How Can You Achieve "the Marriage of Money and Meaning?"

Assume you've got all the money you need. What would you do with it? How would you live?

You just found out you have only 5-10 years to live. How will you live those years?

You've just found out you have 24 hours to live. What did you miss? Who did you not get to be? What did you not get to do?

These 3 questions are asked by financial planner George Kinder, author of The Seven Stages of Money Maturity: Understanding the Spirit and Value of Money in Your Life. His methods encompass his keen interest in Buddhist spirituality, feelings, and money. He has tuned into the fascination that Boomers have had with discovering the meaning and purpose of their lives. His trainings of financial planners world-wide focus on melding the "deepest human aspirations for a life worth living with rigorous financial goals," according to (July-August 2008) Harvard Magazine's story about him. He helps people to recognize the personal meaning of family, creativity, spirit, service, and place. 

Kinder was inspired by the philosopher Jacob Needleman, author of Money and the Meaning of Life. Needleman believes that money has a profound influence on who we are and what messages we give ourselves about what we cannot have. "Our long unwillingness to understand the emotional and spiritual effects of money is at the heart of why we have come to know the price of everything and the value of nothing," he declares on his website.

Kinder, known also as a Buddhist teacher, takes us through these 7 steps in order to deepen our awareness of the place that money has held in our lifetime, from childhood on.

1. Innocence--The childhood state we are born in, devoid of any concept of money
2. Pain-- We recognize that we have more money than some and less than others and that work is necessary to make a living
3. Knowledge--The cognitive process of learning financial techniques, such as saving, budgeting, and investing
4. Understanding--The emotional work one needs to do to come to terms with feelings around money, such as greed, envy, and resentment (which are rooted in Pain)
5.  Vigor--The physical, emotional, and spiritual energy that must be expended to reach financial goals
6.  Vision--The direction of Vigor outward toward the health and welfare of communities, with or without a profit motive
7.  Aloha--The compassionate goodwill that allows one to use money to perform acts of kindness without expecting anything in return

In Kinder's interview with Kara McGuire of the Star Tribune, he declares that people need to understand what really matters to them and to make a commitment to that, even though it might mean some financial sacrifice. Once people answer the 3 questions for themselves... then it becomes much more clear what sacrifices they're willing to make to achieve their life vision. 

In this tumultuous financial period, many of us will have to make financial sacrifices, whether we choose to or not. Best to discover what really matters, what our real purpose in life is, and how we want to put that into daily practice. 

Life coaching  is a process that helps you bring your life purpose to light, to draw in the details, to determine how you want to put it into operation, and to be held accountable to doing so. If you'd like to try coaching, contact me for a complimentary phone session at Karma@LifeSpringCoaching.com