“WHO WANTS TO BE A CAPITALIST?”

That’s what I asked when I began the Wealth Creation training in Moscow many years ago. I had been there the previous year (1998) presenting APG which was recorded and promoted. Now it was application time. What could you do with the Meta-States Model? Announcing that the training would be using NLP and Meta-States for learning how to create wealth, over 300 crowded into an auditorium. Decades of Communism meant that everybody there grew up in an economic and political system in which they learned nothing about how a free market works and how to think like a capitalist. It was a great opportunity, one that we repeated two more times.

“Here you are in this NLP Center and you have come to study and learn how to create wealth in your lives. Who here wants to be a capitalist?”

Every hand shot up. For me it was an eery transcendent moment; this American in the former Soviet Union training people in capitalism! But the moment soon passed because the strategy to create wealth starts with the process to create internal wealth— to be wealthy in your thoughts, emotions, understandings, ideas, creativity, relationships, etc. It is from one’s human capital that financial capital as well as all other capitals flow. Ultimately because wealth is inside-out, it begins with the wealth of an idea— a way to create value for others. If you have an idea for a product or service, if you would like to do something that you’re good at and love to do, then you have a beginning.

Then to make it real, start saving capital so that when you have some money saved up and when you have opportunity, you can invest it — maybe in a home, maybe in a business. If you succeed in the business, you can hire others – and then you become a job creator. You enable them to do what they do best and love.

Now the process of creating wealth requires lots of effort, thought, vision, learning, relating, getting along, structuring. It is not for the lazy or the irresponsible. It would be easier if you didn’t have to think, learn, and do. It would be easier if only someone would just give you money without any conditions. Of course, other than well-fare, that’s pretty unrealistic.

Now to survive a capitalistic system—if you don’t want to think, work, learn, etc.—you can get a job and work for someone. Then you can avoid thinking, learning, and maybe even working. You could aim to do as little as possible to keep your job(!). Or better, you could find a bureaucracy and work there until you get tenure. Then you could glide along, barely working, and never ever even considering whether you are contributing value to the organization or to anyone.

I’m a small-time capitalist. After I began saving up some extra funds so I could pay a very small down payment on a house. That’s how I entered the real estate market and got into purchasing homes which I could rent. Having rented all of my adult life, I knew what that was like and felt like when it wasn’t good. I knew what unthoughtful and inconsiderate landlords were like. I swore I would do it differently. So I set my goal to first of all provide the best home I could by keeping things in repair. I knew that if I provided good value for money, it would be a good win/win relationship for all. So I always kept rent below market value. I also wanted every family to feel at home, to make the house their home and so added things they wanted if that was possible. Consequently a great many ended up buying the house.

As a conscious capitalist, I always aimed for a win/win arrangement. I took the legal papers for contracting and re-wrote them in everyday language. By keeping the rent low for value, those who rented were not constantly looking for another less expensive place— their rent was a good 10% below market value. That was a win for them. What was a win for me was to have responsible persons who were taking care of things.

I also became a small-time capitalist with regard to trainings. From research and presentations, I created training programs and as others experienced the trainings, many began asking if they could train. So over the years, I worked to make it possible for others to train the material. That was, in part, how Neuro-Semantics came about. Instead of creating a franchise, “owning” the trainings, charging franchise fees, etc., I decided to create a collaborative association that would, in part, be an open source community. This enabled those who wanted to — to become trainers and make a living doing what they loved. As a conscious capitalist, wanting to become a self- actualizing capitalist, I sit up a system that would serve “the larger good” rather than as a self- promotion. Their fees would not go to me, but to the community of trainers in the local institutes to help promote the trainings in that country. And the cost for using the manuals, a $5 royalty for each manual produced.

Capitalism, as noted in the first article, is not just one thing. There are many versions and kinds, some self-promoting and cruel, some humanistic and self-actualizing.

“Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.” Charles de Gaulle