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Lesson Info

Overcoming Poverty Mentality

Um we have a new topic that we're gonna undertake, which is, um really, uh let's put it simply our relationship to money, which is uh you could say there almost two areas that really focus our neurosis in a perfectly prismatic way. What would you say they are? Sex and money and ironically, the first it's strange as this may sound, the first seminar I ever went to on buddhism was in nineteen seventy and I was a music student at the berklee college of music, and I was also standing at a yoga studio there and start to explore some these kind of things. I was twenty two years old at the time. Uh, but I was so much older than I am younger than that now, um and the my tibetan teacher who became my teacher, came to the yoga studio and give a workshop on I was sort of interested in buddhism or something worse. I was called work, sex and money, so and that book is actually available if anybody wants to buy it, it was recently released a za book by choke him trump report and I thought it was kin...

d of interesting that this spiritual master was talking about these kind of things, but yes, you can see it's sort of set the tone for from high approach, which is to include everything you can think of with in your life as part of as under the umbrella of your spiritual growth and being so that's a very progressed viewing away rather than the view that you think spirituality is gonna happen somewhere else onda thinking don't don't touch the things of this world know they're kind of like dirty or something like that. So uh and you could say that kind of discussion has gone on for literally beyonce, but certainly millennia and deck and centuries about the relationship between let's say developing ourselves spiritually and how much we engage the energy of the world in a kind of fearless way including relationship including money including livelihood, including parenting, including society on duh you know, this is for each one of us to work through, but we're taking the view here that any of these topics is fundamentally talking about our spiritual wellbeing, how we really to them and that any sense of embarrassment about a particular area is going to lead to a kind of dark corner for us that some we're talking about. If if there is one notion of spirituality, I'd buy into it's the idea of turning the lights on, you know, illumination, you know, having everything sort of seen clearly as it is so money is it is it is a tricky one people get d c be said, you know people get embarrassed mostly when they're talking about money and sex and I I wanted teo provide a marriage counseling service at one point and say it's only five thousand dollars a session for the first session one hour but we're going to talk about money and sex get right to it you know it's like everybody's talking around these things and obviously this workshops not about thie the latter but it is about the former um so what what we're saying here is that our business can only succeed to the level of success we'll allow in our life we experienced poverty mentality when we cannot access our own internal sense of richness and worthiness and I think what sierra was saying with such a beautiful frame you know, for this conversation we're not talking about having a lot of money and um we are talking about contentment and that's a heart space you know so uh the idea is the way it would be expressing buddhism is right livelihood you know, there's a notion of like approaching livelihood with integrity bring in our full selves into it and not being embarrassed about that issue of life that dimension of life at all um so I think I've been going on with this when it comes to money somewhere between grasping and ignoring money looms as a barometer of our state of mind and our relationship to the world uh what is our relationship to money let me throw it to you you have to you a little bit here anybody wanna volunteer and tell me how you feel about money and maybe lincoln how you feel about yourself so I grew up in a really, really affluent part of california and so but my and I went to elementary school that was maybe just the most affluent uh public elementary school that I can't even imagine but my parents were totally middle class but my mom was like you've got to go to this one it's great greater better teachers but what it did for me from you know great to eighth grade but I really had this sense of like wow, I'm really poor all the time I don't go skiing for ski week I don't have new clothes I don't have nike air does anyone remember the nike air where you would go here? I want them so pump there were only one hundred twenty dollars can I have them? No, I definitely didn't have those so is this whole sensibly that I had to really that I internalize because it became part of that identity and I think that a lot of my recent life has been about kind of unpacking that sense that got kind of repressed because after a certain point you like oh that's not true I'm not a matic quit just because I wasn't the rich kid but somehow that got kind of repressed down and then you're like all right, so if it's I probably have to bring up that little cage and see what's really going on in there to kind of to release that yank's tor shame you know I think it becomes chaim became shame for me, huh how's that going it's going good it's going good I think that I think that but by being able to accept it and talking about it with close friends and and then being able to kind of like doom or I don't know what to say but maybe like affirmation type stuff you kind of try to get to the subconscious level of like he there is you know there is abundance around me it's not there's not lack everywhere but I have until I really have it be I mean, I'm practice something that was a bit of a mantra for a while trying to kind of get it down here because it's one thing for me to have it like oh, I'm fine but getting it down here where I felt that sense of land he was important for me so how hard I'm going to get both of us in trouble here on great how hard is it to ask for a raise uh it's hard it is hard do you deserve one? I have asked for a raise recently and that was that you have to kind of pull it together to do yes it was awkward it's a painful even though I love my boss it was it was it was a difficult conversation to have a life just pulling the pieces together that all of them are running away you know there are like get that way jump under the table but I was like guys were going to ask for a raise now I made the decision and had the conversation so yeah it's very painful very difficult you know and really having to stack up all those senses of like I'm worth it doing great work but all that stuff you do that thing in the mirror you know I'm workin scali gm uh what was that thing? So I'm good enough for people like me stuart smalley well I should probably I should do that one more practice yeah, well that's very poignant in a way that's exactly what we're talking about here and to come to an accurate sense of one's worth in the marketplace uh requires a certain amount of fearlessness in terms of askew said encountering the personal dimension of internal dimension and then bring it out so I think that's really good uh good uh claiming that you did there anybody else uh won't talk about your relationship to money you're of course this is your your song yeah but I've wrestled with it ok? And uh you know, I feel like it the balance of earth and heaven my I'm a first generation american my parents grew up in england during world war two they're german bombs raining down on their head on dh they I had a very strange relationship with money and they came to united states in pursuit of it really leaving behind family which I don't think was worth it I think it would have been better off staying I don't think it was I don't think the tradeoff is worth it the money for the money which is controversial but that's how I feel controversial within the family I think it's controversial yeah probably so it's a bit again was a balance of you know money an earth and then I went to art school very heart filled very heaven filled on then gave it up because I couldn't pay my student loan bills back so I had to go back to earth and then I became incredibly depressed and anxious e had to go back to heaven and so for me it's been try c saw this balancing act and so I'm that's what I that's the problem I want to solve for obviously been trying to solve for myself and hopefully consol for other right so it's a really interesting balance it's a balance I think one of the topics we're going to get into plater is negotiation which is a very interesting topic for me personally because that's when the two sides of the equation lineup I used to say put an equal sign in the middle and put the two party's on either side of the equal sign and see when it looks like this that way that way you you won't under I sell but you also won't go for the gouge which has karmic consequences when you do it a little ripple back um but it is uh that is what we're going to get to talk about that later so let's not let's not jump ahead, but, um the ask there's a moment when you deal with money when you ask you, uh you know, there might be an offer uh probably, but and you might not want to just take the offer at face value. It might be just the right offer. You then there's nothing to think about here's the job and you ask I'm going to sneeze, so I hope this isn't blow out our sound system that's called a one shot deal one stop shopping you sneeze and sagas in tight at the same time so they ask, what experiences have any of you had with making the ask and, uh, you know, an incident you could talk about? What was your turn to speak up asked for the money and how did you feel and how did you have to make out we'll go to the chat rooms, and then our people perking up in there. Okay, so let's, do one more in the audience and then go. Has anybody made the ask time for the ask? Did you have to ask? Yes, I x. I negotiated my cell phone bill from four eyes and I was paid a hundred dollars a month, and I got it down to sixty dollars a month by asking you said, could you lower my bill? Uh, not necessarily. I let them know that their other providers that have my same plan for lower price and if you didn't load the rate, I'm going to leave. So they beat them by ten dollars. So I got him down to sixty book. That is very good. Ask story. Anybody about online? Do you have any share? Something with you actually are? Well, we teach so many great courses here. Think matt deafness or ari my cell that was talking about bill cutters, which is actually a negotiation service for people. They will negotiate for you, and then they take a portion of what they save you so you can outsource it. Have a great are you gonna be here for you? I had a similar situation the last time I went to the uk to visit my mother I couldn't believe her phone bill and it was quite clear they were just taking advantage so I called them on her behalf on dh even the woman on the phone said what did your mother have a gold plated phone so maybe don't ask she just accepted that that's what she was saying charge good now we have asked for some asked experiences, but what we've got so far are just relationships to money. Lisa renee says I have trouble receiving anything because it makes me feel in debt to the other person in terms of money this means I feel better donating or not selling because it leaves me feeling on even terms even though logically I know this energetic exchange doesn't make any sense that's lisa's that is lisa renee so lisa renee here out there, wherever you are, we know you're out there somewhere um that's worth contemplating and that's what the whole purpose of this program is that you take something like that they're taking at face value you look one step deeper into it and there's something underlying there which is um um you are giving them something andi so maybe that's not being understood properly, the actual exchange is completed you're giving the person the opportunity to recognize the value of what you've given them and that's actually good for them so there's an interesting point there of like um looking a little bit deeper into the into the assumptions that underlie some of those kind of points of view in a proper exchange even in a spiritual context for example in buddhist teachings it's completely appropriate uh to offer a gift to the teacher so that the student is not to some poverty stricken individual but they have their own richness that they're offering that exchange that gives meaning to the exchange that's very classical traditional approach uh so by giving people the opportunity to to make that kind of exchange ah you actually helping them to so um that's that's worth worth looking deeper into I think and any others come and actually there's a positive experience masaki just asked for three hundred dollars a day for an interpreting job they were scared because they thought it was a lot but the client said yes ah this is sort of leaning towards my favorite topic which is the kind of negotiation space because it's hot well I keep wanting to go there but we're gonna we're gonna bide our time and get there when we get there that's that's great so the equipment that's masaki right? So um one wonders what would happen if you ask for four hundred yeah so that's what I'm going to get into a little bit in that excitement yeah as for a ask story sometime ago I had one job that I was leaving to go to potentially a dream job at the time and my boss of my current job was coaching me on how to interview and ask for my salary for the next upcoming potential job so we're talking about money and I told my current boss a number who said oh no go higher I said but you're paying me whatever and I've already gone higher he's like you're worth more tell them the higher number and add someone so it was I went in I told him a number and they said okay I'm thinking oh god, I just increased my salary and how did you feel about that? Oh, I was ecstatic on dh shocked that my current bosses when I said to him but you're not paying me that he said he didn't ask for it uh this is a great story but take note of number anymore from our online audience on that it's just you know they're they're nlp is gaining a better relationship for money growing their relationship with it on dh then there is susan made an interesting comment society is always pressing us to make more money buy more things but most artists I'm supposing like them have different values and learn how to spread that one hundred dollars out. And share it compared to a corporate business person that's their perspective what's your take on susan's let's go through that one more time sure society is always pressing us to make more money and buy more things but most artists have different values and learned to spread in one hundred dollars out and share it compared to a corporate business person well, you know our sort of final point in the in this whole thing successes on your own terms if your we're not trying to promote any particular value system here but just to bring out your own and then see okay are you in thinker out of sync with your own so I think the ball goes back to her in terms of uh maybe it doesn't really matter what society thinks on a certain level unless it matters to you I know a lot of people couldn't care less what society thinks and uh how does that boil down to you to a certain kind of pressure or or not and if your own credo your own code is working for you that's all we really talking about here is having that kind of clarity about it but if you're feeling stressed by that comparison and uh and if you look deeper and you go you know uh maybe undervaluing and I think this is where hands uh workshop comes in maybe you have a built in undervalue if your artwork you know, in terms of value in society, for example, we live in a society that doesn't, and in the us it doesn't really any more support art as a part of the culture, whereas if you're in germany, for example, there's much more support for those kind of activities, and so art is sort of seen as a kind of value proposition. So we have is interesting in that question to look at the sort of societal or cultural context ah, you're coming from their good. Okay, good stuff. Your guess is as good as mine. So something's as to how this manifests, uh, our property mentality, you know, how does it show up? Uh, next, uh, slide it's hard enough out there, let's, not undermine ourselves if we find ourselves with a litany of complaints, if we're constantly pointing out the shortcomings of ourselves and others were drilling a hole in our own gas tank. So this is, um, um, kind of general sense of advice, if you will, um, to monitoring our state of mind in our speech particular, um, if we moving into grumble mind, you know, aren't we? Oh, you know, uh and, uh, there's a sort of tone of this satisfaction in global mind and we're hanging out there we're not, uh, ever undermining anybody, else's well being, we do that, they don't even know we're doing it, or they might look over there and say, what's, going on with that person. So we're undermining ourselves. And the premise here is that it's hard enough eyes challenging enough to be an artist to be in the workplace, and if we then add to that we are going now, actually use our energy to hundred mine our own sense of well being in confidence, and that can sometimes take the form of too much comparison with others. That's I think one of the one of the people from online had that tone of, like, what others are thinking, what they think is valuable, how much they think let's, say our parents, for example, some of our parents wanted us to be a doctor, not a musician, you know, probably in the next generation, and they wanted there was they don't want you to be a doctor, they want you to be an artist. But you know, the idea that we have a module in our mind and import, whether we're aware of it or not, of other people's opinions about who we should be that's almost like another voice in our head, you know? On dh that we wantto just become more aware of that. And if it takes the form of negative undermining of our own capacities of our own adventure, of our own sense of thriving, uh, we wantto exercise those voices. Just get them out and there's a lot of different processes. You know, obviously, people have their own way of going about that. But the most powerful one is to become aware of what, through whatever device to use. So, you know, being aware that that grumble mind is julian hole in our own gas tank. And then you wonder why your you know the car is sputtering.