The DiLauro Dossiers

I overheard a conversation.
Two ladies talking.
The first one complaining to the second one that her son, just recently graduated and earning super big bucks, had the temerity to be miserable.

“I told him,” Lady 1 said, “What’s your problem? You’re making terrific money. You’ve got a fantastic career with a solid company. You’ve got a great future. And you’re not happy?”
“Kids,” Lady 2 replied, “They got it easy and don’t realize it. Fresh out of school and they’re making as much as their parents.”
“I know, I know,” Said Lady 1, “I kept telling him, you’re so lucky, making all that money at such a young age.”

At that point I wanted to lean in–tell her, “Wrong answer, lady.”
I wanted to. But I didn’t.
Not my place, I guess.

A question
But what I didn’t tell them, I’ll tell you…
It’s a question, actually.
And the question is this…
When are we going to stop equating income (and income alone) with success?
Let me ask it another way.
Which would you choose?
1) A fantastic salary at a job that is eating away at your soul?
Or
2) An unexceptional income working in a career that lets your spirit soar?

What’s the answer?
A good part of the answer, I suppose, is rooted in your definition of success.
For many people, success is all about money.
The more, the better.
And never mind if you wake up every morning with a soul that’s slowly dying.

Is it mutually exclusive?
But the whole answer–I think–comes from Fay Thorncliffe, the protagonist in my book The Net Present Value of Life.
You see, in that book, Fay asks, “Why view life’s events as being mutually exclusive?”
It’s an interesting question, you know, because if we revisit those two options and apply Fay’s theory to them,
We quickly see that the true answer lies in choosing part 1 of option one and part 2 of option two.
In other words.
A fantastic income doing work that lets our spirit soar.

And that’s what I call success.

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“Money makes the world go around, the world go around...”

Of the many inspiring performances to be found in the movie Cabaret, the number illustrated below, this one that has Liza Minnelli (along with the splendid Joel Grey) idolizing the abundance of money, is to me, numero uno.

A brief aside
You might find it amusing to know that Cabaret left me with an almost unshakable crush on Liza Minnelli. A crush that only the passage of time could begin to diminish. Time, that is, and the arrival of other starlets. Meg Ryan, especially.
Now, lest you think me overly fickle, understand that, to this day, I remain enamored of only two film-stars, Liza and Meg.
Unfortunately, despite my lifelong crush on my two leading ladies, I have to admit that their affinity for cosmetic surgery has left me almost heartbroken. So, Liza? Meg? Even though it might be too late, please listen to me. Deep-six the knife work, OK?
Because let me tell you, if sculpted chins and lip augmentations are outcomes of the money that you–Liza–sang so convincingly about, then maybe poverty is, you know, a good thing.

Money. Curious, curious money
A curious animal, money.
Given its popularity—as a theme, a plot or a lament—in countless songs, books and movies,
Money, it seems, is a topic that pops up everywhere.
Everywhere, that is, but in everyday conversation.

And I find that truly curious.
Because, after more than twenty-five years of discussing money on a professional level, I’m only now starting to suspect that many of us aren’t very comfortable in discussing it on a personal level.
But still, I have this nagging doubt as to whether my hunch is correct.
Which is why I’m asking you to tell me, via a brief survey, how you feel about it.

Touchy, sensitive, disagreeable?
Now don’t get me wrong.
I’m not referring to a cards-on-the-table open discussion where we’re all supposed to reveal our respective income and debt loads.
No, no.
What I’m talking about is the topic of money in a liberal, more theoretical, sense. In other words, the perception, the utility, the notion and the reality of money…
What I’m asking, therefore, is this… Is the discussion of money a subject that you find, as was pointed out to me at least once or twice, too touchy, too sensitive, and maybe even way too disagreeable?

Take the survey
And so, I would be very grateful if you would take the time to respond to a very brief, very anonymous survey. It will only take a minute or two.
Click here to take survey

Then, in a few weeks, once I’ve compiled the data, I’ll provide you with the results of our informal poll.
In the meantime, if you see Liza–or Meg–tell them I say hi. And also tell them, please, no more knives.

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You know what’s kind of weird? Me and Steve Jobs are a lot alike.
No, really it’s true.
I mean, just check this out.
Steve Jobs is skinny, I’m skinny.
Jobs is losing his hair. Me too (sadly).
We’re born months apart.
Steve’s always in his black-top-blue-jeans garb. Well, just look to the left.

Cool renaissance man
There are many who describe Jobs as an artist, an engineer, and a shrewd businessman.
And people with that mix of attributes just don’t come along all that often.
He indeed is a renaissance man, a modern-day Leonardo Da Vinci.
So why do I mention this?

iPad 2
I watched the iPad2’s debut via Engadget and, later, a bit of the unveiling on youtube. There’s an iPad 1 clip (around the nine-minute mark) that makes it abundantly clear; the iPad is a game-changer.  The video’s a bit of a tear-jerker too. Live-blogging the event, Endgadet’s Joshua Topolsky wrote, “Man, this is actually really emotional.” Then later, “Damn you, Apple, for making everyone here cry about the iPad.”

How to be a hero
But you know what really resonated with me? The stunned enthusiasm of the crowd as Steve Jobs walked on stage. Let’s face it, the man commands adulation. He’s your hero, he’s my hero. And, for some inexplicable reason, I find it uplifting that, in this age of short attention spans, and synthesized reality TV, we all want authentic, true-to-life heroes.
And, judging by the amount of ink Steve Jobs gets, I’m thinking there just aren’t enough heroes to go around.
And so, the question is, are you a hero? Do your colleagues, your employees, your contacts admire you for who you are? Because that’s the first step to heroism. Just be who you are.

Oh, one other thing… do you think it’s true that Jobs is left-handed? Because I am.

What do you say? Do you consider Steve Jobs a hero?

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The other day I shared a coffee with a pleasant young lady who uttered words that—either due to their forcefulness or their candour—caught me off guard.
Her words were (and I quote), “I hate talking about money, I always get a knot in my stomach.”
In my line of work, money and dollars (and if you think they’re the same thing, you and I need to talk) are my easel. Or maybe they’re my brush. I don’t know, stupid analogy. But you get the picture, right?
Anyway…

Open door
When someone talks that way, I view it as an open door—an invitation.
Right away, I asked her why she made that claim.
And so began a lengthy conversation about income and spending, about abundance and scarcity, and about family money issues while growing up (I’ve written about this before, and I’m detecting a definite pattern).
She also spoke of her brother—the “rich” guy.
She spoke of how half her family laughed at him because he was no more than a tightwad. The other half, it appeared, laughed at him out of jealousy.
He was, after all, “rich”.
I asked how she thought he got that way—”rich”.
Her reply was succinct, “He must make a lot of money. That’s what I need to do. Make more money.”

Spend spend spend
I then asked her if she knew of others who earned a lot of money and, if so, were they “rich” too?
She laughed (finally she laughed) and spoke of a friend who bought designer handbags, designer shoes—designer everything—and then gave most of it away.
“Some people spend because they like the feeling of spending,” I said, “Some people, no matter how much they earn, will always spend even more.”
The conversation continued until I asked if she still believed that more income would solve her money woes (and make that knot in her stomach disappear).
She agreed that, no, more money would only result in more spending. What she needed, she ventured, was to break her spending habit.
Was it possible, she asked, that her habit stemmed, in part, from her upbringing—from all those money arguments her parent kept having?
I agreed it might be possible and I then suggested her money woes weren’t about money itself.

It’s not about the money
No, I repeated, her issue wasn’t with money. It was with her perception of money. She had, I ventured, negative beliefs about money. Maybe she believed money was bad. Maybe she believed money was supposed to be a hardship.  Or maybe she believed herself to be unworthy of being “rich”.
We spoke of perception and of its capacity for influencing decisions, and habits and—dare I say it—our version of reality.
The conversation winding down, I then asked if she now recognized how to get rid of the knot in her stomach.
“What I need,” She replied, “Is to change my perception and my beliefs. I need to get clear on my relationship with money. And, hopefully, I’ll be able to change my spending habits.”
“But how,” I asked, “Will you feel when, just like your brother, your family starts making fun of you and your “riches”.
“I’m looking forward to it,” She laughed.

If you’re curious why I write the word rich in quotations, the answer is simple. It’s because there is no universal, no common, definition for that word. Don’t believe me? Go ahead and define “rich”. And please leave a comment and let me know what you came up with.

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