foreign you can choose to think like oh it's good and I want it or you can choose to think it's bad and I'm Gonna Want It secretly but actually I'm gonna try to avoid it or you can say wow this is the way this system works and how do I use it and accept the constraints of it in a way that allow me to be even more creative than I would be without it welcome to the art of accomplishment where we explore how deepening connection with ourselves and others leads to creating the life we want with enjoyment and ease I'm Brett Kistler here today with my co-host Joe Hudson today we're going to talk about money now money is a really sticky subject it's very emotional for a lot of people and people have all kinds of projections and misconceptions around it and it can be a really tricky subject we're going to break this up into two episodes the first episode we're going to talk about a common misconception that people have which is that money is our savior and that if we just had more of it it would solve all of our problems in the second episode we're going to go into the opposite misconception which is that money is evil and the cause of all of our problems and that it should be avoided at all costs so Joe to get started what makes people have different ideas of what money is I think it's because nobody knows what money is there's one level in which you can look at money and say it's a complete illusion right it's an agreement that a whole bunch of people made and said this thing has value and it has value because a lot of people say that it has value and then on another level money is this thing that buys you stuff that you want it's a a great tool for creation and or a great tool for manifesting things but I don't think really very few of us understand what money is I I know that the deeper I look into money the more that I I see about it the more I understand it the less I realize I truly know what it is so what is not money that people think it is and what is money not that's it yeah that's a great question what is money not well I think the thing that people subconsciously think it is is money is Love or Money is power or money is their Father's Love or their mother's love or and I think that is the subconscious misinterpretation of money that gets that creates a lot of confusion for people I remember this one time when I was in out of all places El Salvador and I was in a hammock and I was reading about how WhatsApp had gone public and this is back a while ago when I was a venture capitalist and the story was how this massive success happened with this small investment and how there was this one venture capitalist who had uh kind of parted ways with his company just so that he could invest in this and I remember it just hit me like a gut punch in the stomach and I immediately stopped and said oh what what is this feeling and I closed my eyes and I just traced the feeling back to the first time that I felt it and I remember like oh man I've made money a surrogate from My Father's Love I had you know had a relationship with my father early on where his love was not something that I could get easily and so money had become this thing that I couldn't get easily and the promise of money like the promise of my father's love was something that would make me whole again at least I thought it would and it wasn't my first iteration with Maya my first iteration with money was that money was evil and that was also when I was really angry at my father so it's it's like I started to draw the the I started to put points together to realize that my relationship with money and then I discovered most other people I meet their relationship with money often follows a pattern of their relationship with the love of their parents or the relationship with love with authority or their relationship of of something important in their early childhood and that love is money has become a surrogate for whatever relationship that is what are what are some other things that money can become a surrogate for like I said relationship with authority relationship with parents it can in in that aspect and there's another another aspect of money can become a surrogate for Security money can become a surrogate for community money can become a surrogate for power or empowerment money can become a surrogate for experience itself yeah it seems like one one thing that can happen is that we can we can sort of build this belief that once we have enough money we'll be able to solve not only our problems but other people's problems around us uh and then end up in some really weird relationship Dynamics with those people yeah as a result yeah and it goes both ways too right that we can start accumulating enough money where people around us think that they can they can get their problem solved through the money that we have and that usually breeds a lot of distrust so how can we tell if you know the the difference between you know a healthy relationship with money and you know earning money finding value in our work finding value in what we do and you know having having enough to have our needs met and how do we tell the difference between that and sort of this like Hungry Ghost aspect of using money as a surrogate for something that money can never fill yeah the interesting thing is that the mind can tell us that we don't have enough money all the time and there's always evidence for it I remember at this one point when I was doing this practice a gratitude practice every day about what I did have because it I was constantly thinking about what I didn't have and this is like I don't know early 30s or something and I and I started to I started just be everyday appreciative for extended period of time of the things that I did have and I saw my whole world and aspect of money change and one day I was driving a car and I had had contact with like two or three billionaires in my life at that point and um I was driving the car my thought process turned to how I needed more money or you know some sort of coveting some sort of something like that and I thought to myself oh you know the billionaires I know they think this way too I'm a billionaire it was such this strange thought like it's nonsensical but it was just like oh I have the same reality as a billionaire no matter how much money they have or how little money I have we're both walking around the world having the same thought process so it's really hard to use the mind to feel like you have enough money but and logically if you want to use the mind to find out if you have enough money if you are alive right now and you're well fed and you have a home over your and on some level you have enough money there's this crazy lie that says I don't have enough money because x y and z but enough money is that you have your basic needs met is enough money if you don't have your basic needs met then then there's a pretty good argument that you don't have enough money so logically the whole thing can be deconstructed pretty quickly the other way you think about money is oh if I have enough money then I get what I want whatever that thing is that I want when nobody can do that because money can't actually Supply everything that you want so in that way you'll never have enough money so what's really clear is for you to have a intellectually if you're going to have a relationship with money that's peaceful it's really important to be able to separate what you want from money and money being only one Avenue to get there yeah I can see a relation to this in business uh where the there can be a belief you know even even as revenues are increasing that you just need more money to be able to you know you need to be able to meet this opportunity or solve that need or you know saturate some Market and we could always be living in that story in our personal life it could be you know I just need I need a house with an office and a desk so I can do my writing yeah you know I need quiet space I need XYZ and then once we become attached to something that we've gotten then we need that and we can't imagine not having it so then we need to continue to have that Baseline amount of amount of money and so that seems to be part of this like this treadmill of feeling like what I have is not enough and what I really need is the next thing Ergo I need more money yeah right and this is a a really natural human condition it not the needing more money the new more money piece is just something that's it's the way that our modern society turns the story around the basic human condition and there's something basic in the human condition that says oh there's something that more I can be doing there's something that I more I can achieve there's something that I should be doing so that I'm safe I it's just if you ever look at mice they're the same way they don't have the thought process behind it potentially most likely but they do have kind of this like get up and go like oh I got to do something I gotta do something I gotta do something and the way that our society works is that money is the most obvious way to do something and when you can flip that switch when you can say oh it's not resources it's resourcefulness that I need then everything can open up just the idea that you need money to do something is a limiting belief system you know there's people who started their businesses from nothing so what did they need to start their business apparently nothing and there's other people who very wisely say oh you know being capitalized is a really important part of my business so I'm going to go out and get a whole bunch of money because it's important for growing my business and both of those two things can be a very sane approach but when it becomes insane is when you think resources will solve for resourcefulness it'll never work and I I've walked into so many companies and so many homes with so many people who think that resources will make a difference and it doesn't I mean you look at all the lottery winners and they have the resources but it doesn't make a difference and it's gone soon and then you see people who have nothing and they're resourceful and they and they get the things that they're after in the world but the life isn't set up for us to get everything we want and definitely money isn't set up you know at its basic construct it's set up to be deficient meaning that the monetary system that we have is basically it can't the amount of money out there can't pay for the interest on top of it that is out there so there's always a shortage of it the system is built that way just as our internal system is built that way meaning that we as human beings have a tendency to like almost a natural urge to feel like there's something that we have to do and something more that we have to accomplish and what's really weird is if you meet somebody who doesn't have that there's kind of one of two options one they're depressed or they've become acquiescent and in another way there's so fewer number of them that actually are quite at peace they've done a lot of work to really feel into that discomfort and to channel it in a different direction yeah that reminds me of sort of this there's this neurobiological aspect of loss aversion where when we experience a loss we experience it as like twice as intense as an equal game which sort of biases us towards always wanting to gain more so it sounds like what you're what you're describing as this like gratitude practice is kind of gets like beneath the root of that the more that you are able to appreciate what you have the less you're stuck in the treadmill which then means you're less in fear because you start to see more more of the possible solution space than just the ones that money would like the opportunities that money would open up for you correct and I think there's another aspect of that which is just as interesting which is if we motivate ourselves in the world through fear then we're very scared to let go of the fear because then we think we'll be unmotivated right so a lot of people if they really deeply confront that kind of itch that they can never scratch they're scared to lose it because they're scared that they'll you know be a couch potato drinking beer and what's really interesting is where does Action come from if it doesn't come from that fear where does Action come from if you feel secure yeah that seems related to how a lot of our you know our activities that we might intrinsically enjoy can get wrapped up in money and we might think that they're not worth doing if we're not getting paid or we might we might not feel like we're going to have you know value ascribed To Us by Society if nobody's willing to pay us for the thing that we want that we want to do or vice versa I know plenty of artists who lose their desire to be an artist when they're getting paid for it like it completely changes their whole enjoyment of the activity once they're getting paid it puts a pressure on them and then they feel like they have to perform and then the having to perform takes all that joy out yeah yeah because once you start depending upon what you're doing to make money then you're going to start forming the thing you do to be doing it in a way that gets money so you're going to be more critical of your performance and more critical in this like Market aspect of what people are willing to pay for rather than letting what is flowing through you to just freely flow I'm not sure if that's even the healthiest version to just let what's naturally moving through you to freely flow meaning you know Shakespeare wrote an iambic pentameter that that's like that's some crazy constraint that is some crazy like oh my God I have to make everything fit into this 10 syllable blah blah blah and and yet accepting that constraint it increased the creativity or I think about Michelangelo and painting the top of the Sistine Chapel you know one of the holiest places on a planet and what does he paint he paints you know man uh God reaching with all of his might to touch man to be in connection with man and man kind of laid back not even willing to lift a finger uh what a commentary to say like humans aren't even willing to lift a finger maybe even the people here in this church right are not even willing to lift a finger to touch God and how do you get away with doing that right how do you get away with painting this on the top of the game paid to paint this on the top of the Sistine in the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel it's like right like on some level seeing the constraints of money is freedom and and if you learn how to work within those constraints it creates a creativity that's amazing and so as long as money is here you can choose to think like oh it's good and I want it or you can choose to think it's bad and I'm Gonna Want It secretly but actually I'm gonna try to avoid it or you can say wow this is the way this system works and how do I use it and accept the constraints of it in a way that allow me to be even more creative than I would be without it how can we accept the way the system works and continue to work in it to our benefit while being conscious of any any systemic you know like any inbuilt like I guess you could say Injustice in the system Injustice or just like inefficiencies are just like without buying into that the way the system works is the optimal way we could have a financial system that's a great question so by no means am I saying okay we should all just accept the way that the system works and not you know not move to change it what I'm saying more precisely is uh that it's very healthy to accept the way that the system works even if you want to change it it's very much like if you're interacting with another human like you can not accept the way that they work or you can accept the way that they work even if you're asking them to be different even if you are approaching them in a way that is going to get you know get a response that you don't want like asking somebody to be different asking something to be different instead of accepting them is a very inefficient path to having people transform or money transform or the system to transform right if I'm like screw you this shouldn't work you if you do this thing like why aren't you doing this thing that's not a really great way to get you to change right if you're if it's more like I love you and I accept you and this makes me uncomfortable and and I and I would prefer that we interact in this way that's like a far more effective way to do it and it takes a lot less out of me and it's the same way with changing a society it's acceptance somehow is conflated as acceptance means that I am not going to draw boundaries or I'm not going to ask for things to change or I'm not going to do things to change it acceptance is this is how it is at this moment and I'm not going to fight how it is in this moment I'm going to work to change it for the next moment is 100 possible with the acceptance right right so something else you kind of touched on there was how this affects interpersonal relationships and so I'm I'm curious how like having having a concept for money and we're talking right now about the particular concept of like money is good and that it's going to solve all of our problems how does that get in the way of our relationships and the way that we view each other and like you know the shame that we might approach a relationship with or the Judgment or admiration money is the kinkiest thing on the planet it's like man I at least on the west coast you can sit down and you can ask somebody about their sexual preferences what's going on there like what kind of things they like and they're more likely to tell you about that stuff than they are going to tell you about your credit their credit card debt or how much they make like it is the kinkiest thing it is and it's an incredible cause of disconnection in ourselves and others right to admit that you're poor or to admit that you're rich both have a certain level of shame in them that people that make it so people don't even communicate that stuff right people get really uncomfortable I'm very open with like my money situation oh this is how much I made this is what I've done and you know with friends and and it's just you can just see the discomfort you know it doesn't stop me but you can see the discomfort on their face like it's just not something that we want to talk about because it it brings up feelings of disconnection and shame in everybody it's it is the kinkiest thing right now on the planet is money it's amazing and it's and really it's just I mean the system is not benign for any by any stretch but it's it's a tool with pluses and minuses and it's a tool that can be changed and yet it it has become like a god or deity in the world it's amazing it's an amazing thing and and and I even hesitate to say all that stuff because then it's like somebody whose mind is like money is bad they'll just hook onto that and go oh yeah my money to see the people make it make it a deity like you can't getting a rich man into heaven is like getting a camel through the eye of a needle and in my world it's not a rich man or a poor man that has a hard time finding Joy it's a person who's focused on money whether it be if I get more of it I'll be happy or I'm unhappy because I don't have it or money is bad it's just whatever whenever money becomes the the conscious or unconscious driver of things it's very hard to find Joy or you know which is how I'm translating Heaven yeah yeah you point it to a lot of the shame that's around money like the shame of having money in the shame of not having money the shame of you know not having earned money that you have in some particular way that you feel makes you deserve it but then there's also on the other side there's like pride and there can be Pride to having a lot of money and then building a self-concept around that there can also be Pride to having no money um and sort of flexing on that there's just no what's the difference between somebody having Pride around their around their money situation whatever it be and and somebody having shame around it to me those are two sides of the same coin there's an empowerment stance around money which is like oh I I will be me no matter what the money situation is then I will do I will have my freedom because I do no matter what the money situation is that's an empowerment thing and if that's the state if that's the stance internal stance not faked but actually owned then what happens to your pride or your shame around money kind of closing in on this on this segment on you know money being good that concept of money being good I'm curious you you pointed earlier to how like you can change the system if you work within the system recognize that the system is there maybe not working entirely within it but recognizing that this system exists and that you navigate the system and you can get your needs met and then you can change the system how has the system changed you in that Journey yeah I mean I do think the system has changed me and I don't think I can even point to all the ways that it it has I think that's a really hard I don't think I could fully understand the ramifications of all the ways that um this the monetary system has changed me what's fascinating about that question for me is you know I'm raising two girls and I want to raise them with a healthy relationship around money and part of what I want to teach them is that the money's always here um when you need it and that attitude is the best way to make sure that money is always here when you need it also to respect money to see it as a powerful force um man-made or otherwise it's a powerful force in the in the world and to have give it its due respect and also to see the cosmic joke of money and and to just see that it's like a representation of human consciousness and that how many flows is very much like how human consciousness flows the stock market is in a weird way it's kind of the mental Outlook of a portion of our society and the way that a portion of our society feels like I I'm pretty confident if you took all the caffeine out of all the major cities that we would have a financial depression if the stock market would go down so it's just this really fascinating thing and I want them to experience it the same way you would experience a flower or a cactus or a or any landscape but not to feel like it has power over them and and to be a victim to it or to hate it or to love it love it in the way of like greed not love it in the way of like having love for it the way you might be able to have love for a flower or a tree and so to some degree like I feel like all that's healthy and on another degree you know it it is a system in our world that and any system in our world affects the way that we think it doesn't matter if it's the architecture that we live in and it's really hard to be able to determine how that architecture affects our consciousness you know I see people with a ton of money and there's kind of ways that they start doing things that are more about their own entertainment typically they they get out of touch obviously with people who don't have that level of money just like people who are really poor out of touch with the issues of somebody who's really wealthy so there's some of those obvious things right like I like to this day I will I will spend a part of every week going and interacting with um people who I would not normally interact with and sometimes those people are homeless and sometimes those people are very poor and sometimes those people are very wealthy just so that I can constantly um feel how how different perspectives live and and to be a part of that but I don't think I can really say specifically with any kind of integrity all the ways in which money affects me and what's also interesting to me is that what I've noticed is that as my relationship with myself changes my relationship with money naturally changes too so the more that I can love myself the more that I love money as it is the more that I feel empowered the more I feel empowered with money the more that I am grateful the more I have an attitude of gratitude with my money the more that I feel being of service is a joy the more I'm of service with my money so it's just a really fascinating thing of like is it a reflection or is it the engineer or how is it both what's that dance and I you know I've never lived without it so I can't I'm a fish in water I can't see what it's done yeah well thank you Joe that wraps up this segment and keep listening for the following segment um the belief that money is bad thanks for listening to the art of accomplishment if you enjoyed what you heard today please subscribe and rate US on your podcast app 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