‘Wealth’ is one of those words that both turns us off and, often secretly, excites us. Most of us want it, but we don’t really want to talk about it because then people might think we’re money hungry and materialistic. But what is wealth, really?
The first step is to define what wealth means to you. To me, wealth means abundance and having enough. I do not want to worry about or focus on money. When I had too little, I was always worried about getting enough to eat, paying rent, etc. If I had too much, I would worry about saving enough for emergencies, if I was investing it wisely, and even worse, wondering if everyone was being nice to me just because of it. I want to focus on my relationships and my work, the things that make me happy. I do not want to spend my time thinking about money.
One day I took these thoughts a little further. How much money is just enough? What is the least expensive way that I could live? I thought about Peace Pilgrim and how from the age of 45 until her death at 73 in 1981 she walked 25,000 miles to learn about and talk about peace. Could I live simply walking from one place to the next? I could! I could carry my laptop in my backpack,connect at coffee shops, and do all of my online business as an itinerant. Sure, this is carrying the idea to an extreme, but it also helps put things in perspective. “Enough” can be much less than we think. “Enough” does not have to be enough to maintain our current lifestyle… we have the power to change our lifestyle!
On the other hand, I strongly believe that we need to set goals of what we want and create that reality in our minds first. Have you watched “The Secret”? If not, get it and do so. How much money do you want to create each month? What kind of lifestyle do you really want? What is the least amount of money you can live on? What is the most that will cover all of your wants and needs? Set a monthly amount and make that your goal. Do you want $5000 a month? Easy. Really! How many people in the world are already making that much each month, every one of them creating it in a different way.
Is there enough money in the world for everyone to have $5000 a month? Why not? We’re not talking about everyone in the world getting $5000 worth of gold of which there is an apparently finite amount. Money is simply one of the physical manifestations of energy transfer. I know that is a mouthful, but what it really means is that money does not exist in a finite amount. Is the total amount of money in the world today more than the total amount 100 years ago? Of course. Why? Because there are more people and more minds filled with creative thought transferring their thoughts and energy (and the products that come as a result of those thoughts) to others.
This can be a difficult and deeply philisophical subject or it can be looked at very simply. MONEY IS INFINITE! There is more than enough for everyone and when we need more we simply create more. How does that work? Let’s say that you have created a loyal following of people that want to buy your paintings. Every time you create a painting, you sell it immediately. Normally you create one painting a month and get paid $5000 a month, enough to be wealthy according to how you have defined it for yourself. Now let’s say that your car breaks down and you need to buy a new one. Easy! You create two paintings that month and you have just created twice as much wealth. Yes, there is a limit to how many paintings you can create each month, but there are many other ways of creating more wealth. You could sell prints of your painting. You already have a loyal following of fans, you simply duplicate your work and create more money. Duplicating your work by creating prints is what is called “passive income”. It is passive because you already did the work and you are simply duplicating that work without as much effort, sometimes no effort at all. There are many more ways to create passive income and I will cover as many of these as possible in future posts.
Chris O’Byrne
OnlineArtsMarketing.com
