Yanwen’s blog

This is my second writing on Thomas Corley's Rich Habits book.

In my last post, I said, rich folks have nothing but abundant spiritual wealth and gradually transforms the spiritual wealth into material wealth. Actually, this is not exact so. To start with, they must have one thing: a strong body, which is the foundation of all.

The first category of rich habits revolves around maintaining healthy body. The wealthy people know the crucial role of good health in generating wealth and enjoying life. They know how to keep themselves energetic and in high spirit each day by taking good care of their bodies. According to Corley, the great majority of the wealthy people do three things habitually to keep them healthy: 

(1) Aerobic exercise at least 4 days each week, like running, swimming, biking, fast walking, etc.

(2) Avoid unhealthy fast food restaurant like fried food. That's why you don't see plenty of obesity among them.

(3) Keep a healthy lifestyle like going to bed early, not burning midnight oil, getting up early, etc.

There is a Chinese saying which also emphasizes the importance of good health: 留得青山在，不怕没柴烧 (liú dé qīng shān zài，bù pà méi chái shāo) As long as we have the green mountains, we don't need to worry about a shortage of firewood. Here the green mountains is a metaphor, referring to good health. Its meaning is, where there is health, there is hope. Without it, there is nothing.

I bumped into this book a few years ago -- Rich Habits: The Daily Success Habits of Wealthy Individuals by Thomas Corley. It came out in 2010. There are many highlighted sections in the book that I'd like to share. I will come back to it in the next few days.

The central theme of the book is this: while the rich share some habits, the poor share some different ones. These habits widen the social and economic distance between them. The habits of the rich consistently lead them to a life of prosperity. Similarly, those of the poor keep them struggling daily to make ends meet.

First of all, his definition of wealthy people is NOT someone who simply makes or possesses plenty of money, not a lottery winner or an inheritance recipient. He believes real wealth include much more than the material wealth. What we are after is the non-material part in them.

According to the author, the real rich folks are those who started poor, built their wealth from scratch, being self-reliant. They basically from day one, have nothing but abundant spiritual wealth and gradually transforms the spiritual wealth into material wealth.

I think his definition fits perfectly many of us -- the first generation of immigrants who came to this country empty-handed, started from the bottom and worked all the way up the ladder.

Yesterday I wrote about the downfall of Elizabeth Holmes. A friend of mine suggested another Chinese saying, 一失足成千古恨 (Yī shīzú chéng qiāngǔ hèn), A single misstep leads to a lifetime of regret. I think this perfectly describes how Holmes feels now.

A few years ago I read the book about Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos, Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup. The smart Stanford dropout was eventually found guilty of fraud and has to spend part of her life in jail. She was on the Fortune's list for being "The World's 19 Most Disappointing Leaders."

Holmes makes me think of a story that my son told us about an MIT upperclassman, a super smart man. He also clashed with the law for stealing the company's IP, a crime that will follow him in the long years to come.

Both stories are heartfelt when considering the many years they spent in high school working hard, striving to gain admission to prestigious institutions like MIT or Stanford, with a bright future ahead, only to be ruined at their own hands.

At this moment I think of a Chinese saying, which is not a fitting one here. Both involves the ruin and collapse of an achievement: 千里之堤，溃于蚁穴（qiān lǐ zhī dī，kuì yú yǐ xué）An embankment of a thousand-mile long, collapsed because of a tiny ant nest. In other words, A stitch in time saves nine.

The highlight message is this: sometimes something small and insignificant can have potentially disastrous consequence. Even minors can cause major damage! So, don't ignore these minors.

During my online meetings with my students, we exchanged our holiday experiences. Both of my Korean students were surprised when I told them of my trip to Bronx on Jan 2, though both were interested in learning what I saw there. 

While they admired my courage, they said they would definitely not go there as long as they could avoid. They live in Bergen County, NJ, in the midst of the most concentrated Korean population in the U.S. While Bergen County consistently ranks as one of the safest counties in New Jersey, Bronx NY is notorious for its way above national crime rate.

I told them, strolling down the streets in Bronx in broad daylight is not that horrible. There is plenty of Spanish culture around. There are also some magnificent old church buildings built by early immigrants. It's true Bronx is not as safe as Bergen County. You need to exercise double layers of caution. Still, they were not convinced.

The experience makes me think of two Chinese sayings, both are related to tigers. (1)不入虎穴，焉得虎子(Bù rù hǔ-xué, yān dé hǔ-zi) How can you capture a tiger's cub without entering the tiger's lair? In other words, nothing ventured, nothing gained. 

(2) 明知山有虎，偏向虎山行 (míng zhī shān yǒu hǔ, piān xiàng hǔ shān xíng). You know there are tigers in the mountains, still you proceed toward the tiger mountain. Similar to the saying, you venture into a place where angels fear to tread.

The take home message is, life is full of unknown risks, uncertainties and potential dangers. You won't hit a grand slam if you always stay within your safety net. Of course, I'm not preaching foolish risk-taking here. Where there is risk, we have to proceed with informed courage and extra cautions.

During our last "Brooklyn vacation" day, I was helping my son with putting clean laundry into different drawers of a bedroom dresser -- four drawers: one for socks, one for shorts, one for shirts, one for pants.

It is true that organizing things into different compartments can have many benefits, like (1) efficiency when you can locate a specific item super fast; (2) reduce stress that you experience when you can't find things you need; (3) clear visual message tells you which clothes inventory is getting low and needs to replenish; (4) provides a sense of order, etc.

But as with many good things in life, there is a matter of degree. That is, how thorough a person goes into being organized. Being over-organized can mean overtime consumed. 

I told my son that he could put his clothes into two drawers instead of four, shorts and shirts in one, socks and pants in another. It won't be chaotic as long as he can keep them separated within the drawer, like socks on the left, pants on the right side. This will cut by half the time of putting-into and taking-out-of drawers.

There is a very good Chinese saying that I once shared with my children: 一寸光阴一寸金，寸金难买寸光阴 (Yīcùn guāngyīn yīcùn jīn, cùn jīn nán mǎi cùn guāngyīn) The literal translation is an inch of time is equal to an inch of gold, but an inch of gold cannot buy an inch of time. The message is as clear as the sun in a sunny day: time is more precious than gold because time is something you can't buy with wealth.