Dear daughter,
Once upon a time, there was a guy named Joe.
Joe’s family, as most families in the world, didn’t like to talk about money.
Many times, and in different ways, Joe was told that talking about money is a bad thing, especially during family meetings.
It was common knowledge that the “money topic” was not good. It only wasn’t good, it was bad!
Then he heard: “Money is the root of all evil”.
hum.
And every day, Joe was thinking about money. Because in the first place, he didn’t have enough to do what he wanted to do. To share more moments with the family, to live closer to the family, and to provide for things that were needed.
He tried everything to make more money. Having side hustles, doing every extra work he could do.
And always trying to find someone that would want to talk about money. But the conversation was always rejected. It was not a good topic. People didn’t like to talk to him about money or to talk about money at all. They even started rejecting him, pushing him away. “This guy always wants to talk about money” – they said disdainfully.
The more he tried to talk about money, the more he was rejected and pushed down by other people.
Until one day, he started to look at this from another perspective.
Most of his friends and family didn’t have enough money, just like him.
Not having enough money for Joe meant that if he wants to stop working today, he couldn’t. Because he needed the money to pay for his bills, food, etc.
Joe then turned to books. Books won’t put you down because you want to read what is in them.
So, Joe started thinking, if I want to have enough money, to do whatever I want when I want and with whom I want, I have to ask people who can actually do that.
Instead of keep trying to ask people who cannot do that, people like him, that work for money, he started looking around, to get advice for people who already did it.
And because of this, he started reading books about money.
He was an avid reader. He wanted answers. The type of answers his family and friends won’t provide. He knows that they won’t even entertain a talk about the topic. It was a “prohibited topic” in his family and friend circle.
And because of this, he found out the truth about money.
Joe found out that money is not “the root of all evil”, what is evil is what some people do with money. Also, he found out that what most people do with money is good.
Imagine if your mom is sick, and you can buy the medicine that she needs because you have enough money for that. How is that evil?
Joe understood that evil will be “not to have enough money to pay for the medicine that his mom might need one day”. That will be the true evil.
And guess what, that is how our society works. If one day you have a problem, but you don’t have money, then you have two problems. You have your original problem, and the second one is that you don’t have money to solve the problem.
Joe kept reading, just to find out that most rich people give away lots of money. They use different means. They give to churches, they donate to charity organizations and non-profit organizations.
Joe found out that one of the richest men in the world, has donated billions of dollars to non-profit organizations that are trying to solve problems that even governments cannot (or are not interested in) address. The same person has a will that all his money (billions of US dollars), will be donated to a specific non-profit organization and that organization must spend all that money in no more than 10 years to try to solve a huge problem that no one else is trying to solve.
Joe was astonished, how can that be evil? He heard a lot of times that rich people were evil, “they only want to keep your money, so they become richer and you poorer”. I mean, that is common knowledge.
Guess what, Joe discovered that is a myth, a big lie.
Finally, Joe understood the truth about money (and the people who have enough of it).
Rich people make money because they provide services for other people. The more people they provide with service, and the better the service, the more money they make.
People who don’t follow this principle “the most important thing is to provide service to others and to add value to others” make money sometimes, but it won’t last.
For money to last in your pockets (or even better, in your investments), you need to be good at providing service, caring for others, and adding value to as many people as you can.
Here is another one, people who don’t like to talk about money, have a “poor people mindset”. They think money is evil and rich people only want more money in their pockets. They don’t understand that the ones who have more money, create more value for others, that they provide service (more and better) to more people.
Instead of thinking this way (the poor people mindset), they buy the latest clothing, “to be in top fashion”. They show up at a party (some to work) with brand clothing, and brand shoes, all of it is about showing the brands, the expensive clothing, the expensive toys.
Can you see the irony?
They don’t like to talk about money. But they want people to see them with expensive stuff. So, to get the expensive stuff you should have money, isn’t it?
Joe also learn that the people with a poor mindset, don’t understand one of the more important concepts related to money (they don’t want to talk about it in the first place): do not work for money, it is better to have money work for you.
All this important knowledge, Joe got from books. By studying people who made a ton of money, and also gave back to the society in different ways lots of money.
At this stage, Joe was feeling good. He learned a lot. Now was the time to share it with his wife.
Here is probably the greatest discovery Joe made, regarding money. Talk to your partner in life about money. A marriage needs to be on the same page on “the money talk”. And the same page cannot be “money is evil”.
It is not easy though. Joe struggled to get his wife on the same page that him. Every time he talked about the topic; a fight followed. The wife didn’t want to talk about it. She thought that Joe wanted to control her money.
But Joe persisted. Because he was 100% sure of the value that being on the same page can bring to them.
However, more, and bigger fights happen. For a moment, Joe thought that the marriage was over.
The wife arrives for work and avoided him. It seems that she tries to avoid him, just in case he wants to start talking about money again.
It was very bad. Imagine two people that live together, that can’t even talk about a topic.
Finally, Joe started showing his wife some numbers. What will happen if they do this, what will happen if they do that. Just running the numbers over different scenarios.
Very slowly, the wife started to listen, instead of fighting. After a long time, the wife started to make sense of what Joe was telling her. She now sees the value of talking about money and being on the same page with her husband.
She saw that it will be a great benefit to have their finances together, plan their finances together, and make money decisions together. After all, they were married and that is how is supposed to be. Share everything, in good and bad times.
Just to mention one benefit Joe and his wife got from this hard exercise, everything was more transparent in the relationship. They both know exactly how much money they earn, and exactly what each of them does with their money. They also knew if the other needed money, after all, they knew and shared everything. That was a great moment for them!
After that, only happiness and greater moments came for Joe and her wife. They understood the truth about money.
And ever since that day, Joe and his wife, are every day in their journey to become financially independent.
You see, we were taught that we become independent when we get a job. Because we don’t need our parents to give us money. Big lie. When we get a job, we are independent of our parents, but we are dependent on our job (or jobs).
You become truly independent when you have money working for you, and the money your money makes for you is enough to pay for your bills. At that stage, you don’t need to work. If you work, is because you want to, not because you have to. There is a big difference.
Joe tried to explain this “new knowledge” to everyone he could. As before, he found mostly resistance, people who don’t want to learn more and think money is evil.
But he tries to explain it to those who want to learn about it. Because he knows (and experienced himself) the value that the knowledge about money can bring to every person’s life.
Don’t be a slave to money, be its master!
Love you, Dad.