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What They Didn’t Teach You About Work and Money (Ep. 9) · How to Be an Adult

0:00
If I just kind of stayed in that
0:02
position longer Mhmm. I would not have to
0:04
work another day of my life. If you
0:06
can't pay your rent, if you can't pay
0:07
your food, if you're really up against it,
0:10
it becomes the all consuming problem that you
0:12
have to deal with all the time and
0:14
it's exhausting. If you are stuck in this
0:17
view that there isn't enough and there's never
0:19
gonna be enough and you're stuck the way
0:21
you are, welcome to how to be an
0:23
adult,
0:24
A show for people just like you who've
0:26
inadvertently become adults
0:28
and don't know what to do about it.
0:30
I'm Luke Chow. And I'm Pascal Langdale. And
0:33
whether you're 18 or 80,
0:35
we hope to give you the guide to
0:37
life that perhaps your parents never gave you
0:40
when you reached the age of majority.
0:42
We publicize all these ideas to democratize self
0:46
assurance. Today, we're gonna talk about some principles
0:49
for approaching work and approaching wealth. We're not
0:53
gonna give you tips and tricks or financial
0:55
advice, which you can get elsewhere on multitude
0:58
in this other podcasts.
1:00
Instead, we're gonna do our best to let
1:02
you into the mindset
1:05
that allows one to pursue and to keep
1:08
and to grow wealth
1:10
there are many of us who have a
1:11
mindset that is repellent
1:14
to opportunities, to wealth,
1:16
in your best interests
1:18
because we we want you to be as
1:20
well off as you can be. We hope
1:22
to instill these principles in you. I'll start
1:25
off by talking about my upbringing Mhmm. And
1:28
the way that money was talked about when
1:29
I was growing up.
1:31
So my parents
1:33
grew up during the cultural revolution in China.
1:36
So they were literally sent to the countryside
1:39
and my dad talked about having to eat
1:41
like bark or like locusts
1:44
just to not die of starvation
1:46
obviously
1:47
having those kinds of experiences in your formative
1:49
years makes an impact in adult life.
1:52
And then, you know, I was born in
1:54
1982.
1:55
We came to Canada in the mid 19
1:58
eighties.
1:59
My dad was getting his PhD
2:01
and my mom was working as a lab
2:03
tech to support the family. Then my dad
2:05
was getting his medical degree, and my mom
2:06
was working as a lab tech to support
2:08
the family.
2:09
And then he became a resident. Had then
2:12
my he was bringing in some money and
2:14
my mom was working as a lab tech
2:16
to support the family.
2:17
And only then did I graduate
2:20
from high school and then start my adult
2:22
life. So in many of my formative years,
2:24
we actually had very, very
2:26
little.
2:27
I graduated with a degree in English literature,
2:31
which admittedly is a kind of a bougie
2:34
degree, but also one that doesn't obviously lead
2:37
to a career path.
2:39
So I kinda like floated around for a
2:41
bit, took out on a number of odd
2:43
jobs the most rewarding of which was I
2:45
took notes in class for deaf and hard
2:46
of hearing students one of my earliest jobs
2:49
sent me to Los Angeles
2:51
to interview a hypnotherapist
2:52
actually
2:54
about
2:54
how how do you have a mindset that
2:56
is conducive to making money and keeping money
2:59
and becoming wealthy?
3:01
So at the age of 21 or 22,
3:03
I I co authored this book with Linda
3:06
Gabriel
3:06
in in Los Angeles.
3:09
She kind of did her best
3:11
to open up my mind
3:14
to
3:14
the possibilities ahead
3:16
and I understand more of what she was
3:18
trying to tell me today
3:20
than I did at the age of 21
3:22
because back then, I was very much mired
3:24
in this kind of poverty,
3:26
scarcity mindset.
3:28
Yeah. Yeah. And she was telling me about
3:29
all these possibilities and how you can make
3:31
more money and how money is this rather
3:34
arbitrary thing. It only started to make sense
3:37
later on in life. So at 23, I
3:38
started my business, the Morpheus Clinic for hypnosis.
3:42
And I I realized that I could actually
3:45
do things of
3:47
such value to others that they were paying
3:49
me 100 of dollars
3:52
to do these things.
3:55
And commercial validation
3:57
for for for your ideas is only one
4:00
form of validation. But it's quite an important
4:02
form of validation
4:04
when, you know, your passions and your interests
4:07
are commercially successful.
4:09
Fast forward a little bit.
4:11
Hypnotherapy
4:12
is not a lucrative
4:14
profession. I was not making a lot of
4:16
money through hypnotherapy.
4:19
Mhmm. And I heard in the year
4:22
2011,
4:23
I believe, about this invention
4:27
called Bitcoin. People
4:29
were trading these so called Bitcoins on the
4:32
Internet.
4:33
I bought and I mined a few of
4:35
these so called bitcoins.
4:38
Guess what I did with with my bitcoins?
4:40
Oh, you you waited until the peak of
4:41
the market and then you sold them. Right?
4:43
In 2014,
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I cashed out $10,000
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Mhmm. Of so called bitcoins
4:52
thinking that I was an investing genius.
4:56
So obviously I'm still doing hypnotherapy these days
4:59
and my experience with Bitcoin really
5:02
had taught me about the
5:05
arbitrariness
5:07
of money
5:08
and how someone like me
5:11
who just kind of thought
5:13
this Bitcoin
5:14
thing is cool. Mhmm.
5:16
You know, if I just kinda stayed
5:18
in that position longer Mhmm. I would not
5:21
have to work another day in my life.
5:23
Yeah.
5:24
In in my family I had a father
5:27
who who was a child during the 2nd
5:29
World War. He remembers his first banana,
5:32
which is like 1950 something because it was
5:34
still, you know, restricted.
5:35
So he grew up in basically in a
5:38
mindset of austerity,
5:40
and he still he still has that. He's
5:41
had that throughout his whole life. Save, save,
5:43
save,
5:44
don't use repair,
5:45
you know, the whole thing. On the other
5:47
side, my mother was, she used to carry
5:50
her shoes to school
5:51
so they wouldn't get worn. And then in
5:53
my family there's also this big story of
5:56
my great uncle who profited from the war
5:58
enormously
5:59
by making cases for bombs.
6:01
He was a furniture
6:03
maker in East London.
6:05
And then he passed on his wealth and
6:07
then it was just, you know, the family
6:09
tore itself apart like in, you know, some
6:11
TV show. So all those attitudes to money
6:13
were swirling around.
6:15
So I I yes, obviously, I I stepped
6:17
out in the world. At the age of
6:19
17, I had my first paycheck and I
6:21
remember it very very distinctly.
6:23
I didn't graduate from high school because I
6:25
left early.
6:27
I worked for 2 or 3 years in
6:29
theater, which is extraordinarily unpredictable. Obviously, I went
6:33
to to drama school and after that, again,
6:35
the perception of the starving artist was okay.
6:37
I live in in squats for a while.
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I thought this was the that this was
6:41
a valid and worthy way of living. Right?
6:43
I'd equated
6:44
wealth, thanks to my
6:46
that's one part of my family, as being,
6:48
you know, the potential for moral corruption.
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And all the rich people were mean. And
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then I started doing commercials, and the commercials
6:55
were lucrative back then. And so I was
6:57
travelling all over the world, in fact, doing
6:59
so many commercials that sometimes I had to
7:00
remember which airport I'd come through to know
7:02
which country I was in. So in this
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brilliant time, I I mean, I really enjoyed
7:06
it and it was a huge gift in
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my life. But it also gave me the
7:09
idea of there's a consistency. This is always
7:11
going to be the case. This is always
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going to be a presence. Now I bought
7:15
property and so I did well. But it
7:17
was an illusion in the sense that there's
7:19
changing demographic,
7:21
aging, economic downturn, COVID, you name it. And
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suddenly, all the certainties
7:27
that seemed certainties of the past, the way
7:29
that a career might go,
7:31
just taken away, which is not necessarily a
7:34
bad thing incidentally.
7:35
There's a quote I love Mhmm. And it's
7:37
attributed to a number of people, but I
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think the definitive source is atris kaufman
7:42
the quote is this
7:44
I've been poor and I've been rich rich
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is better
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And I
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absolutely agree with that sentiment because, you know,
7:53
just like you,
7:54
I've been not so well off as an
7:57
English grad. I've also been better off.
8:01
It's far better in every way to be
8:03
better off. And this is a good segue,
8:05
I think, into our first
8:07
principle out of the 6 that we're gonna
8:08
share today
8:09
the first principle
8:11
is that wealth and morality
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are not two ends of the same
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spectrum or axis
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wealth and morality are independent of each other
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in other words
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someone being wealthy
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doesn't automatically or necessarily
8:28
make them into some corrupt
8:30
jerk
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It is possible to be poor and a
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total jerk.
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When I look back on my life, I
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was not as nice of a person when
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I was impoverished
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as I am
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today when I'm better off. Just like if
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I don't feel enough love in my heart,
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then I'm not as nice to others as
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if I do feel love in my heart.
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If I have no money in my bank
8:54
account, I mean, how am I gonna tip
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that well?
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How am I going to, you know, be
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like generous with friends?
9:00
1 can only be the best that they
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can be
9:03
if
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their needs are met. And in our world,
9:07
financial needs count as as needs. Mhmm. If
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you can't pay your rent, if you can't
9:11
pay your food, if you're if you're really
9:13
up against it, which I know you've been
9:15
and I have as well. It becomes the
9:17
all consuming problem that you have to deal
9:19
with all the time and it's exhausting. I've
9:21
heard an analogy where
9:24
money is like oxygen. Mhmm. If you have
9:27
plenty of it, you don't even think about
9:28
it. Yeah. You don't notice that. You don't
9:30
notice. Yeah. But it's when you're lacking in
9:33
it that it's all you can think about.
9:36
This is why often people abandon their principles
9:39
when money is involved,
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and it's only if you're impoverished
9:44
and you also happen to have no ethics
9:47
that then it's it's not a good combination
9:50
it's a Christian idea
9:52
that the love of money is the root
9:55
of all evil now that the quote is
9:56
not actually as it's often said, it's often
9:59
said as money is the root of all
10:00
evil, but that's not a complete quote. The
10:03
full quote is that the love of money
10:05
is the root of all evil and I
10:07
think that full quote actually is truthful
10:10
Maybe not all evil. I think that's an
10:12
exaggeration
10:13
But money in itself
10:16
is a it's a tool.
10:19
So one can be well off
10:22
and a good moral loving decent person.
10:27
I've even kind of made the argument that
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it's more easy to be a good loving
10:31
kind decent person if you're financially well off.
10:33
And I think also, I think we could
10:35
even separate
10:36
to some degree the idea that money is
10:38
money is a tool, but it's not necessarily
10:40
the thing that is going to feed you.
10:42
You can't eat money. So
10:45
if for instance you are lucky enough to
10:47
be able to
10:48
supply your own food and
10:50
you live in a place where you can
10:52
build your own house, you could say, well,
10:54
you're wealthy to the degree that you are
10:57
able to control
10:58
those basic needs and you have power of
11:00
that. That is actually wealth. The money is
11:02
actually only a representation
11:04
of
11:05
what that means. It's just a it's it's
11:08
not the thing itself, you know. And you
11:10
can't take it with you, of course. And
11:12
perhaps that's also
11:14
why, you know, when they read out wills
11:16
that families get torn apart by by what
11:19
money goes to who. It's like you've got
11:21
a double whammy of both grief, then possibly
11:23
anger, sibling rivalry,
11:25
and then this
11:27
scarce resource mentality
11:28
as well comes in, you know. And yeah,
11:31
it's so extraordinary.
11:32
Part of the reason we keep harping on
11:34
principles, I think,
11:36
is that
11:38
if one is all consumed by, let's say,
11:40
grief
11:41
or let's
11:42
say fear, or let's say greed,
11:46
that's where people make decisions that could harm
11:48
other people or that could tear families apart
11:51
because, you know, you're acting emotionally and not
11:54
in a principled way that lasts over time.
11:56
The second principle I want to share, and
11:59
my experience with Bitcoin really made this real
12:01
for me,
12:02
it's that money is
12:05
a tool or a technology
12:07
for us to understand and use and master
12:12
money is not our master
12:15
the so called almighty
12:17
dollar
12:18
is a great tool for us to use
12:21
to improve our lives
12:23
it's not so good for worshiping.
12:26
As we were saying, if if you can't,
12:29
pay for the roof of your head, you're,
12:30
you know, the Maslow's hierarchy of needs not
12:33
being met. And money is the tool for
12:36
that. It's easy to confuse money and become
12:40
make money your master because it's the most
12:42
it's like you're jumping a step. You're
12:45
It's it's like oxygen in that analogy I
12:47
used earlier,
12:49
where it's only if you don't have enough
12:51
of it that it feels
12:53
all consuming and all powerful and like a
12:56
matter of life or death
12:58
most people listening to this podcast
13:01
however
13:03
wealthy or poor you feel relative to your
13:05
peers
13:06
you're probably in the global one percent you
13:09
probably have
13:11
enough food to eat. You probably have a
13:15
place to sleep that's safe enough that you
13:18
can sleep in, you probably have a tap
13:21
where when you turn it, oh, there's clean
13:23
water that comes out.
13:25
You probably have your at least most basic
13:28
physiological
13:29
needs
13:30
taken care of
13:31
which means that lack of money is never
13:34
actually life or death often we feel like
13:38
it's life or death, but for most of
13:41
us we're lucky enough
13:42
living in a time and place like this
13:45
that our most basic needs are met we
13:48
can kind of take a step back and
13:50
see money as a tool we use and
13:53
none of us or few of us are
13:55
literally
13:56
drowning.
13:57
So that means if you're lucky enough to
13:58
be in a situation where all your basic
13:59
needs are met, and even perhaps if you
14:00
live in a society where there is a
14:02
safety net should things go wrong,
14:05
then it's not a life or death situation.
14:07
So you don't need to make that sort
14:10
of correlation between money and your very existence
14:13
or even the worth of your existence as
14:15
well for that matter.
14:17
But that you can actually start to say,
14:18
well, that bit's covered.
14:20
So I need to learn how to the
14:22
how to make the most of the surplus
14:25
beyond that. Is that right? I believe that
14:28
a cool detachment
14:30
when thinking about money is within the reach
14:33
of most people listening to this podcast.
14:36
If you do have your most basic needs
14:38
provided for, I do believe that this kind
14:40
of
14:40
cool headed detachment where you can view money
14:43
as a tool not a master
14:46
is possible
14:48
that this is not just for people much
14:50
better off than you I believe that you
14:52
probably being in the global 1%.
14:55
You can kind of have this
14:58
cool rational detachment about money and you don't
15:02
actually have to freak out about it. And
15:05
perhaps even that cool attachment
15:07
doesn't matter whether it's over $20
15:10
or 20 Bitcoin. That cool detachment remains true
15:13
regardless of the amount of money you're talking
15:14
about. Well, bitcoin for me personally is what
15:18
really made the point that money is a
15:20
tool or a technology.
15:22
It's got no intrinsic value. It's got no
15:24
intrinsic worth. It's not at all my master.
15:27
It's just this made up thing that human
15:29
beings invented
15:30
now what we're talking about here to some
15:33
listeners ears
15:35
might sound like heresy
15:38
because if they are in a situation where
15:40
they feel
15:42
impoverished and utterly deprived of of money and
15:45
material wealth,
15:47
then for for me to almost glibly say
15:50
that it's magic internet money
15:53
it might seem
15:55
like I'm out of touch or something
15:58
but I want you
16:00
as the listener to actually end up thinking
16:04
like someone
16:05
who will make more money in your future.
16:08
And, you know, if you kind of look
16:10
at people who are fantastic with money, they'll
16:12
talk about deploying capital, for example. Mhmm. That's
16:15
basically just spending money well. And usually, if
16:18
you're using that word capital, it's large amounts
16:21
of money that you're spending well for for
16:23
a return in in the future.
16:25
If you are
16:27
stuck in this view that there isn't enough
16:29
and there's never gonna be enough and you're
16:31
stuck the way you are and you're never
16:33
gonna end up a better off than you
16:35
are, then you you're not even trying.
16:37
And I want you to do better than
16:39
that. I want you to try.
16:41
So the third principle that we're talking about
16:45
is that
16:46
as a defining
16:48
characteristic of adulthood,
16:50
we are not merely
16:52
consumers of other people's productivity.
16:56
We are ourselves
16:58
productive, or you could say creative, human beings
17:01
where we are adding to the world
17:03
through whatever work it is that we do.
17:06
If we're only choosing half a dozen principles
17:09
to share with our listeners,
17:11
then this one's definitely making it near the
17:14
top of our list
17:16
where
17:17
money flows
17:18
from the
17:20
consumers
17:21
to the creators,
17:22
not the other way around.
17:24
So if you want to make money, if
17:26
you wanna make good money, if you even
17:28
want to accumulate wealth,
17:30
you absolutely
17:31
have to be on the creator or producer
17:34
side
17:35
of that equation.
17:37
By the time that you're able
17:39
or in other words educated
17:41
enough
17:43
that you can do something of value to
17:45
society
17:46
then you can spend the next 40 years
17:49
not being like a kid being as the
17:52
podcast title says
17:54
like an adult
17:56
and it's a source of pride I would
17:58
add
17:59
that you are
18:01
adding to the world being a so called
18:03
productive member of society, and in whatever job
18:06
you have.
18:08
One misconception,
18:09
I think, about people who are wealthy
18:12
is that
18:13
they're tremendously
18:14
consumptive.
18:16
They are, if anything,
18:18
tremendously
18:19
productive.
18:20
So the prolific artists who make a lot
18:22
of paintings and shake a lot of hands
18:24
and go to a lot of galleries
18:27
are weighing the odds in their favor
18:29
when it comes to being a successful artist.
18:32
The right order of things is to first
18:34
ask yourself
18:35
what
18:37
products or services
18:39
of immense value
18:41
can you create for the world?
18:44
And then to ask
18:45
how do you let people
18:47
know about this awesome product or service that
18:49
you've created
18:51
and then
18:52
to ask how much money are you gonna
18:54
charge for it?
18:56
Our 4th principle that we're gonna present
18:58
is that an abundance mentality, the
19:02
view that wealth is plentiful,
19:05
it's more conducive to your well-being and your
19:07
financial health than the opposing view, which is
19:11
a scarcity mindset that suggests that wealth and
19:14
money and riches are scarce and hard to
19:17
come by the analogy that I'll use is
19:20
That because you're like a baker, right? You're
19:24
a creator
19:26
You're not actually just gonna divide up the
19:29
pizza pies
19:30
that everyone else baked
19:32
like you're a kid.
19:34
Instead,
19:35
you're gonna be making more pizza pies
19:39
for you and for your family and for
19:42
society to consume.
19:45
And this is why
19:47
the abundance mentality,
19:48
this view that there's more, there's more money,
19:50
there's more wealth
19:52
is an accurate modeling.
19:55
It's because
19:57
we are not merely consumptive
19:59
beings.
20:00
We are creative beings.
20:03
The artist
20:05
who takes
20:07
the canvas and the paints and his or
20:09
her ingenuity and creates a $10,000 painting from
20:12
it.
20:13
They've not taken the $10,000
20:16
from anyone.
20:18
They've added
20:19
$10,000 of value to the world.
20:22
Yeah. I I think that's the thing. I
20:23
have something of value. I need to know
20:25
if the world values it. I suppose what
20:27
I'm saying is is that the again, I'm
20:29
trying to dislocate the idea
20:31
that
20:32
wealth will naturally
20:34
flow to something that you have that's of
20:36
value. Because there's a lot of work involved
20:38
in letting the world know that it's of
20:40
value. If you see what I mean. It's
20:41
not an automatic correlation. No. In the same
20:44
way that there are made there are plenty
20:45
of artists who are absolutely
20:47
superb geniuses perhaps,
20:49
who we will never know. There are hypnotists
20:51
who may be doing incredible work on the
20:53
other side of the world,
20:55
that we may never know.
20:57
And so and so that's why I wanted
20:58
to separate the idea. There there there are
21:00
4 year degrees people could take
21:03
in marketing to answer that question and to
21:05
answer it thoroughly with lots of research backing
21:08
it up. For for most people, it's it's
21:10
actually not sales and marketing, actually. It's it's
21:12
mostly
21:13
sending resumes and doing interviews. Yeah. So that
21:16
that's a much more masterable skill set than,
21:19
you know, having to figure out all all
21:21
of marketing and keep up with marketing. Yeah.
21:23
Because for most people, if you get a
21:25
job, if you
21:26
keep a job, someone else is doing the
21:27
sales and marketing and someone else is bringing
21:29
in the revenue that they split with you.
21:31
But I would also say that's also again
21:33
comes under the, the point of being
21:36
wise about money. In other words, wise about
21:38
how you get it. So for instance, you
21:40
know, being having a good resume and having
21:42
a good interview, for example, is part of
21:45
the
21:46
whole game, if you like.
21:48
That's gonna come up. The whole game where
21:50
an employer is gonna pay you for time
21:53
because,
21:54
you know, otherwise you're not gonna do it.
21:55
Mhmm. And that's again being not intimidated by
21:59
or not dismissing the idea that even to
22:01
think in that way is somehow either corrupt
22:03
or that somehow that it's unfair or that
22:07
you have no agency or power over
22:09
how to make money basically. So it's not
22:12
a zero sum game. It's not the case
22:13
that if I earn money then somebody else
22:16
somewhere is earning less.
22:19
And I will anticipate that there will be
22:21
somebody saying, well,
22:22
the world is getting cell phones, for example.
22:25
This is
22:26
an increase
22:27
in the wealth of the world. Poverty
22:29
rates have gone down
22:31
historically over time. There's less and less poverty
22:33
in the world. These are good things to
22:35
be applauded.
22:36
And I can anticipate somebody saying, oh, well,
22:38
you know, if you've got an iPhone then
22:40
there
22:41
are children slaves mining the lithium for the
22:43
batteries.
22:44
I say, well, it's not money's fault.
22:48
In the sense that it's humans that make
22:50
those decisions of the supply chains, of the
22:53
the way that you hire and create things.
22:56
And that actually, if you have good principles
22:59
in other aspects of your life, that makes
23:01
you a good principled CEO,
23:03
a good principled leader, or a good principled
23:05
shareholder,
23:06
in fact. And that that I would argue
23:08
that if there is a correlation between wealth
23:11
and suffering, it comes back to the principles
23:14
of the human being that is in control
23:16
of the wealth, not the wealth itself, not
23:18
the money itself. It's kind of like if
23:20
you have a chef's knife, right? It's
23:23
supposed to be used to like make sushi
23:26
and to like dice vegetables and to make
23:28
a good stew or something
23:30
but then of course
23:31
the very same tool with no alterations
23:34
whatsoever
23:36
used
23:37
carelessly or thoughtlessly or negligently
23:39
could
23:40
hurt you and cut you.
23:42
So, yeah, money could be used to like
23:45
in slave people in
23:47
mineral mines
23:49
But that's not actually money
23:51
used the way it's supposed to be used
23:54
to facilitate
23:55
trade and to go to those who provide
23:58
the better service or the better working conditions.
24:01
But the reason we have to kind of
24:03
talk about
24:05
how money is not zero sum
24:08
is because there is a very very prevalent
24:11
view
24:12
that billionaires
24:14
are personally causing the rest of us to
24:16
suffer. Mhmm.
24:18
Now, let's say Elon Musk tomorrow just dies.
24:21
Right?
24:23
I'm not gonna be any better off Mhmm.
24:25
If if every billionaire in the world
24:29
just went away tomorrow
24:31
or if the government confiscates their weather if
24:33
they force a sale of their assets
24:36
I am not going to be better off
24:37
in any way what whatsoever, and my investments
24:40
might actually go down if that were to
24:42
happen. Yeah. And again, I would bring it
24:45
back to the human that has that wealth.
24:48
Their principles and their code and perspectives become
24:51
the defining factor in factors to whether that
24:54
accrual of wealth is a net benefit. Musk
24:57
has kind of revealed himself to be kind
24:58
of a jerk. Mhmm. But I'll point I'll
25:01
point to someone like Warren Buffett. Mhmm. Right?
25:03
You know, he as so he's one of
25:06
the billionaires who pledged to give away 99%
25:08
of his wealth.
25:10
He's an example of someone who I would
25:12
say
25:13
deploys capital properly.
25:15
He's I mean, he's very known
25:17
to deploy capital properly, but not just in
25:20
the sense that it makes more money or
25:21
that's good capitalism, but also in the sense
25:23
that he's like a decent person and he
25:25
treats people well.
25:27
He is a living example of how we
25:29
don't have to choose
25:31
between
25:32
wealth and being good. Yeah. We can be
25:35
both. And and I think it it works
25:37
the other way around in that
25:38
your underlying principles
25:40
also count when you have no money
25:44
on the other side. Is that to speak
25:45
to what you said earlier, is that it's
25:47
possible to be a jerk, a rich jerk
25:50
or a poor jerk. Mhmm. The common the
25:52
common factor
25:54
is the jerk. It's not it's not the
25:56
amount of money. Exactly. The money's independent of,
25:59
of how much of a jerk they are.
26:00
Yeah.
26:01
So Steven Pinker has written a number of
26:04
books and some of his more recent ones
26:06
are about how,
26:07
let's say, global poverty,
26:09
extreme poverty is on the decline.
26:12
And this is a reality. If you kind
26:14
of look at the levels of extreme poverty
26:16
in the world, like, you know, people living
26:18
in the countryside having to eat locusts,
26:20
it has been declining over the past many
26:23
decades
26:24
now if the money or the wealth in
26:26
the world were just this fixed amount
26:29
then how come we're not worse off
26:32
just because people overseas can eat enough food
26:36
and have cell phones or maybe even save
26:38
up enough to have a car
26:40
the the world itself
26:42
is consistent with the idea that each person
26:44
is creating more wealth through productive activity
26:48
these observations for example that you know poverty
26:51
is declining worldwide that's inconsistent
26:54
with the view
26:55
that
26:57
if there's a winner on one side, there's
26:59
a loser on a different side. What's actually
27:02
happening is that the rising tide is lifting
27:04
all boats.
27:06
So here's 0.5.
27:09
It's that markets are
27:11
roughly efficient,
27:13
and I'll have to explain what that means.
27:16
There's a hypothesis
27:17
called the efficient market
27:20
hypothesis.
27:21
And what it says is that in any
27:23
market where there's the free flow of information
27:26
then everything is priced correctly.
27:29
So in other words,
27:31
if I'm a hypnotherapist
27:33
and I'm charging, let's say, $3.50
27:37
per session,
27:39
that's the right price
27:41
because
27:42
people can look me up, people can research
27:45
me, and people are paying it.
27:47
I am not overpriced
27:50
and that there are few inefficiencies
27:52
to be found
27:54
where you are able to make easy money
27:58
that everyone else has missed.
28:00
So obviously,
28:02
you know, there is such a thing as
28:04
arbitrageurs
28:06
who buy cheap and sell expensive, basically, almost
28:09
instantaneously.
28:10
There is such a thing as rent seeking
28:13
where, you know, let's say you hope that
28:15
the laws pass in your favor so you
28:17
make money at the expense of others with
28:19
the government backing you up. But it is
28:21
because there there are people
28:24
who will notice
28:26
the inefficiencies
28:27
and then take advantage of them that it's
28:29
very unlikely that you'll be the first. It
28:32
also means that if hypnotherapy
28:35
were such an easy way to make money,
28:39
then my prices would have been driven down.
28:41
Mhmm. Right? I would only be charging $100
28:44
because my competitors forced me to, you know,
28:46
charge only
28:47
$100 to compete. Mhmm.
28:49
But the reality
28:51
is that I do charge what I do,
28:53
and people are paying it because there's actually
28:55
a scarcity of hypnotherapists
28:57
that my clients feel
28:59
are trustworthy enough that they're gonna hire at
29:02
all.
29:03
So what this means is that there's a
29:05
term that's abbreviated
29:07
with this really long acronym, but it expands
29:09
to there ain't no such thing as a
29:11
free lunch.
29:12
But if you do this simple internet hack,
29:15
I can show you how to make a
29:16
$100,000
29:17
in a year, $10,000 a month if you
29:19
use affiliate links. Let me just show you
29:21
on Amazon. You just have to buy Pascal's
29:23
course for $97
29:25
if you sign up right now.
29:28
Yeah. We've seen them all. They've been snake
29:31
oil salesman at hucksters for as long as
29:33
there's been humans. Right. Well, the the term
29:35
there ain't no such thing as a free
29:36
lunch goes back to I think like the
29:38
19 twenties or the 19 thirties in America
29:41
where they would, you know, restaurants would advertise
29:43
a free lunch, and then you would sit
29:45
down for the very salty free lunch, and
29:47
they had to buy a drink and the
29:48
drinks are overpriced.
29:51
Often, I think people who are looking to
29:53
make more money, people who are trying to
29:55
improve their financial lot,
29:57
they fall for these free lunch tricks Yeah.
30:00
Assuming that essentially we can find these opportunities
30:03
that everyone else has missed.
30:05
If you instead assume
30:07
that the markets are roughly efficient, that whatever
30:10
the price is for something that that is
30:12
what it is or whatever someone will pay
30:14
you to do the thing, you know, that's
30:16
roughly about what it is if there's enough
30:18
people who pay you for that thing at
30:19
that price. You know, if you kind of
30:21
assume that, then you're closer,
30:24
I think,
30:25
to having your feet on the ground.
30:27
But if in your head you have a
30:30
certain price for the painting that you made
30:33
and people are only willing to pay you
30:34
$200
30:35
for that painting then that is the price
30:38
the market has set. If as a hypnotherapist,
30:41
I'm only able to charge, let's say, $100
30:44
because no one would pay more than a
30:47
105,
30:48
then my price would be at a 100
30:50
Mhmm. Dollars.
30:52
Something you touched upon earlier
30:54
is that it can be quite hard to
30:56
make a living as an artist. Mhmm. Right?
30:59
Part of the reason, I think, relates to
31:01
something else you said,
31:03
which is that
31:05
that which can be commercialized
31:07
represents only a thin slice of any endeavor
31:10
or anything.
31:11
So pursuits
31:13
like
31:14
painting,
31:15
acting,
31:16
and even hypnotherapy,
31:18
where there are non monetary rewards,
31:21
where we feel good about doing the thing,
31:24
or there's some kind of prestige in it,
31:26
for example.
31:28
These pursuits usually come with lower monetary rewards.
31:32
I just finished listening to an audiobook this
31:35
morning called The Creative Act, I believe, by
31:37
Rick Rubin. Mhmm. And Rick Rubin is a
31:40
record producer. He produced a number of records,
31:42
so he's very authoritative on the subject of
31:44
creativity.
31:45
And
31:46
he says
31:48
that it's perfectly legitimate
31:50
to keep your art
31:52
untainted
31:53
and uncommercialized
31:56
to work a job that pays the bills
31:59
and then to keep your art pure.
32:02
Yeah. In in fact, I think that in
32:04
some ways the
32:06
notion that we have of the starving artist
32:08
that doesn't compromise
32:09
their art with the filth of money, I
32:12
think is something that we've got from the
32:13
romantics. And most of those were already bloody
32:16
rich.
32:17
They were lords, they had property, they had
32:20
an income, but they chose And then we
32:22
have the beatenicks in in the States as
32:24
well who take that, then turn it
32:27
into subsisting in one of the wealthiest countries
32:29
in the world. I mean, it's an illusion
32:32
this idea, in fact, that
32:34
creativity and art can only thrive if you're
32:37
poor and then refusing money.
32:39
Or alternatively, that somehow
32:42
the creative act
32:44
in itself, it has enough worth that you
32:46
should do it. And if the world doesn't
32:47
value it, that doesn't mean that it's not
32:49
of any worth. It simply means it doesn't
32:51
have a commercial immediate commercial value.
32:54
But that doesn't mean that if you do
32:57
other things to put a roof over your
32:59
head, to feed your family,
33:01
to survive well, that somehow that diminishes you
33:04
as an artist.
33:05
Some of the best actors I know
33:07
do not act all the time. 1 of
33:09
the best actors I know actually moved to
33:11
Egypt to teach
33:13
and learn about storytelling. And he's he's living
33:17
his life
33:18
on the premise that he does other stuff
33:20
to to make money for sure. But he's
33:22
got that balance that he has negotiated with
33:24
his desire to live. And that's what any
33:26
artist has to do is to be be
33:27
able to figure out that balance between the
33:29
need to put a roof over your head,
33:31
be a responsible adult, supplying what your family
33:34
needs, what you need, looking after yourself.
33:36
And then to say that, oh, if I'm
33:38
doing that, then somehow I'm not gonna be
33:39
able to be a great writer, that somehow
33:41
I'm not gonna be able to be a
33:42
great artist is a false contradiction.
33:45
Something I say to new hypnotherapists
33:47
Mhmm. Is that if you're already financially independent,
33:50
you're gonna be a better and more ethical
33:52
hypnotherapist.
33:54
Because you're doing things in service of the
33:56
client then and you're not just doing things
33:58
because you need to pay for your mortgage.
34:00
Art is maintained
34:02
by the creator being independently wealthy and hypnotherapy
34:07
is also it's going to be more of
34:09
a client centered practice.
34:11
If the practitioner
34:13
doesn't absolutely
34:14
need
34:15
the client's money. That used to be the
34:17
case for the sciences as well. Yeah. Now
34:19
it's all like p hacking and trying to
34:21
get into prestigious
34:22
journals
34:24
and falsifying data and everything.
34:26
So I want to introduce this concept
34:29
called
34:30
ikigai. And I hope I'm pronouncing it correctly.
34:32
It's a Japanese term that means a reason
34:35
for being, or I guess in the French,
34:37
raison d'etre.
34:38
The concept is a Venn diagram.
34:41
And there's 4 circles:
34:43
what you love,
34:44
what the world needs,
34:46
what you can be paid for
34:48
and what you are good at
34:51
and ikigai
34:53
is that very small center of the Venn
34:56
diagram where you're doing something you love, that
34:59
the world needs, that you can be paid
35:02
for and that you are good at. That
35:05
is the sweet spot. So, if you're thinking
35:07
that you're gonna become a millionaire writing poetry
35:09
collections,
35:10
you might have to look at your guy
35:12
somewhere else. Exactly.
35:14
So our 6th point
35:16
is that unless you're very fortunate, and I'll
35:18
count myself among the very fortunate,
35:22
work is just
35:23
a game you play for money.
35:26
It's not authentic living.
35:29
It's not something you have to lose sleep
35:32
over.
35:33
You only do the things you do for
35:35
work because you're being paid for it. And
35:37
once the paychecks stop, there's not a chance.
35:40
You're looking at that report for your boss.
35:43
There's not a chance You're gonna smile at
35:45
the people you only smile at because they're
35:47
at the cubicle next to you. So the
35:49
things we kind of only do because we're
35:51
paid to do them
35:54
are never going to be what our heart
35:57
truly desires.
35:58
But there are some things we did as
36:00
children
36:01
that we're gonna do as retirees
36:04
and that in your productive years you get
36:06
to do in your evenings and on your
36:08
weekends and on your holidays and on vacation
36:11
and during all the many hours you've not
36:13
sold to your employer.
36:15
Most of us have only sold 35 to
36:18
40 out of a 168.
36:21
So, yes, you get to sleep well at
36:23
night during those many hours you've not sold.
36:25
You get to play with your dog
36:28
irrespective of what happened at work
36:30
because
36:31
you've not sold those hours you're playing with
36:33
your dog. Could it also be the case
36:34
that you could bring the sense of,
36:36
of a game to your job as well?
36:38
In the sense that you're being paid for
36:40
your time doing something that otherwise you wouldn't
36:42
wanna do perhaps?
36:43
And that there's no
36:45
judgment to that. In fact, I would say
36:46
that for the most of the people on
36:48
earth, that's probably the reality is that you're
36:51
doing things to make money because you have
36:53
to make money. And so then that that
36:55
makes me think, well, if you treat it
36:57
all in the spirit of play or in
36:59
the spirit of game, at least you can
37:01
maybe find some way
37:03
to make
37:05
the everyday job non onerous one, at least
37:07
not onerous.
37:08
It adds a bit of levity.
37:10
Yeah. To something
37:12
that you're only doing because of the paycheck.
37:16
Yeah. I mean, if you're gonna do something
37:17
only because of a paycheck,
37:19
you could do it while hating it, or
37:22
you could do it and see it as
37:24
only just a game you're playing for money.
37:26
So I don't want to trivialize
37:28
people's professions
37:29
and occupations
37:31
because if you look at, let's say, a
37:33
professional
37:34
hockey player,
37:36
they're literally playing a literal game for money,
37:40
but they do take it seriously.
37:42
They do, at least we hope, they try
37:45
to be a good sport.
37:47
So I'm not trying to trivialize people's work
37:49
and occupations
37:51
by using the term game
37:52
because, you know, even people who literally play
37:55
a game can't take it seriously while they
37:57
recognize that what happens on the rink is
37:59
not real life. They're only doing it
38:02
because that's what they do for a living.
38:05
So many
38:06
of our clients
38:07
reduce their sense of value and worth
38:11
to their commercial value to their employer
38:15
but if you
38:16
told your best friend
38:18
that they get $80,000
38:20
a year instead of you
38:24
and they can never see you again
38:26
They're probably
38:27
not gonna be that happy with the trade.
38:31
I mean, obviously, if someone is actually like
38:33
really hard up on cash that's where their
38:35
principles might be compromised as we discussed before
38:39
but if your friend is you know if
38:41
his cup is full
38:42
if he's alright,
38:44
then he's gonna rather have you than the
38:47
money. And your friend sees you clearly in
38:50
not just reducing you to a dollar figure
38:52
the way your boss does.
38:54
For better or for worse, the people you
38:56
deal with at work
38:58
colleagues, your employer, customers,
39:01
they see you as in some way instrumental
39:05
to them.
39:06
So, you know how much do you cost
39:08
for the company and how much money can
39:10
you bring in and let's hope you bring
39:12
in more than you cost or else how
39:14
could we keep you there?
39:16
None of your friends see you like this.
39:17
I hope dogs don't even see you like
39:20
this.
39:21
So it's your friends and dogs who see
39:22
you clearly. It's your boss who sees you
39:24
through a lens of how much money. Perhaps
39:26
there's like a hierarchy
39:28
of values we say. So we start off
39:29
with the intrinsic self worth that is inviolable
39:32
and it is simply because you are a
39:34
living breathing human being.
39:36
And then you've got the familial or your
39:38
friends as well.
39:40
Maybe close friends would be in that. You
39:42
have value to them, they have value to
39:43
you. And then after that you have social,
39:45
that's the
39:47
greater value that you provide to the society
39:49
around you. And then perhaps then it's economic
39:52
value after that. But
39:55
if you define
39:56
the other 3 by your economic value, you're
39:59
gonna be in trouble. Yep. And I wanna
40:01
point out you don't really treat your loved
40:03
ones like this.
40:05
Right? So
40:06
if your partner loses their job, you're probably
40:08
gonna be supportive.
40:10
You're probably gonna help them find a new
40:12
one. You're probably going to help them feel
40:14
that they're worthy even though they just lost
40:16
their job if you're a decent partner at
40:18
all to treat yourself is also having intrinsic
40:22
and still your value to your family and
40:24
still social value irrespective
40:27
of your economic contributions to the world. This
40:29
is unhippocritical.
40:31
This is the height of inclusivity.
40:33
Thank you so much for listening. I hope
40:35
we've been able to offer some value to
40:36
you.
40:37
The kinds of things we talk about on
40:39
this podcast,
40:40
we do give to clients privately in hypnotherapy
40:43
sessions.
40:44
If you are interested in working with either
40:46
me or Pascal, please contact the Morpheus Clinic
40:48
for hypnosis
40:50
at www.morpheusclinic.com.
40:53
And if you like
40:55
the sorts of things that we're saying and
40:57
proposing, then you can
40:59
continue to follow us
41:01
on YouTube at Morpheus Hypnosis
41:04
or podcast Spotify, Apple Podcasts and so on,
41:06
wherever you get your podcasts.
41:08
And, we look forward to sharing our thoughts
41:11
in the next episode which I believe is
41:14
Episode 10 is going to be about
41:17
how to be a leader.
41:18
Now if you're in the working world enough
41:21
years and you handle yourself well and you
41:23
catch the attention of people who want you
41:25
to lead groups, then you're gonna end up
41:28
as a leader. You're gonna end up having
41:29
to do public speaking.
41:31
And that's what we're gonna talk about
41:33
next episode. Click the subscribe button, and we
41:37
look forward to sharing some more stuff in
41:38
the next session.