We learn the most when things go wrong. When there is pain as you look back in your past, learn to sit with sadness and reflect on it. Then let it go. Melancholy is a great source of creativity. “Life is going to want to shit on you. Let it. Use it.”
There are things you cannot change. That is the path you are on. I do not like the idea of living with regret, but I do like meditating on my past. Thinking about my stories, and putting that in the context of other people.
Stories and money as a form of communication. Reflections on stories change as we change. Part of my story is Apartheid in South Africa. I refuse to let go of History. Because it is such an important source of understanding. We carry all this knowledge with us. Some written, some aural, some in the way we dance, the way we make our art, and the way we build community.
Part of being human is this beautiful, deep, painful, glorious, connection to everything. The future, the past, and other people’s now. That source of understanding gives us a powerful view of the why of why we make our decisions. I believe that life does not have meaning. We give it meaning. We create meaning. Books like Victor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning” and David Duncan’s “The River Why”. See what your values are. See what is important to you. Then create a bolder life.
Positive ambition should start with reflection on what drives you. What are your cornerstone stories? What is your narrative? How do you become the editor of your life? Being able to take a slight step back from what is going on, and say, “That character? Not so much. I am going to change that. The plot was leading to this point, but actually it could lead here if you think about it differently.” There are all sorts of techniques to have a sense of autonomy resonate through your story. That starts with understanding what your drivers are.
There is obviously politics. It is not just about you. No one is separate from the rest of the world. You want your values system to reflect how you operate with other people. Everything we do is about relationships. It is about connection to other people. It does not matter what your job is, most of the dynamic will boil down to how you interact with other people. Emotional Intelligence, Social Intelligence, and Cultural Intelligence become vital. You get smart people who are clueless about how to engage with other humans. They are not going to make money. Money is made by solving problems for people. Who you know, networks, and trust are important because money is a story.
We do not have full knowledge of other people’s stories. It helps to build an environment that supports repeated interaction. Connected stories. The hardest part of making money is building a relationship with decision makers with money. Finding clients. A decision maker will do the hard work of deciding they trust you enough to give you money. That is emotional work. They do not need to do that initial heavy lifting again if trust is maintained. Build deep relationships. Superficial relationships will leave you constantly searching for new clients. If you are serving them once, but then maybe they never want to see you again, because you have not acted with integrity, and they regret their initial decision.
Even after money has changed hands, consent has a memory. Informed consent has hope for the future. When things do not work out, that affects the story of the relationship. If you do not act in a way where someone is still happy with the decision once the money has swapped bank accounts, you are going to struggle. One mental tool is to think how you would act in a world with full transparency, zero transaction costs, and perfect replicability. Where if you could do something, someone else would be able to do it immediately afterwards. Why would the person still deal with you? That is all about relationships and trust.
The world is complicated, ambiguous, and uncertain. People will want to deal with you because you become an extension of them as a decision-maker. They give money to you because you are them, in the way that you become a part of their problem solving. You become a part of their container.
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