I’ve spent a good deal of time talking on the telephone with clients over the last couple of weeks and it’s got me to reflecting on why people are so uncertain, anxious, worried and even fearful at present. And why is financial security at the centre of so many people’s thoughts, why are so many people focused on money, making more of it, holding on to what they have or thought they had, fearful of not having enough? Indeed, I think that I would be correct when I say that our current afflictions in the so-called “developed world” are borne out of the ubiquitous obsession with money. And, sad to say, this is an obsession fuelled, in part, by people operating in the area in which I’ve been working since 1996 – the self-improvement or personal development “industry”.

Indeed, it is quite bizarre that many personal growth “gurus” or “better yourself experts” are often almost exclusively focused on money – and making more of it. In other words, DVDs and books like “The Secret”, websites that shout “Treble Your Income” or sell false $1m bills pander to the self-destructive obsession of the majority of people in this developed world of ours. People are obsessed with having “enough” money – whatever “enough” actually means! Does it, for example, mean something like Rockefeller’s idea that “enough” meant “just one more!” – or does it mean something else entirely?

But, I digress. I’ve done a little research and found that even “self-help classics” like Florence Schovel-Shinn’s 1926 “The Game of Life and How to Play It” – which I recommend to all my clients – places undue emphasis on money. Money crops up all over the place in that and, sad to say, most “self-help” books. Even my own book “To Succeed…Just Let Go” wanders into the area of how to make more money. Or perhaps I’m being a little too hard on myself because, in essence, it explains how ample money flows if you do.

However, recently, after a heart-warming meal in the breath-taking surroundings of the French Alpine lakeside town of Annecy, as we meandered along the snow-covered streets, I took one step back and looked at my wife and three children (big children at this stage!) linking, arm-in-arm ahead of me. That’s what happiness is – that’s what success is all about. Just in that moment.

We’re not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination. We’re not obsessed with money – otherwise, I might work a little more often than I do! But we’ve never run short of the stuff and we have plenty for now. And that’s all anyone needs.
So let’s stop obsessing about money, financial freedom, passive income, greed – all various words used by my clients over the last couple of weeks – and let’s get on with looking at what we have, embracing what we have, savouring the wonderful moments that life offers us more often than not, if we’d only open our eyes, minds and hearts to them. In reality, that’s what life is all about.

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