We’ve talked about how many of us have negative feelings towards wealthy folks. Even while we are unsatisfied and perhaps envious of wealthy folks, we often believe our lives will be easier if we had more of it.

I Can’t Get No …

John D Rockefeller was asked how much money is enough, and the answer was “just a little more.” The thing is that we never seem have enough. We always would like to have more money. We think that if we had a little more, our problems would be solved. We wouldn’t have to worry about money if we had just a little more. If we had a a little more, we could save for retirement. If we had a little more, we would be a better parent. If we had a little more, we could be a better friend.

The truth is that for most of us, a little more money isn’t enough. Once we get that raise at work, we’d still like to have a little more. We still aren’t satisfied.

The reason is that many if us are on a “bigger, better hunt.” We are always hunting for the next bigger, better thing. We move into that new bigger house, and not long after we’re looking to get into an even bigger, better house in that better neighborhood. We buy a new flat screen TV, and not long after we’re looking at the newest models. We have an iPhone 4, but we’re not content with it because the iPhone 5 is now is out.

Satisfaction

The answer to continual dissatisfaction is to find a way to be content with what we already have.

Here are a few things to keep in mind that may help you find contentment.

1. Everything is temporary

No matter what thing you buy, it has a life span. That iPhone will last only a few years. Unles restoring old cars is your hobby, our cars last for about 10 to 20 years – many even less if they’re involved in an accident. Houses last a lot longer, but they’re not forever either. The Starbucks coffee we buy lasts only about 20 minutes, and after an hour it’s cold.

If we remember that things are temporary, it makes it a bit easier to be content with what we already have.

2. That feeling we get from buying things is short

A lot of time we buy things so that we’ll experience a feeling. We get an emotional high when we buy things. It feels good. The problem is that this feeling only lasts a few days to a few months – sometimes even just a few hours. That new house we bought doesn’t feel so special after we’ve lived in it for a year.

If we remember that the emotional high we will get from making a purchase is short, it is easier to be content with what we have.

3. Things don’t bring true satisfaction

We are always let down when we expect a thing to satisfy us. We get that short emotional high, but then we experience dissapointment. This is becuase things aren’t meant to satisfy us. I believe that until we have a relationship with Jesus, we will always feel a little discontented. Trying to fix this discontent with more stuff doesn’t work. Satisfaction comes from a connection with God, loving relationships, and in living out our purpose.

If we remember that things don’t bring ultimate satisfaction, it’s easier to be content with what we already have.

Now it’s your turn. How do you remain content, or do you constantly feel like you need more? Tell us about it.

There is saying that goes around: “Nice guys finish last.” With this saying and Bible verses that talk about a money, people often get the idea that rich people must have low moral standards. We think those guys must have stepped on the backs of others to get into that position.

Related to this is the concept that money is evil and corrupts those who have a lot of it. People think that money is the root of all evil. We have this strange dichotomy of views, one view for ourselves, and a different one for others. We think those rich people must be evil for having so much, all the while we’re striving to get more for ourselves.

The Truth About Rich Folks

One of the reasons for our views of the rich is that the news media highlights those abberant cases where a rich person swindled money from others. So, we generaize those specifics to all rich people. But the media doesn’t highlight the other rich folks who are very generous. That’s not newsworthy.

As Rena and I are running our business, we are discovering that people do business with people they trust. Trust is rarely built with people who do not have good character – people who don’t keep their word, stretch the truth, or are greedy. I think the truth is that most successful wealthy folks are not greedy, evil people at all, Instead these are the kind of people we would want to hang around and be with.

Money doesn’t cuase a person to be greedy or selfish, but mony can accentuate those traits. I’ve known some greedy selfish poor folks, and I don’t want to be around them. I also know some godly rich folks. Godly folks who acquire money tend to feel a greater responsibility with that money and become even more godly. Greedy folks who acquire money tend to become even more greedy with it.

Evil Money

I also wanted to address the idea that money is the root of all evil. This statement is a misquote of the Bible which states that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. There is no doubt that having money can mess with us if we’re not careful.

The key is this: Do you own money, or does money own you? If you have money in perspective, it can used for for some very good purposes. Money can be used to build a hospital, a group home or a library.

If money owns us, then we become consumed with acquiring more and more for ourselves. In this case, money is a problem for us, and giving it away might be a good thing.

… or do they?

Class warfare seems to be much more common these days. People are mad that the rich have so much money. From those Occupy folks to President Obama, there seems to be a sense that the rich folks are taking advantage of the rest of us.

The common mindset that runs through this is that if the rich have so much money, it must somehow have come from the pockets of poor people. We call this thinking ‘scarcity mindset’. This thinking is that there is only so much money available, and it’s either in poor people’s pockets or rich people’s pockets.

Rena and I do not subscribe to this mindset. We, instead, subscribe to an abundance mindset. The value of money is not in the paper it’s printed on. Money is valuable because of what’s written on the paper – and the value we agree it has.

Two Chickens

If we didn’t have a commonly accepted currency, we would, instead, probably do something like this:

I fix your fence for you. You would give me a couple of chickens in exchange, but I have enough chickens. So instead, you write down on a piece of paper that you owe me a couple of chickens. Then I can trade this IOU (for a couple of chickens) – for something I do need. Maybe I need my short field to be tilled. So I give the IOU to someone who is willing to till my field for the chickens. This person then might go back to the chicken farmer to make good on the IOU for chickens, or he might trade it with someone else.

As you can see from the example, tangible things like chickens can be traded for services such as fixing a fence or tilling a field. An IOU for 2 chickens has become a medium of exchange. Instead of trading IOUs for specific items or services, we use money as a common medium of exchange.

No Limit to Work

When you look at it this way, money is basically stored up work. There is no limit to work. If a rich person does some work, this doesn’t take away the amount of work that a poor person can do. The rich person didn’t steal work from the poor person.

Now you might be thinking that there really are only so many dollars in circulation, so this really is a limited resource. This type of thinking doesn’t take into account that a person’s net worth is not just in the dollars the person holds. If I use some of my dollars to buy a plot of land, I no longer have those dollars. I’m not poor. Instead I’ve made an exchange, and a part of my wealth is in that land I purchased.

Most rich folks don’t have a vault full of money. Instead they own things that have value. They own companies, stocks in companies. and real estate, to name a few. They aren’t holding onto cash making it unavailable to poor people.

Abundance

With the abundance mindset, there are plenty of ways in which we can create valuable goods and services. There is plenty of work to go around. We can invent new ways of creating value and earn money. This happens all the time. How many of you bought an iPad in 2005? The answer is: No one. iPads hadn’t been invented yet. Before 1995, no one ever provided a service to sell people’s stuff on eBay for them. eBay hadn’t started yet.

We aren’t limited by the number of dollars in circulation. We are limited by the amount of value we create in the world, which is not very limited, indeed.

What about you? Do you think rich people take advantage of poor people? Did you get angry reading this article?

I am often struck by the similarities between weight management and money management. I’m eager to share what I’m learning on my own journey toward optimal health because I believe it will benefit other people when they apply the same ideas to their personal finances.

I lost a bunch of weight and stopped. I tried some here and there to get back to working on my weight loss goal, but I found it really hard to stay motivated and to stick with it. Then a couple things changed…

1. My perception of my goal changed.
   In early November I heard a health coach say that if I followed the plan I could lose 20 pounds by the end of the year. I know from experience that the program works when I follow it. So I thought, “Wow, that’d put me only 8 pounds away from my goal weight!” Suddenly my goal looked a lot closer and more achievable. The goal didn’t change, but my perception of it did.
2. I identified some very specific outcomes that I really wanted.
   Since I had already lost a lot of weight, I was looking better, feeling better and even getting compliments about it, too. But there were still a few things about my body that really bothered me (i.e. excess fat). I could point to them and say, “I want this gone!” In a moment my goal became crystal clear. I knew exactly what it would look like when I reached my goal.

I found that having my goal be super clear and believing that it’s doable made all the difference for me. As a result, I think that if you have similar clarity and belief for your own financial goals, you’ll find it a lot easier to start working and to keep working toward them.

For clarity:
Ask yourself some questions and work on forming some clear images in your mind.

• What will it look like when you’ve reached your goal?
• What will be different?
• How could someone see that you have reached your goal?
• What changes would you get really excited about?

For belief:
If you’re not sure about how to reach your financial goals, consider attending our online BREAK FREE! Workshop on January 5th. Having a budget and getting out of debt are the first steps in reaching almost any personal financial goal.

We have helped many people take control of their money and get out of debt (check out some testimonials). We teach principles, tools and techniques that we know work because we use them ourselves.