Do you really want to overtake?

Sometime in August 2011, my wife and I drove to Mzuzu to console a close family friend who had lost a mum. May his mum’s soul rest in peace.

While driving back from there, some lessons emerged that are so relevant for many of us in as far as wealth creation is concerned. We left Mzuzu around 13.00 hours and had planned to be in Lilongwe by 17.00 hours. So we had to determine the speed at which we needed to travel. I remembered my late primary school teacher’s basic arithmetic formula of finding speed i.e. distance divide by time. So we came to the conclusion that we needed to drive at anything between 100 to 120km/hr.

We started off on our journey. What was interesting was that every time I relaxed on my accelerator, as I normally do when I am talking while on the wheel, my wife would remind me I was below 100km/hr. So I would accelerate again.

If I wanted to overtake a vehicle in front, my wife would ask “do you really want to overtake the car?” Reminding me that I shouldn’t bother because we were already driving at 120km/hr. She would only allow me to overtake a car that was going at a speed lower than 100km/hr. If some car was driving at over 120km/hr, we would allow it to pass and were never attempted to drive faster to catch up with it.

You see, this may seem like a simple tale of a couple driving. But it has lessons worth so much if you only heed what is in it. You see, wealth creation is very much the same. I will give you two lessons that emerge from this: First, you don’t have to compete with others but set your own financial and investment goals.

Determine where you want to be financially by a certain age or period of time. Don’t build houses just because others are building. Don’t buy top of the range Mercedes Benz just because your neighbour has a Lexus. Simply determine your financial and investment destiny and follow it through. Otherwise you will land yourself in trouble. Many people have ended in jail or starting huge investments which they can’t complete because they were only mimicking others.

Second, you need to fully consult those that will be part of your investment or financial plans so they know what will be happening. In our driving example, my wife and I had agreed the speed at which we had to travel because we knew where we were going and when we wanted to be there. We then kept each other in check so that anything that could derail us from meeting this goal was quickly spotted and addressed.

I leave you with this question today: Are you not driving too fast or too slow? Watch out!

Have a blessed weekend!