Success and Money

I had to write something about this. Because I am literally bombarded with coaching plans, workshops and offers on how to become a billionaire, how to make a six figure salary as a coach, how to get high-paying clients and what not. Here is the thing: there is a humongous problem with equating success to making a lot of money and here is why.

First of all I want to clarify, I don’t have something against people earning a lot of money per se: money is an amazing tool that, when used correctly, can lead to lots of constructive things. It is the motives behind it that is a problem, and this is what this post will be about. If a person needs to raise ten million dollars to build a new technology that will reduce pollution in his country, then money is used as a tool to achieve something great, to achieve a goal that is improving the life of that person and many others. That is a great use of money. The problem is when money is a goal in itself, as many of these coaching schemes transpire.

When success is equated with achieving a lot of money, we really need to ask ourselves why. Many of us have internal belief systems of lack and scarcity due to the way we grew up. And instead of addressing such beliefs directly, we try to compensate them by running after this new drug, i.e. a quick-lots-of-money-making-scheme that would compensate our scarcity or lack void. It is a bait that works like a dose for a drug addict. When a person lives in such scarcity scheme, these coaching plans sounds like sparkly sugar. It is very alluring and very attracting and it is basically a drug.

What is wrong with wanting to earn a lot of money for the sake of it? Think about it for a moment: if you want to earn millions, the reason is that you want to have an advantage, more power, superiority over other people. Because if everyone earned millions of dollars, and everything was priced relatively higher, than earning a million would not be as alluring anymore. It wouldn’t give you any advantage over other people or any extra power, in fact you would be in the same situation you are in now. On the other hand if you are one of the few to earn that much, and other people earn a lot less, that gives you a lot of power and advantage over other people. And this is wealth inequality.

Wealth inequality is one of the main problems in our world, and particularly America. It is driven precisely by trying to compensate for a mindset of scarcity and lack instead of healing it directly. It leads people to give more money to people who already have lots of it, rather than to people who have less. Because it gives them the illusion of getting closer to wealth i.e. it temporary fills their lack and scarcity mentality creating a drug effect. This is part of why people love Donald Trump: because people secretly want to have the unequal power that he has, as a way to compensate their inner poverty.

Let me re-define a new paradigm of abundance and success that has little or nothing to do with quantity and money. Money is a tool that can - or not - help you get success, but not necessarily. It depends on what success means for you, because success is different for every person. And there are many means to getting what you want, money might be only one of them. For someone success could look like living in the middle of the jungle with no comforts at all, but being completely in touch with Mother Nature and its gifts. For another success might mean living in the streets of a really poor neighbourhood in order to help its people grow and heal. For another success might mean raising a budget of ten million to create a documentary that will revolutionise humanity’s perspective. Yet for another success might mean living without money at all, testing new ways of exchange.

So please let’s stop trying to teach people quick schemes to becoming a ‘successful’ millionaire, or to become a money earning coach who makes six or seven or whatever number of figures salary, or buying three cars and two villas. Because if that is what you are promoting, you need to consider what you are trying to compensate for.