Is Money Evil?

 I recently read an article titled, “Attitude on Money” by Stephen W. Gibson. He addressed the question,

about money being evil. He wrote:

“The first thing we need to understand about money is that is not evil. Money is neither good nor

bad. The Love of money or the obsession with accumulating money from others unrighteously,

no matter what the method, may be evil, but money in and of itself is neither good nor evil.”(Gibson,

Pg.3)

I couldn’t agree more with Gibson. Having lived my life as an entrepreneur for the last 20 years, I have experienced living with nothing and having an abundance of wealth. In both situations, I have been extremely happy! However, when I have an abundance of wealth it allows me to help others succeed in life as well.

Recently I was approached by a young father that had grown a successful business. To get the business to a certain point he had to borrow large sums of money. The loan payments had become extremely burdensome on his successful business. The only loans he could get were from loan sharks with absorbent interest payments and terms. I found this young man and because of the wealth I had acquired I provided him a loan that was beneficial for both of us. The wealth I had acquired benefited him and his employees. Wealth is not evil.

The author then addresses the rules to prosper:

Rule 1. Seek the Lord and have hope in him

Rule 2. Keep the commandments, that includes the temporal ones, tithing and fast offerings.

Rule 3. Think about money and plan how you can become self-reliant.

Rule 4. Take advantage of chances for learning so you will not be ignorant of these matters.

Education, as President Hinckley has taught us, is the Key to Opportunity.

Rule 5. Learn the laws upon which the blessings of wealth are predicated.

Rule 6. Do not send away the naked, the hungry, the thirsty or the sick or those who are held

captive.(Gibson, Pg.9)

 

                I can testify that these rules absolutely work! I believe the first two rules to be the very most important. What better way can we get knowledge on how to run our business or succeed in this life than asking an all-knowing God?

                When I was struggling with my business, I always turned to him in prayer.  He would teach me what I needed to do next, but it was always step by step and as I followed those steps he showed me the next.  This way I always relied on him and increased my faith.

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tendency of Complacency

   By 2006 our company had experienced 25% growth for the past 6 years.  However, in 2006 we didn't achieve any growth.  The concern was that all of our employees expected increased wages and hours. Without increased revenue, there was no way we could increase wages without taking it out of the profit and there really wasn't enough profit to do that. How did we get into this situation? The prior 5 years we had continually developed methods and services to increase the advantage we had over our competition.  The competition had watched closely and changed their services to match ours.  For whatever reason, we had become comfortable with our current advantages and it cost us growth when our competitors caught up with us. How did we become comfortable with our competitive lead? When you are first starting a company with little or no money you often deprive yourself and your family of many necessities while you reinvest the profit into growth.  Eventually,...
Read more

What I have learned this week

  So far in this course, I have learned that I need to assess myself and my ability to be an entrepreneur.  I need to see if my skills and my personality will make me a successful entrepreneur.   I am actually a retired multi-millionaire that has created, run, purchased and sold countless small businesses.  So it will be interesting to see the personality traits that I actually have.  I have always said that it takes a certain person with a certain personality to succeed in owning a business.  I am looking forward to put that personality on paper.  This will allow me to advise businesses in a more professional way.  This week I picked up a new client in Texas that does landscaping.  I had the opportunity to meet with him and his girlfriend.  Their greatest concern was being able to progress beyond just working in the business.  They wanted to know how to: 1) hire good employees and train them.  2) Organize the company fina...
Read more

What makes a business successful?

 There is so much to be said about how a business should be operated. When I was just 22 years old with no experience in business, I was invited to be a minority partner in a small pest control company. I felt extremely blessed with this opportunity. Because I was a partner, I put everything I had into growing and developing this company. Together with the other two owners we grew the company extremely quickly just out of hard work.  Since we had been given such a great opportunity to be business partners and maybe because of our young age we treated all our employees as if they were partners. Each employee recognized how we appreciated and worked as if they were partners as well. We provided wages that were higher than the industry standard. We numbered and remembered all those that were dependent upon the success of the company. Every time we planned, we determined how it would affect every employee, spouse and child that depended upon our success. As we ran the company ...
Read more