What If We Approached Money With The End In Mind? A Pivotal Moment

What if approached the subject of money not from what we wanted but what we already had? Not from what we kept but from what we shared? Will the climb up the corporate ladder look different? Would our goals change?

Seven years ago, we had a group of friends, high achievers, over for dinner. Amongst our guests was a newly retired director of a hospice.

I thought to tie in our dinner discussion with what she did by posing this question to my dinner guests: “How would you live life differently if you were told you only had 30 days left to live?‘ It was a question I had never contemplated. But as my guests started answering it, it became apparent that most of us were living our lives differently from how we would if we felt any sense of urgency.

It was a beautiful, early summer day. As I reflected on the question, I looked out of our floor-to-ceiling windows that surrounded the dining table, appreciating the stunning sunset. It started to dawn on me that for someone who preached “authenticity,” the only thing real in my life was the breathtaking views of Mt. Baker on one side and the snowcapped Olympic Mountains on the other, with the Juan D…