I’m just going to come right out and make my point. People who feel worthy of money attract wealth. People who feel unworthy of money attract lack.
Earlier this week I was tweeting back & forth with someone about whether or not being a billionaire is, in and of itself, proof that someone such as Elon Musk does not love his fellow humans. This person’s take was that Musk can’t possibly “love us” because he’s a billionaire. His original tweet got my attention for a number of reasons. Not the least of which is because there seems to be a narrative in this country now more than ever that being rich and successful means you lack empathy and compassion. Needless to say, this opinion emanates almost entirely from people who struggle with money.
My response tweet was, “This makes absolutely 0% sense. Billionaires are incapable of love? Wealth means you can’t love others? It’s just preposterous. Change your mindset. It’s not working for you”.
Another fellow came along and tweeted, “Studies show that more money equals less empathy” and then pasted this article as proof:
https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2015/01/why_rich_people_dont_care_about_you.html
I read the article but not before I responded back that the “two things I mistrust most in the world are when sentences start with:
1 – Trust me….
2 – Studies show that…”
The point of the article, of course, is that the more money you make/the more money you have, the more entitled you become. This entitlement shows up as lack of empathy. Literally your central nervous system becomes desensitized to the plight of other humans. However in the article it admits that those whom are considered truly wealthy by today’s standards are twice as generous as any other socio-economic group. Wait. What gives?
I’m not buying this study. I’m not buying that the mathematic equation is +money = <empathy. In fact, my belief is the math equation is more like this:
+worthiness = +money AND +money = +focus
Let’s talk about the first equation.
+worthiness = +money
In this equation, the worthiness comes first. If someone truly feels worthy of money, they will tend to find a way to attract it, thereby proving their worthy feelings true. If someone feels unworthy of money, they will tend to find a way to repel it, thereby proving their unworthy feelings true. Either way, we as humans will prove out our feelings about ourselves in almost every case.
Think about it… Do you believe you are a lucky person or an unlucky person? If you believe you’re lucky, you have good luck right? And if you believe you’re unlucky, you have bad luck. I’m here to tell you luck is a product of your belief about how lucky or unlucky you are.
Similarly, the quality of your most important relationships are a product of how much you love yourself and how worthy of love you believe you are.
Health is a product of how healthy you believe you are and how worthy of good health you believe yourself to be.
And money is a product of how worthy or unworthy of money you feel.
Now let’s talk about the second equation.
+money = +focus
Wealthy people tend to be selective about where they spend their time and energy. Wealthy people have mastered focus. They are very in touch with the people and causes they care about most. And this is where they will invest their efforts, mindshare and money.
My point is, if you pass a wealthy person on the street, it’s not that they don’t care about you. Are there people out there who we’d point to and label as wealthy who are not empathetic? You know it. There are also people out there who we’d point to and label as impoverished who exhibit the same non-empathetic behavior. I don’t make excuses for selfish people but this behavior likely stems from unresolved trauma they experienced in the past.
To wrap it up, wealthy people believe they are worthy of their wealth. If that’s triggering for you, ask yourself how worthy you believe you are when it comes to money. My guess is you feel unworthy of money and you struggle to attract it. Further, wealthy people are focused on the people and causes they care about most. In any given moment, that may or may not be you. That doesn’t mean that the wealthy person isn’t working hard to make a difference in someone else’s life at this very moment. In fact, I would argue that’s most likely exactly what they’re doing.