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25 Nov 07
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How important is money? How much is enough? Is money a distraction from one’s spiritual path? Is it a necessary evil? Is it unfair that some people have more money than others? Is poverty more noble than wealth? Is it possible to become an enlightened millionaire?
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Is money a positive resource or a consciousness-lowering distraction?
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Given the way our society currently functions, if you have a lot of money, you have a lot of solutions.
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I think Earl Nightingale said it best:
Nothing can take the place of money in the area in which money works.
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Conflicting beliefs about money
For most of my life, I’ve been stuck with incongruent attitudes towards money.
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On the other hand, we might watch a classic holiday movie like It’s a Wonderful Life that tells us we need to keep money in perspective and that relationships are far more important.
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According to United Nations World Magazine, the Church has several billion dollars in gold alone, and when you consider their massive worldwide real estate holdings, their artwork collection, and their tax exempt status, the amount of wealth controlled by the Catholic Church is staggering.
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What is money?
Money is a social resource – the primary social resource. Money has no inherent value of its own, but we assign it value through social agreement.
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if you still want to take advantage of social resources, you’ll need to create your own social contracts on a case-by-case basis. This could include barter or other forms of exchange, or it could involve leveraging relationships to meet your social needs.
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While the monetary system is far from perfect, it’s more efficient than the alternatives. By assigning a monetary value to our social exchanges and by making it easy to transfer money from one person to another, social trades are performed with relative ease. Buying groceries, going to work, using electricity, or connecting to the Internet are all examples of social trades, and by social consensus, all of these are reducible to money.
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So money is essentially social credit. It’s an IOU from society, enabling you to extract a certain amount of social value whenever you want. The more money you have, the more society owes you, and the more value you can extract.
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How to earn money
Let’s consider what it means to earn money. Since money is a social resource, earning money means acquiring more of that social resource. When you spend money, you convert money to value. But when you earn money, you convert value to money.
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The greater your ability to personally deliver a high social value, the greater your earnings potential. The difference between making $10/hour vs. $100/hour is that the latter work has much greater social value. This difference isn’t anyone’s “fault” — the difference is due to the social consensus about the value of certain work. Note the difference between absolute value and social value.
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- Make a social contribution, and receive payment commensurate with the social value of your contribution.
- Take advantage of market inefficiencies to extract money without contributing any value.
If you think about it, there are two basic ways to earn money:
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If you find yourself stuck at a certain level of income and unable to go any higher, an underlying moocher mindset is probably the culprit. This is the mindset that leads you to ask, “How can I get more money?” instead of, “How can I contribute more value?” It’s also the mindset that says it’s a bad idea to earn more money, since your gain is someone else’s pain.
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The contributor mindset
Now let’s consider the contributor mindset. This mindset recognizes that the best way to make money is to provide fair value in exchange. Create genuine social value, and receive payment commensurate with that value.
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If you want to earn income as a contributor, you must contribute social value, not personal value.
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Here’s the key point: your income depends on the social value of your work, not the personal value.
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The saying “Find a need and fill it” certainly rings true, assuming we’re referring to a social need or desire.
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Another name for the contributor mindset is the abundance mindset. This mindset says that wealth can be created from ideas and action. Your gain is a reflection of the social gain you’ve contributed. If you want to earn a high income, you must contribute a lot of social value. The more social value you create, the more money you can earn. This is a win-win mindset because you’re putting value into the system for the benefit of others.
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The only real limit on your income is how much social value you can create. If you want to earn more money, then develop your skills and talents to facilitate the creation of lots of social value. The best way to increase your income is to figure out how to deliver more social value. Focus on giving, and the getting will largely take care of itself. The systems to reward social service are already in place, so all you need to do is plug your service into the existing marketplace.
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Let your inspiration come from the desire to provide even more social value.
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Money makes you more of who you already are, so if you’re already a contributor, more money can allow you to expand your contribution.
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Making money consciously
Contributing social value is the primary strategy for making money consciously, but by itself it’s still not enough. The problem with social value is that your personal values won’t perfectly align with the social consensus.
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When you attempt to provide social value without achieving congruence with your personal values, your motivation will be very weak.
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Alternatively, when you attempt to satisfy your personal values without providing any real social value, you get the starving artist syndrome. You may be inspired by work that totally fulfills you, but it won’t pay the bills.
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The solution is to find an area of overlap between your personal values and social values, and work within that area of overlap. This will allow you to do what you love and create something that others value as well. Don’t force yourself to choose between your integrity and your income — choose both!
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Congruent contribution
Two simple realizations can help you achieve a congruent mindset about money and push beyond limiting financial beliefs. First, you must consciously adopt the contributor mindset and abandon the moocher mindset. And secondly, you must find a way to contribute social value while achieving alignment with your personal values. Once you’ve internalized those two mindsets, you’ll be in a position to generate abundant income while serving the greater good.
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If you want to generate income without lowering your consciousness, you have to get your limiting beliefs out of your way. Holding yourself back from earning more money doesn’t serve anyone. Limiting your income only limits your contribution. The conscious reason to earn more money is that you can put those social credits to good use. Use them to expand your service to others. If you’re living an honorable life, then it’s a good thing for you to receive more money. You’ll be a good custodian for it. The more money that flows through your life, the more resources you can invest into your life purpose.
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30 Jan 07
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