This post from TheArtistFarm beautifully articulates the message I share in my book Progress Not Perfection: Your Journey Matters. Thought it was really worthwhile to pass along.
In the deepest sense money isn’t real. It’s true. Intrinsically it has no real value. It’s just a fancy piece of paper. If you were to take our money to an alien world what could you use it for? Money is simply a mutually agreed upon token we use to exchange for things that provide REAL VALUE to us like food, community, comfort and shelter. It is the thing we buy with money or the thing people buy from us that has actual value.
Why then do we stress over money? You stress about money because you have mistakenly identified money, the actual money, as the thing of value. You feel stress because you are “fighting” to get something that doesn’t exist- the closer you get the more elusive it becomes. There is another way.
Look at the thing of value as what’s underneath the money. If you want to generate more income, then think of how you can generate more value, not more money. Also recognize that both value and wealth come in more forms than just money. You can be financially wealthy but be bankrupt in true friendships, peer respect or health.
This observation is universal; applicable to anyone, anywhere in any business or organization. It applies to the artist business, the management company and the United States Government.
In equation form it looks like this:
Wealth = Value Provided by Y * Number of Entities that Directly Value Y
(Where Y is the product, employee or subject generating wealth).
Think about this on a higher plane. We are all connected in a giant ecosystem and the flow of money is merely a manifestation of the exchange of our energy. Next time you are stressed out about money be self-reflective. Rather than stressing about how you can get more money for money’s sake, focus instead on how you can provide more value to more people. All sorts of wealth will flow from this mindset.
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