What Would You Do with All the Money in the World?

 

I’m reading this really good book, All the Money in the World by Laura Vanderkam, and one of the questions that she asks is, “If you had all the money in the world—not literally, but all you wanted—what would you change about your life?”

 

Now, you might think, “That’s never going to happen, so why think about it.”

 

But, I encourage you stay open-minded when thinking about this question.

 

How would your business change? How would you spend your time? What would you stop doing immediately? What would you do more of?

 

These questions are actually a lot of fun to think about, especially when you realize that you might not be as far away from some of things you’d like as you think.

 

What can you make happen now?

 

These questions really come down to happiness. What would make you happier? If you can get closer to your image of happiness, why wait?

 

Let me give you some examples.

 

I was talking to a friend who said she cut back on eating out once a month in order to always have fresh flowers on her desk at work. She was already spending that money, but when she thought about things that would change if she had all the money in the world, she said she’d always have fresh cut flowers on her desk. Then, she realized that was already possible, and the happiness it would add to every workday was worth it.

 

My husband and I recently moved. In the decision making process, money was one of the factors. Live in a smaller house {and when I say smaller, it’s still a good size with three bedrooms, two full baths, a huge living room with an office space} or live in a much larger house.

 

When we looked at our current budget, we could afford both options. However, if we picked the smaller house, we could also afford to pay for weekly lawn care, a cleaning service, a new television for the living room, and have money leftover for fun stuff. If we picked the larger house, we currently wouldn’t have that money for all that other stuff. We decided on the smaller house, because we knew having the other stuff would make us happier.

 

A talented creative business owner I worked with was ashamed of her website. It didn’t do her brand or business justice. She said that if she only had thousands of dollars, she’d be able to do something about it. But, when we broke down what she wanted to get done for her website and she contacted a handful of web designers, she got back quotes ranging from $300 to $750—not thousands of dollars. She had some money saved up for her business, and redid her website.

 

What do you think is out of reach but really isn’t?

 

If you had all the money in the world, would you support a cause you really care about? How about donating $10 today? And, then trying to up that by $5 each month? Or, how about coming up with a project that would raise lots of money for that cause like Erin Giles is doing right here.

 

If you had all the money in the world, would you leave your day job and make art every day? Well, you might not be able to leave your day job, but could you spend 30 minutes each day on your art?

 

Are you taking steps every day to get closer to life you want to be living?

 

The truth is that we can’t all quit our day jobs right now. We can’t all hire web designers to redo our sites. We can’t all stop working and travel the world.

 

But, we can take steps every day to get closer to what we would be doing if we had all the money in the world.

 

Want to travel the world? Start a small savings account for travel and put a small amount of money from each paycheck in that account. Pick one place you’ve always wanted to travel to, add up the costs, and save until you can afford it.

 

Want to hire a web designer to redo your site? Save a little bit from each sale you have until you’ve got enough to hire the designer you want to work with.

 

I know this isn’t your run-of-the-mill business advice, but when we get closer to the lives we really want to be living, we’re more fulfilled and our businesses definitely benefit from that fulfillment.

 

April Bowles-Olin

 

April Bowles-Olin helps creative entrepreneurs turn their dreams into reality through her website, Blacksburg Belle, where she writes about marketing, blogging, and increasing business success. She uses her background in psychology to help creatives reach their goals, take charge of their inner critic, and build businesses around their dream lifestyles.