Would Your Business Change If Money Were No Object?

My body was vibrating when I first saw this video on “What If Money Were No Object?” narrated by British writer, speaker, and philosopher Alan Watts.

It so clearly spoke to what I know to be true-that if we follow what we truly love most, we absolutely CAN make that our livelihood (though I will add that you may need to learn some things along the way!).

I enthusiastically recommend taking three minutes to watch it-whether it’s your first time, or the fifth time seeing it. Watts asks such powerful and relevant questions that guide you more deeply into what you truly desire-something this is far too often obscured by the seemingly responsible considerations of making a living.

At the start of the video, he asks:

What do you desire? What makes you itch? What sort of a situation would you like?…

I do this often in vocational guidance of students. They come to me and say, “Well, we’re getting out of college, and we haven’t the faintest idea what we want to do.”

So I always ask the question, “What would you like to do if money were no object? How would you really enjoy spending your life?”

What’s so interesting is that, even if you are already doing work that matters to you and that you enjoy, you may have blind spots to where you may be compromising in order to make ends meet: offering something because you think the market will pay for it, rather than because because it truly reflects who you are at the deepest levels.

These blind spots are very often caused by the very limiting belief that we won’t have enough clients unless we appeal to a broad enough group of people. Nothing could be a bigger mistake! (You may wish to check out this article I wrote about getting specific and narrow enough in defining your ideal client group.)

I invite you to ask yourself right now, on a scale of 1-10, how well does what you do and what you offer in your business match what you would be doing if money were no object? 

Photo: Nic McPhee