Kay:
Hey there Questers and welcome back to a #MoneyMonday quest. This is December 14th, and we are rounding the corner on an interesting year. This is episode 246 and we just can’t believe that we’re coming up on almost a whole year of The Mentorship Quest!
Shi:
The best part of The Mentorship Quest is all of you questing along with us and we’re so grateful for you. We’re grateful to bring you this finance quote for you today from Ayn Rand. Political ideologies aside, it’s a solid quote and she tells us, “Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver.”
Kay:
Yeah, go look this chick up because she’s weird, but this is a really cool quote because it helps us to re-frame money as not necessarily the end all be all, like oftentimes people have the tendency to mistake it as.
Shi:
The end all be all. Well, it can be easy to do that because you see that what it provides – which is such opportunity and access. It being the most lubricating resource that there is in a capitalistic society, you can see how we’ve learned to kind of identify what that means as the ultimate end. That’s where, as this quote suggests we start to lose our driver-ship or captainship of our own financial situation.
Kay:
Well, you might say, “Well, but money is the end all be all and it really is all of those things.” Well, let me just ask you, can the money in your bank account make a decision?
Shi:
It cannot.
Kay:
Can the money in your bank account influence how you feel?
Shi:
It cannot.
Kay:
Maybe in a moment, but maybe not necessarily in that long-term.
Shi:
Can’t hold your hand.
Kay:
Can’t hold your hand. Can’t make you feel good.
Shi:
Can’t drive you to the hospital.
Kay:
Can’t drive you to the hospital. It can’t do a lot of these things. So, it doesn’t replace you as the person behind that wheel and when you make yourself a slave to it, you basically give money the driver’s seat.
Shi:
And it makes you end up not developing the driver. If you have an inept driver or an inexperienced driver, it doesn’t matter what kind of vehicle you put them in. They’re still just as at risk as they were in maybe a dumpy car. So, developing the driver helps us see how they can steward that vehicle a little bit better.
Kay:
I was aghast when my parents first told me (I was like maybe 14 or 15) that when I turned 16, I would not be getting a new car. I was like, what? Isn’t that when everybody gets like a new car when you get your driver’s license and they said, “No, we have to get you a beater first because we know you’re going to wreck it.” Of course, in my mind of being the perfect 15-year-old, I’m like no way I would never wreck that car. Well, it turns out I totally wrecked that car at least three or four times. So, thank God the inexperienced driver wasn’t put behind a nice wheel of a nice vehicle.
Shi:
That’s a good story to share and a great reflection of this principle at work because sometimes life does take experience but it’s hard not to be attracted to that shiny new car, that idea of what the shiny car means for you. If you’ve heard us teach before, you’ve heard us talk about the voice in your head is not you, you are the listener of the voice. The listener doesn’t know how to articulate so it doesn’t narrate your life. That’s the voice in your head. But oftentimes we end up identifying with that voice and I can’t help but think of that in this quote here, that oftentimes we identify with that money rather than what it is on the other side of it. That is what we’re really after.
Kay:
Well, be I in a new vehicle or be I in the beater that Mom and Dad did get me, the car got me to the same exact destination that I was anticipating that it would. They both drove me to school in the morning. They both drove me home. So, getting to see this situation of, if you’re identifying with money and saying, “Well, I have to have money in order to get to where I want to go,” or “money is the key to that’s what it will look like when I get there,” you don’t need it along the way to necessarily get to where you are. It’s not those lack of resources, as Tony Robbins says, often it’s simply our lack of resourcefulness. So, just a reminder as to today’s quote from Ayn Rand, she says that “Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver.”
Shi:
Alright, that means it’s a #MoneyMondayQuest. We like to get your money quest out of the way early in the week while you still have lots of discipline and energy to apply to them. So, your quest today is to identify one aspect of your finances in which you need to take better control of the wheel. Jesus don’t take the wheel because you got it here. Reflect on the best route of navigation based on your financial goals and priorities and decide which direction you’re going to steer next. Are you ready?
Kay and Shi:
Let’s quest!
