Jim Rohn is a well-known business philosopher. A headline on his web-site (http://www.jimrohn.com) caught my eye one day, entitled, “The Ant Philosophy.” The ant philosophy? I thought. That ought to be interesting. He posed two questions, complete with answers. He first asked, “When was the last time you saw ants bump up against an obstacle and give up with their heads down and head back to the ant hole to relax?” The answer? “Never. If they're headed somewhere and you try to stop them, they will look for another way. They'll climb over, they'll climb under, they'll go around — regardless of the effort involved.” The next question he asks is, “How much will an ant gather during the summer to prepare for winter?” And the answer to that? “All that it possibly can. Ants don't have quotas or "good enough" philosophies. They don't gather a certain amount and then head back to the hole to "hang out." If an ant can do more, it does.”

Finally, Mr. Rohn challenged his readers to “[i]magine what you could accomplish if you never quit and always did all that you could do.”

The interesting thing about all this is that nobody says that the ant who is trying to gather as much as possible is being greedy or materialistic. Instead, they say he is being industrious and responsible. Nobody suggests the ant should share with anyone who is not gathering anything for the winter. Every ant is responsible for himself. Nobody says the government should take care of the ant or bail him out if he’s irresponsible and collects nothing in preparation for winter.

So if we don’t say that about ants, why do we say that about people? Why is there this backlash against hard-working wealthy people who are good stewards of their money (I’m not talking here about greedy CEOs who bankrupt a company and then expect a very golden parachute)? Why do we say they are greedy and materialistic, rather than industrious and responsible? Why do we say they should be forced to help take care of people who refuse to be responsible for themselves?

Of course, humans are a bit more complex than ants; there are wealthy people who obtain their wealth through fraudulent means or cronyism, rather than through hard work and good stewardship. And there are people who cannot care for themselves, rather than those who will not. The ant world does not differentiate between cannot and will not – either way, those ants will likely die. In the human world, we often don’t differentiate between cannot and will not either; but in our world, those people do not die – they are supported by the government, i.e., taxpayers, whether they fall in the cannot or will not category. And I’m not saying we shouldn’t care for those who cannot take care of themselves – I’m not that heartless!

But what if we could get everyone to focus on Mr. Rohn’s last statement? What if everyone did all they could do (which, of course would be different for each person), and no one ever quit (and please don’t confuse quit with change in this example)? How much more successful would your business be? How many truly amazing things could you – and we - accomplish?