Will More Money Actually Make You A Happier Person?
Do you ever wonder what real authenticity is?
There’s so much pressure to conform in our society.
It’s a real challenge to walk to the beat of your own drum when that beat doesn’t jive with the music of the masses.
“The happiest people discover their own nature and match their life to it.” ― Ray Dalio
We all go through this developmental period during our teenage years which seems to be part of the process of growing up. We travel in groups, and the power of the peer group is unassailable by the most strenuous parental intervention.
It is nice to think that even though we go through this, that we don’t get stuck there, and end up suppressing our uniqueness and individuality for the rest of our lives.
“The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering.” ― Ben Okri
But there is a way that the entrepreneurial “tribe” functions like this.
When you go to entrepreneurial conferences you discover there is a “way” to do things. It is often called Best Practices, and it makes sense to know what works. But when a young entrepreneur begins to give up more and more of her originality or his creativity in order to do what works, that I think maybe we are missing the mark.
One of the ways this happens is in the subtle pressure to be always going for “more.”
There’s talk of establishing a 5-figure business, then a 6-figure business, and a 7-figure business. And a kind of unwritten rule that you “should” go for more.
I’m sure for some people that is the game they want to play. For these entrepreneurs, there is no such thing as “enough.” There is only drive for MORE.
But what about the entrepreneur who wants more to their life than work? What if the “more” they want is family time? Or free time? Or time to pursue other passions?
Can you safely admit that your bottom line didn’t grow for the last few years? Will you get thrown out of the entrepreneur’s club if you didn’t go for more zeroes in the bottom line?
Can you be a role model for others if making $100M is not your goal?
Can you be honest about that?
“In terms of feeling like a fake or an imposter… They all feel like that. So, you’re not a fake at all. You’re human. And there’s nothing wrong with being humble and realizing you have room for improvement. It’s the people who think they’re all that and a bag of chips that are the weird ones.” — David Risley
It is your own thoughts, and the thoughts you think over and over, also known as beliefs, that will determine your life satisfaction, as well as your levels of success and fulfillment.
To grow and evolve, to bring forward more of your latent potential, can be very satisfying.
If you think what you do will never be enough, even if your net worth is $100 million, then MORE is what you will be driven to achieve.
But just stop and ask yourself, is that what I really want?
What do you really have when you have a net worth of $100 million?
Well, you probably have online accounts with lots of zeroes, and bank statements, and maybe deeds for owning property. It represents stuff, sure, I get that. You probably have a nice collection of toys. Toys are fun.
You probably have more power in the marketplace.
What price will you have to pay for that?
But are those piles of paper with all the zeros on them and all the stuff really satisfying?
Have you stopped to really examine what will make you happy and fulfilled?
“Having the basics — a good bed to sleep in, good relationships, good food, and good sex — is most important, and those things don’t get much better when you have a lot of money or much worse when you have less. And the people one meets at the top aren’t necessarily more special than those one meets at the bottom or in between.” — Ray Dalio
We might want to listen to Ray Dalio’s opinion on this subject. His net worth in 2018 is estimated at $17.4 billion.
So, if you haven’t done so, you might want to schedule some time to have a good, hard look at whether you are spending your time in ways that express your authenticity and uniqueness, or whether you are on a treadmill created by someone else that you bought into without really checking it out.
It’s your life.
It’s precious.
It’s the only one you have.
Use your allotted time wisely.
One game that leads to fulfillment is setting an impossible goal.
The purpose setting an impossible goal is to challenge yourself to become the person who is able to achieve a goal that currently seems impossible.
This is the way to access more of your latent potential and birth more of who you truly are into the world.
Yes, there’s failure down that road.
But failure is a fast-track to success when you use it properly.
Fail fast. Learn something. Try again.
That is the recipe for true success, and simultaneously the process that allows you to birth all of your uniqueness into the world.
Then as you near the end of your life, and look back over what you accomplished you may or may not have earned more money, you may or may not have bought a lot of stuff, but you will have been more of who you always wanted to be.
That is success.