We seem to be fixated with money in our culture.  Hey, I’m an entrepreneurial capitalist, I don’t think money is evil.  I don’t begrudge the generation of money and monetary wealth.  However, I do think the love of money can lead to a lot of nasty business.

Money is a way we keep score.  Money and net worth are ways we measure “success”.  How “rich” a person is tends to be measured in dollars.  Every year Forbes Magazine publishes lists of the richest people, richest athletes, richest celebrities, and the like.  The numbers are baffling…

Before I tell you some of these enormous numbers I want to help us understand the difference between one billion and one million.  If you were to count one million dollars, a dollar every second, it would take you 11.6 days to count the money.  If you were to count one billion dollars, a dollar every second, it would take you 31.8 years to count the money.

One million = 11.8 days, one billion = 31.8 years.  That is a massive difference!

There are currently 1810 billionaires in the world with a combined wealth of $6.48 trillion. (Which would take 206,064 years to count.)  The 5 richest people in the world are: 1. Bill Gates – $75 billion, 2. Amoncia Orteg – $67 billion, 3. Warren Buffet – $61 billion, 4. Carlos Slim Helu – $50 billion, 5. Jeff Bezos – $45 billion.

The highest paid CEOs are: 1. John Hammergren of McKesson – $131.2 million, 2. Ralph Lauren – $66.7 million, 3. Michael Fascitelli of Vorando Realty – $64.4 million, 4. Richard Kinder of Kinder Morgan – $60.9 million, 5. David Cote of Honeywell – $55.8 million.

The highest paid celebrities for 2016 are: 1. Taylor Swift – $170 million, 2. One Direction – $110 million, 3. James Patterson – $95 million, 4. Dr. Phil – $88 million, 5. Cristiano Ronaldo – $88 million.

The richest celebrities are: 1. George Lucas – $5.1 billion, 2. Dina Merill – $5 billion, 3. Steven Spielberg – $3.5 billion, 4. Oprah – $3.2 billion, 5. Jami Gertz – $2 billion

That’s a lot of money.

I don’t have a problem with someone making as much money as they can.  I’m not here to condemn anyone for generating a great income and creating a fabulous net worth.  What I do want to do is question our definition of “rich”.

I don’t believe that money is the only way to measure how rich someone is.  True wealth is not measured in dollars and cents.  We’ve all heard the stories of rich and famous people who had more money than they knew what to do with, yet they were bankrupt emotionally and ended up destroying their lives through various excesses.

Jim Carey is purported to have said, “I think everyone should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that’s not the answer.”

Hmmm – very thought provoking.

So, if true riches are not measured in dollars, what other ways can we measure riches?

How rich are you in peace?  How rich are you in passion?  How rich are you in freedom?  How rich are you in relationship?  How rich are you in… dare I say it… love?  Like the Beatles said, “All you need is love.”

I believe the true riches of one’s life are best measured in the non-measurables; the non-tangibles we often take for granted: friendship, family, community, hope, joy, love, significance and myriad other aspects of life.  All those things for which humanity thirsts.

What if in the midst of our commitment to grow our personal wealth and the wealth of our companies, we were equally committed to grow true riches as measured in our contribution to the lives of others?

What if our true riches and those of our organizations were measured in the hope, the joy, the peace, the freedom, and the community in which we live and help create in other people’s lives?

You may be richer than you think, or poorer than you think.  You’re in control of that in which you choose to invest.

So how rich are you – really?