 I used to think that money was a problem to be solved. Have you ever thought that before? If I could just solve my money problems, I then could live the life that I want. I could have freedom and fulfillment and joy and just do what I wanna do. That's much more meaningful than having a job or whatever it is that you need to do to, you need to do, you have to do to make money. So in society, that's kind of what we're taught. The media, everything is about if you just get rich, then you could live the life of your dreams. So money becomes seen as an obstacle. You just have to get rid of the money problem. You have to just make the money and that's kind of the thing you have to do before you can really live into your most authentic life. I used to think that because I grew up in the society that teaches that to us. And what happens when we think money just gotta solve that problem and then move on to living a great life? Couple of things happen. One, some people, lots of people take jobs, stay in jobs that they don't love so that on the evenings and weekends, they can live their authentic life because money is just a problem to be solved. They have to keep solving that problem of money during the day so that they can have fun and be themselves, be with the people they want, do what they want evenings and weekends, vacations, right? Or the other possibility, trying to solve the money problem, okay, three possibilities. Second possibility is go buy a lottery ticket and like, oh, I gotta solve the money problem, just buy the lottery tickets and hopefully I'll win or go gamble. And then the third thing, which is what I did, a lot of people do this, is to get into some kind of get rich quick scheme to solve the money problem. Ah, if I, this thing looks like, oh, they tell me I can make money quickly and if I can make lots of money and once I do that, then I can go and live my authentic life. Ah, that's the way to go. Look at all these wonderful, wonderful money making opportunities that I can just get into. Well, I did a lot of that, which made me lose all my money. It made me lose way more money than I ever earned from these money making, so-called money making opportunities, okay? Work at home, schemes or, you know, any kind of business opportunities that sound really amazing. Lost lots of money at doing it and not only did I lose money, I lost a lot of my friends because a lot of these money making opportunities are essentially, you gotta recruit other people to put money into a system and you take some of that money. Now, I'm not saying network marketing is bad. I'm saying that there are lots of hyped up business opportunities that essentially get you to recruit other people to give money into a system that you take some out of, whether it's commissions or whatever it may be. So, what if money is not a problem to be solved? What if we completely shift that perspective and end up with some practical actions that are uplifting and that actually make you money? And that's what I wanna talk about in this video. So, first of all, some essential foundational philosophies, this are psychological principles. Your lack of money is not a real problem. It's not reality. It's not somehow, it is not a scientific fact that you lack money. What is a scientific fact is that you have desires that you have desires that you think can only be fulfilled with money. And when you don't have those desires or when you find more creative ways to fulfill those desires, you no longer lack money. Your money problem is a desire problem. Your money problem is a disconnection with the present moment problem. Your money problem, your lack of money is actually a lack of happiness with what you've already got. I think it's really important to start with that foundation to say that there is no such reality as lack of money. And actually, if I may touch on the whole abundance thinking, I'm not a huge fan of the way that most abundance thinking is taught and law of attraction. If you've ever watched my videos, you know I kind of make fun of that stuff because most people have lost more money doing that kind of stuff than they have made money. So I'm not a fan of how it's usually taught. But in this case, it's real. You think you lack money and that is an illusion. You don't lack money. You have desires that you think money needs, you need money to fulfill. So the first thing that you and I must do, the very first thing is to find some kind of practice, some kind of habit that allows us to reconnect again with our deepest happiness. Because if you're trying to make money in order to be happy, you're on a losing path. I'm sorry to say this. And I don't know if anyone has ever told you this, but I will tell you this and I hope you will remember this again and again. If you're trying to make money so that you can be happy, you are already on a downward spiral to addiction, to greater unhappiness, to manipulating other people, manipulating your own life in a way that you're not going to be deeply satisfied with. You have to first find deep happiness before you can make money in a really happy way. Now, it doesn't mean you have to sell everything you own and go to India and go to a cave and meditate for 10 years and then come back and then we'll talk. No, you can do this right now. And let me show you what I do multiple times a day for 30 seconds. That's all it takes for me anyway. And I stumbled upon this practice. I don't know how long ago it was. It was at least five years ago, maybe longer than that. I stumbled on this practice and I started doing it and I modified it over the years. When I say I stumbled on it, I really literally, no one taught it to me. I think I read various different things. I'm gonna put this together. You may have a different practice do whatever works for you, but here's what I do. 30 seconds multiple times a day. I hold my hands in my heart, feel the heart beating and then I breathe in love and I breathe out complete security. Okay, so I basically take four full breaths, gentle deep breaths and with each breath I'm thinking something. I'm intentionally imagining something. That's what I do, 30 seconds. So in, I imagine love. I imagine that the universe is literally made of love and divine light. Now, I don't know what you believe, but play along here and just imagine what if, I don't know if that's fact scientific. Obviously science says that's not true, but maybe one day science will discover and have subtle enough instruments to be able to detect that maybe, wow. The universe is literally, Adam, we don't know how to describe it, but it is literally made of love and it's literally made of something we're going to call light or divine light or whatever. So that's what I imagine. Every molecule that's floating through my nose and floating around me and exchanging itself with my skin, you know, the universe is raised or whatever. Everything is literally love and divine light and wisdom and I breathe that in. Breathing in molecules of love and divine light and wisdom. And as I breathe out, I give thanks for total security. So think about this. I've been doing this for years, multiple times a day. So no wonder I feel so good. No wonder I feel so secure and happy. Psychologically, completely secure. So I don't have to try to make you do anything, try to perform or be anything other than who I really am in this moment with my connection to my happiness. So breathe in love. I breathe out complete total security because I believe that is the fact of my soul. I believe that's the fact of your soul. I believe that there's nothing we can do to screw it up. We are on an ever upwards path. Now life may look like this, right? Life may like, oh, I'm so happy today and things are going so well and tomorrow it's rainy and bills come in that you didn't expect and a client quits. You forgot a health challenge. Some family member has a very difficult day or life is like this, right? But if you come out to God's perspective, to the souls, you could say the biggest soul, biggest self with the capital, the biggest perspective and look at the destiny of your soul and the trajectory of your soul. It's a lot of little tiny ups and downs but the ultimate path is all the way up. You are becoming wiser. You are becoming more courageous. You are learning how to love more. You are becoming deeply, more deeply happy. You are learning how to be more creative. You are coming into your empowered authentic self with a capital S. Your little self is learning to be the big self with a capital S. That is the reality and that your soul is completely, your path is completely secure. You don't have to worry at all. This life, it's just a blip in the eternity of your soul. It's like, yeah, if Earth has been around for billions of years, right? The universe has been around for was it 13 billion years, I forget. And your soul is gonna live longer than that. Your soul has already perhaps lived longer. I don't know when we were created, but your soul is gonna live longer than the life of the universe right now. And so this very human life is a blip. It's a blip in the reality of your soul's journey because your soul goes on forever. Your consciousness goes on forever. Death is just shedding of this body. Anyway, I'm giving you some of my personal beliefs that allow me to do this practice that feels very authentic to me. You've got to find a practice. If you're an atheist, you've got to find some kind of mindfulness-based stress reduction practice, MBSR practice that allows you to feel really good in this moment. That's all, that's all that means. So the first breath I breathe in love, I breathe out total security. The second breath I breathe in love again and I breathe out joyful playfulness. Joyful playfulness, because I think that's the reality of what I get to do in this life. I get to play joyfully with contribution. Now, let me tell, my third breath, I'm breathing in. The third breath, I'm breathing in the virtue that I'm focused on in this week. And I'll have a series of virtues that I just kind of swap every week. This week, I'm focused on the virtue, I'm thinking about the virtue of humility, which is really ironic that I'm telling that to you because that's the opposite of humility, right? But I breathe in like, I breathe in, was I breathe in, I imagine the spirits around me. I'm breathing in, I'm calling in the spirits that are wise about the virtue of the week, whether that's lightheartedness is one virtue I focus on, another virtue is faith, another virtue is joyful diligence, another virtue is gentleness, another virtue is compassion. I have just different virtues, but pick whatever virtues resonate with you because that's probably part of the sole plan of your life to learn particular virtues. I believe what we're here on earth school, earth gym, the soul gym called earth is to practice and get stronger at particular virtues. I believe that's really why we're here. Some people say we're here to learn love, and I think that's true, but I think we're also here to learn additional virtues that are particular to each of our souls. Some souls are learning certain things like courage, some souls are learning certain things like compassion, but whatever may be, whatever resonates with you, whoever your heroes are, they probably have some virtues that your soul is here to learn. So my third breath, I'm breathing in, calling in the spirits that are wise for that virtue of that week that I'm focused on, and then as I breathe out, I breathe that virtue out into my actions for my day. And then my fourth breath, again, fourth breath, my hands together, and I'm thinking about the very next task that I'm doing, for example, this video for you right now, and then I breathe out the fourth breath, I'm breathing in the virtue for that task. So that's what I do. It takes 30 seconds to do this breathing, four breaths, and I've done that multiple times a day for years. And so no wonder I feel so, and I feel like I literally, I feel like I'm a different person than I was when I started this practice years ago. I'm a different, I'm fundamentally a different person. I feel, my baseline feelings are different, my days are different, and my life is so much more heaven now than when I started the practice. And if your spiritual practice is not leading you in that direction, I would find a different spiritual practice, to be honest with you, because your spiritual practice should, within a few years, make you a different person, and life should turn from hell to heaven. So I'm not saying my life was hell, but certainly I felt like in the years past, when I was younger, that my life was very hard. I felt it was very hard. You know, I grew up in a culture where I'm a minority. I grew up in a town, in a city where I was, I grew up in high school, junior high in high school, where I was one of the only Asian kids. So I was discriminated against. I had very few friends. I felt very shy, very low self-esteem. So I grew up, I felt like my life was quite hard in the beginning of my life, just emotionally. And, you know, my first career, I didn't love. And anyway, it's, but now, after years of doing this practice, I literally feel like my life is so good. My life is like heaven. It's, I don't need to wait for heaven. Like this is heaven. I feel good, like almost every single day, I feel really good. I get to do things that I love. Failures and mistakes and problems are continually reframed so that I can see the opportunities in them. So anyway, let me go back to the original topic. I apologize for the long-winded detour, but I felt like that was really important to explain why money is not a problem to be solved. Okay, so once you come to some kind of practice where you feel the deep happiness within yourself, okay? Then we can talk about reframing your lack of money and your debts and your income, your lack of income as this. Money is an opportunity for you to connect more usefully to other people and to help advance humanity. So let me explain. And once you make that mindset shift, hopefully your actions to make money are going to be more enjoyable or going to be more authentic to your personal growth. And you'll actually, I believe you'll actually make more money or make it more stable in a more sustainable way. All right, so here's what money is. Your money, where does your money come from? It doesn't just, you weren't born holding a lot of cash, okay? Money, your money, especially as an adult, you don't just get cash randomly. Your money comes from other people. Other people spend money on what they want, okay? And if you happen to be offering what they want at a price that they feel is a good deal or a great deal, then they are happy to spend some of that money with you because you're offering a product of service that you feel that they feel is a great deal, okay? That's where your money comes from. So when you say, I'm trying to, so when the people who are saying, I'm trying to solve my money problems, what they're really saying is, I'm trying to just get other people to give me money so that I finally have enough money. But it's kind of like, then you're just seeing other people as a means to an end. You're just seeing other people like, damn it, other people. Why aren't you giving me money? I am so worthwhile. Why aren't you giving me money? It's like, you see what I mean? Like you're, it's this kind of resentment of society. I'm entitled to money. So how come other people aren't giving me money? I'm entitled to it. No, you're not entitled to any money. You're not entitled to anything. And at the same time, you are a child of God and you are already complete and your soul is inevitably, you're taken care of no matter what. So in the spiritual and the true life, biggest life sense, you're taken care of and it's like, you have a trust fund from God. The trust fund is your soul is secure and the destiny of you having everything you ever want. All the love you ever want, all the creativity you ever want, all the joy and bliss you ever want, that's secure. You've got trust fund from God. But in this life, in society, you're not entitled to anything, right? So your money comes from other people and so you can either think of it in a resentful and like getting kind of way, grasping kind of way, or you can think of it as, oh my God, that's amazing. I have the opportunity to see what other people want so I can be of more use to them. Amazing, that's amazing system. So money is just an indicator, money is just an indicator of what other people want so that I can learn how to be more useful to them. Oh wow, so then I need to get to know other people's wants. So then go, oh, that's what you want. Let me see if among all of your wants, there must be something I can do that is a really good fit for what you want. Oh, well now not everybody because there are many types of people in the world, right? And you need to figure out what type of person has a set of wants or a particular want that you are really happy and qualified to provide for. Oh, yeah, you're the kind of person, you have that type of want, well guess what? I love providing for that kind of want. Now notice I'm not saying needs. So there's a big difference between wants and needs. Now the difference is this. If you start thinking in terms of needs, oh, money, I gotta create something to fulfill other people's needs. You're at a disadvantage here because what you think other people need, they usually don't need, they usually don't understand that they need it. But so instead of talking about, stop talking about needs, let's talk about wants. Now not what you want. See now when we talk about wants, now we can really get down to business and say, are you talking about your own wants, provider, service provider, or are you talking about your client's wants? Whether or not they know they need something, what do they want? And you know what they want by noticing what they spend money on and what they might want to spend money on. So you need to talk with them. You need to study them. You need to do market research. That's a whole other topic. But so money is an opportunity to connect to other people's wants so that you can provide something of use to them. And when you finally find something that they're willing to pay for at a price that they're happy to pay for, blessings. Oh my God, now I'm connected. Now the money has connected us. The money has connected us, connected me with you, your body, you've ever bought something from me. The money that you paid me has connected us so that I know better of what you want. It's an indicator of what you want so that I can now create more things that meet your wants so that I can earn more money, earn your money, okay? So I can serve you better. And if I provide something that you want, then you believe that it's gonna provide a higher quality of life for you than I have just helped to advance humanity by doing the thing that makes me money. So with this perspective, money is seen as a much more positive thing. It's not dirty. It's not gross, right? I know a lot of you grew up. I grew up too. I grew up in the Christian church that says money is the root of all evil, which later I learned. It's really the love of money is the root of all evil, okay? And then later I learned it's the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. So it's like, oh, it's better, better definitions. Oh, I see, it's not the root of all evil. It's the root of all kinds of evil. But then now I realize it's a particular love of money. I'm redefining the love of money now as the love of connection and the love of quality of life for other people and the love of advancement of humanity. That's what an indicator, that's the indicator. Money is an indicator of that. So as I think about that, I'm like, oh, that's what a privilege. What an honor to play this money game, not so I can make money and be happy finally and get the things I want. No, play the money game because I see the deeper purpose of the game, which is to understand others better so I can serve them better, help them improve the quality of life and therefore advance humanity. That's really what we're doing here with the money-making thing, okay? And right now we're in a political season. So it's the same thing about getting votes. Money is a vote. Money, how money is spent in society is society is a vote for what they believe will improve their quality of life. Now, we might disagree with how some of these things are spent, but that's society is spending it that in that way. We can spend in different ways, right? We can say organic food improves the quality of life. Great, let's spend more money there and more and more people, we educate others and society spends more money on organic food and now the environment is healthier, farmers are healthier, we are healthier, right? As an example. So money is like a vote. And if you think of politics, if somebody, if a politician says, oh, I gotta solve this problem of getting votes, right? Solve this problem of getting votes, then what happens is they are then tempted by bad actors who are going to cheat the system to get votes. So Russian interference in the American political system is like, I just gotta get the votes. No, we had to earn the votes. The votes are a connection with our constituents wants. And if we can serve that truthfully, then we'll get their votes, right? So the same thing with money. So think about in that way, it's like we're earning the understanding, we're earning a constituency here, we're earning an audience, right? So anyway, I hope this is helpful. It's long-winded way to saying, money is not a problem, stop thinking of it as a problem to be solved. Start thinking of it as an opportunity for a joyful and fulfilling connection. Because when you, when I realized this, I'm like, oh my God, I'm not just trying to make money anymore. I'm trying to create a right livelihood. I'm trying to create a livelihoods full of joyful connection with others. That's what I'm trying to do. And when I do that, money happens to come too. Wow, how beautiful and wonderful is this capitalism game when it's played with a deeper purpose. So I hope this helps. And let me go ahead and see if there are any comments for those who are joining me. And of course, I always welcome your comments below my videos. It really is meaningful for me when I see your comments and I try to, I read every comment and I try to respond to some of the comments and you're always welcome to send me any questions along the way. And let's see here. I'm going to just take a look at the, so thanks for those who are joining me. Captain Lawrence, Arturo, Steffi, Patricia, Mary, Wendy, Brian and thanks so much, Brian and Mary for your comments here. All right, I look forward to seeing what you thought of all this and if you have any questions or any reflections from your own thinking along the way. And I will see you in the next video. Be well.