Episode 825 Is Money a Value or the Result of Values
[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining me on episode 825 of the inspired stewardship podcast.
[00:00:07] Derek Guajardo: [00:00:07] I'm Derek from strong life coach. I encourage you to find your own journey to building your own strong life. And one way to be inspired to do that is by listening to this inspired stewardship podcast with my friend Scott Mader.
[00:00:21]Scott Maderer: [00:00:21] it's a weird way of looking at the world. It's not the way many people do, but it really does work to change how you see the world and therefore how you live it out, how you act into the world becomes different because.
[00:00:41]Welcome and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling and the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in [00:01:00] yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.
[00:01:07]and today's episode about investing in others through stewarding your treasures. I talk with you about why valuing money. Isn't really the cause of getting more money. And instead I talk about how values and alignment with them can actually end up generating money. And I also talk about how there's a difference between serving money and having money serve you.
[00:01:31] So I've been asked before about how do you get more money? How do you increase your earnings? How do you make a better income? Is it by thinking about money all the time? Is it by putting money as your primary goal and your primary value and you put it ahead of everything else? And the funny thing is that short term often that is a way of generating some income.
[00:01:56] And if you're in an emergency situation and [00:02:00] you've got to get some income coming in very quickly, Sometimes thinking creatively about how can I generate money is valuable selling things, putting something on eBay, doing some part-time work, whatever it is can be valuable, but long-term, if your focus all the time is just on getting more money.
[00:02:22] That's not really valuing money because the truth is the value that money has. Isn't in the money. The value that money has is in what that money can do for you and for others. See money is a way that we use to buy time. Money is a way that we use to buy energy. Money is a way that we use to buy things that we need, things that we want money as a way that we use to help others get what they need and what they want.
[00:02:55] Money itself is meaningless. But the emotions [00:03:00] and the actions and the way that money generates activity in our life that has value. And the truth is if you think about what is most important to you, if we go back to the exercise from yesterday and we've spent some time figuring out what are our core values, what are the things that we value above all others?
[00:03:24] And then we get our actions and what we do in alignment with those things, we'll suddenly discover that we generate more money because the truth is doing the things that you love is always easier than doing the things that you hate being called to do something gives you the ability to stick with it, even when it's hard.
[00:03:51] Because the truth is it's always going to get hard. There's no life that always goes through [00:04:00] and everything is easy and everything works the way we want it to. But having your values at the core allows you to keep going. Even when it's hard in the longterm, that's always going to be the route to more money.
[00:04:15] And the funny thing is, as you do that, You'll discover that you actually think about money less instead of focusing on the money, you begin to focus on the values and on how having money allows you to live those values out the money no longer becomes the reason. It becomes a tool in your toolbox. See if you serve money, then everything in your life revolves around how you can get more money.
[00:04:47] But if money serves you, all of a sudden, your life begins to revolve around how you can live out your values and money becomes one tool. One of many tools that allows [00:05:00] you to do that money no longer becomes the sole object of your obsession. I've noticed that people with very little think about money all of the time, but as you move up in income, Pretty rapidly.
[00:05:15] You can reach a point where adding more money doesn't dramatically change how you feel about your life. Getting a raise from 75 to 80,000, doesn't make as big of a difference as getting a re raise from 35 to 40,000 in how you feel, because the truth is at some level, once you've got enough coming in, Adding a little bit more, does it really change your emotional state?
[00:05:44] But if you focus on how you use that money to live out your values, then now all of a sudden, every dollar can change your emotional state because every dollar is connected to being able to more authentically live out who you are called to be. [00:06:00] Money stops becoming the focus. And it just becomes one thing that you use to do what you're called to do one among many.
[00:06:10] And the funny thing is, as you begin to do that, you'll begin to think about money less and less, and you'll begin to obsess about it less and less. You'll begin to recognize that money is not your security and that if money comes or money goes, you're able to survive that. I'm not saying that you want to sit out and take risks where all of your money goes away.
[00:06:29] But even if that happened, it wouldn't matter because at your core, the money is not what you're about. Your values are what you're about. And the money just becomes an instrument of those values. It's a weird sort of behavior. It's a weird way of looking at the world. It's not the way many people do. But it really does work to change how you see the world and therefore how you live it out, how you [00:07:00] act into the world becomes different because you no longer think just about money.
[00:07:04] I've had situations where a client started working with me and they couldn't pay me right away. And that doesn't happen all the time, but sometimes I find a way to work with them. Anyway, why. Because the truth is it's more about serving the values that I have and if that's an alignment and I really feel strongly that they'll make good progress and they're a great client and I'm excited to work with them.
[00:07:30] I'll go ahead and start working with them. And we'll figure out the money as we go. I haven't done that a ton, but every time I have, guess what? I still end up getting, I paid for my services at still works out. Yeah. And we find a way where they leave a static and I leave happy and we're all able to live out our values and do what we need to do because at the end of the day, we'll find a way to make it work.
[00:07:57] There's always a way. To make [00:08:00] it work. If you put your values at the center instead of chasing money there. Thanks for listening.
[00:08:08]thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you liked this episode on the stewardship of treasures. You can sign up for our treasures tips by going to inspired stewardship.com/treasures or text in the U S four four two two two treasures tips.
[00:08:45] And we'll send you five weeks of our best tips on stewarding your treasures until next time. Invest your time. Your talent and your treasures develop your influence and impact the [00:09:00] world. .