Don’t wish it was easier wish you were better. Don’t wish for less problems wish for more skills. Don’t wish for less challenge wish for more wisdom.    Jim Rohn

 Chapter 7

Comfortable and Complacent!

Rule #17 – Don’t Become Comfortable and Complacent!

I meet many people every day, and many times I ask them what they do for work and/or how they got into the business they are in. Sometimes the stories are very interesting. I asked a young builder the other day how he came to build houses.

He said he was working as a foreman for another builder making about $50,000 per year. He told me that it is very easy to become complacent with that kind of income. He said you can pay your bills and live fairly comfortably.

Together he and his wife had read many financial books and had some understanding of how money worked. He said he did not want to become complacent at that level of income, so after he learned what he felt he needed to know about building houses, after about a year with this job, he quit.

He found a money man that agreed to build seven houses and split the profits 50/50 with him, and that venture was successful. A year later they parted company, and he now had enough to go the bank. They loaned him the money to start a couple of houses, and he was in the building business.

Many times we become complacent with our income because we are comfortable there.

• We know what it takes to earn that amount.
• We know the people.
• We know the routines.
• We know that we can pay our bills at that level.
• Our friends all make about the same.
• We are part of the group.

If we strive to move up a level or two, that would put us in unfamiliar territory. Weird as it sounds, most people would be uncomfortable if their income doubled or tripled.

• Their lifestyle might change.
• Their friends might change.
• What they talk about might change.
• And most are afraid of the unknown.

You see many people have bought into the idea that to really be successful you have to get a college education and go to work for some major company. That can be very comfortable – someone or a company taking care of you, and then complacency can easily set in. You could fight complacency, and climb out of your comfort zone.

Starting your own side business may be uncomfortable and may be a little different than your friends, but it may change your life in ways you never imagined.

For example: I have met people that buy and sell golf courses or others that buy companies from the IRS that were taken because of non-payment of taxes. They got the companies profitable and then sold them. I have also talked to people that buy mobile home parks after the park had been through bankruptcy two or three times. Then they made a deal with a company that repossessed mobile homes to put them in their park and split the rent.

Some 150 years ago most of the people in this country were self-­employed as we were an agricultural economy. But as the industrial age set in, people moved from the farms into the cities. Then they acquired some debt and had to stay in those jobs in order to pay “the man.” But it was comfortable.  A paycheck each week. Eventually complacency can set in.

This reminds one of the song Sixteen Tons by Tennessee Ernie Ford. One of the lines reads: “Saint Peter don’t you call ‘cause I can’t go, I owe my soul to the company store.”

This lack of funds and debt keeps us showing up on the job to get the money to pay the debt. We have been trained to be good workers for industry and good consumers for the global economy. Someone sold us on the wrong plan.

A billboard I see every day says: “A job for every Oklahoman, a workforce for every company.” Learn to think outside the box.

Learn to embrace the uncomfortable and beware of complacency. God wants us to be God-sufficient. For God to be our sufficiency, a college education is not required.  God’s hand is with us in everything we do as we are His children. So break out of your comfort zone, and kiss complacency goodbye. God has laid out the fundamental principles of prosperity in His Word. These fundamental principles are also laid out in our new book Poverty vs Wealth. Try it. It could be your key to The Prosperous Life.

Proverbs 24:10 If you faint in the day of adversity your strength is small. 

(English Standard Version)