What I want from you

I want you to live the most extraordinary life.

I want you to have the cars I won’t let myself buy. I want to
hear about your vacations to the South of France, about your
honeymoon to a secluded resort in a rainforest on the coast
of Costa Rica.

I want you to tell me about the orphans you’ve rescued. I want
you to send me photos of the children you’ve adopted from near
and far away lands, who will have a better opportunity in
your home and care.

I want to hear about the foster families you sponsor. The Kiva
loans you make. The rescue donations you make when a natural
disaster strikes. The houses you’ve built for humanity. The
mission trips you go on. The wounded warriors you support.

I want to know about your children graduating from the finest
private schools, attending the best colleges they worked so
hard to attend.

I want to hear about the pony you bought your daughter, the
riding lessons she takes every day, the horse she showed at
the recent equestrian event.

I want to hear about the wealth you’ve created.

I want to hear about the world-changing team you have built.
I want to see pictures of the people you employ, of the men
and women who are able to send their children to college and
off to a better life because YOU first provided for them.

I want to see the pictures where people shed tears of joy for
the success you have brought them. I want read the articles
in the newspapers and magazines about the legacy you have
created and will leave for others to build upon.

Send me your triumphs. I’m greedy for it and my appetite for
your success knows no bounds. I cannot get enough.

Selfish, I am, to hear about the achievement of your American
Dream. To know about how proud your parents are of you. To be
told of the admiration you’ve earned from your partner, your
children, your siblings, and your community.

Tell me, tell me, tell me. It fills my heart with joy. I shout
“Yes!” when I see the money you’ve made, when I hear your name
mentioned in business circles, when I see you speak at seminars
where I’m just an attendee.

Invite me to your lakehouse, regal me with stories of your
business growth, take me for a ride in your fancy car, let me
in on your success stories that aren’t acceptable to be told
anywhere else. Do not hesitate to show me your bank account
and raise a toast with expensive champagne to what you have
accomplished in so little time.

Show me your watch collection. Tell me about the small fortune
that each one of them cost. Give me every little detail about
every pair of expensive shoes in your closet. Take me to a
mall and let me watch as you buy whatever you want for your
family, your friends, and yourself.

Drive me to the church you support. Let us see what your
donations have helped build and grow in your community. Take
me to the homes of the families whose lives have changed for
the better because of the money you make. Show me what your
business has built in all areas of life.

Take me to the missions in the run-down streets in the often
forgotten parts of town that now have clean beds thanks to
your generosity. Let me stand in the soup kitchen with you
where you volunteer to feed the hungry each week.

Take me to the house you bought for your parents that is paid
for in full. Let me experience firsthand the pride they have
in you, their child, this incredible success story they raised
from helpless babe in swaddling clothes to this powerful and
influential role model of today.

Allow me watch them show you off to their friends and families,
perhaps explaining in broken English, in rapid speech, to
everyone present that it was you, YOU!, who paid for this
house, who paid for the food and drink that everyone is
there to enjoy, and that it was YOU who did this all by first
creating wealth and value for thousands of others.

Let me experience their struggle to explain your family’s new-
found good fortune after years of struggle. Let me stand there
and cherish the moment as they give up and stop mid-sentence,
turn with tears in their eyes, and embrace you when words
fail them.

Bring me your triumphs and all of your treasures.

Let me bask in the glow of your success. Let me see how you
have changed the world and made it a better place by first
ADDING value to others. By solving the problems of people.

This is all I want…that’s not too much to ask, is it?

Craig Ballantyne

“Stop hoping for a completion of anything in life… Do what
you love to do, what you are waiting to do, what you’ve been
born to do, now.” – David Deida