We’re going to spend a lot of time thinking about and dealing with money in this volume. You might get the impression that I’m advocating that you think about money all of the time. I am not.
I advocate that you think intensely about money all of the time for a short period of time, in order to internalize behaviors that serve you, so that you can then mostly not think about money at all. Not thinking about money very much is the end. Thinking about money a lot is the means.
In The Art of Learning, Josh Waitzkin relates how beginner chess players learn “the numbers” – a numerical value for each piece that they use to calculate the risk and benefit of any given exchange. A beginner chess player will be constantly and consciously running the numbers in their head. Advanced chess players do not do this. Their attention is on “higher” levels of chess strategy.
However, it would be a mistake to assume that since the advanced players don’t run the numbers in their head, beginner players shouldn’t either. Advanced players don’t think about ‘the numbers’ because they have internalized the numbers. They did so many calculations in their head for a period of time that the sense of the numbers became intuitive and they were able to free up attention to place on other, more complex and sophisticated elements of chess strategy.
That is exactly what we are going to do with money. The object of all of this intentional thinking about money is to solve money and to mostly not think about it. The aim is to become an unconsciously good steward of your financial resources.
For much of my 20’s and early 30’s, I was unconsciously incompetent with regards to money. I didn’t understand how stupid I was being with my money. It seemed normal to me to carry debt and not have much savings. I just didn’t think about money very much.
Then I became consciously incompetent, and the knowledge of how badly I was dealing with money stressed me out. This motivated me to start thinking about money and improving my behaviors. Soon enough I became consciously competent – I began managing my money well, but it required conscious thoughtful effort.
After enough repetition of this conscious effort, I became unconsciously competent. I steward my money well, and I just don’t think about it very much.
Much of this volume is about becoming consciously competent at money so that you can become unconsciously competent at money and then not think about it, so that you can spend your attention on cultivating and delivering your gifts to the world while making your dreams come true.
If you try to deliver your gifts to the world and make your dreams come true before becoming at least consciously competent at money, you will almost certainly be at best distracted by money problems and at worst entirely stymied by money problems. You will be constantly running out, or stressed about how to get some more of it, if only to pay the bills, buy food, and keep the lights on. And that would be a shame, because the world wants your gifts, and you want to make your dreams come true.
Note that the aim is not to become conventionally rich — to have “a lot” of money. The aim is to have enough money to run your life. We’ll discuss what enough means shortly.
A warning: don’t get stuck in the consciously competent phase of money stewardship, where you handle your money well and spend all your time thinking about it. This is a trap that a lot of people get stuck in often because they aren’t aware that there’s anything worth thinking about besides money and what money can buy. They have no vision of what they could spend their attention on besides money and the things money can buy, so they spend the rest of their lives fiddling with their money systems and farting around with toys and distractions that they buy with their surplus money. This is not the destination. This is a tempting trap along the way to the destination.
On the far side of thinking about money is a life full of creative expression, collaborative projects, artful endeavor, and rich relationships unfettered by money problems or money obsessions.
References
Waitzkin, Josh. The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance. Free Press, 2008.
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