Lesson 4: What Millennials Can Learn From The Greeks

Happy Forth of July!!

Now let's talk Greece.

Sorry America, but Greece and its impending fiscal doom has filled up our twitter feeds this week, and as the responsible Millennials we are, we ask ourselves, "what in the world am I supposed to learn/do with this information?"    (If only we asked that question of all our tweets...)

After all, your bank account is likely not held in Euros, but in a strengthening American Dollar (#'Merica). So does this Greek default actually mean anything for you?

While newspapers & CNN headlines will lead you to think disaster may be around the corner for the global economy (after all, panic sells papers), several experts have poignantly shown that Greece's economy has roughly the same impact has Missouri's. Which means in the long-term for you, the young investor, last week's news is inconsequential (Sorry Missouri..).


So what then can we learn?

I pondered this over the past week and went down several paths. Should I talk about the origin of currencies such as the euro and how to leverage agreements to make investments? Perhaps talk about how one actually makes money when you buy, not when you sell, as seen by the rebound in stock markets on Tuesday after Monday's sell-off?

When I asked my parents, they kept bringing up the muddy republican stance that the main thing to be learned regarding Greece is what happens when there are "too many people in the wagon." I rolled my eyes. How was a conservative viewpoint going to help Millennials build personal wealth?

And then of course, I realized that they were right (...seriously, at what age does that stop happening...).

Lesson 4: Wealthy People Enjoy Pulling The Wagon

Greece has a major wagon problem. Its not just lamentable, its unsustainable. Greece's debt is 175.1% its GDP and its easy to see how it got there.

Greece's economic history & future (should nothing change)
 in 4 pictures

• Greece has just over 11 million people and its been said that 9 million of them rely on the government for their livelihood. 
• Just shy of 800,000 public servants enforce and regulate this well-fare state, and all those government employees receive tenor. 
• Across industries, Greeks retire earlier around age 59 vs a global average of 65.  
• The Millennial generation, aka the young people who typically pick up the wagon pulling positions vacated by the old, have immigrated to countries with less corruption and greater business freedom and opportunity for growth. 

However, what Millennials can learn has nothing to do about the number of people in the wagon, who they are, or how they got there. Its not even about how the wagon got built in the first place. Its all about the mentality of the people pulling.

In my last post, I put forth the premise that 50% of building your personal wealth came down to Mentality. Mentality covers a long list of facets, from values & beliefs, to mind-set, to perspective and more.

When it comes to the proverbial wagon, most people believe the wealthy should pull the wagon as they are rich, but what they fail to see that it was the act of pulling the wagon that made them wealthy in the first place.


Wealthy people understand that success is a daily journey, not a destination. That it takes a dream, time and persistence fulfilling that dream, and a relentless desire to learn along the way that creates the wealthy. It's even been said that to become an "overnight" success, one must work 20 years first.

Wealthy people know that success is always connected with action. Successful people keep moving forward.

Did you notice that in our definitions, I said the rich spend lots of money? They don't give it, they spend it. They hate the wagon. But wealthy people are wealthy in many ways - generosity included. And they are smart. Which is why I think it was the wealthy, not the rich, who gave the wagon wheels. After all, if they are bound and determined to move the world forward, they might as well find a way to do it better than before.


So on this Millennial to Millionaire journey, when you find yourself begrudging the weight of the wagon, relish the fact that you are building fiscal muscle, becoming a lean, mean, wealth building machine.

Still dislike the fact that now that you are officially a wagon puller for the rest of your life? Well  just remember what John C. Maxwell said about becoming successful:

"Do something you hate every day, just for the practice."

Or build a better wagon.

You pick.