Eeven large amounts of money cannot guarantee success. Perhaps even more important than money are accountability, identifying effective solutions, properly implementing them, and diligent follow-through, while being willing to make adjustments as time goes on. This means you will very often start small and then expand from there—while recognizing this hard truth: The bigger the initial investment, the more likely it is to fail.
You see, lack of money is usually a symptom, not the core problem. That doesn’t mean we should ignore the problem, it just means we need to think carefully about how to solve it; hardly ever is it as simple as writing a check! When it is free to do so, capital chases success and flees failure. This means that lack of resources is rarely the cause of the problem and more often simply a signal pointing to a deeper underlying problem. But because it’s the most simple and obvious one, it’s easy to assume that poverty is the cause rather than an effect.
Nineteenth-century economist Frédéric Bastiat wrote about the key difference between money and wealth (or as he calls it, “riches”). He says confounding the two “is the cause of errors and calamities without number.”
For wealth, according to Bastiat, is not “a little more or a little less money.” Instead, it’s “bread for the hungry, clothes for the naked, fuel to warm you, oil to lengthen the day, a career open to your son, a certain portion for your daughter, a day of rest after fatigue … instruction, independence, dignity, confidence, charity … progress and civilization.” Money, therefore, is the store and symbol of wealth, but not wealth itself. (Fr. Ideas & Society).