I don’t really know where my wife found this but I was surprised when I saw it.

This is a 360 degree panorama view of very popular tourist destinations in The Dominican Republic, here you will see incredible beautiful views of places like: The Isla Catalina, National Park Los Haitises, The “Rincòn” Beach, Cayo Levantado Island, The Samana Penínula, Waterfall “El Salto del Limón”, Bayahibe beach…

You tell me, isn’t it jaw dropping? I thought so.

Soruce

On my search of useful knowledge I’ve read and watched many biographies and writings of successful people, with the objective of analyzing their success and studying how they achieved their goals.

When I’m studying these role models I try to read between the lines and learn about the environment and circumstances that these people were when doing whatever I see today as achievements. Why? Because this will give me the basis to translate the lessons learned into my world, my circumstances, my life. I don’t really know why, but I’ve noticed that many people don’t do this, and I think doing it is very important.

Before I explain why I think that understanding the influence of the environments is important, let me explain the reasons why I became interested in the topic in the first place.

I was born and raised in The Dominican Republic, a very poor country in The Caribbean that shares an island with an even poorer country named Haiti. If you were born, raised and still live in a developed country you would’t understand or even believe many of the things that happen in these countries, but in summary, most of the things that appear simple in a more advanced place, are very difficult in my country.

I knew this then, and I know it better now that I moved to a developed country and probed my theory.

See all those successful stories you read about? Medical advancements? Incredible innovations in California? There is a whole system behind them that works. There is an infrastructure, working and put in place ever since that person was born, that will somehow influence in the number of possibilities that are going to be available for this individual.

Let me give you one practical example:

In the community where I live today kids are picked up every morning by perfectly working and safe school buses, these kids don’t sweat in the summer because the classroom is correctly acclimated, they also have the appropriate lighting to read, and have access to computers and some other conditions that will facilitate learning.

You may see this as routine, as normal everyday, but I can assure you this is not the case in many places in our planet. In my country kids don’t even have chairs to sit at, not even safe public transportation.

So, where am I going with this? Take two kids, one of each of the environment I described and ask yourself this question: Who will have more chances of succeeding? Please, don’t misunderstand me here? I’m not asking who will succeed, I’m asking who’ll have more chances. To which one is going to be harder? Now, see where I’m going?

Your environment will not determine if you will succeed or not, but it will make it easier or harder, that’s for sure.

Now, based on the 2 important facts that:

1. Our environment influences and facilitates possibilites for our success and…
2. That we don’t choose the environment where we are born and raised

We can arrive to these conclusions:

• This is not an excuse to sit and do nothing. With whatever we have, we must stand and make the best out of it.
• If we are aware of the limitations of our environment we can try to change it, for us or even for our children. In my case, I moved out to a better environment. Left my family and my friends, paid that price with the promise of a better system that will make things easier for me.
• If there is someone you are following and admire, try to study first that person’s environment and circumstances, but not to tell you that you can’t because your situation is worse, but to identify the real challenges and the price you’ll have to pay to achieve the same.

In general terms, every person’s circumstances are different, and every person is different, so to come up with inmutable laws is very difficult if not impossible.

Let’s only understand that we can achieve anything we want in life, as long as we are willing to pay the price to get it, knowing that the price is not universal, maybe higher or lower to different people depending on multiple variables, being “environment” one of them.

I leave you know with a very popular quote from a famous spanish philosopher that summarizes my point very well:

“I am me, and my circumstances” – Jose Ortega y Gasset

I’ll be honest with you. This video I’ve come across shows you just the beautiful part of the Dominican Republic, but I guess every place on earth has an ugly part and a good part, right?

Since the Dominican Republic is famous for tourism and it makes a lot of money of it, you may find a lot of videos like this, promoting beach life, chilling, and adventure. Is it true? Totally yes. Not everyone lives like this, but is possible.

Now, this video is one of the best I’ve seen. It transports you and makes you feel like booking a flight right now.

Enjoy a beautiful video, of the beautiful part, of my beautiful country.

It’s interesting to see how much people worry about the amount of money they need to make but they don’t worry that much about how well they spend it.

For me it is more important to be financially organized than financially abundant and let me explain my point of view with a practical example:

John and Jose are two normal guys. They are married (not to eachother!), they both have a job, they both have one decent car, their wives don’t work, and they are neighbors in a very decent apartment’s community.

Now, both wives decided to get a job and after a couple of months going to interviews they found a very nice job and they even had the luck of being close to their husbands’ job.

John was making $3,000/month. His wife was about to start a job of $2,000/month, so they will be producing $ 5,000/month.

On the other hand we have Jose, he is making also $3,000/month and his wife was about to start a job of $1,500/month, so they will be making $4,500/month.

So you get the scenario, let’s say 5 months have passed, who would you think would be financially better? John or Jose? John? Why? Because he’s making $500 more every month? Mmm, well my answer to this question would be: “it depends”. Depends on what? On how much John is keeping.

See, to be financially good is not totally defined (although influenced) by how much you make, but how much you’re able to keep. That’s the trick. People think that if you make more you should have a more expensive car, or a bigger house, or a more expensive TV cable plan. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Let me just describe you how are John and Jose after 5 months, so you can visualize my point here:

Jose was very happy with his car, and since his wife was working close to his job they managed to coordinate their schedule so in the morning he would take her and in the afternoon he’ll pick her up. They were even enjoying the warm conversations while driving together everyday.

On the other hand, John got a new car for his wife. With an easy down of $2,000 he started paying $600 a month. That doesn’t include gas, depreciation and risks not covered by insurance (deductibles for example)

John also signed up for a better TV cable plan and increased his monthly payment from $50 to $125.

Finally John moved to a bigger apartment with an extra bedroom and a bigger kitchen with new appliances, which represented a $225/month increase on his rent.

As you can see, Jose’s life is still the same, he didn’t really need a new car for his wife, they just shared it. He didn’t need a bigger apartment, and he was just fine with his cable plan. Actually, if you analyze what percentage of the day John and Jose spend on their “big apartments” in front of their “cable TV” is not even worth the price (this will be for another post though).

In summary, John and Jose were making the same ($3,000/month), John increase his earnings to $5,000 and Jose to $4,500. If we assume that they were spending the total of their $3,000 before, we can do the following calculus:

John: $3,000 (previous earnings) – $3,000 (previous expenses) + 2,000 (new earnings) – $600 (new car) – $75 (new cable) – $225 (new house) = $1,100

Jose:  $3,000 (previous earnings) – $3,000 (previous expenses) + $1,500 (new earnings) = $1,500

After 5 months, Jose has $7,500 on his bank account, and John has $5,500. Jose has $2,000 more, same quality of life with more possibilities. After one year? $4,000 After 2 years? $8,000 !

So I ask you again, who is better financially speaking? I hope you can now agree with me that without any doubt Jose is better.

They have pretty much the same quality of life. An extra car, an extra bedroom… doesn’t make you live longer or with more dignity. It doesn’t actually improve your quality of life. And after a couple of months driving your BMW it starts to feel just the same as your Camry of the same year. You just got used to it.

I know what you are saying now. You may be thinking I’m stingy or penny-pinching and I’m ok with that. But I prefer to look at it in a different way.

Do you really need all of what you buy? Think about it! If we define what is decent and necessary in our lives and we stick to it, we can improve our financial health without hurting our lifestyle. We can plan better our future and we can invest in experiences, assets and helping others instead of having more material goods that doesn’t do more than complicating our existence.

So next time you think you are better off by making more think again, you are better off by keeping more while having all your necessities covered in a dignified way.

Do you agree with me, or you don’t? Express yourself on your comment.

Thanks.

When I describe myself, when I’m asked about my favorite quote or whatever, I always come up with this statement: “Trying to do more instead of have more”, to which I usually receive the question “What do you mean?”

What do I mean?

It all started since I was very young, I started noticing that when I wanted to buy something (some physical stuff), I used to work hard, save money, and then buy it. Then, at the end, days after buying this “new thing”, always happened the same: the excitement about the “new thing” was totally gone. Why was that? I started to wonder.

The urge of having things we don’t really need is produced by the great work of the marketing industry, industry that works on all levels of our society.

A short story

I have a friend; he saved 30% of his paycheck for 3 years with one goal: Buy a Mercedes Benz (and not the most expensive one).  I asked him: “Why did you want a Mercedes?” His answer: “Dude, it represents you, besides, it’s a Mercedes!” To which I answered: “ok”.

He paid US$ 72,000 for his Mercedes, a luxury car (as you know) and hence he also pays expensive insurance, expensive maintenance, top quality expensive gas… (You continue)

And what’s the best part? 3 months later, the Mercedes was just feeling like a car that could have cost 1/3 of that price.  He got used to it, as we humans get used to everything. Do you have any idea of how many interesting things he could have done with US$ 48,000 (72,000 – 1/3)?

The story of my friend and his Mercedes happens to all of us, with anything, everyday. Happens with that watch that you want so badly, those new shoes, that big new house, those new sun glasses… And all of it, all of it just gives us a short-term pleasure. It’s simple, “things” are not goals nor source of happiness, things are tools.

People usually make “things” their goal. We think that if we buy that Porsche we’re going to laugh like the guy in the commercial, we think that we’re going to have the blonde woman in the commercial, and we also think that we’re going to be so cool and happy that people will admire us.

So I changed my strategy. I started to search for things that can give me a longer term pleasure: travel, restaurants, learn languages, learn any new thing, sky-diving… Whatever that produces experiences, emotions and good.

Don’t misunderstand me. It’s not that I don’t like an Audi; I just don’t make it my goal or my source of happiness.  If an Audi will cost me US$ 50,000 and another option will cost me US$ 20,000 and I have US$ 100,000 be sure I will buy the other option, no matter how more I like the Audi over the basic car.

Every time I have to buy something I ask to myself: “Do I really need this?”

Ask yourself, do you really need that? And if you do, do you really need the most expensive one? Will a cheaper option do the job? Who do you want to impress? What for?

Let’s start to impress people for the value that we can create, for the persons that we can become, and not for the things that we possess.

This is my philosophy, what is yours?

Please see this documentary, which explains the origins and science of consumerism and how we buy things we don’t need.