It's Not About the Money - But It's Not NOT About the Money!

During the tenure of my corporate career, I went from being a young, idealistic girl to a not-so-young and increasingly dismayed woman. Thinking that corporations were in business to provide a service, I was naively shocked to observe, time and again, a relentlessly myopic focus on the bottom line. On making money. And on creating bonus plans that generated payouts for senior executives that could have covered the annual salary of several of the hard-working employees who made it all possible.


It became increasingly, overwhelmingly clear to me that when “making money” becomes the objective, huge distortions are introduced in the process of creating and selling something in the marketplace. Prices are raised disproportionately to value, costs are cut without full consideration of the impact of those choices on employees, the community and the environment, and the focus narrows to a short-term, quarter-to-quarter view that disregards the natural continuum from present to future.

As I wrote in an impassioned letter to the CFO, imploring him to talk some sense into the senior executives, all I could see was a relentless transfer of wealth from the many to the few. It was difficult not to become a little cynical. (Okay, I actually did become a little cynical. Maybe more than a little. And that’s how I knew something had to shift in me, and in my life. But that’s another story.)

Life is not about making money. Life is about life, about living fully into our potential in joyful service to the Whole. And yet in the life we have created, money serves an immensely useful purpose as a medium of exchange. I am forever grateful that I do not have to find farmers and seamstresses who are in need of coaching services so I can barter with them for food and clothing. Whew!

Yet I remain wary of not letting a misplaced desire for money distort my authentic intention to serve others through my work. And this lingering distaste for chasing money and materialism that many of us share can, itself, create distortions. It can distort our healthy appreciation for money. It’s easy to “get” that life isn’t about making money – but it’s harder to grasp how to come into right relationship with this undeniably valuable tool for graceful living.

I know many good-hearted, well-intentioned people – people who are centered in a genuine desire to create valuable products and services that help others – who cling so fervently to “It’s not about the money!” that they’ve forgotten how to allow money into their lives. Having seen, as I did, that putting money first almost always means putting what really matters last, they vow to do it differently. So they decide to turn things around and put money last.

Which almost always means they don’t have enough of it.

It’s common, when observing something that doesn’t work, to assume that its opposite must be the solution. But putting money last isn’t the solution to freeing ourselves from the tyranny of chasing it. In an odd way, it simply creates a different kind of tyranny. Whether we chase money or avoid it, the very charge we have around it reflects what I call an “unholy alliance” between money and power. We keep giving money the power to prioritize our choices, whether we regard it as good or evil. And relating to money as the source of our power is never a healthy choice.

So we need to find a new way of relating to money. Which is a bit more than I can cover in a single blog post! But I’ll continue to share my thoughts about it in future posts. Those of you who know me, know that helping people shift their relationship with money is an integral part of the teaching and coaching work I do. I won’t leave you hanging!

And in the meantime, I’d love to hear from you. How would you characterize your relationship with money? Is it healthy? Dysfunctional? Missing in action altogether? Whatever it is, you are not alone. Let’s heal it together.