Stop Thinking About Money
I think a lot about money. Most of the time, those thoughts center around how I can make more money or about how I don’t have enough of it.
For example, I was out running a few weeks ago. About twenty minutes into my run I realized that my thoughts were being completely consumed with “what if” questions regarding how I would act if I suddenly were the proprietor of a large sum of money.
I realized after that experience that I’m not the only person in society that entertains thoughts of how personal behavior would change by the sudden inheritance of wealth. In fact, I’m even certain that most of us frequent this type of thinking.
Here is what I think we should do with our time instead:
Focus on developing a quality product or service
Henry David Thoreau believed that everyone should have his or her own business. When I first heard this idea, I struggled to imagine how everyone in society could actually own a business. I’ve since come to understand that the genius of Thoreau’s suggestion wasn’t found in its plausibility. What he was really saying was that in a capitalist society if everyone focused on developed a solid product or service the best ideas would rise to the top and as a result, citizens would be better served.
The keyword in this subheading then, is quality. Allow me to be frank for a moment: no matter the price, there is a market that will buy the best, most innovative version of a product or service that they can find (Seriously though, consider your own consumption habits. Think about how much capital you were willing to drop for that iPhone or Ray Ban sunglasses... we all have that product that we’re willing to pay extra for).
Reality: Employees think of money, while visionaries think about quality products and services. Put simply, visionaries have a vision. Employees carry out the vision. Smart employees think about how to make the products or services of their company better (and smart management rewards employees for that type of thinking). Be a visionary. Or, at the very least, choose someone else’s vision and help them build it.
Example Time: Niklas Zennstrom founded a little known company called Skype (which was bought out by eBay for $2.6 billion and later acquired by Microsoft for $8.5 billion). When Americans were caught up in the music industry’s battle with Napster, Zennstrom and his partner Janus Friis were developing a program called Kazaa, a peer-to-peer file sharing system that became the most downloaded internet software in 2003. While the music and cinema industry weren’t necessarily prepared to cozy up to the peer-to-peer system that Kazaa leveraged, Zennstrom and Friis recognized that it would be extremely valuable in the telecommunications industry. Because Skype to Skype calls were free and carried out over the internet, this company was able to provide a valuable service that literally connected millions of users both domestically and internationally. In sum, Zennstrom had the vision of allowing people to communicate with each other at long distances without a fee.
Money follows good products, services, and ideas
The story of Pinterest is intriguing. Ben Silbermann, CEO and co-founder, originally planned on becoming a doctor. He left those dreams behind and instead founded a company that now boasts 72.8 million users during a recession. Right before founding Pinterest, Silbermann worked for Google. He quit because, in his words, “they wouldn’t let me build anything.”
What Silbermann went on to build has not only given American society way too much confidence in their DIY ability, but it has also become an idea marketplace that moves product and connects communities (more importantly, it saved my wife hours of wedding planning.)
Ben Silbermann was estimated to be worth $100 million in 2012. Money follows good ideas.
Make money work for you, not the other way around.
It’s important to mention that I’m not advocating that society should stop thinking about finances. My wife and I have a financial planning meeting once a week. After our once a week finance meeting, we stop letting thoughts of finance problems creep into the rest of our life. Rather, we focus on living what we planned for that week.
One of the most important things we’ve learned during our financial planning meetings is this: money is a means to an end.
More explicitly stated, the money that a person earns should enhance quality of life, provide security for emergencies and, most importantly, be used in ways that will help that person and those around them become their best selves.
Takeaways:
Don’t let worries about making money consume you. Instead, focus your time on developing a product or service that actually helps people.
Money follows good services and ideas.
As you think less about money and more about helping others, your quality of life will improve.
Dream big.