Walking Past Wealth Without Seeing It

I don't know if you've ever taken the time to see the richness hidden in the woods or the forest. Unless you're a person who is very observant and a critical thinker, you will see only green fields, birds and trees. To most people, it's ordinary. But to the discerning eye, every tree is an investment, every bird a lesson, every leaf a message. This is the same thing I see in life with money.

All the time we say money is hard to come by and yes, it is not easy to make money. But I later came to understand that while some of us just see hurdles, others are quietly making money because they are able to see all the possibilities in every situation. Where we see grass, they see farmland. Where we see rubbish, they see raw material.

I once read the story of a company in Ghana that was started on this very principle. The founder was walking on the streets of Accra and while people saw rubbish everywhere he didn't just see rubbish; he saw money lying all around. While many didn'tlike the situation, he felt moved. That is how his waste management company was born.

He created jobs, cleaned the environment and made profit out of the rubbish that people had thrown away. In contrast, it is not that he had more wealth initially, but he had the awareness to see things of value in an environment that perceived nothing.

This has had me thinking quite a bit about the nature of opportunities hiding in plain sight. Just like in a park, everyone walks through every day, and many don't recognize the freshness of air, the serenity and beauty, some only say there is nothing new there -- only grass and trees.

In much the same way, people walk through life saying there are no opportunities to win, when in fact opportunities are around us every day: the real issue is not the absence of wealth; it is our eyes that don't see it. I have also learned that true wealth is not always showcasing or loud. It is not always some massive miracle or sudden big fortune; it mostly is simple and not loud.

Sometimes, as trees grow quietly and relentless in the forest, we have to train ourselves to see and act. Once you see and act, you will begin to realize that even with simple opportunities like saving a small amount every month, or learning something new, or solving a local problem, can all, over time, grow and prosper into larger opportunities.

There is a saying in Ghana that ''the eyes that look are many, but the eyes that see are few'' Two people can walk down the same street, one only sees dust and rubbish, the other sees a business opportunity. Two people can exist in the same country, one says there are no opportunities, the other builds a valued future from what looks like nothing.

It is easy to walk past wealth without seeing it, but awareness is the key to prosperity. It's important that we train our eyes to see value; the more we open our eyes to see value, the more we will recollect that wealth has been sitting around us waiting for someone to see.