I’ve spent a fair bit of time speaking on the telephone with clients over the last few days and it’s got me to wondering why people are so uncertain, anxious, worried and even fearful at present. And why is money at the centre of so many people’s thoughts, why are so many people focused on money, making more of it, holding on to what they have or thought they had, fearful of not having enough? Indeed, I believe that I would be correct in saying that our present afflictions in the so-called “developed world” are the result of the ubiquitous obsession with money. And, sad to say, this is an obsession fuelled, in part, by people operating in the area in which I’ve been working since 1996 – the self-improvement or personal development “industry”.

Indeed, it is quite bizarre that many personal growth “gurus” or “better yourself experts” are often almost exclusively focused on money – and making more of it. By way of example, DVDs and books like “The Secret”, websites that shout “Treble Your Income” or sell false $1m bills pander to the over-riding obsession of the majority of people in this developed world of ours. People are obsessed with having “enough” money – whatever “enough” actually means! Does it, for example, mean something akin to Rockefeller’s concept that “enough” meant “just one more!” – or does it mean something completely different?

But back to what I really want to talk about. I’ve done a little digging and discovered that even “self-help classics” such as 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 get more money. Or maybe I’m being a little too hard on myself because, more precisely, it explains how ample money flows if you flow first.

However, recently, after a heart-warming meal in the stunning surroundings of the French Alpine lakeside town of Annecy, as we meandered 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. And we rarely think about money – otherwise, I might work a little more often than I do! But we’ve never run out of the stuff and we always have more than enough for now. And that’s all anyone needs.
So let’s drop the 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 get on with looking at what we have, embracing what we have, savouring the wonderful moments that life offers us most of the time, if we’d only open our eyes, minds and hearts to them. Because, in actual fact, that’s what life is all about.