28/11/2025
: “Conspicuous consumption” is not a sign of business success
__Flash your "cash"... or save it? Choose wisely.
When you peruse social media, you'll find it's often awash with pictures of so-called influencers showing off their cars, watches, holidays, houses, etc., as symbols of success. This is called “conspicuous consumption”.
Whilst I will never be one to tell someone else how to spend money they have honestly earned, I do need to point out one thing to those who look at such displays of wealth as proof that someone is actually “doing well”... let alone to use it as a benchmark of what is expected of you as an entrepreneur to "show" that you are “doing well”.
__It actually means nothing at all, and it only fools those with little understanding of what real success looks like.
One of the first dollar billionaires I met personally once invited my wife and me to visit his home for a weekend. They owned a global diamond business. When we went for dinner, my wife noticed that his wife wore no jewellery except her wedding ring, a simple gold band. She did not even have a watch.
As for her husband, I noticed that he always wore the same jersey which had a hole in one elbow! When it came to the meal, they chose the simplest dish.
Later, I said to my wife, “I guess when you are really rich, you have nothing to prove to anyone”.
On another occasion, I was traveling in South America with one of the richest men in the world. Just before one of the speaking engagements, his assistant walked in with a new shirt for him which she had bought in the local supermarket!
"I buy all my shirts on the road,” he joked. He did not wear branded clothes of any kind... yet everyone wanted to dress like him!
To the truly wealthy, luxury brands and all that stuff don’t really matter. Just remember that.
Conspicuous consumption, or the need for it, will destroy your capacity to build a truly successful business that will contribute to your country’s development.
__Is that not why you are in business?
A very successful African football player once asked me for advice about investing his money, and this is what I said to him: “Your career at the top here in Europe, earning $200,000 per week, will last at best five to ten years. Then you will have to live on that money for another 50 to 60 years".
So, how rich do you feel now?" I asked. "You are not rich; only the owner of the club who employs you is rich”. He was stunned, but I was being brutally honest.
So many of these guys are broke within five years of ending their careers because they haven't been focused on understanding money and "advisors" can therefore take advantage of them. [By the way, I never give investment advice, so if you see some deepfake doing so, pretending they are me, call them out!]
When my youngest daughter graduated with her Master's degree, I turned to my wife and said: “That is one of the greatest successes of my life, to have paid for the education of each of my children myself. It’s what I promised myself when we got married”.
Before you spend money on yourself, ask yourself the question: “Will I be able to pay for the education of my children myself, or am I hoping that someone else will?”
There is a long road ahead for a lot of you, so avoid “conspicuous consumption”.
Image credit: KWB - Ubuntu Hope. "The desire to get (or seem) rich fast is pretty dangerous". Adapted from Charlie Munger
