I realized something this morning. Everybody wants more money.
Drove the Audi R8 new coffee shop this morning that a friend recommended.
I assumed by the name of the shop that it was, for generalizations, like a hipster hippie kind of coffee joint. I pull up and that’s exactly what it was.
Dreads, facial piercings. All that.
Not in any judgmental way. They’re super nice and smiling. Just for narrative stereotyping back to the money thing.
Sometimes I don’t like driving this car because of the attention. And sometimes I love it for the attention. But really it’s because it inspires other people.
What was fascinating was the exchange at the coffee shop.
The reason why I give the generalizations is because those types of people are societally stereotyped as the people that are usually not the ones that you associate with striving for high income. All of that is up to interpretation of what volume and definition that means, but they usually come across as chill and content.
Yet, this morning was one of the most financially motivated conversations I’ve had in a long time.
As I pull up one girl says, “I love your car!”
Then another girl pokers he head out and says, “That’s my Audi A3 over there. Want to race?”
We all laugh and are joking about the materialism of the car, but then a guy, who I assume is the owner, pokes his head out too.
This shop is tiny. It’s literally a trailer only. And three heads are peepin’ out of it.
He goes, “Bro! What do you do for a living?!”
I said I own a marketing company and he says, “Oh, that’s awesome. We’re right in the middle of building a new site and restructuring the entity.”
Gave him my info and told him I’m happy to help or point him in the right direction.
The vibe of all three of them was super motivated, right? It’s like they’re looking at that as a perception of “that dude has figured out what we’re now walking into.” Just from rolling up in a nice car.
I was just thinking about sometimes I get insecure talking about money. Not in the sense scarcity or versus abundance, but of external judgement.
It’s never me posting as flexes. It’s always about the spotlight that it shines on other people.
But I do get nervous sometimes that people will interpret that it’s about me me me. What it’s really about is the impact that success has on other people.
It got me thinking that everybody wants more money, whether they want to admit it or not.
They just get insecure of external judgement, too. The reality is everyone wants more money, either:
- they want/need money for survival
- next tier is wanting money for affluence
Beyond that it usually splits to
- wanting more more because they’re a greedy sociopath think money is everything
- or you understand the impact that it has and you want for charity, philanthropy, and impact
I often try in my head in some dialogue to justify money. Not for myself but to proactively blunt external judgement.
It was a cool exchange this morning with a where you could just see they’re like, “Hell yeah! Money! Let’s go!” While being chill. That’s how I hope other people see me.
Another example was when we finished the mural at the office building. I was pulling up to drop some stuff off and just happened to get there right when the owner of the mural painting company was cleaning up the last of the supplies.
She says “Great timing. Do you mind doing me a favor and doing a little video for me?”
I did this little video testimonial and said how great they were, and just spoke to the heart of why I wanted to evangelize my wife and kids by painting them on the building.
I also talked about how the feedback of buying a building to be an incubator for aspiring entrepreneurs has already inspired some.
A comment on one of my posts about the mural was like, “Dude, that’s genius. Because if you think about it most people would go and try to make a building super fancy and bougie to try and impress people. And you just did you. You just paint your family on the building! Why not? And that’s probably going to inspire more people than a fancy building. Because who buys a building and is like ‘I’m just going to do what I want.'”
I was talking about that on the video testimonial, get done, and she goes, “You know what? That… I want a hug on that one.”
Because it was a real candid video. She goes on saying I was great to work with, her team loved me, loved the vision, I bought them food and dropped off drinks, etc.
She says usually the types of the people they deal with are eccentric. She says, “And you’re not.”
The context and the way she said it was acknowledging I have disposable income and freedom, but she sees me still as humble. It felt good to hear that.
To know that I can do the things that I want to do financially, while maintaining some grounding, while also supporting other small businesses financially, but also interpretively making an impact on them just by living my life how I want to live my life.
Bit of a word vomit, but all to say…
Want money? Get it.
Do you.
