Myth Busters: Money, Power, Respect

See i believe in money, power and respect...
It's the key to life
Money power respect
That you need in life
Money power respect
You'll be eatin' right
Money power respect
You can sleep at night
You'll see the light
It's the key to life
--Lil' Kim from Money, Power Respect

I am a big proponent of truth at all costs. To the question, “can you handle the truth,” I always answer, “yes, we can handle the truth!” But then sometimes, it may be, that once we know the truth, we are better served to just forget it. Lil' Kim's keys to life are nothing but myths, but, maybe it's good to believe. Sometimes.


(1) You can change the World!
Okay, forget what Time Magazine told you in 2006 (btw: they are on their way out of business). Of course you can not change the world! Obama can't change the world. Even these people have less power than we think (Forbes 400). We each are tiny, powerless, and no more or less potential to influence than anyone else. For everything we try to do, someone will try to do something different.

Still, that way of thinking gets us no-where. With everything you do (or don't do) imagine all 6.7 billion of the rest of us doing or not doing the same thing. It adds up. Also, if you act as if you have all the power in the world, a surprising number of people will actually believe you. If you believe in this myth and then others start to believe.... then, suddenly you are a mighty powerful force. Think small and act big.

(2) $$$$$$
[for those among us who are not actively investing our money: please continue reading all the way to the end]

Yes, Money is a Myth; we all know this. It is paper and tin* coins whose most valuable asset is our collective belief in its (constantly changing) value. It amazes me that some people are willing to murder, steal, and trade their personal integrity in bribe all to get a few extra leafs of these germ-laden lies. Looks like, the joke is on you, Madoff! Ha. ha… hmm.

It also amazes me how easily we all seem to wrap our brains around this myth: believing in money is like believing in an inch or a centimeter only every day someone (the market) convinces us to accept a new length for the same inch. Yesterday a dollar was that, today it’s just a little bit less and we move on. It’s incredible.

And now Paper Money has become its own ancient myth. As you know, the Federal Reserve Bank did not actually print new money to bail out the economy, it simply added zeroes to some vault-secured (I hope!) Excel workbook. I myself barely remember what cash looks like.

So why do we believe in this myth? Okay, I don’t need to say too much here: the alternative is bartering with real assets: I’ll trade you 20 Pokemon dragons for one Slurpee. We can all envision the mess.

NOW: To those of you who think the stock market is a joke, I'm with you. I do not trust corporations and I understand very little about the futures of stocks and hedges ….or the hedged futures of stock swaps… and, wait, forget stocks, can we just swap futures instead?...Anyway! The world of high finance and corporate charading is, quite frankly, silly. BUT it is no more of a lie than money itself.

In spite of some occasional blips, the values of business investments rise over time. Remember, fraud and schemers aside, most stocks and funds are tied to real businesses, real assets, energy plants in Montana that are generating more value every day. The stock market tends to rise over time while the value of currency is constantly eroded by inflation (that dollar that bought you a pack of cigarettes 15 years ago, won't even buy you a smoke today). If all you’ve got is cash, you’re going to have a lot less of everything tomorrow. Those who have will get and those who get are--- well, most often white. And their parents before them were white. And Santa Clause is also … white.

Don't get the wrong idea, the stock market is not a conspiracy but it isn’t magic either. No-one out there understands any more about it than you do. So here’s my bottom-line on the money myth: don’t kill for it, don’t freak if you loose some, but do play along! Myths are inflated by rules, so do some research and think long-term. The world is full of fake money, don’t you want some too?!

And finally, while I can reject my love of truth and embrace myths 1 & 2, this final myth, I believe, must be broken:

(3) YOU!!
Yes, even You are a myth. You are 100% made-up. Some bizarre amalgamation of your parent’s (mis-)teachings, genetic pre-dispositions, and chance life experiences of getting on one bus instead of another. Maybe there is some magnet of fate guiding this mess but we will never know (and if such a guiding force does exist, it may very well be Nike, J.Crew and Dwell Magazine pulling your strings… maybe God is at the top of the food chain and he pulls the corporate strings? Who knows!). In any event, you are completely free to be you! And everything you think you know about who you are can change on the instant. So break this myth and take singing lessons, man-up and tell your snot-nosed teenager to get a job, get a job yourself, practice patience instead of road-rage; practice road-rage instead of patience; just stop, stretch and grow! You are not who you think you are.