The Relationship with Money

Got a lot of great replies and discussion in response to "The Knack for Getting Money" and "Hello, dear reader – what’s money to you?"

The "Knack" post was really popular and got spread around, and it's kind of crazy to see the reaction. I got a chance to connect with a few cool people I'd never met before over business and entrepreneurship type stuff, but also some people were really nasty. The biggest thing that surprises me is how a number of people equated wanting to make money with sociopathy.

What the hell? Looking to provide value, serve people, and get a share of the value you created is a disease?

I asked a number of people to weigh in with:

1. If they've had any interesting experiences, and,
2. Why some people act like working to make money is wrong (which seems crazy to me - provide legit service, work hard, deliver, and get a share of the value you create... duh?)

So as surprised as I was to see various hostility, I was really pleased with a number of people who weighed in. Judd wrote up a long informative answer, where he says the process of making money is more about self-discovery than about all the nice things he gets.

I got this email from a reader Jared, a very cool guy working on algorithmic trading in Chile -

I call it the relationship with money. I have a similar history as Judd with hustling since I was a kid and think part of that relationship includes belief phenomenal returns are possible .
My first venture was at 15 when I offered to dispose of 15-486 computers from my after school job. I cleaned them up, organised a sale and installed Windows-95 and Doom95, selling them for $300 a pop. It was a small fortune for a 15 yr old!

After I invested it all in the stockmarket in a 0.16c stock and made 50% in a couple of weeks. Then the stock crashed to 0.04c and lost it all hoping for rebound! It was a great lesson in greed! I was put off the stock market for 5 years and only got back into it at 21-22!

Interesting, interesting stuff. The "relationship with money" - having good experiences (like cleaning up computers that were going to be thrown away and selling them) seems to promote wanting do more things with money... whereas investing poorly and losing your cash makes you want to stay away from it for a while, and worsens the relationship.

Thanks for the perspective, Jared - interesting stuff. I think there's something to it, here - where a person's experiences with money early lend to how they feel about it later. I wonder what that suggests about people who equate money with sociopathy? Yikes...