Money has been part of my career- financial services helps families grow and preserve wealth. Risks of death and Dying were part of daily meeting banter, conferences and communications. Speaking about the risk of dying and where money flowed was my go-to money mindset. You’ll get money, you’ll try to have extra and work has to be very difficult to achieve.
But when I retired from financial services, my relationship to money changed. Reiki is the exchange of energy. Early on in my training I was required to barter or receive some compensation for my sessions. In Robin Kimmerer’s book, Serviceberry, the exchange between plants and animals, within communities and between man and nature is the ecosystem we’ve operated in for eons.
What if it wasn’t hard to work, what if money flowed easily?
A friend writes checks to her future self and receives the amounts with shocking accuracy.
Is it that easy to create a financial pattern that flows towards you with abundance? When did my sense of lack emerge blocking my own abundance?
I remember my first understanding of layers of money on my College campus.
In high school, I confused choice with happiness, lack of money with desire to solve through hustling and a vow to do better than whatever my parents had done before me.
This happened again in college when others drove their parent’s year-old Mercedes to campus freshman year while I had a strange car with a truck rack instead of a roof rack. In college, I noticed true generational wealth and new money, too. Knowing it was a blessing to have college paid in full minus my food and book budget, I acutely understood that other families had deeper accounts than my Family.
J.Crew catalogs with cotton parkas, black pants and the beginning of 90s grunge were never purchased. Circling my wish list to fill my dorm closet, motivated me to to be able to buy that on my own. I gathered 2-3 summer jobs, working to create my own pocket of wealth. My dad created IRAs, funding them from my ice cream scooper paychecks. Before hustling was a term, I had moved mountains to make more money than my expenses to add to my small wardrobe. Ultimately I felt gratitude, motivation and desire to know more on wealth capture. The currency of looking good and feeling good were linked to my checkbook. Yes, I had a checkbook!
Noticing Material Wealth Fed My Hustle Addiction
My personal Growth equation could be answer simply- hard work got me into college, and D1 sports, therefore hard work would get me up the ladder to the highest paycheck. Paychecks meant choices (material mattered most) and ultimately happiness without roadblocks.
Financial literacy, having no real experience, I’d be on a trajectory of success towards bigger and better things if I stayed working 4 summer jobs, getting the right internships and on and on. Socializing was at the bottom of my list, too tired to keep up the level of partying my post grad self could handle.
I budgeted to the max, eating rice or omelets to save money to go out once a week or to buy boozy brunch tickets. Budgeting was fierce, making it on my own a badge of honor. My connections were based on my hard work, not genuine friendships.
“See me, over here, doing so much work for you at all hours and even coming into the office when I have the flu? I’m committed, I’m here to support the business and get my paycheck in hopes of more more more more.”
Abundance Mindset in the Grind
My DNA was equal parts hard worker to ‘it-will-get-figured-out’ abundance mindset. Rarely did I doubt my abilities to make the rent on an apartment I loved. I took the stretch apartment with golden gate views and a new kitchen and bought the sensible car. Shopping for the power suits, often custom made, was a hell yes, buying fewer better pieces.
I never doubted my ability to make money flow towards me.
That is, until I met adults who lived in financial fear. Being around family or friends who spoke from a lack mentality was a shock. My grandparents and parents worked to make ends meet and then some. My paternal grandfather was a relationship builder, always on the inside of the right deal. Not enough was not in my vocabulary, until NYC showed me fear of never enough.
Fear, based on colleagues who were overextended or had been laid off in 2007, crept in. Taking roles knowing I’d be buried in work with the biggest egos turned me sour.
More is the goal, until it isn’t sustainable.
Disappointment occurred when I he lesson kept repeating itself, never landing on enough money, the right things in my closet or address. It isn’t false advertising if everyone believes it to be true. It’s a belief system that more is happiness and fulfillment at work and a paycheck can feed your soul.
I don’t blame anyone for taking part in the system that cycles from lack to grind to lack to grind to some relief through buying more stuff, but I knew there was another way to operate.
I made career and financial leaps and bounds at a young age, sacrificing my entire wellbeing and personal life due to work exhaustion. Illness after illness set me back physically and eventually mentally.
Why was I getting on a plane every Sunday when my friends were hiking or in Napa? Why was I returning every Thursday later than promised and being OK with the weekly meetings 3,000 miles away? I accepted the hustle structured laid out before me. Each role the promise of more and I needed more.
Normalizing the grind at all costs was a badge of honors, many of my peers joined in on. The balancing act I almost perfected was stale after my biggest corner office. Bosses took more and their big bold financial promises fell short. the margins on what I was giving in return for little money shrunk at a rapid pace.
I wanted my insides to feel like they were full of Love and admiration, my wallet was full enough for all I’d dreamed of.
Purpose brings the benjamins.
If we live our lives in three stages: learning through childhood, accumulating wealth and skills in our early adulthood and mastering lessons in our midlife through the end of life, the sage is born after 40.
Working hourly or for small return on our time is not prosperity. It’s thinking small.
Aligned purpose in mid life is the way to amass a fortune in our pockets and our hearts.
My work has called in more results because I believe in it, my impact is high and my Wisdom can be shared to help others, not keep them small like my wall street counterparts do.
