Wealth creation and Kershaw Gardens: What is the link ??
If you are driving through Rockhampton please stop and take the time to walk through the Kershaw Gardens.
This area once was a local landfill and rubbish dump (a waste transfer station in more modern terms).
Now it can be thought of as a tranquil area of natural beauty. This transformation didn’t happen overnight and it didn’t happen without a lot of planning, patience and discipline.
The Kershaw Gardens story is very similar to what the story of wealth creation is like – if you let it be.
Warren Buffett (one of the world’s most successful investors) is quoted as saying “Somebody’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago”.
Take a moment and look at the images of some different trees and landscapes shots taken at Kershaw Gardens yesterday … close your eyes and think about your favourite tree.
You plant it in the earth, and a wonderful force of nature causes it to take root, and to grow. You don’t have to do much with it: the air and the water and the nutrients it needs are all around the tree, and it knows how to use them.
You don’t dig it up every 90 days to check on its progress. Nothing much will have happened in that brief time and you might do more harm than good to the trees roots.
You don’t uproot the tree and store it in the garage over the winter, to protect it from what you regard as “bad weather”. Though its leaves fall and it stops growing for a season, the tree itself does not die. Even leafless, the tree is still producing oxygen, without which you and I could not live.
Give the tree enough room, enough light and enough time and leave it alone. It will give you back air and shade and beauty as it grows – and will likely go on doing so for your children , after you are gone.
The story of the tree and Kershaw Gardens is very similar to what the story of wealth creation is like – if you let it be. Wealth is no less organic than the tree. Growth of wealth in managed funds is no less a force of nature, than the trees we highlighted earlier.
Building wealth is simple but it isn’t easy. If you can muster the required amounts of faith, patience and discipline – and if you can draw those qualities from your financial advisor or coach when your own reserves are running low – history suggests that true wealth follows over time.
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Dan Smith is a self employed Financial Planner based in Rockhampton. He has clients in various locations throughout Australia but predominately in Central Queensland and specifically the geographic area encompassed by the Rockhampton Regional Council.