Who’s In Your Room
Money, and the Room You Build In.
On money, and the one thing Napoleon Hill found behind almost every great fortune - and it was not brains.
A hundred years ago, Napoleon Hill spent decades studying five hundred of the most successful people alive: steel titans, inventors, presidents. He went looking for the secret. It was not IQ, and it was not luck. Two things kept showing up: how they thought about money, and who they surrounded themselves with. We are going to talk about both.
“Doing well with money has little to do with how smart you are and a lot to do with how you behave.”
Morgan Housel, The Psychology of MoneyNot a genius move. Behavior. Patience over panic, discipline over impulse, the long game over the quick hit. Wealth is mostly the money you do not see, because a disciplined person did not spend it.
For a person of faith, money is not the goal, it is a tool. A tool to provide, to build, to serve, and to give. So you steward it. You treat every dollar of this company, and your own, like it matters, because it does. At Bjerk we call this Dogged Determination: protecting our team, our customers, and our resources as if they were our own. Spend like an owner, invest like a steward, and play the long game.
But here is the part I most want you to hear, the second thing Hill found. Nobody builds anything great alone. The wealthiest people he studied all had one thing in common that had nothing to do with talent: a tight circle of driven, like-minded people they thought and built alongside. He called it the Master Mind.
“Coordination of knowledge and effort, in a spirit of harmony, between two or more people, for the attainment of a definite purpose.”
Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow RichRead it again: in a spirit of harmony. Not just smart people in a room. Not the most talent you can find. People pulling the same direction, on purpose. Hill said no two minds ever come together without creating a third, invisible force - a third mind. Put a few of the right people in a room, aimed at the same goal, and you get more than the sum of them. You get something none of them had alone.
Think About It.
If you were building anything - a car, a home, a building, a championship team - who do you want in that room? People full of faith and a fun-loving spirit who believe the thing can be done? Or a bunch of negative Nancys gloating about what they do and what they know?
You already know the answer. You have been on both crews. One of them builds. The other one talks.
That is exactly what we are building. A group of like-hearted, like-minded people - warrior spirit, servant’s heart, fun-loving - all living these things out together. If we do that, if we truly become each other’s mastermind, we are unstoppable. Not because any one of us is a genius. Because iron sharpens iron.
Show me the five people you think and build alongside, and I will show you where you are headed.
Put a few of the right people in a room, aimed at the same goal, and you get a force none of them had alone. Your circle is not a detail. It is the strategy.
Who’s in your room
“As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” Proverbs 27:17
Playing to lose vs. playing to win
Tears others down → playing to lose
- Complains.
- Criticizes.
- Gossips.
- Boasts. I, me, my.
- Guards every idea. Plateaus alone.
Builds others up → playing to win
- Encourages.
- Celebrates the win.
- Speaks well of people not in the room.
- Gives the credit away. We, us, ours.
- Shares to sharpen. Compounds together.
Let’s Play to Win
Build your room.
Name three to five like-hearted people who make you better. If you do not have a mastermind, start one. Meet monthly, share the real numbers and the real struggles, sharpen each other.
Then pick one money-behavior rep this week: automate a bit of saving, cut one thing that is status not value, or treat one company expense like it is coming straight out of your own pocket.
Behavior builds the wealth. The right room multiplies it.
Steward well, and surround yourself with the right people. That is how ordinary people build extraordinary things.
Let’s get after it in life, family, and business.
AND LET’S PLAY TO WIN!!!
Lots of love,
Nate
