Money cannot buy us happiness and abundance cannot provide a down payment on a new home. Yet when we combine the two we get something we can bank on.

1. We are not born with money nor do we die with money. Rich or poor we come into this world identically– with nothing. Then we make our exit on our own regardless of the balance in our bank accounts. What we are born with is the ability to love, to think, to be an impactful part of our worlds. We are each born with possibility and we each die with legacy. How we carve out that possibility and just what that legacy is becomes our individual choice and our personal mark. What is most memorable about our successes in life is not measured within the scope of our monetary investments but rather in the investments we make of our time, our love, our friendship, our generosity, and to our own personal renewal to be the very best and most abundant we can be. We can all be richly abundant. It costs us nothing, yet its affect is priceless. It cannot be purchased in any store and our individual feelings of abundance are uniquely one-of-a-kind.

2. Money costs. Money is not just earned. There is a cost to that earning. Time away from family and friends, anxiety, long hours, limited sleep, worry. It is easy to get locked in an earnings cycle always chasing the next client, or the newest business. Pursuing only the financial rewards or goals, often precludes you from living in and appreciating the in-the-moment opportunities that those monetary earnings afford. Our earnings are only successful if spending is part of the earning equation. Money is a tool to acquire the things that have the most value to you. Money should not be the goal of working hard, the goal of working hard should be the rewards of that money or the abundance calculated from your series of successes. The value of your money is measured not in how much you have, but in how richly you live with whatever you have. It is possible to be very financially sound and not abundant at all and to be monetarily poor with vast gratitude and abundance.

3. Abundance is free. Abundance is a mindset. It is a confidence level surrounding success and an individuals own ability to feel rich. Yes, rich can be a feeling! Rich does not have to include a magnitude of “things” but it does have to include an array of positive and energetic thoughts. Everyone can be abundant. Therefore, everyone can be rich in soul, and character, and in intension. A person can be abundant both financially and spiritually, and the essence and feeling of abundance requires no extra cash flow. Abundance is an investment and belief in our own self. It starts internally and slowly moves outward impacting the people and things closest to us.

4. Our relationship to money mimics our relationship to life. If we play small in our lives and think that we don’t deserve more, or stop challenging ourselves, that is often reflected in our spending and earning habits. When we think small, limited is what often comes back to us. In regard to finances, thinking small has us choosing one thing over another, never able to comprehend how to find the balance to have both. When we think big, we open ourselves up. We give ourselves the space to embrace and actively seek and acknowledge opportunities. We try new things and we allow ourselves to have a wider net of possibilities. This wider net translates to greater financial rewards often gotten not just from traditional work put in, but also from our ability to be working the relationships, evolutions, and nuances of our businesses and our lives.

5. Both abundance and money involve work! Nothing comes from nothing. Both abundance and money are acquired. Even when money is inherited, there is work involved in managing that inheritance. The classic story of the lottery winner or the trust fund baby who are wealthy one day and penniless the next are a sobering reality because without the work to acquire, manage, and grow our earnings, often they disappear or become illusive. Despite the fact that we can freely feel abundant, without incorporating an abundant mindset and working on the practice of gratitude in our daily lives, we often forget that we are abundant or grateful in the first place.

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