risk | SpiritSentient Art + Success Coaching

Money Is A Wave: How Well Do You Surf?

Posted by Jason Fonceca on Apr 18, 2009 in Abundance, Appreciation, Art Makes Money, Artists, Awareness, Life Coaching, Personal Growth, Self-Improvement, Success, Value | 2 comments

Light is a wave, sound is a wave, and yes, money is a wave. Waves rise and fall, and the important thing is to be comfortable surfing it.

The great money-masters of the world understand this concept and are comfortable with it.

When we’re children we get this. We get that things come easily into our lives at the right time. Whether it’s from some long-lost, generous, visiting relative, or whether it’s from Mommy & Daddy, or orphanages and governments.

When we’re kids we know very strongly that no matter what is going on, food & shelter are provided; toys show up often. We completely and utterly believe that every day is fine, there are no worries, and somehow, someway things will be provided to us. We can ride the wave and gracefully handle the ups and downs.

If a down time goes to long, they cry about it until things change.

Trained To Panic

As we grow, we somehow learn that having faith and riding the wave is ‘no good’ anymore, suddenly it’s time to panic and force things and scramble for income.

Is it when we realize that we need to make it on our own?

Upon the unexpected death of Henry Ford’s mother, Henry was asked by his dad to run the farm, which was not his passion. Instead, he left home and started his career as an apprentice in an electric company and made his way, becoming an engineer. This was achieved through years of on job training and without any formal education. Despite all this, he went on to become one of the earliest people to attain the status of billionaire.

Is it when we failed and fell, testing ourselves?

Then comes a period of growth where we learn to trust our own abilities. We begin to realize that we *can* make it on our own, despite it being new and never having done it before. We learn we can land a job of some kind, or start a business of some kind, or win a lottery, or steal, or whatever — but the point is, we learn we change the pattern we’ve been following for most of our early years. We learn that a fall or a failure doesn’t really matter in the big picture and only makes us stronger. Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor because “he lacked imagination and had no good ideas.” He even went bankrupt multiple times before he ended up with a functioning Disneyland. Most people don`t remember that part though.

Is it when we start see the starving-then-full cycle?

Next is a stage where, we learn about life’s ‘ups and downs’ (ebb and flow.) We get lame jobs, OK jobs, and awesome jobs. We start businesses that flop, businesses that do OK, and businesses that shine. There are months with high expenses and low income, and months which are high income low expenses. There are months where we get lots of gifts; new technology, items, toys, tools, and some where we provide these things to others.

Cash Flows Like A River

It can help to look at money as a river, which ebbs and flows. When the river is flowing fast and high, its easy to gather water, or store it, or let the river carry you to interesting new destinations. When the river is low and drying and the tide ebbing and there seems to be little flow, we can share the water we’ve stored with others who may need it, we can build raincatchers, and we can allow the situation to wait for rain or spring floods or move closer to an ocean or a lake.

The key thing is that the river always flows, its natural, even when it seems meager and almost dried up, it will always flow again. There are all kinds of ups-and-downs and we’re either at peace with them, surfing them, or we’re fighting them and getting pulled under by them.

Masters of success know this, most self-employed business owners can see this, people who make their money investing in the stock exchange are often extremely comfortable with this.

As the cashflow changes, success-makers see opportunities, depending on the ebb and flow, and they’re at home with either. Sure, there is the chance to choose to panic and worry about things, but why? Access your inner-child, remember how to be care-free and faithful. Remember how to believe in yourself, and in life.

Money is a big part of what makes the world go ’round. It is one of humanity’s commonly agreed upon symbol for value.

When we spend money, give money, and allow money to ebb out of our lives, we are encouraging and supporting value. We’re voting with our dollars.

Appreciate Cash Ebb-And-Flow

Appreciate and help everyone else involved with whatever we spend it on or give it to.

Whether we buy an item or service, donate it somewhere, or even drop it on the ground, we are benefiting someone else. In the same way, when other people spend on us or things we’re involved in, they are directing the flow back to us.

When money flows into our lives, we love it. We don’t always stop to understand or appreciate the people who made it possible with their funds, time, and energy, but we certainly enjoy the improved experience.

Do you thank paypal everytime you get a transfer? How about the engineers who designed the ATMs? Do you thank the government that prints and circulates the cash that’s in your pocket? There is no reason, they ever, ever, ever had to provide these things, that you use everyday.

It’s all a beautiful cycle, both the spending and receiving helps both the spender and the receiver so much, that realizationopens the door for even more.

Do Yourself A Favour & Love It

LOVE spending and receiving. Anything in life that we LOVE, we eventually excel at it. Love making money. Love spending it. You can look at anything, sports, science, martial arts, dance, sex, talking, meditating, rock-climbing, breathing, massage, whatever — and if a person really truly passionately loves it, then that person excels at it. If a person doesn’t love something, they tend to half-ass it, not really understand it, and certainly not spend much time or energy bringing that experience into their life — they’d much rather do OTHER things they love.

Sustainably rich people love giving and receiving. They really really do. They understand that whatever they invest in or spend on, helps the world. They understand that every dollar they make/earn helps the world.

Take a moment and think about your attitudes towards the money. Do you become panicky, upset, worried, frustrated or ‘negative’ in any way when you ‘have to spend’ or ‘spend too much’ or ‘spend at all?’

Are you grateful to be able to spend on a new experience or helping someone else? When you receive even a tiny amount, how do you feel about that receiving? Do you grumble its only a penny or a dime? Do you feel like its a drop in the bucket and you’ll never get out of this hole you’re in? Or are you happy that you got it and see it as a sign of more to come? Do you happily talk about this one monetary find and eagerly think about other ways you can earn or create it? Are you grateful, and do you value the money, looking forward to again spending it to help yourself and the world?

These questions can help you figure out if deep down, you love money and physical wealth, and why its wonderful to have. If you don’t love it, and you`re not comfortable with it`s wave-like nature and ebb-and-flow, you’ll get the bare minimum.

Know your own value, and offer it. The world loves an individual who lovingly and givingly provides value. The better you are at knowing your own value, and offering your unique value out into the world, the bigger your reward.

Providing value comes FIRST, then the cashflow.

Ride the wave. Love the ebb-and-flow, understand money, give money a great big hug, both the giving and receiving of it.

If you have thoughts on the ebb-and-flow of money, or if you just love money, tell us in the comments section!

All Is Creative: Risk, Risk, and Risk Some More.

Posted by Jason Fonceca on Sep 22, 2008 in Confidence, Conscious Creation, Life Coaching, Personal Growth | 3 comments

Risk. The verb ‘risk’ is a scary one for many people. Merriam-webster defines it like so:

: To expose to hazard or danger.

…which is a reasonable definition for the purposes of this post. All of us take risks everyday that we don’t even give a thought to, simply to live and survive. We walk outside without fear of being randomly struck by lightning, but it happens. Many of us cross against traffic, not even at a stoplight, while statistics show that pedestrians are generally at serious risk with tons of high-velocity metal vehicles moving all around them. These are things generally taken for granted (though I’m sure you can find a handful of people who actively feel trepidation as they cross the street or walk outside, but they are considered ‘paranoid’ in their reactions to these situations by society). I read an interesting article on psychologytoday.com that researched the actual statistical risk factors involved in everyday things we fear, and the results/conclusions drawn were extremely interesting. It addressed questions like why do so many people in our society who do chronically, severely detrimental things such as smoking – which ‘shortens life’ an average of 5 years – do not fear their habit but instead have an intense fear towards flying in a plane – which shorten’s life an average of 1 day. at the end of the article there’s a quiz on risk-statistics with questions such as: “Which has killed more Americans, bird flu or mad cow disease? ” Answer: no American has died from either cause.

The actual risk involved in many situations/actions… is rarely directly related to our fears regarding them.

Many of us suffer from extremely irrational fears unrelated to actual risk-factors? Sort of. It depends on one’s view. It’s possible to look at it in a way where everything is a risk. It’s been said that all we really have in this life is “time”, which we can trade for “anything we want” (often time is traded for money.) So whenever we spend our time (or energy, or attention) on something, we are risking missing out on all the opportunities of directing our time/energy/attention elsewhere. Every time someone takes a pill, prescribed or not, they are risking a severe allergic or cross-medicated reaction, and at the same time choosing not to take the pill, they risk missing out on relief from malaise or pain. Every choice we make is one of risk. Some simple choices result in some of the most absurd and improbable deaths.

A pleasantly-phrased explanation may be gleaned from this short prose on risk, from an unknown source (but I’d love to know who wrote it,) and i appreciate it.

To laugh is to risk appearing the fool.
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach out to others is to risk involvement.
To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.
To place your ideas, your dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss.
To love is to risk not being loved in return.
To live is to risk dying.
To hope is to risk despair.
To try is to risk failure.

But risks must be taken,
because the greatest hazard in life is to do nothing.

The person who risks nothing,
does nothing, has nothing, and is nothing.

They may avoid suffering and sorrow,
but they cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love, live.

Chained by their attitudes, they are a slave,
they forfeited their freedom.

Only the person who risks can be free

How often have we not spoken up because we might look foolish? Ever encountered a guy or girl you felt strongly like speaking with, but chose not to? Can you remember why not? How often have we chosen not to help someone or passed on an opportunity because we feared being involved, perhaps a cause or relationship required some relatively small time committment, but we were scared to give up our freedom, and so it never came to be. What was the motivation? How do we want things to go?

Since we take risks unconsciously every day, just to live and survive… I propose that the people who truly excel in life, the people who thrive, take ‘risks’ consciously.

Even writing articles like this is a risk of sorts for me. On the one hand, I am pursuing my dream, doing my own thing relatively far outside of society’s recommended paths, and with every step I am open to the possibility of falling flat on my face, and yet — almost paradoxically — at the same time I have a deep, pervading knowledge that I am doing the ‘right thing’ and failure is ‘not what lies ahead for me’. I could be ridiculed or look stupid after ‘wasting’ my energy because I did not ‘succeed’. I could be bombarded with wrath and ire from people who do not appreciate the things I am saying. I’m not concerned about these things, which brings me to the most interesting view on the concept of risk for me personally.

Nothing is a risk.

What’s that? Nothing is a risk? This is my personal view on risk. Free-climbing the grand canyon, kissing someone with a deadly communicable disease, playing in traffic — none of these are off limits to me because none of them are risky. To properly wrap one’s head around this, it’s important to first be at home with this concept:

Everyone (with a physical body) dies a physical death.

If we’re ok realizing that everyone dies, then we realize that any action we take will either bring us closer to death a ‘little bit’ or a ‘lot‘.¹

So let’s say we believe that every action we take brings us closer to death by a measure.

The next concept to understand is:

That no one knows rationally whether death is something to be avoided.

We truly have no idea if death is some trascendent form of awesomeness or just us becoming worm-food (though our physical/bodily instincts certainly jerk us away from it as if it is,) or something else altogether.

cartoon by rex babin

I know you’re still following so we have inevitable death, and human beings not even knowing if that is ‘good’ or ‘bad.’² and to really demonstrate just how all up in the air it is, I’d like you to be open to the concept that every action others take, or nature takes, or whatever, has the potential to bring us closer or further from our deaths by a certain measure and:

It is our own actions in combination with the actions of others/nature/life that really decides the outcome.

Except you can only choose your own actions.

So the situation is this:

1. Everyone dies.
Dying may be a desirable step, an undesirable step, or a neutrally desired step.

2. Our actions in life combined with everyone/everything else’s actions in life affect how close we are to death at any given time.
We can only choose our own actions, and cannot control any of the external actions/choices occurring in life.

People can die from just about anything, in any way and besides that, trying to avoid it is futile. Now this is a very analytical, logical, mental-process-driven look at things, and it paints a view of nothing being a risk since the outcome is already decided and seems almost infinitely out of our control. So where does that leave us?

It leaves us with a completely blank canvas of life, to live as creatively as we please with every choice, with zero fear of the consequences, since it’s all a ‘crapshoot’ anyway.

So how do we decide what to do?

The upside of viewing all this in absence of logical, rational criteria, (besides variety of experience,) is that it allows people to live life as art and beauty and creativity. We can live and choose from our hearts, and do what we _feel_ is the right thing.

Won’t that result in paralyzed confusion with no criteria in making decisions, or even complete anarchy as everyone acts wild-crazy selfish with the proposed ‘no-consequence’ mentality?

Possibly. Paralyzed confusion and/or a type of hedonistic anarchy is a possible result. I’d love to reassure you 100% that this scenario would not occur, but nope, it’s a possibility.

Humanity has evolved extremely far from its beginnings. We’ve learned so much and taken huge strides. We’ve accomplished tremendous things. Perhaps at this point we’re on the edge of a change, in which we are finally ready for the kind of creative freedom I’m talking about. Perhaps that’s why people like me are writing articles like this.

Perhaps a few people can make the jump to living-from-the-heart with risk-assessment not necessary, all the while co-existing with the more conservative/reserved people who’s lives revolve in fear/risk-factors.

…or confusion and anarchy could rein. Hey, sure it could. that’s a possibility; That’s a risk

¹Even this is not necessarily true once we transcend the concept of time or if we understand ‘pre-destined’ times of death, or how one’s thoughts affect life in tandem with the plans of god/the universe, but that’s another post altogether. Or bunch of posts.
²There are a significant number of people who label any action that appears to have the result of keeping them alive or safe from death as ‘good’, and vice-versa.
³ regarding the photo above: lorenzo! is author of a book called 25 lessons – the art of living. in it he discusses his personal experience with risk, here is an excerpt: “Just as it happens to millions of others, I began to loop around as I fulfilled the various sacraments of modern life: professional job, marriage, children, better paying corporate job, moving out of the city to suburbia. As a result, I began to take a lot less risks, I began to play it safe and in turn my soul began to shrivel, as it yearned to be on the edge, it hungered to be out there venturing into the unknown, it was eager to strike a chord.”