chicks and eggs

Madonna's loving brother, Christopher Ciccone, barfs a new book on the market this upcoming week: "Life with My Sister Madonna." He reveals the incredible secret that his sister is a narcissist and the most important person in Madonna's life is ... oh-my-Gawd, nobody knew: Madonna!

Mr. Ciccone, the brotherly leech, has plenty of reasons to thank his sister for being who she is and how she is, because he wouldn't have written the book, neither would this tome sell so well--even before its publication date--without her. Madonna may not be perfect sister material, but I am quite happy not to have Christopher C. as my brother. Would you like to have your siblings publishing your family secrets? I thought so.

However, this story reminds me of a success related issue most people fail to consider when they dream and aim for wealth and fame. We want to "get" things and we are not aware that we must first become the one who can have that stuff:

When you were a child, I'm sure you heard this phrase ad nauseam in one form or another: "no, you can't have that yet. Once you are a little older (more responsible, 18, 21, etc.) we shall see." Our parents told us repeatedly we had to BE something FIRST before we were eligible to get the things we were after. They were not that wrong!

People, envious of Madonna's wealth and lifestyle, must know that they can't have all those goodies without BEING Madonna, and most people don't want to be her or like her. Not even her own brother wants to be like her. It's the same with success in other areas. A friend of mine, who is rather successful with MLM and who hates my rants against network marketing, refuses to see that in order to have a thriving network marketing business you need to BE that kind of person. No condescending judgment here: you must enjoy networking or you will fail (like over 90% of those who try).

Either you are a person who loves the MLM world already--the network marketing religion--or you must badly want to BECOME the type of person who feels home in that environment if you care to succeed. It is nonsense, a waste of time, and causing unnecessary pain trying to convince people that "the system", as the great equalizer and enabler, will turn everybody into a success story.

One of the greatest myths is that "money corrupts people." No, not even the largest amount of money can make you do what you absolutely don't want to do. It's kinda like the old hypnosis question, "will you jump off a building if the hypnotist asks you to?" You'd wake up out of the cash trance if someone asked you to do things that are against your nature.

Money operates like a looking glass and it shows you (and others) what you are made of. Huge piles of money make character traits publicly visible. Money brings out the good and the bad in you, but money is NOT responsible for you being the person you happen to be. If someone is corrupt, of course a nice chunk of money will help everyone else to see it. Most of us are so corrupt that we can be bought into doing something we don't want to do--lifelong--with puny wages, a couple of benefits, and worthless seniority babble at the water cooler. Similarly, piles of dough also show a compassionate and generous person clearer.

Again, it's not money first and then its owner changes mind, morals, and convictions: it happens the other way around. Who was first, the chick or the egg? When elderly people fall and break a hip, we know that's not how it happened: the hip broke first and then the person fell. Yet the falling is what we see as the obvious, first.

Usually we see first that someone must have oodles of money. We are not aware what led to that pile of dough. Blinded by good looks and money, people don't care about the details of development an individual had to endure to become who she is today. People judge other people as superficially as they possibly can.

And so it happens that many of us crave to punish the rich (a characterization based on nothing but a wild and ignorant guess), with an increase of capital gains tax, for instance. Since historical data show that a LOWER capital gains tax leads to HIGHER tax revenue, the call for raising that particular tax can only have the aim to punish people. Otherwise it makes no sense whatsoever.

We want to get rich (whatever we think that may be), but at the same time we want to hurt those who are "rich" already. Insane! Then, we think the amount of money one has alone--or his assets--are what got him where he is. Money is power, isn't it? "Money makes the world go 'round?" Claptrap. How much power means a bag with $100,000 under a little old lady's mattress?

In most cases it is the other way around. People have ideas, they act, and they move things. That creates money, and of course more money helps increasing the spreading of ideas, activities, etc. around the globe. But the people were first, NOT their money. An individual with tons of money was FIRST that individual person, with her particular ideas and her personal choices of how she wanted to live her life. Then she had a couple of lucky breaks or she didn't.

It is utterly dumb to believe, "I want money and then I can be who I want to be and do what I want to do." Childish, and still after being with his sister Madonna for almost half a century, Mr. Ciccone's foggy brain has not allowed him to see what's what. As a good, warm-hearted and caring sister, Madonna would have never been Madonna, and not worth writing a single paragraph about in the family scrapbook.

Be happy not to be Madonna! Be glad you are not David Beckham. Be grateful you don't have to be Rush Limbaugh. But stop this slimy envy, the vile bitterness of begrudging other people's money, or just the idiocy of comparison with individuals you don't care to be.

Now, I don't accuse you of doing such stupid things! But you and me, we participate almost daily in conversations where some airhead brings up that very issue. Set the records straight. To defend Mr. Limbaugh and Madonna? Good gawd, NO! To build an environment where YOU can live freely and unfold, privately and professionally, as you damn well please.

Freedom begins with you and it ends with the Ciccones. Everything you do is likely to be criticized by somebody some day, and possibly by your own children in a therapy session twenty years from now.

So what? Do what you want to do, today. Doing that and being you--the one and only original you--may earn you money down the road or not, lots of money or not so much. If you care for your happiness it's an easy choice to make.

Egbert