Onward and Upward

It is a phrase you will hear me say often. Onward and upward. But what is the meaning behind it?

When it comes to most things where I am concerned, there is a short answer and a long answer. Fundamentally it simply means that you are always forward thinking and moving ahead, arriving at new destinations all the time. Onward. But it also means looking up to see what new things you can reach for. Upward.

Most people tend to simply fall into the category of those who simply move onward. In other words, they are still getting to where they need to go. They are moving forward and accomplishing the basic task of getting through life. But they are not necessarily upwardly mobile along the way.

One of the best analogies of this was from financial guru and motivational speaker Robert Kiyosaki who described it as like being on a treadmill. You are endlessly walking but you are still essentially at the same place you started when you step off of it. You still have achieved something. But you have not achieved all that is possible.

In other words, you are just going through the motions.

Working, and the careers we choose can be a glaring example of how we can go through life achieving the onward part, but never realizing the upward part. How many people in the world go to work everyday mostly satisfied that they are essentially making their basic needs, but can't see a way to do better for themselves?

I would say that based on the gap between the rich and the poor that the answer is a resounding nearly everyone.

Some of this is bred through complacency. If you talk to people you can spot this sort of thing right away. They are the ones who will tell you, "I have my health." They are the ones who will smile smugly and say, "Money isn't everything."

They are also the ones who will tell you in great confidence that riches are only reserved for a select few in the world who somehow have some magical advantage over the rest of the world.

What they have done, really, is to convince themselves that what they have achieved is still a great accomplishment despite the odds against them, and that they are happy to just be where they are.

I suppose that in some ways I can't fault anyone for believing these things. But I can say that what they believe is wrong.

I think one of the things that separates the rich and the poor is attitude. Because one thing becomes glaringly evident when you achieve riches, and it is for a lot of people a surprising revelation.

Getting rich is not about the money. It's about how you perceive it, and it is about what you do to get it.

Put another way, money is the result of attitude and action. It is the product that is derived from the upward part.

And the truth is, it doesn't even have to be riches that is the ultimate end goal of the pursuit. In talking to many people who have achieved some level of wealth, when asked how they did it, they will simply answer, "It just happened."

They did this thing, and then they did this other thing, and that lead to yet another thing, and then one day they realized they'd achieved something greater. They had realized along the way the importance of being upward.

I always like to tell the story about a minimum wage Burger King worker who went on to become a multi-millionaire whom I met when I did pest control services for his restaurants.

Burger King was actually his first job in high school. Granted, he did other things before that like washing cars and cutting lawns—the typical sort of thing many teenagers do to earn some cash before they can legally work. As he put it, "I never thought that flipping burgers would be my career. But what made it my career was my vision."

His vision was his forward thinking. He could have simply moved onward, one day maybe becoming a restaurant manager making decent money. Instead he added the upward part.

Basically he asked questions. "What if I do this? What if I do that? How can I achieve the next step?" And along the way he never once became complacent. He never saw his pursuit as the best he could do. He never became satisfied.

As he put it to me, "I had been working for the restaurant for four years and then I graduated high school. My mother asked me what I was going to do?"

By that time he was a night shift assistant manager working about 32 hours a week. He thought that maybe he could just continue working, go full time, and eventually land a manager position at the store he was currently working or at one of the other stores the franchisee owned.

And he said, "That's when it sort of dawned on me. The franchisee. He owned 8 stores. How can I get just one?"

To make a long story short, he did eventually become a manager at one of the owner's stores which lead to him becoming the operations manager for all 8. More importantly, through the years he also made it a point to understand about money and became heavily invested in the stock market.

That was the real payoff for him. Because when the franchisee decided to retire eventually, he was offered the opportunity to buy the business, and he did. Not only did he buy the 8 restaurants, he expanded it to 10 in a few years.

But even then he was not satisfied. He was always looking onward and upward. And because of that he became involved in other types of businesses including real estate, and today owns approximately 6 different businesses.

How he achieved his success in life was by never seeing himself in one place, destined to only ever be there. By seizing opportunities and realizing that success and riches are not reserved for only a few people in the world. By realizing that luck and heritage have nothing to do with wealth or opportunity. By understanding that the only way you achieve things, including wealth, is through hard work and an endless quest for knowledge. And most importantly?

Removing the word "can't" from his vocabulary.

Interestingly enough, I want you to consider one final thought on this analysis of sorts of the philosophy behind onward and upward.

The guy that the Burger King worker who went on to become the owner of worked for. The guy that owned 8 restaurants. He was a millionaire in his own right. But was he onward and upward? Or was he just onward?

You might be interested to know that the answer is onward only. He got to his 8 restaurants and he was satisfied. He stopped reaching up to see what the next thing was he could grab.

He was rich of course. But many people were far richer than he was. The worker who bought his restaurants achieved far more wealth than he ever did. Whether you are poor and not richer, or rich and not richer, the reason for your position in life is because of you and what you do or don't do to be anything else other than what you are.

As I said before, wealth and achieving success and riches is all about attitude and action. Not money. And it really is that simple. Only when one realizes that will they be both onward and upward in their lives.

Lead image courtesy of Pixabay, user geralt. Step By Career Chalkboard - Free image on Pixabay