This is the third, in a series of posts that summarizes a presentation, about 5 career and business facts you gotta know, that I’m delivering on May 14.
Fact No 3: It’s not about the money
The myth goes… in this world of business and commerce, you must always maximize income. Get rich—the sooner the better.
The fact is, you’re already rich. The fact is, if you own the computer you’re reading this on, you’re rich. The fact is, 90% of the world’s population can’t afford a computer. The fact is, if your annual salary exceeds $30,000, you’re part of a select group—only 5% of the world’s population earns that kind of dough. The fact is, you probably don’t feel rich. The fact is, that doesn’t change how 90% of the world perceives you. The fact is, it’s never about the money. The fact is, it’s about perceptions. The fact is, it’s all about beliefs—more about the perception of money than about money itself. The fact is I’ve already told you all this, in prior posts.
But here’s another fact. One I haven’t told you. Notwithstanding my disclosure of this fact requires me to clamber out to the very edge of a flimsy limb—and tell you something you may denounce as heresy, or that may cause you to sigh, in exasperation, I’ll tell you anyway. Regardless, I’ll tell you. And what I’ll tell you is this—money is an illusion.
But why? But how? How can I say such a thing? Here are two concepts;
1) A Philosophical View: There exists an underlying—almost unspoken—expectation that more money automatically means a better life. While only a fool argues it’s better to have no money at all, this old fool (the one writing this post) nonetheless suggests it takes blind acceptance—a certain naivete—to believe more money always makes things better. The fact is, money is but one of many ingredients required to live a full and complete life. The fact is, too often, too many of us ignore those other ingredients—time, health, relationships, vocation—to focus on the accumulation of money. The truth is, time, health, and vocation can facilitate your ability to earn money. The greater truth is, no money—no amount of it—will buy you those other elements. And to believe that an ever-increasing supply of money will result in a more complete, purposeful life is to believe in illusions.
2) A Mechanical Perspective: The fact is, banks—your bank, my bank, everybody’s bank—rarely lend out their own money. Not a surprise, right? Everyone knows that. The fact is, it’s not even other people’s money that banks lend out. The fact is, the money that banks do lend out does not exist. I know, it’s hard to believe, but the fact is, it’s all an illusion—like landlords collecting rent on nonexistent apartments. And, the fact is, it’s perfectly legal, entrenched, hundreds of years ago, through a system called Fractional Reserve Banking, that allows banks to lend out many multiples of the money they keep in their reserves.
Money… it’s only an illusion.
Case study: I’ve played this game of business a long time—more than 25 years. I worked with clients scrounging to make next week’s payroll. Feeling sorry, I’d help them find money–somewhere, somehow. Yet mere months later, even with a fresh injection of funds, they were broke again—a picture of impoverishment, of misery and dejection. You see? These clients possessed deeply-ingrained beliefs about money—perceptions that told them money was hard to come by, that they didn’t deserve money. The solution, I realized, wasn’t to help them find more money. It was to help them reframe their beliefs about money.
With all that happening, I was, at the same time, advising businesses flush with cash, profitable year-in, year-out. And yet, oftentimes, those owners, too, were unhappy. They cashed their big dividend cheques, and longed for something else. The funny thing was, they weren’t sure what they were longing for—but they knew it wasn’t money.
More on this: This blog has many references to money. To read more on why it’s not about the money, click here. The post here offers more ideas about money as an illusion, while this post explains why you’re rich and don’t know it. To see all posts about money, just type “money” in the blog’s search field (in the top right corner)
Tomorrow: You want fans
Yesterday: You can do it
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