and I have heard the oft-quoted proverb, “Time is gold.”

We wonder why some people make so much of it in the shortest time while most people spend so much time for nothing. The ability of the rich to expand their material wealth in the shortest time amazes employees who work eight hours a day for sheer survival.

We know of hardworking lawyers and doctors who make hundreds of thousands of pesos a month but don’t have enough time to accommodate all their clients and patients, respectively.

There are those who, for lack of sufficient patrons, do not make enough money to maintain a decent lifestyle.

I remember the first and only time in the late 1990s when I met a struggling entrepreneur who was then running a photo supply shop on Delgado St., Iloilo City.

That business was probably not doing well, so in 2003, he shifted his attention to the fast-food market for affordable, smoky grilled chicken paired with unlimited rice.

An advertising exec, Berd Vargas, promoted his first chicken “inasal” restaurant with a TV ad shouting, “Kumbinsing!”

That restaurateur is Edgar “Injap” Sia, founder of Mang Inasal.