The Soul Of Money
Lynne Twist
This note will be insufficient in describing the power this book had with me...
This book had such an impact on me in seeing something more usefully/clearly that it not only jumps into my mythical all-time top 25 but I have been waiting a few days to write something "sensational" about it as opposed to just jumping in... I am going to do the latter because I am realizing that when I bring the great energy of the moment to my writing it usually comes out better (at least for me) because when writing becomes a to-do (like a lot of to-dos), well, life just isn't nearly as much fun... But I digress... Here we go...
This is a book I wish I had read long ago as it provides a mental model of the relationship of people with money that fits into an even wider model of people in relationship to the world and to their lives...
My friend Deb Wetherby recommended it and I think knows the author Lynne Twist.
Lynne Twist has been a fund raiser for 30 years now. Her breakthrough moment seems to be when she returned a $50k check given to her from a food company based in Chicago that had been directed to The Hunger Project as she realized the company didn't care about the project but only wanted to clear its conscience. A fund raiser returning money! She knew it didn't feel right.
A few days later in a church in Harlem after a presentation for The Hunger Project which benefits people in countries located far from Harlem a little old lady got up and said (paraphrase) "I like you and I like what you are saying. I don't have much money. It comes and goes and when I know where it must go I give it... Money is like water... It flows and you don't want to stop it from flowing..." And gave something like $50 not $50k...
Lynne Twist suggests that humans live in a mental model of scarcity... And that sense of scarcity becomes self-fulfilling in the mind. She notes that most people wake up in the morning most days think "I didn't get enough sleep" and from that moment we are largely set on a daily routine dominated by scarcity and insufficiency. She says it is a false framework... That people with everything that could ever want/need to survive live very scared that they will run out of something... She sees this in lives of the extremely rich...
That was a key concept I was thrilled to be reminded of from a fresh angle and so Lynne speaks of the model of insufficiency and scarcity affecting our whole lives not just "money" but it is DEEPLY rooted in our relationship to money to be certain.
I could write as many pages about this book and my experience of it as there are pages in the book but I won't... A couple more thgts though before I call it a day.
She discussed her mom who was dying in her mid 80s... Knowing this she set a day (w Lynne’s help) to call ALL of the people who served her in her town (e.g. laundry, hair dresser, waitresses, auto mechanic) to let them know she was dying and to thank them deeply for serving her so well... A tremendous desire to communicate gratitude to people so they would KNOW what they had meant to her. She asked each of these people to come to her funeral when that would occur...
I was floored by this and reminded how much further I can go in showing my gratitude for so so many. I almost hoped that when I die years from now that I have a similar opportunity AND I also don't want to wait.
Finally
An excerpt of a note I wrote to clients that involved a story Lynne tells in the book...
THE DIGITAL DEMOGRAPHIC REVOLUTION: BUCKMINSTER FULLER
Last week I read a book called "The Soul of Money". The author Lynne Twist was a mentee of the beyond legendary thinker Buckminster Fuller. So one night he is at Lynne's home for dinner with her family and one of her children says something that really strikes everyone as unique wisdom.
Buckminster Fuller says to Lynne "Remember, your children are your elders in universe time. They have come into a more complete, more evolved universe than you or I can know. We can only see the universe through their eyes."
In other words... They have come at a later stage and see the "world" through native eyes while we must "immigrate". And their children will be their elders in turn. This is why I suppose no one ever looks to ask older people what is going to be happening in technology (if they are discerning) but rather ask or watch the youngsters to see better.
Back in 1999 shortly after I started as the Global Technology Strategist at UBS I ended a keynote introduction to the conference with a final line that in order to better understand the future we would be wise to learn from our children... a Buckminster-esqe thought.
The reaction? Incredible laughter! I was shocked but I guess I didn't have the courage to smash up the laughter to say "I AM NOT JOKING PEOPLE!"
A few hours later I had a second dose of wake-up powder. I was sitting next to the head if the UBS Equity business. During a Q+A session I raised my hand to ask a question... I can't remember the question but I do remember the head of equities whispering in my ear that "I SHOULD know the answer to that question" implying that I should not be seen as curious or investigating or asking questions because I should be positioning as the all-knowing expert given my new title as Global Tech Strategist. I should - in other words - pretend that I know EVERYTHING.
**********************
About change...
"We have dreamed it: therefore it is. I have become convinced that everything we think and feel is merely perception: that our lives - individually as well as communally - are modeled around such perception: and that if we want to change, we must alter our perception. When we give our energy to a different dream, the world is transformed. To create a new world, we must first create a new dream."... John Perkins
Joker One
Donovan Campbell
This book started fairly slowly but grew slightly more powerful to me chapter after chapter. It is written by a very bright young man who becomes a marine platoon commander during the Iraq War. He never states it so clearly until the final few pages what has transpired in these men's lives as they grow from strangers to literally willfully risking their lives routinely for one another in a cause that they believe is meaningful though they are disliked if not hated by the community that they are responsible to serve. It was extraordinary for me.
Entropy: A New World View
Jeremy Rifkin, Ted Howard, and Dr. Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen
A much under-appreciated book suggesting monumental change into the future whether we decide to get behind it or not. I am not surprised that VERY few people wish to get behid the ideas in his book...it is too much pain of adoption when the alternative is to simply ignore his messages.
The Caterpillar Doesn't Know: How Personal Change Is Creating Organizational Change
Kenneth Hey, Peter Moore, and Peter D. Moore
Spectacular book... Mind opening for those just getting into the world of monumental change... Nearly a top 25 selection.
The Age of Spiritual Machines
Ray Kurzweil
Fun unless Ray Kurzweil's look at the world head scares the life out of you… his vision of life beyond 2010 is provocative
Trading Up: Why Consumers Want New Luxury Goods... And How Companies Create Them
Michael Silverstein, Neil Fiske, and John Butman
An excellent read about the elements that allow entrepreneurs to take advantage of americans desire to trade up for certain brands and products. The book does little in addressing the sources of this cultural situation. Case studies include Samuel Adams brewery, Callaway, BMW, Belvedere Vodka, Victoris's Secret, Panera Bread and more. Very very helpful book.
The Culture Code
Clotaire Rapaille
Absolutely outstanding. I can see why he is much in demand. What his "codes" do is allow me to see much more clearly many base ideas from which humans of different culture make decisions. Certainly on of the five most useful books I have read in the past year.
High Tech High Touch
Nana Naisbitt and Douglas Philips
How technology changes society? Longitude Dava Sobel A superb and fascinating account of the race to solve the puzzle of calculating longitude during the 1600-1700s… applicable to our change framework -- its all there.
Culture And Consumption II: Markets, Meaning, And Brand Management
Grant McCracken
Superb. Immediate insights about what goes on with humans as we make decisions on consumption. Readily apparent that Grant could speak to what it is to be human without ever stopping and why smart companies hire him to help.
Got Game: How the Gamer Generation Is Reshaping Business Forever
John C. Beck, Mitchell Wade
While we are big big proponents that the digital natives raised in the computer age are fundamentally different in many ways than the analogists we don't attribute it directly to gaming at all. The authors more so than not do however.