#192: I am dead with or without money
In December last year I went on a two day money workshop.
Alongside a close group of other founders, I explored my relationship with money and success.
It’s one of the most powerful explorations I have ever done.
I arrived at the workshop with a curiosity around my relationship with money and what I deem as success.
I know in my head that money doesn’t make you happy. I know in my head that the perceived success of certain outcomes doesn’t make you happy.
Yet, I often chase money or a particular outcome. The deeply entrenched story of “I’ll be happy when….” is hard to remove.
The philosophy of the money workshop was that money is pervasive. It’s like oxygen in our world, everything we do has some relationship to money.
Money is a store of value or a means of exchange, something to trade with, an economic tool.
Yet when I think about money I rarely think about it like this.
I think about freedom, scarcity, success, fame, power, influence and more.
The notion of the two days was a powerful observation that we project many of our unconscious feelings about ourselves and our lives onto money.
“Money will make me happy”
“With money I can do the things I’ve always wanted to do”
“Having money will mean I am respected by my peers”
These and many other stories we all tell ourselves about our money and our life.
The workshop came at a frighteningly relevant time for me. We were in the middle of a process for Sanctus that was all about money. We were raising an investment round.
My attendance at the workshop was beseiged by calls from lawyers, last minute negotiations and financial implications for me and our business.
It was an uncertain time. We were in the middle of a deal, in the final, closing, nerve wracking stages where it should go through, but it could fall through too.
I was anxious and overwhelmed by uncertainty. In my head at the time, the deal going through meant success, the deal not going through was failure. Glory or death. Freedom or chains. My old life or my new life. I was in a dark void between two paths in my life.
Over the course of the first day, we were gently encouraged to share some of our feelings and stories around money. We were invited to speak, not from our head or our thoughts, but from our body. Constantly reminded to share any feelings, strange as they might be, that were arising in our bodies.
Anything from a twitch in the foot to a beating of the heart was welcomed and relevant, it was a worthwhile feeling to explore. Money brings up a lot and the body was the ground in which we began our investigative work.
The spotlight fell on me.
I remember my heart beginning to beat quickly, it was hammering the walls of my chest. It came over me suddenly, seemingly in response to nothing. Simply, in response to money.
When I began sharing my current experience of money. I felt anxious.
I shared more. I felt scared.
More. I felt terrified.
I felt trapped and frightened within financial uncertainty. I felt paralysed, like I couldn’t move.
Tim, the facilitator began the process of getting me to share those unconscious and unsaid thoughts and feelings.
The process was called “reclamations” where you might reclaim a part of yourself that was long forgotten, or buried deep, by saying a chosen sentence out loud. Each sentence was ended with the suffix, “with or without money”
The process, as I understood it, was for us to claim those feelings as our own and to enlighten them as our feelings in response to money. Once they were aired and seen, we could see that money or a situation around money was creating an automatic response. This is how it went for me.
I said a few sentences, but nothing quite landed or felt like it opened me or changed anything.
I was still sitting there, scared.
In fact, I was scared to death.
My fear was so all encompassing, it had wrapped me up and taken me away. I was a kid, I was powerless, I couldn’t move. This fear had taken me, like the grim reaper. Who knew something about money could take me so far away? That’s how powerful it’s hold of me was, I was scared to death.
And then came the liberating sentence; “try saying, ‘I am Dead’”
“I’m dead”
Boom.
My head felt like it exploded from my neck and shoulders. I closed my eyes and circled my head around my neck. I felt a surge of energy go to the tips of my fingers and ends of my toes. I felt like I was on drugs. It was insane.
I’m dead! I felt completely alive, liberated, free, flying.
I laughed aloud, I couldn’t stop. It was the funniest thing I’d ever said. I’m smiling now. I am dead! Who cares! I’m dead!
I couldn’t describe it, even now with 1,000 words I struggle to. I am dead. Who cares about money, I’m dead, it doesn’t matter.
It wasn’t about death or mortality, I felt incredibly alive in that moment. Money didn’t matter, outcomes of success and failure didn’t matter, because I was so intensely alive, that really was all that mattered.
“I am dead, with or without money”
A strange sentence I know and really it meant to me…
“Money, success, failure. It doesn’t matter. I am here, now, I am alive, I will die one day. Life, now, is what matters”
An exploration around money took me to the deepest place I could go, life and death, the only certainties. That’s how intense and strong my feelings and associations were to money, and how complex and unknown they were.
With the process, we were also invited to share a reclamation that might be the opposite to what we had just shared. For me this was;
“I matter, with or without money”
No matter how much money I have, what businesses I start, whether they succeed or fail. No matter any outcome, status or result. As a human, as James. I matter, I deserve to be alive. I am loved.
That’s what it meant to me.
Writing this I can’t believe the power of some of these words that emerged when exploring money. The pieces of paper in our pocket or numbers on our screen. They look trivial. I know they are not, because they can mean so much more. The numbers on the screen did to me.
I am not free of money, because I live in the world. I have not forgone money either. I value it, I need it, I respect it. Yet, I feel less beholden to it. I feel less moved or influenced by it.
In the end, the Sanctus deal went through. We raised the investment and all was well. It was a “successful” result. I wonder how I’d be writing this now if it didn’t? I’ll never know. I wonder too if it was successful because I detached from the outcome and let life decide?
What I do know is that through this process I let go of my attachment to the outcome of an investment round. I let myself see that my successes are mine, with or without money. More than that, I realised I matter with or without money. That life is precious full stop.
I know that I made some progress in letting go and detaching myself from a system and way of thinking I have been conditioned to live within.
I still live with a relationship to money and societal norms around success that draw me in.
It helps though when I sit back, smile and I think; “I am dead”
I feel alive.
That's what matters.
Cheers,
James x
🔦 Spotlight: Tim Malnick 🔦
Tim facilitated the money workshop I have just written about and it felt strange not to put the spotlight on him. Like many great coaches, I imagine he's not used to the spotlight being on him!
I really can't advocate for the money workshop enough, for an existing team, community, group or attending one of Tim's public workshops. It's one of those things that if I could make everyone do it, I would.
I especially believe people in leadership positions or people with lots of money should do this, it will open your eyes and let you see the privilege and power you have to put your money and influence to good work in the world.
Tim's website is here, there's a money workshop coming up in June.
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