Is it okay to actively choose to create wealth?
We’re okay with choosing to create art. We’re okay with choosing to create health or a good home. But, for many of us, there’s something not quite respectable about choosing to create wealth.
I know the conventional arguments against wealth creation. It’s selfish. It’s exploitive. Focusing on wealth creation distorts values. Focusing on wealth creation means working at the expense of relationships.
Focusing on wealth means closing down your heart and putting a lid on your creativity.
Well, I beg to differ.
I propose that focusing on wealth creation is a fundamentally creative choice. Focusing on wealth creation can exercise your creative muscles, open your heart, and free you to be more kind, compassionate, and honest.
I believe you can focus on wealth creation and respect yourself in the morning.
Here are five steps to doing that. I call them evolved steps because they require self-reflection, connection with your body, and a profound, appreciative engagement with all that is.
Shall we get started?
Look your biases in the eye
The first step to wealth creation is to look your biases in the eye. Start by reflecting on what those biases are. Name them. Be scrupulously honest about beliefs you hold related to wealth. Be willing to examine even (especially) those beliefs that feel like received truths.
Write down your biases and beliefs as accurately and completely as you can. Getting them on paper gives you a chance to get outside of them. To have them instead of letting them have you.
Now look at where your biases came from. Who told you these things were true? What’s your proof? What counter-examples can you find that call these truths into question?
Reclaim your imagination
The next step is to reclaim your imagination. So long as you believe your unexamined biases, your imagination is locked down.
Want proof? Think about all the times you’ve thought to yourself, “I can’t imagine wanting…” or “I can’t imagine owning…” or “I would never want to be…”
Isn’t there something a bit sad and weird about settling to limit your imagination this way?
Choose to reclaim your right to imagine anything, and imagine creating wealth. What could you allow yourself do be, do, and have if you actively committed to wealth creation?
Invite wealth into your body
Oooh, here’s a yummy step. As you free your imagination, you can play with the body of wealth creation.
Start with the sensations of wealth resistance. These may be so familiar that it takes a minute or two to notice them. Invite your body to show you, to amplify the state of wealth resistance.
Notice where your attention goes. Where in your body do you feel tension or discomfort? What’s happening to your posture? Your breathing? What’s the tone of your self-talk?
Just notice. Then shake off the body of wealth resistance.
Now reconnect with your newly-freed imagination. As you replay the images and experiences of what is possible, invite your body to show you a state of freedom and joy around wealth creation. Notice any ways in which you tend to contract, and invite them to soften. Keep inviting freedom and allowing your body to soften and open. Let yourself feel yummy.
You can be in the body of wealth creation any time with a little practice.
Stop hobbling desire
As you play with your imagination and practice the body of wealth creation, you’re going to run headlong into desire.
Desire has a bad rap. It’s as if allowing yourself to fully experience desire will send you on a rampage to fulfill it at all costs.
But really, why would you do that? Allowing yourself to experience desire doesn’t negate your values and standards. It doesn’t automatically remove all self-awareness and restraint.
It just means you get to know and feel desire. And that’s a lovely thing. Even a sacred thing.
Practice appreciating other people’s wealth
Here’s where the rubber meets the road. Whatever biases and beliefs you’ve had about creating wealth are invariably projected onto people around you. Noticing and retracting these projections will reveal opportunities you’ve never seen before.
The next time you have an automatic judgment of someone who is creating wealth, stop. Notice what that feels like. Notice what mood it produces in you. And ask yourself how it might be to experience what that person is creating as, well, as you might experience a work of art.
Appreciate the wealth creator as a creator. Appreciate the creation of wealth as a manifestation of what is possible. For just a moment detach from judgment and marvel at the miracle of human creativity.
Respect yourself in the morning
Whatever else comes of taking these steps, I predict that your feelings about wealth and wealth creation will get a good airing. You’re still free to do whatever you choose around creating wealth, but by taking wealth creation out of the closet, you’ll always be able to respect yourself in the morning.
Afterword
I wrestled with this post because I’m not entirely satisfied with how I relate to wealth creation. I want more for myself and for the people I love.
I want more for my clients.
And I want more for you.
So please let me know what came up for you as you read this post. I really want to know. Share your feelings and thoughts here at my blog.
