Editor’s note: This article was first published in May 2015, and its reference to Tony Robbins’ latest book means MONEY: Master the Game (2014), current when this was written.
Money… that “good servant but a bad master”, as Sir Francis Bacon put it. Something capable of stirring the most varied human emotions; something that can be used to create or to destroy; that can fund a company just as easily as it can shape a war; something that doesn’t bring happiness when you have it, but makes you miserable when it’s gone.
Some people even feel guilty for having too much money, while others feel ashamed for not having any.
Some people, for money, do things they don’t really want to do. Others spend their lives chasing money, sacrificing their health, their time, their family, their self-esteem and even their integrity and honesty along the way, all to own a large amount of it.
Of course, other people also sacrifice their time, their health and their family to have a pay cheque at the end of the month that covers their essential expenses.
Ultimately, money is very necessary these days. It is also power, because it can be used to influence people, companies and even governments.
But Tony Robbins, author of Awaken the Giant Within, says in his latest book, “MONEY: Master the Game”, that people don’t really want money; they want the emotions and feelings we believe money can give us.
The feeling of power, freedom, security and peace of mind, and of being able to take care of the people we love. In other words, we are looking for a way to achieve the kind of financial freedom that means never having to worry about a lack of money.
One way or another, any of us can end up enslaved by money. In the end, each of us has to decide whether we want money to be a burden or a game.
After interviewing many of the richest people in the world, Tony Robbins says that for most of them money is a game. Why else would someone go to work 12 hours a day when they already have more than 1 billion in the bank?
This is clearly one of the differences between the rich and everyone else: while a poor person wants to win the lottery so they never have to work again, the billionaire who has a fortune equivalent to 100 lottery jackpots (big ones) thinks every day about how to keep playing the game.
As Tony Robbins reminds us, money is a game that you and your family cannot afford to lose.
And you can’t afford to lose it because money determines whether you can pay your debts or your everyday expenses, take a well-earned break, even if only for two weeks a year, and it could even give you the fuel you need to start your own business if that is your dream or goal, buy a house for your parents or send your children to a good university.
(Read: Everyone has their own business, and that’s something you should never forget)
When these money burdens come to mind, according to Tony Robbins, as other authors have also pointed out, most of us are “wired” to keep earning money through work, and that work isn’t always what we want to do.
What’s more, to feel financially free we should work because we want to (just like billionaires), not because we need to; otherwise money is no longer a game but a burden.
But is it possible for the average person to fulfil this dream?
This is where we come to one of Tony Robbins’s simplest pieces of advice, which we realise may sound simple in theory but is very hard to put into practice. One way or another, it echoes a lot of the advice given by highly successful people.
“If you want to live like the 1%, or simply have the peace of mind of knowing you won’t outlive your savings (financial freedom), you can always find a way to be happy making the money you need. How? The secret to wealth is simple: find a way to do more for others than anyone else does. Be more valuable. Do more. Give more. Serve others more. Be more.
If you find a way to apply this advice, you will have the chance to earn more money, whatever your profession or business, and be happy doing it.
If you are someone who provides more value, gives more and serves people more, it doesn’t matter whether you own a restaurant, work in sales for a company or are the founder of Instagram; by sheer momentum, you are going to earn more.”
That’s where the increasingly popular saying comes from: “Don’t look for a way to make a million; look for a way to help a million people. If you manage it, you’ll make more than a million.”
Now apply these words to other advice from Tony Robbins, who told us about the main ingredient of success (hunger) and also gave us 5 very obvious tips for building wealth the easy way.
Further reading
- What’s the best way to make a million? Millionaires answer
- 4 steps highly successful people take in life
- 6 things the middle class doesn’t quite understand about the rich
- 2 websites for making money from your trade or know-how
Featured image: Steve Jurvetson, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
