CONVERSATION WITH MY BILLIONAIRE FRIEND
(SESSION 24)
A few days before our usual meeting day, my Billionaire Friend called me to hint that he would like to share a thought that could be the subject of our next discussion if it was okay with me. I was all ears. He started with a question: Have you heard of the expression “health is wealth”? I answered in the affirmative and he then asked further: Do you know what it means?
My reply: “That is obvious enough. It means when you take care of your health, you are putting yourself in a position to build wealth”.
“That is correct,” he said, “but I want to stretch it a bit further, and if it is alright by you, we shall dwell more on it during our next meeting. I gave him my nod on the subject.
Once we settled down for the session, my Billionaire Friend took off from where we stopped our telephone conversation:
HEALTH IS WEALTH
“My boss, health is wealth is not just a cliché; it is at the core of wealth building, but unfortunately, many people trying to build wealth are not conscious of this reality. I have observed individuals who run around, especially during their youth, trying by all means to make a name, fame and wealth but totally neglecting to take care of their health, erroneously thinking that once the money is made, they would take care of their health. They ultimately find this to be a disastrous assumption.
“Here is the reality, from personal observations, experience and what I have also read: once your health is fundamentally assaulted, everything may come to a halt and worse, it could get to a point where you will not be able to just throw money at it. Once your health is affected, lofty dreams can vanish; great visions can perish, and the wealth you have spent your vigour to build may become meaningless. I was once told of a wealthy man who sold all his property worth quite a lot at a fraction of the value, just to get cash, yet he could still not make it”.
“Many Nigerian wealth owners and builders have died for not paying attention to and investing in their health while being fixed and busy only stashing wealth in vaults. Some of my close friends have died from lacking investment in regular medical checks and attention to their health”.
“Don’t get me wrong, my boss; ill health can still come to anyone for a variety of reasons; what I want us to focus on in this subject is why wealth builders should be intentional about taking care of their health if they truly want to build enduring wealth”.
“In building wealth, wealth builders must take cognisance of the importance of their health. Otherwise, the whole effort of wealth building would end up worthless for their lives. Wealth builders must therefore be conscious of the need to regularly monitor and take care of their health, to ensure that they live and work with a sound mind, body, energy, good health, and the right mind to build their wealth”.
“The common health issues that generally occur with wealth builders, in their usually concentrated, focused and very busy search for wealth, are health problems arising from; overweight, or or mental health, workplace injury, violence, environmental quality, etc. These problematic health issues globally affect wealth builders. It is therefore important for wealth builders to always remain conscious that man must first be alive and well before he can ably build and enjoy wealth. Otherwise, wealth building would not be worth its effort”.
“Wealth builders must pay attention to the need for regular and continuous monitoring of their health by medical doctors, particularly their heart. Health problems of the heart cover many heart conditions, including heart disease, infection, congenital heart defects and coronary heart disease. These heart problems can usually easily be detected from simple blood analysis in medical laboratories for the detection and treatment by medical doctors. But wealth builders must first submit themselves for such analysis, detection and treatment of their heart conditions to save them from developing serious heart conditions or sudden deaths. It is generally common to find wealth builders pursuing wealth without investing in their health. Hence, in many cases, fatal health injuries occur due to wealth builders not undergoing regular medical checkups.”
FAMILY HEALTH
“Being mindful of wealth builders’ family health history is also important. In that wise, wealth builders should find out and be fully aware of their family health histories for good health investment. For instance, such knowledge of family health history is necessary for the early detection of hypertension and diabetes, which are the most recurrent health problems with wealth builders and owners as they age. Generally, parents’ health history has some relevance and correlation with the health of their offspring. Most times, obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes can be traced to people’s parents. However, if wealth builders have taken the trouble to be aware of the likely development of such genetically occurring health issues, investing by wealth builders to prevent, detect or better manage such health issues would be better achievable. Early detection of diabetes and hypertension would allow wealth builders to take good pre-emptive actions, in consulting their medical doctors, usually long before these health problems rear their heads.”
“Wealth builders should also invest in creating the right environment around them to avoid the possible development of chronic respiratory diseases and avoid smoking and smokers. Smoking is medically known to be carcinogenic. Wealth builders must avoid smoking since it is known to damage the lungs and lead to chronic respiratory diseases in the long run. Therefore, it is strongly-recommended for wealth builders to invest in their health via regular checkups, using their recommended drugs appropriately and ensure that their medical doctors properly monitor their health performance.”
DISEASES: LITTLE FOXES THAT SPOIL THE VINE
“Many chronic respiratory diseases usually start gradually. Hence, generally, investment in the early detection of pulmonary diseases and chronic bronchitis are very vital to the health and sustenance of the pursuit of wealth by wealth builders working in susceptible environments. Wealth builders with asthma and occupational lung diseases also need to regularly invest in closely monitoring their health to look out for any possible early development.”
“One area of human health which wealth builders need to pay close attention to, is the early detection of cancer. The symptoms of cancer for early detection include lumps or thickening of the skin, fatigue, skin changes, unexplained bleedings, etc. Once these begin to rear their heads, wealth builders must take prompt measures to invest in a thorough investigation before such early symptoms of cancer development to advanced stages. We can go on and on about the health issues usually occurring during wealth builders’ earnest pursuit of wealth. However, the whole essence of this conversation is the need for wealth builders to invest in and pay due attention to their health while seeking wealth. Wealth without health has no value and significance because man needs a healthy life to enjoy wealth. Wealth builders’ benefits of investing in health are enormous because they need to take care of their survival, energetic body, stable health and flexible body to build wealth and make significant contributions to societal, national and human development.”
“Wealth builders who do not invest in resting, recreating, engaging in pleasurable leisure activities and some simple exercises only end up with cerebrovascular diseases. These occur more regularly with ageing wealth builders who ignore their health but spend their time solely pursuing and accumulating wealth.“
“Stroke is most common with this class of wealth builders, as their blood supply to the brain is cut off, depriving their brain’s delicate tissue of oxygen and its necessary nutrients. To avoid the occurrence of stroke, wealth builders need to consult their doctors regularly, carry out regular check-ups of their oxygen levels and systolic and diastolic blood pressure levels and also regularly monitor their blood sugar levels to avoid stroke, which is common with wealth builders that jettison their health for pursuing wealth only”.
“As earlier mentioned, many wealth builders suffer from stroke, particularly those wealth builders who, as a result of the abundance of their financial endowments, end up not caring about what they ingest as food and drinks and thus develop obesity without caring about investing in their health or exercising regularly. Diabetes can be genetic, but its occurrence can be minimised by those wealth builders who watch their food and alcoholic drink intake to prevent it. In such cases where the health problems of diabetes have already occurred, then such wealth builders who have invested in managing such problems would, of course, be saved from the resulting complications. The longer a person has diabetes, the more likely they will suffer long-term health complications. Therefore, wealth builders need to invest and pay particular attention to regularly monitoring the sugar levels in their blood. The health complications that can arise from long-term diabetes include kidney failure, nerve damage, eye damage, cardiovascular diseases, etc.”
INVESTMENT IN HEALTH INSURANCE
“We must realise that medical insurance companies that provide this health insurance policy coverage run for profitable goals and that they do make profits. Therefore wealth builders are encouraged to establish health insurance and health gym firms as viable opportunities for building wealth. Since health insurance is vital in the management of people’s health, then Nigerian with very poor public health facilities, over 200 million population and with only 3% of its population, investing in the provision of health insurance coverage offers wealth builders a great opportunity to wealth builders to grow their wealth in such an environment.”
“I started by investing in foreign health insurance outside Nigeria, long before the emergence of good health insurance companies in Nigeria. I had to be coughing out some $15,000 per annum for myself and my spouse, on medical insurance coverage, including medical evacuation out of Nigeria, in the absence of good local health facilities and health insurance companies. However, since the emergence of good health insurance companies in Nigeria, I have stopped procuring foreign health insurance policies for some years. I pay for my Nigerian health insurance policy in naira. It covers up to N50 000,000 naira health coverage and business class evacuation to the nearest centre of medical excellence outside Nigeria, with me as the patient and one person accompanying me and full treatment in private wards outside Nigeria. Wealth builders should take advantage of the National Health Insurance Scheme Act for themselves and their organisations. It has worked very well for me, my family and personnel. Nigeria’s health insurance coverage is good, working, covers all classes of the economic strata and therefore comes highly recommended. It is generally known that good health is directly related to a productive life. Owning all the wealth in this world without good health is foolishness.”
“I enjoin you to be familiar with the last words of the world’s famous billionaire – Steve Jobs, to further appreciate this my position. The functionality of the human body is interconnected between various organs of the human body. Therefore, keeping wealth builders healthy is essential for their proper functioning towards their devoted pursuit of wealth. Hence, wealth builders must regularly monitor and take good care of their physical, mental health and social well-being, to ensure that their pursuit of wealth ends up meaningful.”
“While covering this subject, one is tempted to ask how best can one ensure that wealth builders save themselves the huge expense of maintaining good health at all times. The answer to this is obvious with the National Health Insurance Scheme Act, which enabled many health insurance firms to emerge and thrive for the benefit of wealth builders and others in Nigeria. Wealth builders should procure health insurance for their health and their personnel. In doing this, they will save themselves the expense and trouble of coughing out unplanned and unbudgeted funds for providing health facilities for their personnel. Health insurance generally minimises the overall cost of providing health facilities for families and the personnel of wealth builders. There are many health insurance companies currently operating in Nigeria, and the cost in Nigeria, for procuring health insurance coverage is not as exorbitant as it is generally perceived here by Nigerians. Indeed one reason for this discussion is to make Nigerians aware that the procurement of health insurance in Nigeria is not out of the reach of ordinary Nigerians. This conversation is thus aimed at simplifying the myth around medical insurance coverage and providing some basic information and knowledge about this very important medical protective care need at the most minimal cost to Nigerians. Indeed, health insurance covers all different economic strata. There are, thus, levels for the poor, the average class, and the wealthy. The levels for the poor could be as low as N42, 000 naira per annum while for others, it ranges from N80, 000 – N600 000 per annum”. Health insurance policies extend from providing essential medical maintenance coverage in hospitals to providing surgeries for the poor while providing for the wealthy in medical evacuations out of Nigeria, in cases where required medical facilities are not available in Nigeria. This information is also for wealth builders, towards investing in not only providing good health coverage for their personnel and staff but in the process, motivating the productivity and optimisation of their personnel outputs, towards greater wealth builders profitability and business survival.
“Efforts should therefore be made by wealth builders to procure good health insurance policies for their personnel, for coverage in hospitals closest to their homes as arranged under their different insurance policies, towards reducing staff medical cost of accessing and receiving health coverage. This conversation became necessary from a recent experience of a close friend, who, out of lack of health insurance coverage, caused some embarrassment. This very committed and hardworking but uninformed sick friend is currently experiencing a major unexpected medical condition because of being without subsisting health insurance coverage. He has had to have cause to resort to friends and associates for assistance. His subsequent unexpected major surgeries, lengthy hospitalisation, and now evacuation would have been well covered under a good medical insurance policy in Nigeria and Naira, including his resulting evacuation. All that good medical insurance coverage would have taken from him on regular payment of his insurance premiums would have only been appending his signature to the medical invoice covering the total cost of his treatment, surgeries, and medical maintenance costs.
Remember: health is wealth. Invest in your health while pursuing wealth”
Thus far…
I can’t wait to catch up with you next week.
Email:ayo.arowolo@thisdaylive.com
QUOTE 1
Here is the reality, both from personal observations, experience and what I have also read: once your health is fundamentally assaulted, everything may come to a halt and worse, it could get to a point where you could not be able to just throw money at it. Once your health is affected, lofty dreams can vanish; great visions can perish, and the wealth you have spent your vigour to build may become meaningless.
QUOTE 2
This conversation became necessary from a recent experience of a close friend, who, out of lack of health insurance coverage, caused some embarrassment. This very committed and hardworking but uninformed sick friend is currently experiencing a major unexpected medical condition because of being without subsisting health insurance coverage.
