Episode 60
Money Doesn’t Hurt
Money can’t buy happiness, but it can remove a lot of the obstacles. It can bring us many experiences which can aid our fulfillment – fine food, travel, even charity.
We might say there’s a universal formula for becoming wealthy, in two steps:
1. Living within one’s means.
2. Increasing one’s means.
Today, there are many resources to help us learn about both sides of this formula. Blogs like Early Retirement Extreme, and Mister Money Moustache can help us learn how to do more with less.
Books such as Rich Dad, Poor Dad, 4 Hour Work Week, Think and Grow Rich, Money: Master the Game, can show us how to manage money and increase our means.
Transcript
Today I’d like to talk to you about something very important.
Something maybe a lot of people don’t see as an aspect of spirituality but it’s definitely a factor when it comes to happiness and I assure you there is a spiritual aspect to it.
I’m talking about money. Money doesn’t hurt.
So a few weeks back there was this guy on the Paradise Paradox Facebook Page and he sent me a message and it’s like “Why don’t you admit you come from a privileged background?”
He asked me what kind of background I come from.
“Why don’t you be honest with your followers and tell them the reason you are so happy and enjoy such a good quality of life is because you have money.”
He tried to make it seem as if I’ve never had any problems because I come from a white middle class background I guess.
Like I’ve never experienced spiritual anguish or something like that.
Now that guy was a bit off the mark but there’s also truth in what he was saying.
It’s true.
Money doesn’t hurt and sometimes if you have a lack of money that can put you at a disadvantage in the pursuit of happiness.
That is absolutely true. It’s a lot easier to be happy when you have money.
Money can’t buy happiness but it can remove a lot of the obstacles.
Not to say that people can’t be happy without money, I know people can like my friend Conscious Kenny made his way without even touching money for a year or more. He got by on the kindness of strangers and different things.
There are a lot of ways to do it so if you don’t like money then you know there are other paths to pursue, a nomadic lifestyle.
There’s a lot of options out there, it’s not always obvious. You might have to dig a bit but that’s a possibility.
For a lot of people they do want to live in a society and enjoy some of the luxuries that come with that. Have hot running water, hot food and the choice of nice restaurants and cocktails with friends. Having a good time traveling, many other things.
For example I took a trip to Portugal and stayed there for a month and I was meditating in a cottage in the rural part of Portugal in Cava near to Castelo Branco. And I wouldn’t have been able to do that if life hadn’t been so kind to me in terms of money.
So yes money is a huge factor.
So, there are two basic steps from my perspective.
I think this is almost a universal formula, 2 steps to wealth.
1 is living within your means. Number 2 is increasing your means.
How do you do that? Of course there’s a lot of aspects to that. I won’t be able to get into too many of them here. There are a few key books that you can read.
For example Rich Dad Poor Dad and just about anything by Robert Kiyosaki. He’s talking about how to increase your means.
And 4 hour work week by Timothy Ferris which talks about how to automate an online business or how to go location independent even if you have a sort of day job or office job.
How to convince your boss into letting you work from home and then maybe possibly working from China or many other solutions.
That is a very interesting book. I recommend it highly, people can think about ways to earn money in unconventional ways.
Its interesting somethings cause when I used to mention that title 4 Hour Work Week, people would scoff and say “That’s impossible”.
It’s not impossible, people have done it. Timothy Ferris did it and a lot of people followed his example and found different ways to do it.
There are ways and means to develop passive income.
Another important book is Money, Master the Game by Tony Robbins. He has another book called Unbreakable which I’m not yet familiar with but it comes highly recommended from a lot of people so that could be on your reading list as well.
So Money, Master the Game is talking about those two principles that I mentioned.
So he talks about how you can kind of go through your life cutting costs like instead of buying a bottle of water, get a water filter and stainless steel water bottle. Things that might be easy for you to do or practical to do.
There’s a whole bunch of things you can do in your life to cut costs.
And then there’s a whole bunch of things you can do to start investing money and increasing your means.
So if you don’t know things about stocks, bonds, alternative investments like gold and cryptocurrency options, real estate, cash flow positive real estate.
These are things to explore because yes, it’s true. If I hadn’t had that opportunity to go out into Portugal and sit in meditation for 80 or 90 hours that month, then I wouldn’t be the happy person I am today. Among many other opportunities, the depth and breath of experience. Traveling to different countries in the world, traveling to Thailand and spending time in Thailand at Temple Tam Krabok and many other beautiful experience thanks to my good fortune and good sense with investing.
Getting into Bitcoin reasonably early and getting involved in crypto social media like Steemit and other things and looking for opportunities.
For so many years after reading Rich Dad Poor Dad I would always be thinking “How do I make money out of this? Is there a way for me to turn circumstances to my advantage, financially?”
Of course there’s a lot of caveats like “How do I do that in a way that’s moral, ethical and benefits other people that brings light into the world?”
That’s the kind of money that you want to be making. The kind of money that’s blessed.
That you don’t have to feel guilty about. You can actually feel good about it because you brought something wonderful into the world. It’s not always easy to do but it is possible.
If you apply yourself there’s more opportunities than ever.
There’s online courses. I’m going to start if I haven’t by the time this is released giving Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Sessions.
And I studied CBT online for 20 dollars on Udemy.com
A lot of this knowledge is open to a lot of people. People starting to program online, make online apps and websites and all kinds of things. WordPress site to site or whatever.
There’s so many things you can do.
It’s funny because people say that this is a time of recession. To me this seems like the period in history with the most opportunities available, ever.
Because you can go online and you can get a smartphone, then you have access to all of this knowledge.
All it takes is steady application, dedication and remembering your purpose and you can be wealthy.
And that in turn will allow you to let go of a lot of your problems and will lead you to having a more fulfilling life.
Thank you for listening. Thank you for applying yourself to create wealth in a way that introduces light into the world. Thank you for being healthy and prosperous and taking care of the people that you love.
Have a great day, I’ll talk to you soon.
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