It is with the heart that one sees rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye. – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

An economics professor at a local college made the statement that he had never failed a single student before but had once failed an entire class.

That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism. All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B.

The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.

As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.

The second test average was a D!

No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

It could not be any simpler than that.

This short little paragraph that says it all :

“You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.” – Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. – Albert Einstein

Walt Disney once captured the never-ending nature of purpose when he said “Disneyland will never be complete as long as there is imagination in the world.” It is with this view that we should all approach the work we do. If we keep exploring and brainstorming and challenging each other in an effort to come up with new innovations then our work will never be complete.

Yes, as long as we have imagination we will continue to come up with new ideas, some good, some bad, but we will keep pushing the envelope.

Ideas don’t move mountains, people move mountains. People make it happen.

I learnt in life that you would rather invest in a bad business with good people than in a good business with bad people. You can take the best business plans in the world, or the best software, and give it to a bunch of arrogant and lazy know-it-alls, and nothing will happen, or worse. But you can take an average plan, or even no plan at all, and put a bunch of enthusiastic, humble and hungry people together and magic will happen.

One of the biggest myths in business is that it takes a good idea to start a company. Most great ventures start off with no idea. They are labours of love with a strong sense of purpose. What they all have at their core is good people. This is what the fundamentals are all about. Good people and a lot of imagination. As Einstein once said “Imagination is more important than knowledge”.

We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give. – Winston Churchill

A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business. – Henry Ford

Let’s just think for a minute about the connection between being smart and making money. The short conclusion, from my perspective, is that there is no connection between being smart and making money. I know many really clever people that are seriously broke, and I am know many dumb clowns that have made fortunes. Of course, I also know many smart people too that have made a lot of money.

Last Christmas I was very far away in some cold parts of the world. I met a lot of different people there and they challenged my ways of thinking and gave me a lot of food for thought. This one person I met, for example, looked so full of life and so intelligent. And I said to him “You could do anything in this world.” And he looked at me and said “But I have no real talents. So what if I am intelligent.”

Yes, there is no connection between being clever and making money. Having something unique for the world, a talent, a gift, an inspired business proposition, a special offering, now that can make money. But being clever means babkas; many stupid people make money and many clever people are dirt poor!

Maybe that is what luck is; maybe luck is about talent. Yes, being born with a talent is indeed lucky! But as I have always said, we can change our luck. Perhaps recognizing your own unique gifts and talents is the first step in becoming luckier. And then, focusing on where you are strong and getting other people to help you where you are weak will also change your luck for the better.

Everyone, in my view, is born with some kind of gift or talent. Use your talents to your advantage; that will indeed make you luckier!

The proper function of man is to live – not to exist. – Jack London

When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said, “Let us pray.” We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land. –  Bishop Desmond Tutu