The relationship with money is something that is super personal, in a way that almost leave people uncomfortable.

How much money do you need to live?

What if the right amount of Fuck You money?

Are you comfortable in sharing how much you make per year?

What is your worth?

I don’t know if you are a Reel fan on Facebook or Insta, but there is a trend now asking people “what do you do for living” when you see them driving a very expensive car, or an even more basic collection of videos asking young people “how much money is in your bank account?”. Have you seen these?

Truth is, it’s seems really hard to find any other measure of well being other than physical wealth (meaning, money).

I always say “this is a problem that money can solve” when it comes down to something that you can fix (maybe in an expensive fashion) by simply paying the proper tool, replacements person or good instrumental to to make the problem go away. Thing is: that’s NOT it, even for a money-solvable issue.

True story now: someone I have met, 74 years old, with a very wealthy situation and pension, (in the region of 15k monthly), he decided that Real Estate was the passion he wanted to cultivate after retirement. The last bid he made was for a building in Lisbon for a little over 700k, and the nature of the deal (public auction) imposed a cash payment 15 days after the closure of the online auction. He DID NOT have all the cash. He needed to sell one of the other apartments he had, but yet he used the money as if he could print some more. Some of us would call it reckless, other ballsy, other simply a calculated risk. He ended up selling for a much lower price one of the other assets he owned, so that the deal could go through (as he had to sell cash as well).

Reckless?

Sloppy?

Cautious?

Unaware?

Emotional?

You can understand a lot about someone’s personality by the way they relate with money, and actually – think of it – from every aspect of their relationship with it.

How do they spend it?

How do they save it?

How detached are they from it?

How strong they identify themselves with the ownership of it?

How open do they talk about it?

Some of this is cultural, granted. An US person would take pride in mentioning numbers, sales, salaries, margin, whilst in France, for example, it’s almost shameful to share the fact you are making a good living. In the same way, the culture of “show off” funded with debt (and money you actually don’t have) is also a sad behaviour I encounter a lot.

I already talked about the “hunger” in a previous post, and probably the single most important fact that allows anyone to stay rooted about the relationship with money is whether or not you actually lived, on your own skin, what does it mean to actually make a living for yourself.

There is no employee, entrepreneur, executive, CEO or civil servant distinction here; the moment you actually had to struggle because the lack of it would impact your existence (in several nuances of course, not just to buy bread and cheese in order not to starve) you start developing your own relationship with it, which is structurally different than the one you have if it was given you for granted.

It’s also very common to confuse frugality with stinginess, minimalism with cheapness , and I am fascinated by the fact that it seems that the richest people on earth (and I had the chance to interact with few of them, in different capacities) end up wanting to use their money to do good and leave an impactful trace of their existence on this planet … something you don’t really need a billion dollar to do it, after all.

I confess, I have my own personal battle with managing the way I want to manage my money: why is it a battle? Because it changes all the time, because I am also tempted to enter the race, because I want to trade money for TIME and FREEDOM only, but sometimes I indulge in the “you never know what can happen, keep hustling”, because I use the excuse of “not having a proper pension plan” to probably work more than what I should, or what I need.

But what do i need that is THE question: both my parents are living an incredibly joyful life with a pension that would barely pay a rent in a big European city. But they are NOT in a big European city, they are in a small, beautiful, sunny, joyful town with an amazing summer and surrounded by friends, living a life of service and also enjoying their family life (including their children and grandsons). They are FAR from being bored, useless, still, lazy and miserable, they are actually the opposite of all that.

Would they have a different life if they had 5M EUR in their bank? I am not sure. Would they hire a jet instead of making a weekend bus trip with their church friends? I don’t think so.

What is the life you want to have that is NOT depending from the money you make or made?

If only we could all answer to this ONE question without being sloppy in the decisions we make with money, probably the world would enjoy more smiling people.

Rebelliously yours

Matteo