Hey, Aniinl -
The more I work on money issues with myself and clients, the more I convince myself that having more money comes down to one thing - deciding that having more money is important enough to inconvenience yourself!
That's not to say you have to suffer or do things you don't really want to do to get it - just that if it's not enough of a priority, you're likely to not have enough money to do and have what you really want to do and have.
Here's a tip I wrote in 2004 about making money a worthy goal - as I've continued to find the value in money, my income has continued to grow:
A Worthy Goal"The value of a loaf of bread is largely dependent on how long it has been since you last ate."
-Baruch Spinoza
Recently, a friend was asking me why I thought it was that I had nearly doubled my income from 2003 in the first six months of 2004. While some of it is no doubt due to the inevitable momentum a business builds up over time, I personally believe a large part of it has come about as a result of a basic shift in my thinking about money.
For the past four years, every time I wrote a tip about making money I received a small number of e-mails from people encouraging me to leave behind such worldly matters and get back to focusing on more 'worthy' topics. While it was tempting to dismiss these comments as coming from what my friends in the UK call 'the wooly jumper brigade', I also recognized that I sort of agreed with them - even to me, talking so openly about making money felt a little bit icky. In fact, for many years I had been wrestling with a simple yet crucial question:
Is making money a worthy goal?
The reason the question seemed so important to me was that if making money was a worthy goal, I wasn't putting nearly enough time, focus and energy into it; if making money wasn't a worthy goal, I was spending far too much time, focus, and energy on it!
Now, in NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), we make a distinction between sensory based information (what you can see, hear, taste, touch, or smell) and vague language, affectionately referred to as 'fluff'. While good fluff has its place (most summer beach reading comes easily to mind), it is decidedly unuseful in making useful decisions. The simple fact is, vague questions lead to vague answers.
The way to de-fluff language is by seeking to recover any key bits of information that have been left out, distorted, or generalized. When I applied this idea to my original question, the 'real' question was revealed:
Is making (how much money in what time frame for what purpose?) a worthy goal?
Initially, I filled in the blanks like this:
Is doing whatever it takes to make as much money as possible in order to guarantee
I never need to worry about money again a worthy goal?
For me the answer to this question was a firm 'no'. While never needing to worry about money again seems a worthy enough goal to me, I realize from my work coaching millionaires that it is rarely attained by achieving a certain quantity of money, no matter how large.
Similarly, while "Do whatever it takes!" sounds great coming out of the mouth of a motivational speaker or underneath a framed photo of a spectacular athletic achievement, it loses much of its magic if you imagine it coming out of the mouth of your least favorite dictator or under a picture of a village destroyed by war, famine or poverty.
Next, I filled in the blanks like this:
Is making enough money this year from work I love and want to do in order to cover all our expenses,
save 10%, tithe 10%, make some home improvements and cover our tax bill a worthy goal?
This time, the answer was equally obvious - an unquestionable yes.
Just for fun, I filled in the blanks a third time:
Is making enough money over the next ten to fifteen years (from work I love and want to do) to look after my family, put my kids through college, create financial independance and give away over a million dollars to charities and related causes a worthy goal?
This time, my answer was not only a resounding 'yes' but my brain began overflowing with creative ideas for creating and exchanging value in the world. (Not to mention the fact that I am now completely inspired by the idea of giving away a million dollars over the next ten to fifteen years!)
Today's Experiment:1. Do you consider making money a worthy goal for you? If you're not 100% clear on your answer, fill in the blanks for yourself until you get an unmistakeable 'yes':
Is making (how much money in what time frame for what purpose?) a worthy goal?
2. When you have found the amount of money/time frame/purpose that makes making money an undeniably worthy goal for you, go for it. In my admittedly recent experience of working in this way, there is something almost magical that happens when you give yourself permission to really want the money you want.
3. Ask yourself "If money weren't an issue for me, how would I be living my life?" Notice how many of the things you come up with are worth pursuing even before money ceases to be an issue for you.
Have fun, learn heaps, and may you never confuse your net worth with your self-worth!
with love,
michael
