We do not have the same duty to give to our brothers, sisters, or other family members as we do to our parents. Even though you may love your siblings or other relatives with all your heart, these are different kinds of relationships. When giving to a family member other than a parent, or a person who served in a parental capacity, there is a real danger of this gift of money tainting the purity of your love—thus tainting the purity of your intention. You may be thinking that this doesn’t apply to you, given how much you love your brothers and sisters, but I ask you to take heed. I have seen the bitterness such “gifts” can eventually lead to many times in my practice, and I ask you to think very carefully before you give your monthly offering to a family member other than a parent.
For instance, if you happen to have a brother or sister making far more money than you are, do you secretly wish they’d do a little something to help make your own life easier? This is a common thought. But if such a “gift” came, do you really believe that no expectations would be attached? Won’t that brother wonder about or care what you did with the money? What if you ran into your sister while you were having dinner at a nice restaurant? Would you freeze with guilt, in case she thought you were spending her gift frivolously? Might your sibling start asking you what you need money for? What if you start doing much better financially? Will you feel the need to give back the money? Will your brother or sister feel you should? If you find yourself answering “Yes” to any of these questions, the gift in question is neither purely given nor purely received. Maybe yours is one of the rare families where you truly do see each other as one. But most of us can’t open our hands gracefully to give to or receive from family members in a pure way, so I do not recommend making your monthly offerings to family members.
With friends, as with family members (other than children and parents), care giving is not an inborn dharmic duty, which makes it extremely difficult to give money to friends in an appropriate way. I’m not saying that it can’t be done, just that it is extremely difficult.
If you offer something as treasured to you as your money to a needy friend to, say, pay her bills, you have not really done anything to make yourself, or her, more powerful. In fact, you may have created a problem for yourself—because from now on, whenever you see that person, whether you want to or not, many of you will remember the “gift,” and so will your friend. You will remember it in particular if you fall on some harder times somewhere down the road, especially if your friend is doing much better.
Money can forever alter the love in a friendship, so I do not recommend giving your monthly gift to friends.
To my mind, the purest gift, the one that truly looses our cramped clutch on money, is a gift to a charity. With this kind of gift, no debt is created, no bondage. You are faceless to the charity, a name on a donors’ data bank. Maybe you’re just slipping cash into a donation box, and no one will ever know that you have given it. If you give this way, your gift is pure.
I have found that the most liberating offering of all is one you make to a charity you care deeply about.
To see just how powerful money is when it changes hands, try this experiment if you can. Walk up to the first person you see on the street (an ordinary stranger, not a panhandler) and try to hand that person a dollar bill. Note how you feel. How did he look at you? Did he take it? Did he say anything? How much anticipation (or dread) did you feel before giving him the dollar? Were you able to do it at all?
Now take another dollar bill and enter a place of worship. Locate the donation box and place the dollar in it. How did you feel this time? Did you say a prayer as you let that dollar drop? Did you feel better after making your offering? And there was no complicated reaction from the donation box, was there?
Compare how differently you felt after giving each “gift.” Most of us feel awkward handing money to a person (and most of us would also feel awkward being the recipient, which
should tell you something as well). Remember, the act of giving is meant to open you up, literally to alter how you feel; its power is rooted in your altered state. Most of us, too, feel a serenity when placing the donation in the box, for such a gift to charity is a pure one without the emotional baggage of giving to an individual person.
Regardless of how much money you have, it is the natural tendency of the mind to think: I can’t give money this month, I don’t even have enough to pay the bills. Or, there are so many things that I need, I lack, I want. This is the exact moment to give, to give an amount that is meaningful but realistic. You must break these thoughts of poverty, for thoughts of poverty are bonds of poverty, for thoughts of poverty are the chains that keep you bound to poverty. Mental chains may be invisible but they imprison you nevertheless. You must and you can break through, overcome, move beyond these mental barriers. You must open your hand. Repeat the new truth you created in Step 3 for strength, think of how much you do have, think of others with far less, and give thanks with your gift.
True financial freedom is a powerful state of mind, a state of being, and it comes from following all nine steps toward financial freedom. When you have reached this seventh step, and feel free to give from what you have and what you are creating, purely and from the heart, you are nearly free. With your offerings you are participating in the flow of wealth, which, I’ve discovered, is never-ending. It isn’t how much you have that creates a sense of freedom. It’s how you feel about what you have, or don’t have, that either keeps you prisoner or sets you free—which is the eighth step to financial freedom.
WHEN THE THINGS that occupy us so intensely in the present have receded into the past, we look back at these events, which produce such turmoil and pain, with an entirely different eye. How often have you heard, for example, of someone who is devastated by being fired, only to land a much better job and end up happier? Or of someone whose spouse leaves her, and who decides—one, two, five years later—that it was the best thing that could have happened to her? Or of someone who emerges from a serious illness with a wisdom and appreciation of life that he had never had before? The passage of time always offers a new perspective. “If only I knew then what I know now.” Haven’t you ever uttered these words? Time can reveal many lessons, but often it takes us too long to listen. The eighth step to financial freedom is about understanding and accepting the natural cycles of money—as it ebbs and flows through our lives, sometimes in harmony, sometimes in discord, much like the cycles of our bodies, our planet—and the constant up- and-down movement of the economy you read about in the newspapers.
It is so important to learn to accept that your own money will also have its ups and downs. No matter how carefully you plan—even if you do every financial thing right—money, like every other living thing, isn’t always going to behave in ways you can predict. Sometimes you’ll have more than you expected, and at other times, money will flow out and you’ll have less than you thought. There may be a time when you have money in the stock market and it goes down dramatically. Or maybe you suddenly inherit a valuable piece of property. Perhaps you are downsized from your job without warning—or given a surprise promotion. I’ve seen this kind of thing happen with my clients again and again. You think your financial life is rolling along a certain track and boom, you’re going in a different direction.
These transitions can be exciting, or often scary, but they are all part of the natural cycles of life—and money. In Step 8, there are two lessons to remember about these natural ups and downs.
First, you must always take the long view of your financial future. If you have taken the steps outlined in this book, the setbacks you may have today or next year will not keep you from financial freedom. In order for you to create what is in your power to create, you must believe that you can and you will.
Second—and for some people this may be more difficult to do than anything else I have told you so far—you must believe that everything that happens is positive, if you are willing to let it be.
I know some of you are going to say, “Suze, how can it be a positive thing if my husband leaves me and cleans out my bank account?”“How can it be a positive thing if I lose all my savings in a stock market crash?” Please understand, I am not saying such events won’t be tragic and painful; I have been through some of them myself, and I know how hard they can be. But I also have learned that they can, if we are open to them, teach us lessons and give us gifts that we would never have found at more comfortable times. Things that seem almost unbearable as they’re happening to you can even, in the long run, lead to riches you never imagined.
This is a very simple truth but it has tremendous power. That is how it got its reputation with our grandmothers. If you can believe that somehow everything happens for the best and hold firm to this belief, especially during troubled times or when you undergo what appear to be setbacks in your life, then you will be able to draw the good out of any situation. You will be looking for the benefit, the hidden treasure, and you will be able to profit from even the toughest experience.
I’ve heard it said that when you first have a dream for yourself, you think it’s totally impossible. As time goes on, you’ll think it’s highly improbable. In the end, you will know it was inevitable all along. Remember to remember your power— everything you’ve learned with these steps to financial freedom—and put it all into practice every day, because in the grand scheme of life, you’ll never really know how things are meant to turn out until they turn out. And when is that? When they turn out as they’re meant to turn out, you’ll know it.
I learned this from watching the life of my dad.
Please think about your entire financial history. Try to remember all the worst things that have happened to you. Think back to how you felt—tense, afraid, paralyzed, angry, determined to prevail, whatever the emotions were at the time; there may have been several emotions at once. Remember the entire sequence of events. What happened before the crisis to set it off? What was the crisis itself like? How did the crisis resolve itself? What elements of it seemed crucial at the time, and do they still seem important now? How did it change your life? Write down the story if it will help you remember, or pull out any old notes or papers about it, to help you remember how you felt at the time. Here are a few questions to trigger your memories:
Did you ever not get a job you wanted badly?
Did you ever quit a job or get fired without knowing where your next penny was coming from?
i Have you ever lost a lot of money on an investment?
Have you ever had a business deal that you worked hard to put together fall to pieces at the last minute?
Have you ever had a relationship break up and, in addition to the grief you suffered, found yourself also very worried about money?
H Have you ever had a friendship end over money?
f When and why in your life were you the most frightened about money?
Now, let me ask you this: Have there come any gains from any of these losses? Didn’t any of your misfortunes turn out, over time, to be the best thing that could possibly have happened to you? Didn’t the gains come in ways you could never have predicted? You can turn the same exercise around and do it backward—review events that seemed to you at the time like lucky breaks—and I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that these lucky breaks sometimes brought with them problems or heartaches you never expected. Did that mean they weren’t really lucky? No—it means they were part of the cycle, and the cycle is natural. Gains and losses aren’t flukes, or curses; they are built in, like the doors and windows in a house; and they both have the capacity to bring us closer to the sort of life we long for.
In my own case, I know that my greatest periods of genuine growth came from the not-so-good times. What I got was more than just practical learning, though God knows there was plenty of that and it was very important. Still, it was the times of having nothing that taught me how much I really did have. They taught me to be grateful and to have faith in the natural rhythms of money and life. That inner knowing is the essence of the eighth step.
It is in this step where we must really take the leap and believe that our own inner knowledge and beliefs are what truly create financial freedom. If you want money in your life, then you must welcome it, be open to it, and treat it with respect. Your beliefs and your attitude are what will make you feel rich, feeling free to believe in yourself, knowing that you will take the right actions with your money, no matter how much money you have or do not have today and knowing that everything really does happen for the best.
Next time you feel that bad luck has struck you again, I hope you’ll remember my dad’s simple phrase—maybe yes, maybe no. If you can face your misfortune and ask yourself how you can find the gift, the lesson, in what is upsetting you now, then you are rich despite the setback. And you are only one last step away from true financial freedom.
Now IT IS TIME to answer the question, What is true wealth, true financial freedom? This question is the real bottom line of life and each one of us must address it, regardless of the bottom line that shows up each month on our bank statements. Why? Because the quality of our lives does not depend only on how we accumulate, save, and spend our money. True financial freedom lies in defining ourselves by who and what we are, not by what we do or do not have. You are the person you are right now. We cannot measure our self-worth by our net worth.
I have a friend named Ruth whom I love dearly. Now ninety years old, she’s the most extraordinary woman I’ve ever met. She received her Ph.D. in ancient Greek literature from Yale at a time when that was still a rare achievement for a woman, and has spent her life learning, teaching, reading, and living.
She was married for most of her life to Leon, whom she loved deeply. After he died some years ago, she came to me for financial advice. For all her education, she had always left their finances to Leon, and she knew that now she would have to take control herself. After we added all the numbers, she understood that she had far more money than she had imagined she would. She seemed relieved at the news but strangely untouched by it; her money, I would come to learn, has very little to do with who Ruth is.
As our friendship grew, she and I would discuss her finances—and everything else under the sun—every single Wednesday over lunch. There is not a thing that, to this day, I can’t talk to Ruth about. She is so wise, so profoundly contented with who she is, that simply being in her presence restores me in a way that’s hard to describe in words. I feel that she lives in a state of grace, and that whoever is in her presence is touched by it, too.
In recent years, Ruth grew weaker and she finally decided to give up her house. She chose to move into a life-care community, where you deposit a large sum of money, pay a monthly maintenance, and receive whatever nursing or medical care you need. We had invested well over the years, and Ruth had more than enough money to stay in her own house with live-in nursing care, which was what I had thought she would want to do—but her inner voice told her she wanted the home. We packed her books and journals, some souvenirs from her travels, her photographs, her tapes of Leon’s lectures, all the things that matter to her, and she moved in.
Ruth to this very day still exudes that state of contentment, of grace, which makes her seem stronger, as if her body weren’t beginning to fail her. Her nieces visit her, as do the friends she has still and some of her former students; she and I still have lunch on Wednesdays. Not long ago, I asked her how it felt to be growing more frail. “Suze,” she said, “my future is so tiny and my past and present are so rich. It surprises me to say this, but I’m not afraid. I’m truly happy and content just as I am.” I believed her absolutely.
Ruth’s freedom is in the life she has led and the love she knows now. Within herself she knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that she is rich, not just in money, but in the realm of true wealth, where nothing she has can be taken away from her. Though she’s in weakening health, at ninety, every day she feels rich and free, even strong—and the irony is that her real wealth has nothing to do with her money.
If you today could foresee your last days, if you were on your deathbed right now—and one day you will be, believe me—do you think you would be there wishing you had more money? Or wishing that you were vastly rich in the way my friend Ruth is?
Please find a time when you will be alone in your house for at least an hour. While everyone is gone, spend that hour inhabiting, really inhabiting, your house. Pretend, for a while, that your house is a store. Walk around, and imagine that you were gorng to be putting a price tag on every item in this store. You know what you paid, when they were brand-new, for your sofa, refrigerator, washing machine, dining room table, dresser, and three-year-old car. What do you think they would be worth now? Affix the imaginary price tags to these items based on what they would be worth today if your life really were a store.
Now stop to examine the items that really matter to you, the items that resonate with meaning and memories, the items that tug at your heartstrings. Those tools your dad wanted you to have when he died. The funny lamp you and your first lover bought when you fell in love and thought, in those days, that anything was possible. Your small daughter’s stuffed animals, all lined up on a shelf. Family photos. A wedding ring. The painting over the mantel that was the first art you ever bought. Your mother’s jewelry box and porcelain teapot. Your diary. The scuffed-up desk you’ve worked at since you were a teenager.
What kind of a price tag would you put on these items? What you’re really asking is, What kind of price tag can you put on your life?