If You Met Money

Imagine you’re at a café, sipping your coffee, when money walks in and sits down

across from you. No spotlight, no fancy suit, just plain old money. What do you ask?

Maybe you’d start with the obvious. “Why do you always disappear so fast?” or “Why do

you seem to love my neighbor more than me?”

Here’s the thing though. Asking money for answers is like asking your blender to write

poetry. It’s the wrong tool for the job. Money is just paper, coins, or numbers glowing on

a screen. It doesn’t hand out happiness, erase fear, or finally give you that feeling of

“enough.” But for some reason, that’s often the job description we give it.

Think about it. People expect money to provide security, love, and freedom from anxiety.

When John D. Rockefeller, the wealthiest man of his time, was asked how much money

was enough, he famously replied, “Just a little bit more”.

So, if you’ve ever tried to pile up dollars as a way to push out fear, you’ve probably

noticed something. There’s never enough. Fear will always invent a new story. Which

means if you expect money to silence fear forever, you’re asking it to do the impossible.

Subsequently, when money can’t deliver, we act like it failed us. The truth is, money

never applied for that job in the first place.

Below is a tweet a client sent me that made me laugh as it related to money; but, at the

same time I realized I can be this way with my own view of it. (Yes, I too am constantly

evolving with my own relationship with money.)

So what jobs is money actually good at? Independence. Autonomy. Options. The ability

to say yes, or no. Your first car, your second house, taking off for that vacation you still

remember ten years later. Those moments were powered by money doing the job it’s

best at, creating possibilities.

If money could talk, I think it would sound a little agitated. It might tell us, “Stop making

me the villain and stop making me the hero. Give me clear jobs I can actually do. I can

help you build experiences. I can fund opportunities. I can let you leave a job you hate

or move to a place you love. But don’t ask me to make you happy. That’s not my job!”

To me money matters only because of what it allows you to do with your time, energy,

and attention. Once you realize that, the relationship changes. You stop treating money

like the end goal and start seeing it as autonomy.

That’s where the real transformation happens. People who expect money alone to make

them happy often end up disappointed. People who chase the “magic number” as the

solution to every problem realize quickly it doesn’t work. But when you align money with

what really matters: family, freedom, experiences, generosity then it becomes

something more powerful. It becomes a tool for meaning.

So, let’s go back to our coffee shop. If money walked in, what would you say or ask?

You could complain. You could beg. You could ask it to finally give you the answer to

life’s big questions. Or you could look at it with a little gratitude and say, “Thanks for

showing up. Let’s put you to work on the things that really matter.”

Money isn’t the meaning. But used well, it helps you live a life full of it.

The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not

intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or firm.