The Education of Millionaires - Michael Ellsberg [23]
I’m not going to pretend there aren’t dangers in trying to make a difference. But in this book, I am going to give you a set of tools and skills that will minimize the dangers and maximize the chance of making a difference. Starting right now.
■ FOUR STEPS TO ALIGNING YOUR MONEY AND YOUR MEANING: PUTTING THE ART OF EARNING A LIVING TO WORK
Since I’d never have you try something I haven’t applied extensively in my own life, later I’ll be sharing with you the story of how I used these very tools to go from being broke, miserable, and desperate to building my own dream career for myself, which is both meaningful to me and lucrative. But for now, let’s dive into the Four Steps to Aligning Your Money and Your Meaning directly.
There are three groups of people I’ll be talking to in this section:A) You’d be happy spending the rest of your life earning what you’re now earning, if what you’re doing now felt meaningful to you, but it doesn’t.
B) You’d be happy spending the rest of your life doing what you’re doing because it feels so meaningful to you, but you’re not earning enough money doing it.
C) You’re not happy with either the money you’re earning or the meaning of what you’re doing to earn it. In other words, Shit City.
I’m going to address people in groups B and C first; I’ll address group A in a moment.
■ STEP 1: Get on Your Feet Financially
If you’re in group B or C, there’s really only one thing to do next. Get on your feet financially. I was in group B big-time during my “wannabe literary bad boy” phase, for much of my twenties, which I’ll describe later in this chapter. I could have happily gone on for the rest of my life writing that stuff (God save the readers!), but the money simply wasn’t good enough for me; there was no money.
If you’re in group B or C, get on your feet financially, however you can. That’s what most of the people in this book did. They got financially stable, from a young age, often their mid-teens. Get a square job, a corporate job, a temp job, a boring nine-to-five. Don’t feel anything is “beneath you” so long as it pays. Wait tables if you have to. Give up your “art,” “purpose,” or “meaning” for a little while and know what it means to be financially stable. Get a kinesthetic feeling in your body of how it feels to have enough money to pay rent, to pay your bills on time, to take your sweetie out to a nice restaurant.
The best way to get financially stable, once you have some kind of job—any job—is to exhibit the entrepreneurial leadership values on the job, described in detail in Success Skill #7, “The Entrepreneurial Mind-set versus the Employee Mind-set.” This is how I did it and how all the self-educated entrepreneurs in this book did it.
■ STEP 2: Create More Room for Experimentation
This step (and all the rest) applies to groups A, B, and C mentioned above. (Presumably those in group A are already financially stable and thus have already completed Step 1.) The next step in Aligning Your Money and Your Meaning, once you’re financially on your feet, is to create more room for experimentation.
Finding a comfortable meeting ground for your money and your meaning is going to require a lot of experimentation. Experimentation takes time. It takes money. And it takes room to fall and to fail.
Having the financial stability gained in Step 1 makes it a lot easier to start taking some measured risks in your life. Anthony Sandberg, for example, started his sailing school when he already had money coming in from his solar and plumbing business. Elliott Bisnow, whom we’ll be meeting in Success Skill #2, started his Summit Series when he already had money coming in from his real estate newsletter business. My wife, Jena, worked a variety of unfulfilling jobs before