Are you REALLY Motivated by Money?

Let me reveal a personal motivation factor in my life.  I am not too motivated by money.  I do all right – some would say very well financially, but money isn’t my main goal.  I am more interested and motivated by reaching more people, sharing my insight, making more friends and having a dialog. 

As an example, if someone were to say, "Brad, I am going to pay you $10,000 to write on your blog next month, but we will make it inaccessible to everyone and we don’t want anyone to ever read it." I’d have to respectfully turn down the offer.   

Why not take the money?  $10,000 in a month is a great sum of money for blog writing.  I could probably buy something with it if I tried.  Mentally, however, the money would just represent paper to me.

Maybe growing up poor influenced my motivation.  The main motivation of a kid without much money wasn’t to get more money; it was to have more fun.  Money doesn’t necessarily mean more fun.  Money can cause problems if focused on too much.  At one time, money was the leading cause of divorce in the US.  People have killed over money.  Some have killed themselves over the lack of it. 

Sure it has its importance.  It’s better to have a little more than a little less.  But the way I feel about life is it is an adventure.  It can be fun, exciting and every day can be unique and challenging compared to the money-driven life. 

I had a coworker years ago who was a millionaire, but he was an alcoholic and used to drink heavily every night.  One afternoon, he started talking about his drinking – he was saying how much he thought about drinking during the day and couldn’t wait to start drinking at night. 

Honestly, my curiosity about this was mind-blowing.  I just had to know why this guy’s main passion in life was getting wasted.  So I said. "Hey, I just have to know. Why are you so motivated by drinking? "

He thought for a moment and then said, “Because life is boring."

‘Wow!’ I thought.  What a revelation.  Here is someone who could have just about anything he wants.  He could pursue any education or travel the world.  Instead he chooses to drink away all of his free time because life is "boring".

Life is boring to boring people.

Non-boring people explore new areas of their lives, learn new languages, build new skills, meet new people, develop new passions, or if they already have a passion, they practice it.  There’s a book out there titled "Do what you love and the money will follow".  You don’t need to read the book right this minute to get some value from it, just repeat the title to yourself because it’s true.  Just about every hobby, skill, job you could ever love could result in profits if practiced with a secondary eye for finance…

I used to know a woman who loved women’s handbags but couldn’t afford to buy her own.  So she made one she thought met her idea of a great purse.  As she went about her business day-to-day, people started noticing this handbag.  Friends started asking her to make them one.  Before you know it, she was making these handbags full-time and selling them in stores.

This was years ago and because of a job change we fell out of touch. But if I were to guess she’s probably doing well by simply doing what she loves.  Had she gone after the money, I’d guess she wouldn’t have been as successful.

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