Money is not what we think it is, it's something far simpler.

MONEY IS MADE UP

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word money? If you’re like me and most people you would equate it to a physical piece of paper/plastic that denotes a certain value.

Sure that is the embodiment of money, but there is a simpler truth of money, that money isn’t what we think it is, it’s not a physical instrument, rather more it is an arbitrary representation of value. In other words it is agreed upon value.

Whether it is coins, banknotes, gold or silver coins, shells or even livestock (yes, people used to trade agricultural goods as a form of money or barter), whatever is deemed to be of value is essentially money.

The thing about value is that it is often very subjective, an iPhone might be valuable to you but useless to someone else. This is why money was created as a way to universally quantify and represent value. Now here comes the interesting part. If money is just a representation of value, it leaves us with a simple truth.

MONEY IS A POSITIVE FEELING

First off, let’s strip away all the connotations we have with money. In its purest form, money is just energy, dare to say, a positive feeling. Now that may be an abstract concept and it is, however, just think about what you normally purchase with money.

Everything you buy delivers a certain amount of “utility” (value) – basically anything you deem useful or enjoyable. Whether it is a car, meal, concert ticket, there is a certain amount of value you derive from purchasing and owning something. Let’s look at some examples that exemplify this underlying truth.

When you buy a house, you are essentially buying the feeling of safety and security it provides each and every day for your foreseeable future. Buying food is equivalent to buying the feeling of satiety and enjoyment. Let’s take a more extreme example to drive home this point, buying designer goods. When someone buys a designer bag with an exorbitant price tag of say $USD 5,000, they are not paying for the bag itself, they are buying the feeling of prestige and status that comes with owning that particular designer brand. I mean realistically, the bag could easily be manufactured for less than 50 bucks, yet despite knowing this, people still pay ludicrous prices for these types of products. Why? Because at the end of the day, people only want to feel good. Whether it is to feel important, full, happy or safe, we are willing to exchange value to achieve these types of feelings.

Ultimately, if we distill this concept into its purest form, it becomes:

Money is just a positive feeling.

FEEL POSITIVE FEELINGS, BECOME WEALTHY

So what’s the point of this? Realizing that money is essentially a positive feeling allows you to become wealthy in the purest sense.

We are by nature drawn to things of value, whether physical or emotional. If you are able to provide great value or powerful positive feelings to others you will be wealthy beyond imagination. This is the fundamental truth of building wealth. Now there are of course unlimited ways to provide value to others. It becomes a matter of asking yourself,

“What is the greatest value I can provide to the world?”

Whether your value comes from alleviating the stress that comes from helping others do their tax returns, baking the tastiest cakes, or creating desire by being ridiculously good looking, you have to find your own “currency” of value, that is, how you create positive feelings in others.

This currency of value is something that first generates positive feelings in yourself, simply because you can’t give what you don’t have. If you can generate a positive feeling within yourself, you can transfer that positive feeling to someone else (in exchange for money or anything else of value to you).

Now this might all sound vague, however, it is really quite simple. You’ve got to do things that generate any sort of positive feeling within you, whether it is excitement, joy, desire, happiness, etc. it’s got to feel good for you first and the rest will naturally fall in place. This is why we are often told to chase our passions, because passion opens the floodgates for positive feelings and ultimately money. Passion is the basis of all valuable creations, always remember this.

When you focus on your specific currency of value, you will find that money will start to flow in your life in abundance. In the words of the great success guru, Napoleon Hill “money will come so fast, in such large quantities that it will frighten you”

In the end, if you feel good the money will come, because, after all, money is just a positive feeling.

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