Money, Passion + Vision

I've been coming to some big smashing realizations lately about money: making it, growing it, attracting it, and managing it. And about all the crazy, peculiar attitudes towards money that I was surrounded with growing up.

I know, right? This is so not a subject I'd usually write about here, but that's part of my breakthrough. I've silently harbored all sorts of inherited attitudes and assumptions about money for long enough. I'm ready to slough off, dig deep, and start fresh.

See, here's the thing: I came from a family that was poor by choice. Crazy, right?

My parents were poor because they were committed to work with a higher purpose. They were altruistic, spiritually minded, and broke. Always.

We never had enough money for any frivolity: fashion was scorned (because we could not afford it;) after-school sports shunned (no money for uniforms of for the extra gas to drive me to & from practice;) and and people in our community who devoted their careers to earning high pay checks were regarded as selfish, self absorbed, egotistical, or worst of all: materialistic.

I didn't really question any of it for a very long time. In fact I bought it all. Hook line and sinker. I'd say things like "Money isn't important to me. What I really want to do is change the world." Or: "I don't really care about money, all I care about is making a difference."

And you know what? That's bullshit. What does it matter if you grow the capacity of your own soul immensely, if the isolation of poverty limits you to affecting only yourself? Even Pema Chodron and Ticht Naht Hanh leverage the significant sums of money available to them to extend their reach: affecting thousands upon thousands of people. It's money that makes it possible for them to travel; to speak at workshops, to write books, to act on their inner fire.

I've started to dig to the bottom of all this in part because I've found my tribe at the Right Brainers in Business Video Summit (which is awesome by the way.) And in part because I've been following Danielle Laporte for a long enough to feel like her approach is finally getting under my skin (in the very best of ways.)

I love her unabashed way of aiming for it all: for the tripple bottom line AND changing the world. She is both a humanist AND an entrepreneur. She gives like crazy; she is ethical, she is fierce. She is someone who who is growing her soul AND selling her soul.

This is big. To find myself here, facing all the strange ambiguity I have towards standing in my own power around money. It's complex, confusing, and awesome. What better thing could I be doing at the start of spring? It's time for rebirth and growth and transformation. Pow! Spring cleaning taken to the nth degree.

So of course I'm curious. Really curious: what were (are) the attitudes towards money that you grew up with? How have they shaped your world view? How do these attitudes influence what you do?

Do you believe you are worthy of making a fat paycheck? Do you feel like your creative work can be richly rewarded financially? What are your hang ups? What are your success stories?

What would you ask for?

"She'd been so sure a crap liquor store would not stock French cigarettes just because you asked. The shock every time she went in, and there they were. She was used to taking the world as it was, she'd never have guessed you could get what you wanted by asking for it."

~from Paint It Black by Janet Fitch I was struck by these few sentences and the idea has stayed in my head since I finished this book (which I loved, by the way) And I've wondered: What do I want to ask for? What should I be asking for? It feels powerful and vulnerable at the very same time to think of this. To imagine asking, putting myself out there, saying this is what I need.

Today I would ask for: An agent to represent my book. Funding to be able to write and live. Financial abundance would be swell,but just enough would be okay too--to live and write, rinse and repeat. A sponsor, or sponsors. To not feel like I'm always the trailblazer. Some days I want so badly for someone else to say: here, let me show you how to do this so you won't mess it all up.

(And also maybe for some sun. The humidity is getting on my nerves.)

What would you ask for? Really. If you could ask for anything--or many things, what would they be?