Episode 835 Does Money Bring You Joy
[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining me on episode 835 of the inspired stewardship podcast.
[00:00:09] Patrick Annuci: [00:00:09] I'm Patrick from dad hackers, and I challenge you to become the man that you are called and created to be one way to be inspired to do this is to listen to this show. The inspired stewardship podcast with my friend Scott Maderer.
[00:00:25]Scott Maderer: [00:00:25] the way to look at both good times and bads and saying, but I'm going to go in to suck every moment out of this and every moment of joy and put this in my brain and I'm going to remember it because the truth is, think about it. You've had a vacation where things didn't go perfectly, but a year later, when you think back on that vacation, you still think.
[00:00:47] Favorably about the good things that happened on the vacation. Welcome, and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcasts. If you truly desire to become the person who God [00:01:00] wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast.
[00:01:08] We'll learn to invest in yourself. Invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.
[00:01:17]And today's episode about impacting the world through stewarding your treasures. I talk with you about the connection between money and joy. Also share why experiences are more rewarding than stuff. And I give you some tips on how to focus on joy rather than happiness with money. As we talk about stewarding your treasures.
[00:01:39] Wouldn't it be great. If you could support this podcast and do it without costing yourself an extra dime, it turns out you can. All you have to do is use inspired stewardship.com/amazon. When you're ready to make a purchase via Amazon and a small commission, we'll come back to support the show. If [00:02:00] you enjoy the show, when you're ready to buy from Amazon, just use inspired stewardship.com/amazon.
[00:02:07] You've probably heard the expression money. Can't buy happiness and it's true. And it's not true in a way I've talked before about how there is a link between money and happiness, how as your income increases up to a certain amount, it does have a correlation with our happiness factor. But part of the problem is we don't really understand that what we're looking for.
[00:02:36] A lot of times, isn't happiness. It's joy. Remember, we've talked this week about how happiness is something that depends upon external circumstances and joy is something that comes from inside of you, your relationship and your understanding of yourself, how you are wired, how well you understand that, how content you are with [00:03:00] who you are, whether or not you're growing and these sorts of things.
[00:03:04] So part of the problem happens in that what we do is we use money to find happiness thinking that will bring us joy, but the truth is they're not directly connected. We go out and we buy a new car or we spend money on something that we think is going to be a long lasting happiness. And yet the truth is that we can get used to anything relatively quickly.
[00:03:28] That brings us happiness, that connects to us in that external way. Once you get your basic human needs met, adding more stuff, does it make you. More happy. You'll going from $20,000 of income to 50,000. Makes a big difference because now you can provide for more basic needs, but going from 50 to a hundred, doesn't make you twice as happy as you were at 50.
[00:03:57] The truth is you think that you'll get [00:04:00] more happiness. You'll get more pleasure through having more. Because of that, we end up chasing more all of the time, but the connection to joy is less about those underlying moments of happiness. And in fact, the stress of constantly pursuing more stuff and comparing yourself to others can Rob you.
[00:04:23] Of joy. It can add to more stress. There's an old joke that if you make a hundred dollars more than your relative or your friend next door, then you consider yourself rich. You find happiness in that and believe it or not, there is a comparison factor that comes in to our happiness and our joy. But as you learn to stop comparing yourself to the person next door, you find more joy.
[00:04:51] Because you stopped trying to compete. You stop trying to buy the newer car. You stop asking the wrong question and you begin to ask the [00:05:00] right question. The truth is the things that can find us joy in our life includes things like having good and deep and stable relationships, both with our family, as well as friends and others.
[00:05:13] It's about having people that you know, that you can call on and having a healthy relationship with them as well. It's about spending money on experiences rather than stuff going out to eat with friends, going on a vacation to Mexico, going on a trip that you have as an experience is a way of connecting, not just to happiness, but making it last longer because the memory of those experiences becomes what you actually.
[00:05:46] Focus on the memory of those experiences continues to bring you happiness long after just buying stuff would have done. Even looking for activities that challenge you, that force [00:06:00] you to grow that make you do more than you think you can do that. Push you beyond your limit. Often bring you joy in a way that just doing the bare minimum does not.
[00:06:13] Because the truth is it's not just about stuff. It's about things like friends and family and experience. What's more, it's also about giving. One of the reasons that I push people to develop a habit of giving is because it truly is better to give than receive when it comes to your joy and your happiness and finding ways to spend your energy.
[00:06:38] On the experiences that connect you in a deeper way, ends up creating a lot more reward in your life, over the long-term. But unfortunately in our culture, how we're sold to everything that comes about is we're told to spend your money on those. Consumer [00:07:00] items to buy the faster car, the nicer car, the neater car, or worse yet to lease it so that you can appear like you're better off than you really are to spend money that you don't even have to impress people that you don't even like.
[00:07:15] And the funny thing is if you'd spend more time finding and hanging out with the people that you do, like you'd actually find more joy and happiness, even if you're driving that old beater. Because the real secret is to recognize that no money can buy you temporary happiness, but it can't buy you. The permanence of joy in less, you spend that money in a way that aligns with your values, that aligns with your bigger goals, that finds ways to concentrate on not only creating experiences, but taking the experience and the memory from everything and wiring you that into yourself, finding the way to look at [00:08:00] both good times and bads and saying, but I'm going to.
[00:08:03] Going to suck every moment out of this and every moment of joy and put this in my brain and I'm going to remember it because the truth is, think about it. You've had a vacation where things didn't go perfectly, but a year later, when you think back on that vacation, you still think favorably about the good things that happened on the vacation and begin to gloss over and ignore the bad.
[00:08:28] But when you buy that new car, And three weeks, six weeks a year later, it's in the shop or there's now a stain on the front seat or other things have gone wrong. That stops bringing you joy very quickly. That's why the way we have our relationships and our experiences becomes the more important way to focus our money.
[00:08:50] If we really want to create joy instead of just momentary happiness in our life. Thanks for listening.
[00:08:59][00:09:00] 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.
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