It's time to rip the cover off what really works to ditch addiction, depression, anger, anxiety, and all other kinds of human suffering. No, not sobriety. We're talking the "F Word" here - Freedom. We'll share, straight from the trenches, what we have learned from leaving our own addictions behind, and coaching hundreds of others to do the same, and since it's such a heavy topic, we might as well have a good time while we're at it.
Bob: Alright, folks. Welcome back to the Alive and Free Podcast. Today, touchy topic - Jesus the Capitalist? With a question mark. Just so you know, this is … look, the upshot of today is I want you to be able to leave this 20 minutes or so with a new perspective on money and a new perspective on what's possible and to be free of anything in your mind that might have made money morally wrong in your life. So that's kind of the goal here. [0:01:00.5]
But we're going to go about it kind of a roundabout way. So two stories. The second one will be the Jesus story. First one is mine, but they're related. See, I grew up - I have a Masters degree in painting and drawing, folks. I don't know if I've mentioned that before. My painting is behind me right now that I did in school. I've got a Bachelors degree in painting. I've got a masters degree in painting from the University of Washington and I loved it. For me, when I was growing up, it was a way to see the world. It really was. It was a chance for me to like sit and it was almost meditative. I could sit and I could look at something and look and look and look and finally, finally see something and let me tell, folks. Your ability to see what's really there is the determinate of whether or not you're able to draw, but it's also determinate of whether you're able to succeed at anything else in your life. So I would sit there and I would look and I would draw, and look and I would paint and a lot of people would tell me, "Man, I.. I…you know, you're so talented." There's that word. Yeah. "You're so talented. You know, like I can't draw like that. I can't paint like that." And the reality is that's not true. [0:02:05.2]
One, yes - there is a little bit of skill involved, but that's learnable by anyone. The main thing that is missing is vision. The people who say they can't draw are people who, if you show them a dollar bill and then pull it away and told them to draw it, they would literally draw a rectangle, a circle in the middle, a funny head and some dollar signs in the corner - never mind the fact that dollar signs don’t actually exist on the dollar bill. They would miss all of the ornate designs on it. They would miss the all seeing eye and the pyramid. They might catch the pyramid. They might not, on the back or the front. They might miss so many details. They couldn't draw the dollar bill, not because they lack the ability to draw. It's because they lack the ability to see. And what you see is going to determine your ability to do something with it. If you can't it, you can't do anything with it. Money - too many people see through a lens that is distorted. So I got this view of talents and see, in the Bible, there's this story, this parable of the talents. [0:03:04.6]
Now, I grew up in a Christian home and we studied these types of stories a bunch and I also received a blessing from an Ecclesiastical leader when I was younger that taught me that told me, "Look, develop your talents while you're young, you know, it's a God given gift - you need to develop your talents and when you do, great and powerful blessings will come into your life." So from two angles, I had this - an authority figure in my life who gave me a blessing that I believed at the time was very, very, very much a message from God. It guided my life for a long time. It was a really powerful experience for me, and then we had this Bible story. Okay. So the Bible story comes in and here's Jesus and he's telling this parable of the talents and he says that this guy, this master of the house, you know, and the kingdom of heaven is like unto these servants, right - so he has three guys. One of them he gives five talents. One of them he gives two talents and one of them he gives one talent and he goes away. And when he comes back, he's going to charge what's he's given them. Right? [0:04:03.2]
So he goes away and while he's away, the guy with five talents manages to multiply them to where there's 10 and the guy with two talents manages to multiply to where there's four. The guy with one talent was super afraid of the boss. He was like, no, I do not know want to lose this. It's too risky to lose this and so what I'm going to do instead of like investing it and doing whatever I can with it and developing these talents I got, I'm just going to like hide it under a rock and when he comes back, I'll be able to give it to him. So the man's obviously, his life isn't bettered by the talent he's been given because he's not using it. He's just hiding it under a rock and when he comes back, all he has to show for it is the money that he's been given. The good news is - hey look - the master of the house got what he…like he sent something out - he got that same thing back. It's not like the master of the house lost money on the guy. Okay. So I grow up and the interpretation of this story is literally in my head - Look, God gives you talents. He gives you abilities. He gives you gifts from heaven and it's your job to develop them because what happened in the story? [0:05:10.4]
The guy who made his five into 10, the master said, look, you've been faithful over a few things, I'm going to make you a master over many things. In other words, you're going to get a whole lot more. The guy who made two into four - you've been faithful over a few things - I'm going to make you master over a many things. The guy who had not doing anything with his one talent, master was like, you should have at least put it in the bank and then at least I would have gotten interest, for crying out loud, but because you weren’t even willing to do that, I'm going to take this back from you and I'm going to give it to the guy who has … not the guy who had four - the guy who had 10. Totally unfair. Right? So I grow up feeling like, no, I need to develop my talents. I must be an artist. And I went to school for art. Like I knew… but look, this is a blessing I've been given. This is a gift I've been given from God - I've got to go develop this thing, and so everything I studied in college was around this. I did other things I wanted to do that were way more fun for me, and I loved painting and drawing, but school kind of ruined my artistic bend to a certain degree. [0:06:08.5]
I mean, I wrote poetry now. I'll pick up some charcoal and draw on occasion. I have a feeling that later on in life, it will come back, but graduate school kind of ruined it for me. I went because I knew I needed to develop my talents, but it was just week after week of professors coming in with these existentially traumatic questions saying, you know, well what are you thinking about - what are you trying to accomplish - what artists are you looking at - what music do you listen to - what statement are you trying to make - why are you doing it that way - you know, what styles are you using and you need to do this and you need to do that. And I was in depression at the time. I was in Seattle, which is not exactly the happiest city in the country for people who are in depression because there's a lot of rain. So I was in depression at the time. I was suicidal. I was in addiction and I was dealing with people every week coming and telling me I didn't know who I was, I didn't know what I was doing, my career was going to be miserable, I was a failure and a waste of time to their program and all kinds of other stuff. [0:07:04.8]
I graduated. I got some pretty good reviews on my final show. It's not like it all went to heck, but I was in that space and I did that and it ruined art for me. And my wife one time asked me, she was like, well, like if you hadn’t do that, you know, if you hadn’t been… felt like you needed to do that in order to fulfill some divine mandate, what would you have done? What would you have studied in college? And I looked her right in the eye and I was like, I probably wouldn't have gone to college. I probably would have found some martial arts master somewhere and I'd have gone meditating on some mountain top and I would have learned things that I thought were cool and just followed my nose in life - all because I felt like I had some moral obligation to take a gift and a skill that I had been given and turn it into something or else God would take it from me and give it to somebody else. So there was some threat. Now, that's not necessarily what my parents were teaching or what the church was teaching. It's like the way I internalized whatever they were teaching. So it's not their fault that I took it this way, and I hope you guys get that. However you feel like people are teaching you, they may or may not mean it, but it only has an impact on you because of the way you internalize it. [0:08:06.4]
Releasing those, there's freedom. So I went forward believing that this story about Jesus was about talents and abilities and I knew that a talent was a measure of money, a large amount of money, in those days but I just don’t like the parable as a metaphor for things and I left it at that until like literally six months ago or something, when I was like, wait a second - Jesus was talking about money here. What…what is going on? He literally is saying, "Here's some money. To the people who understand what money is and know what to do with it and can double it or more, can go and like… he's not even talking about incremental gains like in a savings account. He's not talking about like even investment accounts where the highest level is a 30% return. He's literally talking about doubling your money - so 200%. This is where, all you entrepreneurs, if you can understand how to do it, like this is a really powerful thing, but you don’t have to be an entrepreneur to double your money. You can do smart investments. There's a lot of ways to do it. Okay? Anyway…he doubled the money and if you know how to do that, then what's going to happen to you is what? You'll get more. More will come to you because you've learned the principles of what it takes to double your money. [0:09:17.0]
Same with the guy with two, which is why they got the same response. The guy with one - look, if you're just going to stuff your money, then … if I give you money and all you're going to do is hoard it, not even in a savings account, just under the bed, one - you're not benefiting from it in your life, you're just holding it and two - it's not doing … inflation is going at a faster rate than your money is and what's going to happen in the long run is that the people who know how to make money, you'll eventually pay them your money and won't know how to earn it back. So your money will be taken and given to the people that know how to work it the best. It's a literal description of a capitalist economy. It really is. But was Jesus a capitalist? I don't know. You know, it's not like … money was a different thing for him. Yeah, go get it - it's in the mouth of a fish. Go get it if you need it. Like he's a totally different ballpark, but the description in this parable is literally a description of a capitalist economy. [0:10:10.6]
It's Jesus himself telling people about money that if they know how to actually make money grow, God will give them more and that's a powerful, positive thing, yet we grow up believing that the love of money is the root of all evil and so we don’t even treat money with intelligence - we don’t focus on it - we don’t learn how to use it or when we do learn how to use it, we feel like we have to justify ourselves as if it's some moral failing that we're wealthy or we're rich or we have got …we made a bunch of money somewhere or somebody else made a bunch of money and we feel like it's a moral failing for them, or God is not being fair or there's some blessings that are being skewed or they're evil people and it'll come back to them because they're loving money more than whatever and they're worldly and selfish and I'm not. You're both stuck on money. You're stuck on the underside of it. They're stuck on the over side of it, if you're complaining about people who have wealth. If wealthy people are complaining about poor people, you're both stuck on money. You're complaining about being on the upper side and them being on the lower side. So that's a love of money and that definitely does cause some emotional inside of a person. Okay? [0:11:15.7]
If you, or someone you know, is looking to drop the F Bomb of Freedom in your life, whether that's from addiction or depression and anxiety or just anything that's making you feel flat out stuck, but you have no clue how to shake it and just want help doing it, head on over to LiberateaMan.com and book a call, where we can look at your unique situation and give you the roadmap you've been missing.
Bob: But here we have this powerful teaching from Jesus that is basically saying, "Hey look, if you actually learn how to make money, then you'll get more of it and that's a good thing. In fact, it's a good thing that you even get paid from the people who like don’t know how to work with money. It's totally a good thing. I am happy to give you their money too, because you will do something with it, where they won't. [0:12:06.2]
So the upshot here is to help you understand that … I don't know what you guys listening, what religious tradition you come from, background you come from - some of you are very, very devout Christians. I know there's a lot of Mormons, members of the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints listen to this. There's some Muslims. I know there's some atheists. I know there's some people that listen to … that like grew up in a Christian tradition or something or a religious tradition and have since left… and so some of those ideas are kind of in your head and you're having to overcome them when you're dealing with making money and earning money, doing a business. What you do with your money, whether it's good to invest your money in yourself or anything like that, these ideas are kind of embedded in there. I want to give you a moment to step back and see that what some people would call a great moral teacher, others would much more, Jesus, right, as the savior of the world even, but what some people would…even if you just call him a great moral teacher, his teaching on money here is literally learn how to use it and make a lot of it, because you can do more when you have more. [0:13:08.6 ]
All this time, I thought he was just talking about talents. Now the cool thing is there is a link - the more talent and ability you develop, the more you can use that to make money. You could also use that to help other people in emotional ways. You can also use that just because you love doing it and it betters your life. There's lots of ways to use it. you don’t have to use it for money, but you can. There is a link. If you develop your capacity, then you can make money with it. But here's a talent that a lot of people aren’t developing and that is the talent of learning how to see and understand what money is, where it comes from and what it can do in your life and how to work with it in a way that makes it multiply. These are skills that accountants deal with or we let financial planners deal with or stock brokers or you know, when I was younger, we talked about real estate agents that way - like they would make a lot of money, but it was always, no, no - keep a savings account - what's a savings account? [0:14:01.6]
It's the guy on the low end. He's taking the money and he's putting it in bank with interest. We're just slightly above him, but the interest that you're getting from the bank is less than a percent most of the time - isn't it? Or like I think I got a high yield savings account one time and it was like 1.25% or maybe even up to 3% but that's still like 5% less than inflation, which means you're losing money, but you feel good about it. But most of us are doing that - put money in a savings account. This is how you work with your money and then save up and then spend it on other things. That's not intelligent use of money. What it is is holding it and saving it for a rainy day. Now that's a wise move, but you also want to do some other things to multiply your money, because then you can save up faster. So it's not saying that it's bad to have a stock pile of money, but it is saying learn how to use it well. We don’t know what the guy with five did. Did he put one of them in an account and then the other four he multiplied and got five back? We don’t know. We don’t know what the one with two did. Did he put one of them in an account and then multiply the other and get three back from that and then add them all together and they got four? We don’t know. [0:15:05.0]
All we know is in the parable, in the teaching, you're looking at somebody who is saying the more you have money, the better you can work with it and the more you know how it works, the more money you will get. That itself is a blessing from God, so much that the money of the poor, meaning the poverty-minded, not people who are legitimately poor - meaning the people who think poorly about money will actually come to you because you learn to think differently about money. Okay. Cool.
So in the last few minutes we have, let's challenge some ideas about money, and I'm hoping that by now, you're already going like, holy cow - maybe Jesus thinks it's okay to earn money. Guess what? He does. Like could you do more good in the world if you had the means to fund it? People are always telling me like, no, you should give away your services for free. I'm sorry. I tried that. One - I couldn’t feed my family. Two - the people who bought for free, the services, didn't do anything with it because it was worth zero to them and the more they paid, the more they did with it and then the more they paid, the more I was able to create processes to where now we're feeding several families. [0:16:06.7]
We're creating programs that help people in a variety of different places that don’t have money. I can create those programs and let them use it because hey, now I have the means to do it and there's so much more than you, my friend, can do with money when you have it, especially if you have a big idea in your head that will help humanity and raise consciousness on the planet, you know, bring hope and …to mankind, all kinds of good stuff. Money is required and saying it's free is a misnomer because nothing is free. Somebody is paying for it. If you're going to a free 12-Step Program, the church that's putting it on is paying for the electricity and everything. People are volunteering their time. That's payment. All kinds of stuff is happening just because… and the materials being printed - that's payment. Right? People are volunteering stuff. It's being paid for somehow. There are state funded programs. That means you're paying for it, but then you believe it's free, and it's coming to you in a different way because it's coming through taxes. [0:17:01.0]
Well, other people are paying for it with their tithing money. Everything is being paid for in one way, shape or form. So hopefully, you're starting to see - you know what - maybe I need to think about money differently and maybe it's a positive things. So what is money?
Guys and girls - it's literally cloth paper. It's a bunch of ink printed on cloth paper with some inserts in it and some watermarks and stuff to make it hard to replicate. That's all it is. And nowadays, it's not even that - Bitcoin and all these others are literally 1s and 0s on a computer screen. They mean absolutely nothing about your moral well-being. God does not check your credit score when you're entering the gates of heaven. The only reason a credit score is even necessary or even useful is when you're trying to get a loan. That's it. All the rest of your life, credit score is useless. To have good credit is useless unless you're trying to get a loan. So it's nice to keep good credit because in the moment that you need funding that you don’t have, you can use that and hopefully you've learned how to use that funding in ways that multiply it, so when you pay it back, you've also made twice as much and you've made some money off of borrowing money. Okay? [0:18:08.4]
Learning the skills of handling money is powerful. So this cloth paper, these 1s and 0s, how did we get attached to them in such a way that there's some moral thing about them? Right? The young rich man that we talked about a couple of episodes of ago, how did he get attached to it in a such a way that there was some moral thing? It's because he felt like it was his identity, that there was something to do with him based on the amount in his bank account, and if you're looking at your bank account and it makes you freak out when it's low, then maybe you have some of that too. Not just survival - oh my gosh! I'll never survive without money. Baloney! You survived most of your…like, your childhood was… you didn't have any money. Your parents paid for it. If you're listening to this podcast and you have the means to listen to this podcast, there is enough money in the world for you and the only thing that is missing is your ability to open your eyes and see, which is why I talked about art at the beginning. You have to learn to see what's there beyond what you think is there. If you can get past what you… all these things that you thought about money and all the crud that you've got in your mind about money being evil or money being hard to make or money being scarce or there is not enough of it in the world and people don’t want to pay me for my services and all this other stuff, and you can get past all that and actually see money that is there, you'll be able to make it and then making money - what will you be able to do? [0:19:22.7]
Pass it along to other people. It's not like it does you any good in your bank account. So having a little bit on hand so that you have expenses, you know, covered and all that other stuff is amazing, but you have to learn to see it for what it is. Money is just a story that we made up in order to be able to exchange goods and services. That's all it is. There is nothing right or wrong about money. There's nothing right or wrong about having a little. You're not less than anybody by having little. I went bankrupt. I felt less than, but you're not more than anybody if you have a lot of money. I don’t have, like, as much as a lot of the coaches and mentors I've studied under, but I got a lot more than some people make in their entire lifetime sometimes. You know, because there are people in the world that make… like in Brazil, we lived on literally 70 bucks a month. [0:20:08.0]
Like that's not a lot of money compared to what we make now. You know. If somebody here listening to this makes $7000 a month, that's 100 times what somebody down in Brazil makes and that's not even a lot of money by today's standards. Right? That's 84,000 a year, that's like entry level in some cases. It's way above a teacher's salary, if you're teaching in elementary schools and public schools, but like, it's still, it's way more. So there's nothing morally right or wrong about money. Jesus in teaching says learn the principles of earning money. Learn how it works and use it with celebration and as you celebrate and make more money, more will come to you and with that money, you can do amazing things on this planet and you can really help a lot of people out in the ways that only you can help people out. [0:20:59.5]
So as we're trying to wrap up today and considering all this stuff around being alive and free, I hope you can free yourself of your limiting beliefs and thoughts around money - around what it is - around how much is possible for you and around what you can in order to not just receive money but then also use it to invest in yourself, in humanity, in your family and in all the things that would really life a much more joyful experience for you and everyone else around you because ultimately life is about joy. It's not about money. So that's a wrap for today. Next time, we're going to talk about your concealed carry permit - no, it's not quite about guns, but we're going to talk about it anyway because I think it will be a very, very useful, useful topic to help you understand what it is that you're really carrying.
And that's it for today's Alive and Free Podcast. If you enjoyed this show and want some more freedom bombs landing in your ear buds, subscribe right now at wherever you get your podcasts from, and while you're at it, give us a rating and a review. It'll help us keep delivering great stuff to you, and plus, it's just nice to be nice.
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