Self Improvement Made Easy

I’ve spent a a lot of time talking on the telephone with clients over the last couple of weeks and it’s got me to thinking about why people are so uncertain, anxious, worried and even fearful these days. And why is financial security at the centre of so many people’s thoughts, why are so many people focused on money, making more of it, protecting what they have or thought they had, fearful of not having enough? Indeed, I believe that I would be correct when I say that our current afflictions in the so-called “developed world” are a direct result of an endemic obsession with money. And, unfortunately, this is an obsession fuelled, in part, by “experts” operating in the area in which I’ve been working since 1996 – the self-improvement or personal development “industry”.

I find it very odd that many personal development “gurus” or “better yourself experts” are often almost exclusively focused on money – and making more of it. In other words, DVDs and books like “The Secret”, websites that shout “Treble Your Income” or sell fake $1m bills pander to the self-destructive obsession of the majority of people in this developed world of ours. People are obsessed with having “enough” money – whatever “enough” might mean! Does it, for example, mean something akin to Rockefeller’s idea that “enough” meant “just one more!” – or does it mean something else entirely?

Anyway, back to my point. I’ve done a little research and found that even “self-help classics” like Florence Schovel-Shinn’s 1926 “The Game of Life and How to Play It” – which I recommend to all my clients – places a disproportionate emphasis on money. Money raises its ugly head all over the place in that and, sad to say, most “self-help” books. Even my own book “To Succeed…Just Let Go” wanders into the area of how to make more money. Or perhaps I’m being too harsh on myself because, more to the point, it explains how ample money flows if you do.

However, a few weeks back, after a heart-warming lunch in the stunning surroundings of the French Alpine lakeside town of Annecy, as we wandered along the snow-covered streets, I took one step back and looked at my wife and three children (big children at this stage!) strolling, arm-in-arm ahead of me. That’s what happiness is – that’s what success is all about. Just in that moment.

We’re not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination. We’re not obsessed with money – otherwise, I might work a little more often than I do! But we’ve never run out of the stuff and we have plenty for now. And that’s all anyone needs.
Therefore, let’s get over this obsession with money, financial freedom, passive income, greed – all turns of phrase used by my clients over the last couple of weeks – and let’s start looking at what we have, embracing what we have, savouring the perfect moments that life offers us most of the time, if we’d only open our eyes, minds and hearts to them. Actually, that’s what life is all about.