Aim for something better than "financial freedom"

...then I found something better...

I used to dream of “financial freedom”… having so much money that I could just do whatever I wanted, travel the world, give money abundantly to causes and people in need.

I invested in lots of business programs that sold me on that dream.

Eventually I realized two things…

(1) The ones selling the dreams are the ones getting rich… not those of us buying into the programs. (Unless we also joined their ranks, and sold dreams of easy and big money to others.)

(2) By getting caught up in that culture of hype, I was actually delaying the building of my right livelihood.

Thankfully I woke up to these dynamics and stopped buying into those hyped-up programs. Since then, I’ve worked diligently to build what I feel today is my truest livelihood yet.

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When I am well-rested, feeling connected to my higher self, I realize that what I really want isn’t financial freedom…

What I yearn for – is the feeling of being truly useful to others, expressing my strengths in service of uplifting humanity, and feeling that the money I earn is honest and noble.

Yet when I feel tired, or fearful, or discouraged, then the hype of financial freedom can tempt me again.

The illusion being sold to many of us is that we could have a stable offering that always makes money and never changes—is that true of life?

In the conventional worldview, work is only a means to the real purpose of having more vacations and fulfilling our desires. This eventually puts you on the hedonic treadmill of materialism.

Or, a more altruistic version of this conventional worldview is that you should make lots of money so that you can have the power to choose the good causes that get funded. Still, it’s about control and ego.

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If the goal of work is to satisfy our own desires, we can become obsessed about financial freedom.

May we instead sense into a calling for our work to connect more deeply in service to others…

Yet to hear that call, we need to be rested, renewed, and connected to our higher selves.

Vacations, breaks, and self-care are essential for renewing ourselves, to reconnect to our higher selves, so that we can come back to work and improve our offerings, making them even better for our audience.

Breaks from work give us the opportunity to renew our energy and perspective so that we can work more wisely, to earn money in ways that feel ever more noble to us.

Therefore, the most important thing in the pursuit of our authentic businesses, is to have a reliable way to reconnect to our higher selves. To have a personal practice that brings us back to a deeper perspective of what Life is really about.

From a deeper/higher perspective, we then see that there is opportunity (and urgency) to earn a truly worthwhile living being of service to others, doing work that co-creates a world that our hearts long for.

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“Work” and “making money” don’t have to be necessary evils. Our money-earning actions can be transformed into our heartfelt cause for the betterment of the world and our own personal development.

Instead of obsessing about financial freedom, let us see other people’s payments to us as a doorway to sacred reciprocity: for us to do our best work for them, and for us.

I offer an alternative definition of what it means to “have it all” —

“Earning money by expressing your strengths to uplift others, practicing your joyful productivity, continually growing in meaningful ways, and having a rhythm of self-care that keeps you refreshed and connected to your highest self.”

I wish for you everything that brings you true alignment with the highest version of yourself, and with your deepest sense of purpose!