“I’m reading a recently released booked called Richistan: A Journey Through the American Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich. Until I read the book, I would have thought that my trip to Detroit this week would have qualified me as living in Richistan (at least for a day). I arrived at the Detroit airport where I was met by a town car driver with holding up a sign with my name on it. He took my luggage to the beautiful black car stocked with magazines meant for someone with more wealth than me! He drove me to the Ritz Carlton where my client had a beautiful floral arrangement for me in my room. Next I had a fabulous dinner with a speaker colleague I hadn’t seen in several years. Then a wonderful night of sleep in a bed filled with over-sized pillows. In every way my client was easy to work with and the audience was gracious and appreciative of my speech and except for a slight travel delay coming home today, it was a nearly perfect trip. I am not at all a high maintenance traveler and the way I was treated on this trip certainly isn’t the way I am treated at every speaking engagement. As nice as it is to be pampered, the nicest bed is the one I am about to climb into and home where my wife and family live has way more stars than the fanciest luxury hotel in the world. I wouldn’t trade my life for any of those I have read about in Richistan. Check out this exert: “The other day we saw a mouse in the house. Before, I would have just gotten a broom and gotten ride of the thing. But now it’s different. I e-mailed the household manager. He called the vendor, a pest-control firm, and the pest-control firm caught the mouse. Then the house-hold manager directed two other staff members to dispose of the mouse. That’s five people to catch a mouse, instead of a broom. It wall seemed normal at the time. But then I thought about it, and I wondered, how did our lives get like this”? The real question is how did our world get like this? When did ten thousand square feet of house become too small? How about yacht’s bigger than a football field and people competing to have the biggest one? Events almost every night of the week in Palm Beach. The new rich, according to the book, aren’t satifisfied with what they have so they continue to make money to they can get bigger and better things.

When I finish Richistan, I am reading The 4-Hour Workweek. I think I’d rather have more time than more money. That would be Richistan to me! What would make you rich?

Tim Richardson is an inspirational speaker who speaks about how giving increases employee morale, lowers employee turnover, increases customer loyalty and creates higher profits for Fortune 500 companies, associations, and national conventions. He is the founder of the The Worlds Biggest Blog Party an event which will connect bloggers from all over the world to raise money for charity. He is also founder and president of the Bill Walter Melanoma Research Fund. For more information on Tim, go to www.TimRichardson.com