When joining the "one percent" can be a good thing

We're all familiar with the term "the one percent," the people earning extraordinarily large incomes. And for sure when you read that some CEO makes 500,000 times what the average worker does, or the head of some pharmaceutical company is charging $10,000 for one pill it can be disheartening. So, okay, maybe joining the top one percent of income earners isn't such a lofty goal.

But what about other categories? What about being in the top one percent of givers? Of carers? Of kind people? Of listeners? Of honest people? Trustworthy, friendly or loyal people?

Now those are some categories worthy of aiming at and that a person would be proud to belong to.

When it's all said and done, who is really going to care if somebody made a lot of money. Actually, there's an answer to that—the greedy people who want to do the same thing. And hey, if that's what floats their boat, that's fine with me. But it doesn't float mine.

Onassis, Carnegie, Rockefeller. Who cares. Gandhi. Mother Teresa. Even somebody like Princess Di, who was privileged no doubt but spent so much of her time going to hospitals and encouraging sick kids. When she died, people wept.

So striving to be amongst the top one percent can actually be an awesome thing—just pick your category wisely.