Making Money Consciously (Blog)

[eternomi]

This is a great piece, and hopefully a big eye opener for those who think "personal development" is the answer to all prayers. The way I see it, personal development simply creates a new mindset to achieve goals, but realization of wealth, happiness, success is still work to be done. As this piece points out, it actually lies in the hands of others, so "singularity" (aka being on your own, ignoring everything happening around you) and simple "intending" alone will never get you there. These are tools to get you moving, but not the solution in and of themselves.

I think this -rather long- piece could be summarized as "Humanity is an organism (just like a single human body is) and you gotta act as an active part of this system to get to where you'd like to go".

Personal development advocates -such as Steve- are trying to awaken those who think "wealth, success and happiness just happens to you one day" to the reality that you are in charge of the creation of these realities. Once you realize this, understand it and assimilate it into every cell of your body, you gotta go out there and just do it. Once you realize this, spending time reading any more of this personal development stuff is a waste of your time unless it increases your efficiency somehow. Instead, you should shift your attention to consuming knowledge to create wealth (not just monetary).

[synergyperson]

so I guess pornography stars would be considered contributors as they do they generate social value for many people.

[Steve Pavlina]

Originally Posted by synergyperson

so I guess pornography stars would be considered contributors as they do they generate social value for many people.

Yes, certainly that would be true based on how the term "social value" was used in the article.

[Keith]

I'm having trouble expressing this, so please take it in that spirit if I misspeak:

I've always had great respect for Steve's site and its attitude of "Personal Development is time-consuming, hard and painful but it's worth it". I also respect his attitude of "find a way to create (personal and social) value and make a living from it".

Now, an animated banner ad has been added to the left of the forums : "Improve ANY aspect of your life In 20 minutes a day even while you're sleeping <Click Here> (recommended by Steve Pavlina)" (yes, the "In" is capitalised ).

It looks like making money has become more important to Steve than the principles upon which the site was founded (or that Steve's articles have all been rendered redundant!) - and that Steve's recent blog entry "Making Money Consciously" is a defensive response to these concerns.

But neither that blog entry or this thread really address those concerns.

I greatly appreciate Steve's posts and articles but this apparent new direction makes me uneasy. I, for one, would greatly appreciate an explanation of how promoting this product fits in with the site's charter of "Personal Development for Smart People".

Thank you,


P.S. Can the links at the bottom of the blog posts be automated to go straight to the relevant thread (rather than the forum in general), please?

[Steve Pavlina]

For two years people have been asking me to recommend effective personal development products. I've been recommending books for quite a while and recently began doing more involved deals, such as with PhotoReading and Paraliminals. You can expect more of these arrangements in 2007.

The animated ads on the site are contractually obligated to be there -- that's the exchange for being able to offer a discount on those products for StevePavlina.com visitors. I think it's a fair trade, but I understand and accept that not everyone will agree. It takes extra work for the product publisher to offer and process a discount, and they want to be sure the product will get some decent exposure if they're going to go to the trouble. A one-time blog announcement isn't much incentive for a publisher to offer a special deal. Without the ads there would be no special discount for these products.

I only recommend products I use myself, strongly benefit from, and have good reason to believe will benefit others. That's unusual in this field, since many personal development experts recommend each other's products without even trying them.

Financial success is a fairly important part of personal development -- I don't think I'd be setting much of an example if I started a business and then bypassed genuine opportunities for boosting its revenue. If it bothers anyone that I generate income from my work, go ahead and be bothered -- what I do over the next few years will probably just upset you even more.

[Adam]

Originally Posted by Keith

P.S. Can the links at the bottom of the blog posts be automated to go straight to the relevant thread (rather than the forum in general), please?

There are technical problems with having the link in the blog point directly at the correct post in the forum... Most of it is due to the differences between VBulliten and Wordpress, and would be a real nightmare to work through.

The main problem is that, when the link in the blog post is created (when Steve hits the Publish button), the thread in the forums doesn't usually appear for another 10 minutes, when the RSS is finally updated.

[Keith]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

Financial success is a fairly important part of personal development -- I don't think I'd be setting much of an example if I started a business and then bypassed genuine opportunities for boosting its revenue. If it bothers anyone that I generate income from my work, go ahead and be bothered -- what I do over the next few years will probably just upset you even more.

Thank you for the prompt reply Steve (and thank you Adam for clarifying that technical point).

I clearly stated that I think it's great that you generate income from your work (you certainly deserve to!).

You addressed a great deal of my concerns (thank you) but a couple of things remain unclear:

1. The expression used in the ad - "Personal Development for Busy people" - suggests a 'shortcut' approach to personal development. How does this relate to the idea that personal development is a challenging, time-consuming journey that isn't for 'Dummies'?
2. Given their efficacy, do Paraliminals supercede your earlier articles? (If so, please leave the articles up anyway since I can't afford Paraliminals!!)
3. Is this blog entry a response to expression of concerns similar to mine?

In short; I'm sure noone objects to you making income (I certainly don't), but the 'flavour' of this particular advertising seems incongruous with the previous nature of your site.

Thank you.

[The Wise Turtle]

Razzmatazz, your suggestion of Social Enterprise does indeed have that universal ring to it that just might be what I'm looking for. I'll definitely look into that. Thanks!

And John, I would say that it's not about knowing exactly what a fair rate is, but about intending to offer things at a fair rate. It's the intent to give as much value as I recieve. Or actually I hope to give more than I recieve, since I believe that one of humanity's greatest abilities is creation. Sure, I do need some resources to work, but I believe that I can create completely new value by using my creative and intellectual mind. It's kind of like pulling a rabbit out of a hat, you know? Limited resources + creativity = abundant resources. (Am I defying the laws of physics here somehow? Oh, dear, I hope not! Are the Conservation of Creative Energy police going to drag me in?!)

Heh. Sorry. Anyway, yeah, my intent is to leverage the resources of my skills and knowledge to turn a small amount of raw material resources into high valued stuff that fills a real social need. And then hopefully, enough people who have their own resources (preferably money, food, property/housing, or some other need I have) will want to trade their stuff for my goods. This is different than the goal of hording all the resources you can by having a bottom line of profit coupled with the intent to do as little work (adding real value) as possible (mooching).

-Turil

[DavetheMan]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

On the other hand, if we invest in a moocher organization, such as a team of day traders, then we're mooching as well.

In your opinion, is this a bad thing? I personally want to better myself financially....even if it comes at the expense of others. How can I help others if I can't support myself first?

[Steve Pavlina]

Originally Posted by Keith

1. The expression used in the ad - "Personal Development for Busy people" - suggests a 'shortcut' approach to personal development. How does this relate to the idea that personal development is a challenging, time-consuming journey that isn't for 'Dummies'?
2. Given their efficacy, do Paraliminals supercede your earlier articles? (If so, please leave the articles up anyway since I can't afford Paraliminals!!)
3. Is this blog entry a response to expression of concerns similar to mine?

#1 & #2: From my posted Paraliminals review: "I don't believe Paraliminals are a substitute for hard work by any means, but I do believe they're an effective performance enhancer that can help you draw upon untapped inner resources."

#3: Nope. Given the size of my audience, there's someone who thinks I'm speaking to their particular thoughts no matter what I write.

[Keith]

Thanks Steve, much appreciated.

[Steve Pavlina]

FYI I plan to write more posts on money & financial abundance soon. This is an area I've been working on a lot in my own life, and one of the motivating factors was knowing that whatever I figured out along the way, I could share with others. For starters, learning to generate income by targeting the overlap between social value and personal value was a big breakthrough for me. In my early 20s, I didn't consider the idea that money comes from social value, and that led to a very chaotic financial situation.

[TheNourisher]

Thanks to you all for your insight on this issue. Struggling with this very concept, I wrote a post about it on my site recently. Money = Gratitude

Living in Byron Bay (Australia) I am very often exposed to the wide gap between the Socially and Spiritually aware Haves and the Socially and Spiritually aware Have nots. It astounds me daily that many of the conscious people who live in this wonderful part of the world have huge resistance to abundance.

During a Deeksha experience recently, I received a message about my life that pertains to this issue. The gist of it is thus. Our experience in this dimension is like a game of pick up sticks. When we pick up a stick, we are choosing an experience. There are two ends to any stick. In this case, one end is the experience of abundance, the other end is the experience of scarcity. When we feel stuck or negative it's because we are at the wrong end of the stick we've picked up. All we need to do is choose thoughts and (more importantly) feelings that take us to the other end of the stick.

Many of my friends have picked up the abundance stick and they're sitting at the scarcity end. The thought that keeps them there, most often, is that 'money is not spiritual'. I wrote the post above for such people and now I can send people to your post also Steve.

Thanks so much for all your inspiration.
Blessings

[Carol]

I've felt disturbed by Steve's article since I first read it, and I've been wondering why. Well, I know reason number one -- in Steve's two-category world, I'm a "moocher."

Reason number two hit me this morning -- one way to build yourself up is by running other people down. Steve, can't you come up with a less derogatory term for people who don't earn their income the same way that you choose to?

Why contributor/moocher? What kind of negative energy are you generating by labelling people like this? Actually, I don't like your either/or choice here -- I'm a "contributor" if I earn money in ways you approve of, or a "moocher" if I get money in ways you don't approve of (nice the way the rest of us are lumped in with criminals!)

I prefer to use a strategy you have recommended yourself. If you don't like an either/or choice -- look for a higher level alternative: I choose not to focus on acquiring money. I live frugally (see the book "Your Money or Your Life" by Joe Dominguez) and don't need to acquire much money.

The world is abundant; obsessing about money means you focus on scarcity. I'm not saying this as well as Christine Kane does in her blog entry Don’t GET Rich Quick. BE Rich Quick.

[The Wise Turtle]

Carol, it's not so much Steve's own approval that defines whether or not any of us are moochers or contributors, it's society as a whole, and ourselves who decide. Steve is merely pointing out how we humans work when it comes to careers. Some careers are seen as contributing to society and some are seen as taking from society. And, obviously, many careers do a little of both. Steve is merely suggesting that it might be useful to you to take a look at your job and decide if the net result of it is rewarding for both you and the rest of the world, or if it saps something out of the world (and probably yourself as well)?

Realizing that your current job is making you a moocher isn't a bad thing, it's great, because once you know that you aren't happy with your job, you can do something about it. You can start looking for something else to do, or some other way to do it, so that you are happy with it, and it does feel rewarding and valuable. It's also impotant to remember that you aren't your job. Your job doesn't define you, you define your job.

If it upsets you to think that your job is based on a moocher philosophy than that probably means you aren't a moocher at heart - otherwise you wouldn't be bothered by taking more than you are giving back. And it sounds like you don't want to be a moocher, right? Great! So, find a way to ditch that mooching job and find a truly rewarding one!

Ultimately, I do agree with you that Steve might have been able to find another term to describe people who aren't contributors to society (aren't adding healthy, honest value) that wasn't so negative. Negative framing tends to put people's defenses up and makes it far harder to see things clearly. But it's really hard to convey a negative concept without sounding negative, you know? Personally, I tend to think of people who have unfullfilling, non-contributory jobs as good people who simply don't know what their options are. And for the most part, it's not because they don't want to have a contributory, valuable, rewarding job, it's because society just doesn't make it easy to see all the wonderful options that are out there. Or, if people so see the options, society doesn't make it easy to get there. But I'm not sure that you could boil my ideas here down to one word. Unless you want to go with the accurate, but overly fuzzy term "frustrated"...

Peace, Love, and Bicycles,
Turil

[Carol]

Thanks for trying Wise Turtle, but I'm afraid you've got the wrong end of the stick. It isn't that my job isn't fulfilling or socially useful; I don't have a job. I don't work for money. My husband and I have sufficient assets that I stay at home and he works. I do this by choice (mine and his).

I've worked at professional jobs. I ran my own business for years, and enjoyed it. But I don't do that now. I stay at home, manage our house and our investments. I'm studying design and I do virtual volunteering, but I don't earn money. So I'm a moocher in Steve's taxonomy, a parasite.

Over the 50-odd years of my life, I've seen women move into the labour market en masse. As a woman, it's been great for me. I've had opportunities to do all kinds of things that women before me couldn't.

But over the last 30 years we've monetized every action -- instead of doing things ourselves (like taking care of our kids, or cooking our own meals, or cleaning our own houses) now we pay other people to do them.

Is work done for money more socially useful (or conscious) than work done for "free?" Is the meal I cooked this evening worth less to society than the one we could have bought in a restaurant?

I like the ideas surrounding the Law of Attraction -- attracting more of what you really want. I want freedom and experiences, not money -- kind of a direct thing, which is why I linked to Christine Kane's post above.

[Steve Pavlina]

To mooch means "to get something at the expense of someone else." To me that seems a fair word to describe the concept of withdrawing social value at someone else's expense. Social value doesn't come from thin air, so if you withdraw more than you contribute, someone else has to pick up your slack.

Ayn Rand used the term looter. I figured moocher was a little nicer. Leech or parasite would be other possibilities I suppose.

While there's a negative stigma associated with the word moocher, it's really just a descriptive term. Children mooch off their parents as a matter of course, and that's considered perfectly normal.

[The Wise Turtle]

Carol, I'm not sure why you think you are a moocher. It sounds to me like you are contributing far more than you are taking from society. Especially since all the work you are doing is not paid. Or do you think that the work you do (chores, studying, taking care of the household, volunteering, etc.) isn't valuable to society? It sounds like you are helping others, right? That seems quite valuable to me.

However, maybe your husband's job is a mooching job?

-Turil

[Sid137]

Hi Steve,

I just came across your blog and found it quite amazing... in fact, I was having a discussion about "how is money made" with some business associates, and we abstracted the ways of making money out to almost exactly the ones you mentioned in "how to earn money", yet its insightful to see that it all boils down to the two classes: contributors vs moochers.


So I'd like your thoughts on a few things..

1) You mentioned that social value is a function of supply and demand.

I'd be curious to assign a more precise definition to the phrase "social value" and try to more fully determine what else a social value might be a function of. Have you expanded on that in any other posts, or do you have any more thoughts (or suggested readings) on the subject?


2) The time dependance of "social value"

If we look at society as a huge mass, we see short term trends and long term trends. If we use an analogy of the stock market, the perceived "social value" of a stock can change rapidly due to critical events, because of the perceived effects of those events. Lone term changes in price happen because of more slowly changing factors that a day trader for example, might not be aware of or care about.

On the same token, I imagine there are factors that affect the "imediately perceived social value", and the "long term social value" in society, the long term value being correlated with the overall health of the group - (for example unemployment, strong economy, etc..)


In writing this, I ask myself a few questions:

• How does society reward contributions to long term value, in comparison with contributions to short term value? - (Is $100 of short term value worth $98 of long term value?)
• How can we determine the dynamics, or factors, which affect these two different value domains?
• What other ways can we classify types of "social value"?

All of this leads up to point 3

3) Robin Hood effects of social value

Situation:

So I'm starting to figure out what I want to accomplish in life, and I'm realizing that its going to take alloooott of money to do it. I'm currently a pHd student studying quantum physics. I also work with another group of people who are entreprenurially motivated, and we will soon start a business, and hopefully do well

Personal Value:

I personally believe that physics is one of the most important things that concerns us. I want to eventually create an institution that heavily funds research in fundamental issues of physics (such as the Perimiter Institute which was created by the blackberry founder), and eventually branch out to other domains of science.

Social Value:

Long Term - In the long run, scientific research and progress has a tremendous "social value". Scientific discoveries improve our quality of life, and even help advance the very evolution of our species

Short Term - On the short term, there's much less "perceived social value" for studying the problems of gravitation, abstract mathematics, and investing tons of money in abstract scientific tools that will never directly affect the majority of people living today.

Question: How does one work at the intersection of their personal values and social values, when the social values themselves aren't even coherent within a given time scale? (technology today vs. fundamental research for tomorrow, for ex.)


Now my plan was basically..

1) start a company
2) create something of immediate social value, exchange for money
3) use money to pay for personal values (science - ie. long term social values)

I'd like to hear other approaches though..

Thanks, Sorry for the long post
-Sidney

[Imposter]

I'm not sure I agree with the idea that pro poker players are moochers. Them existing often means that others can have a game of poker thus they provide entertainment (even if some/most of their opponents don't see it as entertainment). If you agree with that then you can extend that to all professionals that provide entertainment: sports people, actors, tv personalities etc. Could we do without them? Sure we could but they do provide some sort of social value to some people if not everyone.

I guess the point I'm making is that someone somewhere may get value out of a 'moocher' even if society at large doesn't think the 'moocher' provide value.

Similarly most forms of investments are done for mainly for financial reasons by the person with the money to invest. Is this mooching? The jobs they create would suggest that it provides some sort of social value.