All my life I’ve heard the comment, “Money doesn’t make you happy”.  The interesting thing was that most of the people who were repeating this statement never really had much of it in their lives and they spent most of their waking hours chasing more of it.  Well, I wanted to find out for myself.

During the height of the real estate boom during the years 2002-2007 the city of Bakersfield, CA was in the top one and two spots for property value appreciation in the country.  Just-so-happen my wife and I had made our part-time business in the area of real estate and had several dozen properties before and during this time.  Almost over night we saw our small six-figure a year business increase to a six-figure a month business.  Our smart work had finally paid off and people thought we were geniuses, but the only thing we had done was position ourselves to benefit from the enormous real estate growth.

At this time money became overwhelmingly plentiful.  The more we made, the more we’d give to our church, family, schools, our tenants and even perfect strangers in need.  My wife and I then accomplished the goal of designing and building our own multi-million dollar luxury dream home.  We started to take more family trips to see my family inTexasand fun trips to exotic places and theme parks for fun and taking people along with us.  During this process the things that made me the happiest was watching others experience happiness and knowing that I had a little something to do with making it possible.

Finally, I had found out for myself first hand that it’s not the money that makes you happy, it’s what you choose to do with the money that matters most.  Money will come and go but true happiness is what I know.  We don’t have anywhere near as much money as we once did, but happiness has not eluded me.

Simply put, money is just a tool and can be used for good or not-so-good means.  Having money just gives you the option to do more of the things that make you happy, like giving and creating for those who are less fortunate.  Don’t abuse your money tool.  I invite you to choose to put it to good use today.  It really is your choice so choose wisely.  Let’s make it GREAT!