382. Rich People

I’m Jody Moore and this is Better Than Happy, episode 382, Rich People.

Did you know that you can live a life that’s even better than happy? My name is Jody Moore. I’m a master certified life coach and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. And if you’re willing to go with me I can show you how. Let’s go.

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Okay, so today we’re going to talk about rich people, rich people. This month in Be Bold for those of you in Be Bold and you know that we are working on our money mindset, and our money circumstances, and our money results in our lives. And it’s work that I love doing. It’s an area that I find to be so fascinating, money because of how emotional so many of us are about money, and how much work we have to do, and how many thoughts we have that sound like responsible, good, righteous, loving or at least really realistic reasonable thoughts to have that are toxic.

And how many thoughts that might on the surface sound like not useful thoughts, can be useful to some people in some circumstances. So there’s a lot of things that go along with this topic of money. If you’re in Be Bold, make sure that you catch the workshop I just taught, because we talked about debt. We talked about money coming in, money going out. We talked about inheriting money, paying for necessities of life versus paying for luxuries. We talked about so many things.

There’s one area that I wanted to dive into that we touched on a little bit in the workshop but I wanted to go a little deeper here in the podcast and offer it to the larger audience and that is our thoughts about rich people. Because oftentimes when we do coaching on money we’ll talk about our thoughts about our own situation and our whatever scarcity or worry we might have around money. And then when we talk about others we often talk about not judging people who seem to have less. But what about the judgment that we have of people that have more than us, is that serving us?

And I am just here to simply plant some questions in your head in order to give you the opportunity to become more aware of your current beliefs around money. I’m not here to tell you there’s a right or wrong way to think about anything actually. So let me just preface with that. But I do want to stir things up a little bit because here is the reason why we stir things up. I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable. I’m just trying to give you the opportunity to choose consciously what you want to believe.

And I’m trying to point out opportunities where you may be able to make yourself and your life better by questioning things and stirring some things up. Here’s what I mean. You may be able to become more of the person you want to be and have more of the experience you want to have if we make some more conscious prefrontal cortex decisions about how we view certain things. So let’s just get into it because I know I’m talking in theories and it may not be making a lot of sense to some of you.

So let’s talk about rich people for a minute. What is a rich person? What makes someone rich? That statement alone, those two words in and of themselves go in the thought line of the model. She’s rich, he’s rich is a thought, it’s not a fact because when I say, someone’s rich you have an idea of what that means, of how much money they have, or make, or what their life looks like. I have my own version of an idea of what that means. We are not going to have the same idea most likely. There will be a lot of different varieties anyway of what we think that means.

What makes someone rich? It’s just a story we tell. This person has x amount dollars could be a fact, or this person’s net worth is this amount we might put in the C line. But he’s rich, she’s rich, just a thought. Now, here is my next question I want you to ask yourself this. What other thoughts come up for you and what emotions come up for you when I say the word ‘rich’. That word in and of itself is a pretty emotional word for a lot of people.

Do you have negative thoughts and feelings, if I call someone rich, do you have a negative perception of them? Do you make assumptions about them? Some of the common ones we hear are they’re greedy. They only care about themselves. They’re selfish. Or maybe there are thoughts like they must be really smart, they must work a lot. They probably work a lot. What assumptions do you have? What judgments do you have when I say someone’s rich?

Now, here’s my other question, do you put yourself in that category, are you rich? And if you are, how do you feel about that description that you’ve given yourself. Do you have a positive feeling when you think the thought, I’m rich or do you have a negative feeling? Do you have a little bit of shame, or guilt, or something else that comes along with it? If someone else were to call you rich, like that woman, she’s rich, what would you make that mean? Do you consider that because it’s not a fact, it’s an observation, do you consider it a compliment?

Do you consider it an insult or none of the above? What do you make it mean? Again, I’m not here to tell you what you should or that there’s a right way. I just want you to notice and question it and ask if it’s serving you. Is it making you more of the person you want to be and creating more of the life you want? What is the life you want? What is the life you want? I hope that it’s mostly the life you have but do you want to challenge yourself to grow in other ways? Do you want to have new experiences? Do you want to try new things?

Do you want to have some different circumstances, some different, do you want to meet new people? Do you want to explore new parts of the world? Do you want to live somewhere different? Do you want a different living condition? Do you want to spend less time doing certain tasks in your life and more time doing other things? I don’t know. What is the life you want? What I do know is that money makes it easier to live the life that you want. I don’t know that any of us would disagree with that, maybe someone would, but I think most people agree with that.

Money makes it easier to live your life the way that you want to, let’s say I want to spend more time with my kids, I want to just spend a lot of time with them. Maybe I want to be able to go into the schools and volunteer on Halloween party day, and I want to go help the teacher, and I want to be at all of their sporting events. And I want to just spend as much time with my kids as I can. If I have some money I can spend even more time with my kids. I can pay someone actually to do all the laundry, and all the housework.

I could pay someone to do all kinds of tasks that I might want to have done. I could pay someone to grocery shop for me. I could pay someone to cook dinner and again I’m not saying you should. I’m just saying, if your goal is spending time with your kids, more money equals you can spend more time with your kids, less money means I’m going to be investing some time in some of the other things that I want to see happen in my life. Are you with me? Obviously money makes it easier to solve a lot of different problems. Money opens up opportunity in terms of travel and things like that.

But I’m putting this out there because I think sometimes we think that having more money will turn us into someone we don’t want to be. And I just want you to question that assumption, is that really true? Or does more money in fact just emphasize and magnify who you are. And who you are is something you get to choose. Who you are is not a stagnant constant thing. Who you are is changing. So let’s say, I think this is at the root of a lot of people’s fear when it comes to making more money is they think, I’m going to become greedy or selfish if I make a lot of money.

So let’s just say that you start making more money in some way, you get a lot of money, and there is that dopamine hit in the brain that’s like, what, that was kind of awesome, getting a lot of money at once in that way that we did. We should do more of that. This is the danger because dopamine does cause us to somewhat override the rational long term thinking part of the brain in the pursuit of more dopamine. There is that component to it.

And money has that effect on us, a big hit of money will give us a concentrated amount of dopamine and the brain will say, “That was awesome, we should try to get more of that.” And then we sometimes make questionable decisions. That is real. However, that is something that is manageable. If you notice yourself becoming greedy, or starting to prioritize money over people, or integrity, or honesty, or generosity, or things, you can interrupt it. And the earlier you notice it and interrupt it, the easier it is to override.

But I don’t think that making more money is this runaway train to selfishness and greed like many of our minds believe. I in fact think that more money can also emphasize your positive traits. If you are generous and you have more money you can be even more generous and more frequently in a bigger way if you have more money. If you value relationships and people you can meet more people and have more relationships and be more connected in those relationships with more money if you choose to use money to help you to do so.

So we have to be careful about thinking that we are not in control of who we’re being. We always get to choose who we’re going to be. So that’s why I’m not a fan of you delegating your thoughts, your feelings and your behaviors to any circumstance outside of you. Money doesn’t make you who you are, your choices about how you’re going to think about yourself, about other people and about the world and then what you choose to do from there make you who you are. And that is within your control.

So we talked a little bit about rich people, about being labelled rich, about some of the fears around rich people. I want you to also notice your judgments of ‘rich people’. Do you have thoughts about them being wrong in some way? We just had a coaching session in Be Bold for those of you that were there that I felt like was really insightful and powerful. So I want to thank the woman that came and got coached. We’ll keep her name anonymous here on the podcast.

But she shared that she notices that she believes people with money forget what it’s like to not have money and that that’s a bad thing, that in some way that makes you less compassionate. That causes you to say things that may be offensive or what have you. Is we just take specific circumstances and we break out the facts from the thoughts because when we start operating in generalizations like this then it all becomes very ambiguous and hard to wrap our arms around.

If my thought is, people with money forget what it’s like to not have money, that’s not kind and compassionate, then okay, definitely we could prove that true. There’s plenty of examples of that in the world. But we could also prove the opposite true. There are plenty of examples of people that have a lot of money that haven’t forgotten and aren’t just oblivious to the fact that not everyone’s in their same situation. And that are actually like I said, very generous, maybe even more so and more compassion because they have money to enhance their generosity and their compassion.

So then how do we know what’s true? Well, we take specific circumstances and we ask ourselves questions like, who do I want to be in this scenario? Because in this particular coaching for example the woman said, “Well, I just don’t want to be the kind of person that says things that are offensive to someone who doesn’t have money because ‘I’ve forgotten’, if I forget what it’s like to be in their situation.

I want to be the kind of person who says something to someone struggling financially like, “It’s okay, you’re going to get through it. I’ve been there, I know what it’s like. It’s going to get better, trust me.” Because we want to make that person feel validated and comforted. Okay, so that’s all coming from a good place. The only problem with it is we don’t know if that person’s going to interpret it that way. That person may say, “Why are you talking to me in such a patronizing condescending way?”

We don’t know how that person’s going to react even if our intentions are good. So instead of making decisions from trying to think we can control the world we want to decide what feels like me becoming my best version of me and who I want to be. And if you want to be someone who’s compassionate and considerate of others, you can be that person. And having more money will make you a more emphasized version of that person if you choose to navigate it as such.

So on the other hand, too, I want to go back to this statement that if we make too much money we forget what it’s like to not have money, is that really a bad thing? Maybe it is, again I’m just planting questions. What if it’s not? What if you can’t suffer enough to minimize someone else’s suffering? What if it could be equally true anyway that you believing that money is fun to make, and available, and possible for everyone, could empower someone to believe those same thoughts? We’re all borrowing thoughts from one another all the time.

We borrow beliefs about money from people and we borrow beliefs about ourselves and our own abilities from people. And if I offer to someone, “Are you crazy? Money is so easy. You could make so much money. You’re smart, you’re capable, if you choose to be committed, and focused, and driven, you are capable of making any amount of money you want to.” I genuinely believe that’s true. That’s been my experience for me and I am not special, and magical, and extra smart and if I can do it, you can do it.

And that person may say. “You’ve forgotten, Jody Moore, how hard it was for you to make that money. It was hard. You think it was easy now because you’re looking back with that Monday morning quarterback vision.” I’m saying, “Okay, but what if that’s not a bad thing?” What if people choose to borrow that belief system from me that making money could be easy and fun and that it’s possible for even me?

Again that goes back to I can’t make the decision from how they’re going to react because some people might go, “That’s insensitive, she’s operating from privilege. She doesn’t know what it’s like to be me.” And other people will say, “What? That’s so cool. I’m going to try believing that too.” That was my experience, I borrowed beliefs from people that were much more abandon about money than myself. And I allowed myself to borrow their beliefs. And I’m so grateful to them from being abundant about money.

If they would have been like, “I know, it’s really hard. You’ve got to save your money, money’s hard.” That’s kind of like what most of the rest of the world offers us. That kept me stuck in believing that that was true. But seeing people choose to believe otherwise gave me permission, I’d borrow their beliefs and then I’d changed my results and therefore then changed my next circumstances with money.

So sometimes I still notice myself having judgment of people that have more money than me or people who talk about or view money differently than I do, I do sometimes. I still have thoughts, and opinions, and judgments of other people and I’m not proud of that because I don’t think judgment of other people is useful ever, even if it sounds righteous, it sounds selfless, it sounds like it’s coming from having better priorities, whatever you might say.

We all have really powerful justifications for our stories and thoughts, you guys, we all do. I still know it’s not serving me and I still have some of them. And do you know what I do when I notice those come up? I don’t push them away. I don’t shame myself for having those thoughts or judgments. I don’t tell myself I shouldn’t be thinking this. I pause and go, “That’s interesting. I wonder what’s there. I wonder what’s behind this?” What do I want to learn about myself here?

There is something interesting, my judgment of this other person is in some way holding me back from becoming my best self. I promise that is true. All of my judgments of other people are simply thoughts that are in some way minimizing my ability to become my best self. And I’ll never get rid of all of them in this lifetime. I will always have some more to be working on. But as I work on them I get to move on to new ones that I work on and that’s, I think the whole point of this life. I think that’s how we’re becoming more like our heavenly parents. It’s just that we’ll never run out of them in this lifetime.

So when I notice my thoughts come up of, oh, look at me thinking and feeling whatever I’m thinking and feeling. I can just hear some of you thinking like what, Jody, what are your opinions? Well, sometimes I have thoughts like isn’t it boring just thinking and talking about money all the time? I like money as much as the next person but it’s just not very inspiring. I’m not inspired by money.

And I don’t know that that thought is problematic in and of itself. However it comes with a lot of follow-up thoughts like it would be better if you were inspired more the way I am. I’m inspired by human beings and their own journeys, and their evolution, and their goodness, and their ability to change and do hard things. And I’m inspired by people. I’m not inspired by money which has a little bit of judgment behind it for me anyway. It’s better to be inspired by people than money.

I do sometimes have a thought of people with a lot of money of they’re so out of touch. I coached the woman today who was like, “They forget what it’s like to not have money.” I don’t have that one but I do have like, they’re just completely out of touch with reality. And again, that (thought behind it) has judgment like that’s kind of too bad. They don’t know what it’s like to be a real person in the real world. They’re sort of disconnected as though that’s bad.

So those are just a couple that come to mind for me. But again I’m just like, “This is fascinating.” I’m not in a hurry. Maybe I’ll keep those thoughts forever. I don’t know. But I’m just aware of it has something to do with my own money limitations that are preventing me, money just happens to be the subject of it. But you could substitute money for body image, all kinds of things, fame and success, spirituality, your call, your church calling. We can substitute, whatever the thing is for you that is triggering.

Notice, that is about my own work to do on my thoughts about myself, and the world, and other people in general, that’s it. So I like finding those opportunities, that are indicators of where I have some work to do. I think that’s really valuable, I do. But I can’t just switch it right away. I have to just notice it and go, “There is that.” And ideally I’ll start noticing where it’s showing up for me in my life.

Because here’s one thing I know for sure. My judgmental thoughts about people with money is not hurting the people with money, it’s not. Me having those stories and those beliefs doesn’t slow them down very often, it only slows me down. So that’s just good to know. It also doesn’t help the people of the world that don’t have money for me to keep those judgments and thoughts, again, that’s not to say that I’m in a hurry to get rid of them. I just know that there’s not an upside to them. All it is, is me being judgmental and it’s a great indicator that I still have areas to work on myself which I always will, but specifically in the area of money.

Alright, rich people, what is your judgment of them? And what do you have to discover about yourself as you notice it? I’d love to hear what other thoughts or work you have that you want to do with your thoughts about rich people, bring them to me on Instagram. Come to my DMs and share them with me there. I’m @jodymoorecoaching on Instagram or Facebook. I’d love to hear your thoughts about rich people and money. Thanks for joining me today. I’ll see you next time. Have a beautiful rest of your week, bye bye.

Hey there, if you enjoy this podcast or even if you just find that it sort of piques your curiosity, or it makes you think, you’re going to love the book that I wrote. It’s called Better Than Happy: Connecting with Divinity Through Conscious Thinking. And it’s available now at Amazon in print or kindle version. Or if you want me to read it to you, head over to audible and grab the audio version. And why not grab a copy for your sister, your best friend, or your mom while you’re there too. Just saying.