I get some strange reactions from different idealists, that sound a little like this:

“How can you be so callous and judgmental?”

“Don’t you know there’s more to life than money?”

“You can’t possibly know what it’s like to be poor.”

“What about all the horrible things money does?”

Money people give me different reactions:

“How can you be so irresponsible?”

“You’re out of touch with reality!”

Dear Idealist:

I don’t mean to be callous or judgmental, but I do want to make sense of it all.

Of course there’s more to life than money, but it sure does help me to live my ideals better.  So I’ve got to deal with money, whether I want to or not.

I’ve never experienced third-world poverty, and that is a very real concern.  But I know what it’s like to exist on rice and beans, and I’m not here to rip people off.  We’re all in this together.

And it’s true, people do stupid and horrible things in the name of money and business.  Money can cause a lot of misery.  It can also do great things and change people’s lives.

To money people:

You’d be surprised what we idealists go through in the name of “responsibility,” but some forget to be responsible for our own proverbial oxygen mask.

You’d also be surprised how much we know about reality, even when we don’t articulate it well.

So I’m reviving this blog on the following assumptions:

• Money is all about people. It’s about marketplace, commerce, communication and value.  You can’t have any of that without people.
• Different people have different “money styles,” and the more we understand our own and others’ money styles, the easier it is to do business.
• Money is full of meaning. Numbers are crucial, too, but the more we understand what money really means to us at an individual level, the closer we will be to having open, honest and profitable business transactions that benefit all.
• Money is amoral. It can be used for evil things, and for good things.

For all the above reasons, money is one of the most risky conversations an idealist can have.  It’s also one of the most important.

And the timing couldn’t be better, as we enter tax season and we work our way through today’s current financial situations.

I’d like to share, not only my own thoughts, but those of others who have wrestled with similar questions.

How do you feel about such a conversation?

Here’s one of his non-conventions that I particularly like:

I’ve… learned that goal setting should be more like an impressionistic painting. As opposed to ‘Open three new stores by the end of the year,’ my goal became simply ‘Expand the business.’ Keep your goals as anchors and then wander around among them, giving yourself plenty of room for error and experimentation.

You can read the excerpt here.

Again, thanks to the Adult ADD and Money blog for the book tip.

But sometimes ADDers have sensible ideas for managing personal finances, and their ideas actually work.

In “Six Overlooked Reasons why you are struggling with your finances: Reason #6 – System Failure,” John MacKenzie lists a few systems for success.

Here’s his tip for making bill-paying easier to do, and more likely to get done:

Putting all of your bills in one place. I have seen people who have separate folders for each bill that they need to pay, and while this works for some people, you are more likely to pay all of your bills if have them in one place. Many people also use electronic billing so that they don’t have to deal with as many paper bills. This will help to reduce clutter, just make sure you have a list of all the bills you pay so that you do not forget to pay one.

…I’ve been ungodly blessed, you know, I just happened to be born at the right time in the right place. I tell people if I’d been born a few thousand years ago I would have been some animal’s lunch, because I can’t run very fast or jump very high. Or if I’d been born in Bangladesh or some place things would have been different for me. So what I’ve acquired has been, to an enormous degree, the product of a society that’s a huge capitalist society, and I was born into it at the right time, and I get these disproportionate material rewards in respect to my contribution. There’s all kinds of people who are just as good citizens as I am, they go over and serve in Iraq, they help in their communities, but I happen to be in something that just pays off like crazy and I get everything I want in life…

Read more here.

According to Steve Pavlina, in his blog post entitled How Selfish Are You? – yes and no.

He defines two concepts:

STO – Service to Others
STS – Service to Self

Says Pavlina:

STS and STO must remain in balance. It isn’t a matter of choosing one path over the other. You need both.

….For example, suppose you’re in a situation where your job is almost entirely STS. You do it for the money or for other perks or for a feeling of security, but your work doesn’t serve the greater good in any meaningful way. Suppose your company manufactures junk food, the kinds of products that are only going to harm people’s health in the long run. But your company (and you) get paid to do it.

Then in your off time, you do volunteer work, spend lots of time with your family, and so on. In your personal life you try to be a lot more STO.

STS and STO are in conflict. They’re not in balance.

How does one find balance?

Pavlina suggests:

Instead of having [STO and STS] work against each other, set them both after the same goal. Allow your greed to fuel your service and your service to fuel your greed. Accept and integrate both the selfish and the selfless parts of you. Learn to use both the dark and the light sides of your nature.

According to Cari Lynn, journalist and author of Leg the Spread: A Woman’s Adventure Inside the Trillion-Dollar Boys’ Club of Commodities Trading, it is.

Lynn spent a year on the “floor,” learning the ropes, and researching her book. She was interviewed by Stocks & Commodities Magazine for their May 2006 issue.

She says:

“It takes a special kind of woman to survive in the pits. There is a whole spectrum of women on the trading floor. It is certainly no secret that there are many women who are there because there are a lot of men and a lot of money. Then on the opposite end of that spectrum are the women who really lost all femininity. Unfortunately, both these types were often held in low esteem by the male traders. So somewhere in the delicate middle are the really successful women traders. It takes a lot of savvy for a woman to find success on the floor. You have to know yourself, and go in there with a good head on your shoulders and a strong sense of self to make it. Just knowing how to trade isn’t enough.”

Does she plan to continue trading?

No, she has other plans:

“Trading really sucks a lot out of you. I learned that my mind doesn’t work that way. I can’t tolerate that kind of risk.”

Does this mean women should avoid being traders?

Not according to Gail Osten, in her 2004 article in Stocks, Futures and Options Magazine: “What Can Male Traders Learn from Successful Women… and Vice Versa.”

She believes that perhaps it’s easier for women to enter the field now that more trading is done virtually. According to Osten, women tend to benefit from right-brained visual thinking, curiosity and a lack of fear about asking questions.

To be balanced, according to Bauer, one must integrate the "other side."  To integrate the “other,” there must always be a fall into the shadow. For the relationship-oriented coming to terms with money (warrior archetype maybe?), she will, at first, feel like a “selfish bitch.” For the financially oriented coming to terms with relationship, he will, at first, feel “spineless and weak.” I speak of stereotypical genders here, but the genders could be switched. This is very scary to do, from either side. Seeking wholeness, one must go into that “bad” space, that bad image of oneself, before one can integrate the “other side.”

No wonder change is so difficult.

Listen to full lecture here.

After a long sad story of server blips and eventually needing to abandon my previous Idealist’s Money Blog, I’m back at it again.  I believe money is a deep and intermingled issue, and once again, I’ve created seven categories for exploration.

Money & Personality Type

All types have our strengths and weaknesses, but from what I’ve seen and experienced, introverted intuitive-feelers struggle with money – a lot – either with how to work with it, or how to earn enough of it. We seem to lack the “money gene.”

For one, money is an extravert’s turf. It has to be. To sell something, you have to have a buyer. To work, you have to have an employer. You need someone (usually lots of someones) on the other end who wants what you have to give or sell.

I will base most of my discussion on Jungian personality types. For more information on Jungian personality types, see http://www.typelogic.com/ for starters.

Money & Gender

Personally, I’m not crazy about anything that makes women “the problem” (or men either, for that matter). But from what I’ve seen, money may indeed be different for women than for men, and some credible people have recommended books to me, so there must be something to it. Therefore, the category is here, and I’ll be exploring this side of money, too.

Money & Business

Currently, I own a business, and I know many other business owners who are – Idealists! too. In fact, that’s why we’re in business – to make a difference in the world, and to do it our own way. But no matter how good we are, or how many people whose lives we touch, if we don’t make money, we don’t stay in business.

The fact is, a business exists to make money. If you don’t make money, you don’t have a business. You may be doing something very good, but it’s not a business.

So here we are, entrepreneurs in a pursuit that seems directly antithetical to our purpose in life. Yet we’ve made it our purpose in life to keep it going. It requires being two people: an idealist and a business manager. Or it requires a paradigm shift. So here is a space to explore making money as idealistic business owners.

Money & Culture

This one has my attention. Idealists like things to be “fair.” But throughout history, the distribution of money has never been “fair.” To complicate matters, Americans like to believe we are fair. But deep down, we know we are not. Some of us have never been poor. Some of us have always been poor. Some have been born into wealthy homes, and lost what we had. Some had humble beginnings, and for some odd reason we know isn’t fair, we suddenly have more than we know what to do with, and racing past our peers. So therein lies the question: What am I worth? And what does that mean in a system that’s not fair?

Could our understanding of our role in society really affect our relationship with money? For most, maybe not. For an idealist, I think so. That’s why I have to explore this.

Money & Myth

Especially appealing to the intuitive-feeling understanding of life. How money appears in mythology, how humans now and through the ages have dealt with money on a spiritual level.

Money & Ourselves

The day to day detail of managing money. What does it say about our personal lives?

Money in General

Everything else.

Comments?