How important is money to you? What does it mean to you? How much time in your day do you spend worrying about money? Is being rich one of your goals in life? Do you know why?

These are all important questions that you should answer for yourself.

I have come to the following conclusions in my quest to understand the world of finance:

• Money is not real
• Money is a side effect of living your purpose of life
• Rich is a state of mind
• Money reflects value
• Money is a tool, it is means to an end, not vice versa

All of the above conclusions have lead to understand that worrying about money is pretty silly. I am not mocking people who are struggling financially. I am just saying that many people are focused on the wrong issue. Most people are unhappy because they have the means and the ends confused. If you continue worrying about acquiring more money, then you will end up leading a poor life. I can almost say that with certainty.

If you should not focus on money, then what is it that should focus on? You need to focus on the real source of wealth, which gives rise to wealth. You should focus on creating genuine value in your life.  Worry about that. Try and figure out a way how you can create value for others. That is the true source of wealth – value.

How does that help? Here is how. If you focus on creating genuine value for others, then you will just know that riches are surely to follow soon after. With that in mind, you won’t have to worry if the economy is rising or falling, or if the dollar is becoming stronger or weaker. You won’t even have to worry if you lose your house or your savings because you will always now that you have never lost the source of that wealth: yourself.

You are the biggest asset in your life and you should invest the most time and effort into fine tuning your ability to create value.

The big question, then is not how to get more money, but how to create more value. So, how do you create value?

1. Understand yourself. You should be the person who knows you the best inside out. That will require time and effort. It will require you knowing what you like and what you dislike. You will have to figure out what drives you and what depresses you. You will have to know your strengths and your weakness. Only by understanding yourself, you will be able leverage your strengths and your passions to figure out where you fit in the world. Moreover, you will be able to figure out your underlying purpose in life.

2. Follow your life purpose. With a clear image of where you want to go in life, you will naturally dedicate yourself to your ideal and become and expert at what you are trying do in life. If you try and do anything else but what you absolutely love, then your whole being will resist  and it will ultimately lead to unhappiness and poor life. If you follow your passion, then you will just know what to do and where to go. You will able to make choices and decisions so much easier. There will be a clear distinction in what you need and do not need in your life.

That is all there is too it. Surprised? You should be.

I was going to write more about transferable skills, marketing and branding and so on. Yet, it does not really matter. It does not matter if you understand what rich or wealthy and poor really mean. They have little to do with money. Remember, correlation does not imply causation! Rich and poor are simply states of mind.

Being rich means doing all the things that you always wanted to in your life. What else could anybody really want in life? After all, even those who acquire a lot of money, what do they do with it? They usually spend it doing the things that they want to do. It might be going on vacations, spending time with the family or learning something. Yet, it is crucial to understand: you don’t need to be rich dollar wise to do the things that you enjoy.

All you need to do is make the right decisions by understanding yourself and following your life purpose. That is the real difference between the true rich and the true poor. With these new definitions of rich and poor, reread the article and see if it makes more sense now. Go ahead and do it. It might change your life.

With that in mind, this would be a more appropriate picture:

QUESTION: Are you still worried about money?

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Image (top): Delox – Martin Deák

Image (bottom): dotbenjamin

“Money is anything that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts.^[1][2] The main functions of money are distinguished as: a medium of exchange, a unit of account, a store of value, and occasionally, a standard of deferred payment. – Wikipedia

Sure. Money is all of those things and it is great! Back in the day people used to barter, use rice, rare items such as silver, gold, ivory as money. Today, even the cash is going extinct: all we need is a credit card to carry out a transaction. But do you really understand what money is and what it is for? Anybody can read the above definition and claim that they understand, but can you explain it your own terms?

Maybe you can and I am happy for you if you do, but if you cannot then it is time to get serious. It is time to get serious if you want to create wealth in your life; it is time to get serious if you want to lead a rich life.

First things first – money is not real. That is why anything was and can be used as money: you could use Monopoly money as money if everybody agreed to it. The dollar bills that you see every day have no intrinsic value. That is to say that billions upon billions of notes that pass through people’s hands every day are actually worthless. It has about as much value as a blank piece of paper. So why is it that we use these notes as money and nothing else?

Because the government agreed that this what we are going to use to carry out transactions. That’s it.

Now, we have a society that has a certain item they can trade for goods and services – we call it money. If you want to buy or sell something, you must pay a certain price for it. What exactly is a price? It is an expression of value which is determined by supply and demand. The more there is of a certain item the less valuable it will be. The more demand there is for an item the more valuable it will be. If we follow this logic then high prices should represent high value products and cheap prices should represent low value products.

Yes and no. It is people who create the demand and supply and therefore price is somewhat random and irrational. Actually it can be what we want it to be. If enough people decided that something is awesome and very value adding, then that item will get a big price tag to come along with it: think diamonds, paintings, antiques. That is why supply and demand forces are not entirely rational -because people are not entirely rational.

Now, you might say that I have not told you anything new, but let us reexamine the facts:

• Money is not real
• Price should reflect the value of an item (in theory)
• Prices which we pay are determined by not entirely rational supply and demand forces

If you truly realize this, your thinking will change dramatically.You might actually get some answers that you were not looking for.

What exactly does this have to with becoming wealthy and leading a rich life? Everything!

If you start to truly understand the above ideas, the concept of money should disappear form your life entirely!

Being rich and being poor are actually just states of mind. Nothing else.

It has little to do with how much money you have in your bank account, it has much more to do with how much value you can create. So next time you think money, I say think value.

You want more money? Create more value.

After-all, money is just a tool or a resource which can be used to acquire different types of resources.All you are really doing is exchanging your intellect, your time and your energy in exchange for this powerful yet very illusive tool called money.

Are you broke? Then think: “How can I create value for others?” If you continuously create lasting value for others, you will lead an abundant life.

Sure, you could trick others to perceive you as being more valuable than you really are, but people tend to figure those things out quickly. So, in the long run you would be actually be shooting yourself in the foot if you were to cheat or misrepresent yourself.

Creating value includes being honest and truthful about your actions and intentions. This way your price will always stay high and people will be willing to pay for it. If you want financial freedom, do not look anywhere else but within yourself and unleash your inner genius to create value for others which will in turn allow you to live a rich and wealthy life.