Article 10: Money is Potential Energy

You don’t want money.  I don’t want money.  WE don’t want money.

About now, you may be asking, “Who is this clown?”  OF COURSE WE WANT MONEY.

Nope…we want what money gets us.  Whether it is the Hawaiian vacation (that I just returned from), the new leaf blower (sounds like work, eh?) or peace of mind (now we’re talking!), we want what money gets us.

Money is a useful tool, a medium of exchange, a currency (we’ll get back to that in a minute) agreed to be “legal tender for all debts, public and private.”  It keeps us from having to barter dry cleaning services for apples or trading a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle rookie card for a car.  It also provides us with a way to energize and contribute to causes we believe in and want to support.

In this sense, money is a form of energy … it can make things happen, in your life and the lives of others.  This gets right back to some of the fundamental laws of building wealth that I teach in my speaking and training programs: what goes around comes around.  Once you have your basic survival needs (food, shelter, security) met, you should be doing two other things with your money:  giving it away and investing it.

You can start to understand the true nature of abundance when you examine the the word affluence.  It comes from the Latin affluere which means to flow to.  This is what needs to happen with not only your money but the rest of the wealth and abundance in your life, including all of the talents, passion and expertise that anyone can bring to the market to make all the difference - and all the money - in the world.

Building wealth involves all dimensions of our life that are important to us.  And this definitely includes money … if for no other reason than for all the good it can do in helping you towards contentment and purpose in your life.

Article 3: Your Wealth Potential

When you work for someone, the theory is that you are doing something of value that the employer/boss/owner compensates you for based on some prior agreement (you do ___. you get paid $____). Pretty straightforward exchange of value. When you are accessible and empathic to someone’s situation, they will find you more likable, and subsequently will be more interested in being your friend. When you contribute of your time and/or your financial wealth to charitable causes or needy individuals, you find that not only does this make you feel good (helping with the wellbeing of others) but that you are recognized for it by your peers, maybe even the Universe that continues to send opportunities and other forms of abundance to you with no real connection to any specific acts of generosity that you have performed but, gosh, it just seems like are one lucky person.

Baloney.

What you are doing is exercising your Wealth Potential and the rest of your reality is responding according to the universal principles and laws that govern the creation of wealth (specifically in these examples, the principle of ‘what goes around comes around’).

OK, so what’s “Wealth Potential”? Wealth potential is pretty much just what it says: it represents the potential you (and everyone else) has to create wealth.  Since you now know (from reading the previous blogs … if you haven’t done that yet, get going and catch up) that wealth is multidimensional, you can see how it was created in all of the instances about: financial wealth (pay check), better quality relationships, increased self-esteem and coincidences. These are all forms of wellbeing that were created on your behalf because you were exercising your Wealth Potential.

Wealth Potential is the subject of the 3rd Article of The Wealth Manifesto: Your Wealth Potential represents the value you have to yourself and to others.

Your WP consists of any and all of the resources that are at the core of your needs for personal fulfillment and/or what can be a part of the unique value proposition you have to offer anyone else. It consists of your knowledge, skills, talents, passion, relationships, beliefs, attitudes and anything else that contributes to your ability to offer value.  In short, we get what we want by exercising using our wealth potential.

Forget about money for a moment.  If we are using our skills, doing things we are passionate about, things that make us feel good (gardening, reading, playing golf with friends, creating something, starting a business, etc), we are satisfying different levels of needs (and different dimensions of wealth) by both the act and the result.  Everything from the Bible to the work of Abraham Maslow has said that to become a full human being we must live the fullest of our capacities.  Interestingly enough, my approach in helping people to develop their Wealth Potential is that the things that many people find most rewarding personally, can also be applied in the marketplace as something unique and valuable that others are willing to pay for.  This is where the second half of the article comes into play.  When you are able to figure out how your internal motivations are best satisfied, this can be turned into a marketable asset that can get you whatever type of wealth you want, including money.  This is where your Unique Value Proposition comes in.  Ill talk about this in the next blog in a few days.

Cheers to your wealth!