Dear Reader,
What happens when you strike gold? Which of 2 paths will you take? I was with my family earlier this month in Sacramento, the centre of the 1848 California Gold Rush, on our way to Lake Tahoe where we celebrated my birthday :-). I was telling the kids the 2 stories of the California Gold Rush in the car today...
First there’s the
story of John Sutter. He arrived in California in 1839, when there were only 1,000 foreigners in the state. When one of Sutter’s employees found gold on his land in 1848, Sutter tried to keep the find quiet. Word got out, and in 1849 the Californian Gold Rush began, with those taking part known as the ‘
forty-niners‘.
What did John Sutter do? He sued those who trespassed on his land to dig for gold. He then sued the US government to defend his land rights. He spent the next 30 years in court, suing until he was penniless. He finally won $50,000 compensation in 1880, aged 77 years old. But then he died two days later, before he could pick up his reward.
Then there’s the
story of his son, John Sutter Jnr. He didn’t try and fight the gold-hunting trespassers. Instead, he saw all these new visitors as customers, and set up the town of Sacramento on the fork of the American and Sacramento Rivers. All the 300,000 gold diggers used this as a stopping point during the gold rush. Sacramento grew into a city, and then became the Capital City of the State of California in 1854.
Sacramento became the end point of the Pony Express, and then the end point of the First Transcontinental Railroad, generating more income by the 1860s than the entire gold rush. California, in turn, created entirely new industries including Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Each has become global and created far greater fortunes than the gold rush ever did.
John Sutter died an unhappy, penniless man. His son died a happy, wealthy man. Both lived in the same times of change. The difference? John Sutter was focused at trying to hold on to what he felt was his. John Sutter Jnr was happy to let it all go and go with the flow.
He realised that true wealth doesn’t lie in the gold, but in the flow. What are you holding on to? What could you let go of? Where is flow already occurring around you? Flow that you can turn into a pool of value?
If you were to act like John Sutter Jnr, what would you do differently to create new pools of value for those busy digging for gold?
I wrote this story from Citizen Hotel, overlooking the main square in Sacramento. It’s a “
Joie De Vivre” Hotel. The chain was set up by Chip Conley in 1987. I met Chip earlier this year. Chip, like John Sutter Jnr, goes with the flow. He sold the Joie De Vivre chain to Hyatt Hotels heir, John Pritzker, in 2010 for $150 million.
Instead of holding on to what was his, he let it go and went on to his next passion - inspiring others. One of his books, ‘
Emotional Equations’, reduces our feelings to equations. For example: "
happiness = wanting what you have ÷ having what you want"
Think about that. John Sutter didn’t want what he had but needed to have what he wanted. Happiness eluded him. John Sutter Jnr was happy to be the opposite, and so ended up happy.
And wealthy.
