A New Perspective on The Life of Being a Socialist and a Capitalist

There's a lot of talk these days about socialism and capitalism. You hear people say that socialism has destroyed countries. It's the absolute worst form of government that anyone could experience. Yet you also hear people talk about capitalism as though it is something evil that only cares about itself, its own people, and never reaches out to help anyone else. Well, today on this podcast, I'm going to share with you in a way that I hope will be helpful to let you know that every one of us at some time in our life is a socialist and every one of us at some time in our life is a capitalist. I think you're going to enjoy what we talk about today.

Welcome to becoming Wiser with Dr. Robert A. Roam. For more information or products by Dr. Rome, please visit personalityinsights.com use coupon code podcast10 to receive 10% off eligible products and personality assessments. Thank you for joining us today. And now, Dr. Robert A. Rohl.

Hi, I'm Dr. Robert Rome. Today I want to talk to you about something that is really on my heart that I share with a lot of people. Because sometimes I think we take two things to an extreme. We choose a position, I am a socialist or I am a capitalist. And we try to fight and defend our position, not realizing that there really a lot of shades of socialism and a lot of shades or degrees of capitalism. So I want to give you sort of what I would consider the overview in A Big Idea and then break it down and help you to see something that I believe will be very helpful. In its strictest form, socialism means you are basically not able to take care of yourself. Someone else, the government or a family or someone has to care for you because you just aren't smart enough enough or healthy enough or in a position to take care of yourself. You're very needy and someone has to give you things and help you along and carry you and pay for you and make sure that everything in your life is given to you or handed to you on a silver platter so you can survive. Now, the truth of the matter is that's happened to all of us. It's called being born. Think about it. When you were born, someone had to feed you, someone had to change your diaper, someone had to clean you up, someone had to feed you, someone had to help you when you were hurt or rock you to sleep. Someone pretty much had to do everything for you. But in time, you got to where you could crawl a little bit or you could get some pablum and put it from the table in front of you into your mouth, you were learning to feed yourself, and as you were learning to crawl, you eventually toddled and kind of stood up on your own two feet and learned how to walk. But the point, in its purest form, someone had to take care of you because you were not able to take care of yourself. However, in time, you didn't like that position. You didn't like the fact that someone 100% controlled everything you did. What you ate, what time you got up, what you wore, what time you went to bed, pretty much everything in your life for several months, you were totally dependent on another person. That, my friend, is socialism in its purest and strictest form. Someone has to take care of you because you are not able to take care of yourself. But that is a really hard place to be. Now hear me well. I believe we should be compassionate. There are some people who have physical maladies, and there are things in their life that prohibit and prevent them from being able to take care of themselves. Perhaps they are crippled or they have mental disabilities and someone has to care for them. I am all for that. That is a loving, kind, gracious thing to do for another person who is not able to care for themselves. However, we need to also realize that if a person can care for themselves, they should care for themselves. Quick example. I have four grown daughters. When they were little girls, I carried them. I carried them on my hip. Sometimes I carried two at a time, one on one hip and one on the other. If you saw me with my little girls, you would have thought, wow, that sure is a nice guy. He's carrying his little girls. They were 2, 3, 4 years, 5 years old. I was carrying them, picking them up, putting them on my back, carrying them around. You would have said, man, that's. That's so cool. And it was. At the time, however, when they got to be 10, 15, 20, 25, if you saw me picking them up and carrying them around on my hip, you would think, what in the world is going on? Is that guy lost his mind? I mean, those are grown women. What the world are you doing picking them up, carrying them on your hip like the little babies? You see, that would have been all wrong. Why? Because they had shifted from socialism to capitalism. They were able to walk on their own two feet. They were able to feed themselves, clothe themselves. They were able to take care of themselves. They were able to go to school, get an education, get a job, have a life, get married, have children. And here's the punchline. Have a life of their own. You see, a Person who stands on their own two feet and has a job or starts a business or, or has a company or is able to make a living for themselves and not be dependent on someone else has entered the world of capitalism. The world of capitalism says, make your own way. Get your own education, buy your own house, buy your own car, learn how to pay your own bills. Don't have to have somebody hold your hand and take care of everything you do. You're smart, you can get an education, you can get a job, you can learn how to do things. I believe America was built on the apprentice model of people learning how to do things from other people who were older, who knew how to do those things, whether it was the field of electrician or plumbing or auto mechanics. Almost everyone I know who knows how to do something learned how to do it from their father, their grandfather, or my baby going to school, vocational school, or learning about history, English, math or science, what has taken place in history, so they could not make the same mistakes. I love watching the History Channel. It shows how things happened in America, how America was built by entrepreneurs who were able to stand on their own two feet. Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Ford, Morgan. Five men who primarily built the United States of America's infrastructure by providing jobs and by giving people opportunity to learn and grow and become capitalist. Now it continues. Let me go a little bit further. A person who is of the ability and desire, because it takes a lot of stomach to do what I'm about to say, decides maybe they want to start their own company, maybe they want to own their own business. They don't want to work for someone. Hear me well. There's nothing wrong with working for someone else. We have all done it. Everyone that I know at some point in time had a job. It might have been working at home for their parents just so they could get an allowance. But it's very, very, very, very rare that you go from growing up and then at 6, 7, 8 years old, you start a company and you never work for someone else. We all work for someone else. It may be cutting the grass, raking the leaves, cleaning the house, vacuuming, but we do something that we got paid for because we were transferring from being a socialist and learning how to do things that someone else made us do to wanting to have an income, wanting to stand own two feet and becoming a young capitalist. But then as time passes, as I just mentioned, you might say, you know, I, I don't want to work for someone else. I want to work for myself. I want to start my own company. I want to start my own business. I remember this happened to me in 1991. I had always had a job. I had income, I had benefits, had retirement. I had all the normal things that come along with the job. But there was just something inside of me that wanted more. And again, that doesn't mean I was better than anyone. That doesn't mean I was smarter than anyone. It just meant I felt like I wanted to do something. So I started my own company. Oh my goodness, what a shock that was to my system. I remember laying in bed in an air conditioned house with sweat dripping off my neck, thinking thoughts like this. I don't have a salary, I don't have any income, I don't have any benefits, I don't have any vacation, I don't have any perks, I don't have a retirement plan anymore. I don't have anything except an opportunity. And it took some time because I was moving from being somewhat of a capitalist, standing on my own two feet, paying for my own way, paying for my family, making things happen, to now a real strict capitalist. No income, no benefits, no salary, no overtime, no insurance, no nothing. Anything that I was going to have, I was going to have to create. And capitalists understand that creating goods and service is what it's all about. You see, that's what capitalism is. Capitalism is if someone gets an idea, they put their own money, their own time, their own sweat equity into something and they create goods or they create a service. I have friends that have carpet cleaning services. They have a service they provide, they clean carpet. I have others who provide things such as health care. They are health care providers. They went to school to become medical doctors or nurses so they could provide their own services to help others. There's a wide, vast range of opportunity in the world of being a capitalist. Sometimes we refer to these people as entrepreneurs. They start their own company because they provide goods. That's exactly what happens when someone starts a company and creates computers or cell phones or automobiles or Coca Cola or street lamps or a thousand and one other things. There's no end to people who want to start their own company. However, starting your own company is a very, very, very difficult experience. There will be a lot of sleepless nights. I remember some months I would work all month. My staff, my team and I would pay all of them. I can actually remember everyone being paid. All the taxes being paid, the rent being paid, the utilities, the insurance, everything was paid. And I made nothing. Zip, zero, nada. I didn't make anything. And I was so Happy. I was so happy. I can remember almost going outside doing cartwheels in my yard, thinking, everybody got paid, everything is covered. We made it through another month. I didn't make anything, but so what? Remember what I said earlier? The one thing I had was an opportunity. And in time, it began to grow and develop and expand. And then one month I made a little money, and another month made a little more money, and then another month, a little more. And it grew and it grew. Do you think Bill Gates or Steve Jobs just one day decided, hey, I think I'll start Microsoft, I think I'll start Apple, and next day I'll be a trillionaire? No, that's not how it happened. There were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of decisions and sleepless nights and lost money and lost opportunities and bad ideas and failures and tears and breakups and heartaches and family dissension and. And a thousand and one other things. But that's part of the personal growth and development of becoming a capitalist. But then, I'm not finished. We're almost done with this podcast. We get older, and when we begin to slow down, and eventually, yep, you can see it coming, can't you? We end up elderly, we end up slowing down, our body begins to break apart, and we begin to become bedridden or old or slow. I'm not there yet, but I'm no spring chicken. At 75, I can feel myself slowing down a little bit. And I've seen it happen with my own parents and other people that I know and love. My mentor last year, 85 years old, loved him so much. He got old, he got sick, he didn't know who he was, and he eventually died. But before then, others were taking care of him. He was one of the biggest entrepreneurs, one of the biggest capitalists I ever met. But at the end of his life, he'd become a socialist again. Someone had to feed him, someone had to take care of him. Someone had to provide for his needs and love him. Someone had to make sure he was cared for. So that, in a nutshell, is what I want you to grab hold of. Don't become a person who is divisive. Well, I'm a capitalist, I'm a socialist, have enough sense and ability to realize all of us are all of those things. And in varying degrees, all throughout the process of. Of life as we learn how to have someone take care of us until we can take care of ourselves. And then we can not only take care of ourselves, we can learn to take care of others until we come to the end of the road and someone takes care of us again. I hope you'll discuss these ideas with your family. I hope you'll see where you are on the journey and realize all of this is part of life. It is a great experience to know I can stand on my own two feet. I don't have to have anybody take care of me. But it is also a great experience to know I can help others. I can care and love and support and give and become a person who has means but is also able to give what I have earned and help others so they can have a better life as well. We're all in this together. I trust you'll be a socialist. I trust you'll be a capitalist. I trust you'll be the person who makes a difference not only in your own life, but in the life of those that you meet in the coming days. Hope this has been helpful. I'm Dr. Robert Rome. I look forward to our next time together. Thank you so much. Bye Bye. For more information about this podcast, please visit www.becomingwiserpodcast.com.