Laura PoseyMy answer to these questions is always the same. I simply tell them
the story of the flow of money.
Money, in and of itself, is really meaningless. In fact, when you
th ink you “have” money you really don’t. What you really do is “control”
money. When money comes to you, you have to put it someplace
(unless you really want to keep a pile of cash buried in the backyard). In
a way, it is like a flow of energy. You can’t contain it, you can only
direct it. Imagine money as light. You can’t contain light but you can
fo cus it on something important to you.
There are many places you can focus your money. You can invest it
in the stock market or CDs or bonds. In this case, you are loaning your
money to a corporation or bank and they, in turn, are spending it or
th ey are loaning it out to someone else. Either way, you don’t have the
money, you just control where it flows. You are focusing it somewhere
with the expectation that you’ll get back more than what you put in.
You can also focus your money on charitable things. You can give it
away to people you think will invest it on worthwhile projects such as
ed ucating children, saving animals, f eeding the hungry, housing the
homeless, h ealing the sick, and so on. When you direct the flow of your
money here, y ou expect to get back an emotional return.
You can also spend your money—trade it for goods and services
th at are important to you. In this case, y ou are employing people who,
in turn, pay taxes that build roads and s chools and parks. These people
also buy goods and services and keep the cycle going. When you spend
your money, you are directing the flow of it into your community and
supporting many, many people.
Regardless of what you do with your money, it is n ever static. It is
constantly in motion, flowing through society. The more money you
have, the more you control the flow. If the money isn’t controlled by
you, it will be controlled by someone else. Would you rather control
more and know that it is going to places you think are worthwhil e? Or
would you rather someone else decide where that energy is directed?
My clients understand that “having” wealth means that they get to
decide where to shine a light and where to promote growth and life.
The more wealth they have, the more things grow and thrive.