Money. Money is neither good or evil. Most Americans want more. Not because they like hold pieces of paper with pictures of former presidents on them. (In fact, today it’s mostly just a number in some account out there in cyberspace.) But because of what money represents. What’s interesting about it is that we rarely think about what money represents to us; or the role it plays in our life. And understanding the role that it plays in our lives may well allow us to redefine its role, along with increasing the happiness and meaningfulness in our lives.
What’s interesting today, is that most people actually rarely even carry it around anymore. But just knowing we ‘have it’ (or not), can dramatically impact our lives as well as our self-image. So what does money do for us? What does it mean to us? How can we develop a more effective and, dare I say, valuable relationship with money (after all, a lot of people spend a lot of time thinking about it)? My good friend Mitch Larson describes it like this, “If our outgo exceeds our income, our upkeep will be our downfall.” So we better have more coming in than going out. Yet, once we do, we don’t really need to think about it that much anymore (or do we?).
One of the best descriptions I’ve heard is that it ‘allows us options.’ It allows us to do (for ourselves or others) things and have things in our life. But how? Well, I’ve found that money represents one or more of 4 things in people’s lives.
First, it’s a Means of Exchange (Economic view).
This is simply the economic view of money. It’s easier to trade something that has a common unit of value in an economic transaction. It’s easier for me to pay someone a certain amount of money to mow my lawn for me than figure out how many goats I would need to give them. (Well, I guess if I had goats, they could ‘mow’ my lawn for me so I wouldn’t need to pay someone to do it!) Without money, we are left to barter for products or services, and that is just inefficient.
For most of us, though, we make two types of exchanges. First, we give our time, talents, and efforts to our employer for a certain period of time, or certain amount of production, in exchange for a certain amount of money in return. Second, we take the money we received (after the government takes ‘its share’) and we trade it for the products or services we want from others.
So that’s the economic view of money. If we want more things in our life, we must make more money.
Second, it’s a Means of Comparison/Competition (the Social view).
This one is pretty straight forward. In this view ‘you’re better than me because you have or make more money that I do.’ So the more money a person makes, or has, the better person they are. Of course, money is only one attribute of a person, and often not really a very important one. A corollary to this one is the question of ‘how the person made their money.’ Some ways of making money of more socially acceptable than others. But for now let’s just stick with the basics here. This can really impact the self-image of an individual.
Third, it’s a Means of Control (the Power view).
Here, one person is controlled by another because they control or influence that person’s income. The boss gets us to work on Saturday (and miss a family event) because they control our income. We do what they tell us to because we ‘have to’ not because we ‘want to.’ They don’t control us physically, they control us financially. This can create a tremendous amount of conflict within the individual.
Fourth and BEST, it’s a Measure of the Value provided (the Value view).
This is an extremely valuable view of money. In this view of money, the amount of money we have is determined by the amount of value we provide to others and how many people we provide that value to. So the more good we do, for more people, the more money we get in return.
This is a very powerful view of money, because it provides a positive actionable model of acquiring more money (if we want it). It simply says, ‘If I want more money in my life (so I can have more options), then I need to provide more value to others, and impact more people.” In other words, someone who wants more in their lives, doesn’t go into their boss’s office and demand a raise ‘because they deserve it.’ Instead, they approach their boss and ask what else they can do that can provide more value to the company that would result in higher compensation for them. Here the employee and the boss are in a win-win conversation, rather than a win-lose ‘power’ conversation.
Thinking of money in this way completely changes the relationship most people have with money. In fact, once people start focusing on the value they provide others, the less they end up concerned about money. Money comes to them as a natural by-product of the value they provide to others. We start thinking about how we can best leverage our talents, gifts, and abilities in ways that benefit others.
People who have the ‘value view’ often think about money the way most people think about air. There’s more than enough and they always have what they need. They don’t even think about it (because they are thinking about adding value in the lives of others).
Question: How do you view money? And is that view a positive or negative in your life?
