tl;dr money is the false god in the 21st century and greed is single-handedly responsible for our experience and the state of the world. greed has been a pattern of mine begging to be transformed into something higher. the only way to do that was to do what seemed to be the unthinkable. and once i did it, i experienced a new sense freedom and possibility.
money is what runs this world. it runs every one of us and everything we do. as a wise man once said: “if you want to see some really selfish behaviour, stir money into the mix and see what happens.”
there are four types of conversations that disconnect and create separation between humans: looking good, being right, conversations of time (intimacy) and conversations of money (commitments).
money itself is a tool to exchange value. as such, it is neutral. however, we live in a world that celebrates money (because money is power) rather than the creation and exchange of value. life has become about having as much as you can rather than creating as much value as you can.
and the bible warns us about that. i am not religious but have learnt that our spiritual texts read metaphorically rather than literally are transmissions about the deepest truths about being human. so just like the israelites were worshipping a golden calf when moses came down from mount sinai with the ten commandments, we are worshipping the false god of money instead of being our highest self.
the price we pay is suffering. while we live in the most affluent world that ever existed, we also live in the most miserable one since world war two i'd argue. depression and mental health issues are skyrocketing. just look at everything on social media, it’s all about how to make money quickly with chatgtp rather than how to provide value.
and in lockstep, the world is a shitshow with continued wars, pandemics, polarisation, corruption, unhealthy everything - and all can be traced back to money. more precisely: greed that is now deeply rooted within humanity (and me - more on that in a minute) and its the disease that is hollowing us from the inside out. we feel empty because we worship the meaningless. we confuse pleasure and comfort with fulfilment and purpose.
the real transformation we are about to go through as a species is the transcendence of money altogether. but before we get there, the addiction to money will reach even higher proportions. it has to get worse before it gets better - for the pendulum to change direction, it needs to swing to the extreme first.
greed is the very cancer i am working hard at ridding myself of
last week, i was presented with the demons that are most deeply rooted within my psyche: the fear of failure, the fear of making a mistake, the fear of not having enough (money). over the last two years, the markets and my reckless behaviour (ironically driven by those fears) have led to my wealth collapsing by 90%+ from its peak.
to avoid having to sell what remained of my investments, i had borrowed money from relatives. i now found myself met with the request for it to be paid back. this borrowing ended up costing me 100% as the asset i had to sell now was worth 50% less than if i had simply sold it at the time instead of borrowing cash. lots of lessons here.
another irony, if you like, is that i studied finance, worked in investment banking, fundraised, studied bitcoin and money deeply and, one would think, i therefore understand money and how to manage it. though my behaviour has little to do with understanding and everything with psychology, specifically the underlying subconscious patterns which run 95% of our lives. (the psychology of money - a powerful book on that topic)
having an “i need more of it” hoarding attitude has been a wealth and self-destructive pattern. i have written about my previous painful experiences here but clearly, i still had not learnt my lesson. i therefore had to keep experiencing the pain again with life patiently and repeatedly trying to teach me that the relationship and underlying beliefs i had with money were begging to be transformed.
money is energy and it is simply a tool to exchange value between humans. its purpose is not to be hoarded, most definitely not for me. even my gene keys highlight this beautifully: my shadows are immaturity, greed, expectation and failure. the purpose of life is to move out of one’s shadows by learning the lessons and thereby transform them into gifts - meaning my dysfunctional relationship with money serves the purpose to birth something higher. it’s a tool for transformation. it's not bad but i am meant to move beyond it.
the need to hoard money stems from a lack of trust about the future which likely stems from my ancestors who lost everything in the war (it is not rational nor mental it’s a traumatic pattern encoded in the body). by not trusting i have been creating the very future i was trying to avoid. and this is how life works. it shows us what we need to see and evolve from with increasing volume until we do. at the last stage of this process, the body gets sick and its breakdown is reflected through disease (i plan to share more about the connection between psychological conflicts/trauma and disease in a future episode. if you are curious check out this link).
so what was i meant to learn? to let go of the attachment and focus on money and use it as a tool to support something greater. i learnt this very lesson in my recent ayahuasca ceremony and while i was able to let go of that attachment in the ceremony, i had not integrated that lesson into my real life. this is the difference between understanding something intellectually and embodying, doing and being it. i knew i had to stop “smoking” yet i had not done it yet.
(this is also often misunderstood about ayahuasca. i can keep going to ceremonies over and over again but if i don’t bring back the learnings into my life, there’s no benefit of the learning in the first place.)
last week’s conflict (52/ the death of ego) was at its foundation driven by my money story because it concerned an exchange of value. as i was working through it with my coach, she asked me: “have you paid back your brother yet?” i responded: “no, not yet.” there was visceral resistance of taking another financial loss by doing so. she said: “just do it. it will be transformational.” my mind was racing and giving me all the reasons why i should do it later when my investments are up again… the mind loves telling stories justifying all kinds of ultimately erroneous and self-constraining and self-destructive actions.
as i was trying to wiggle myself out of having to do it, i realised she’s right. this is a redefining moment and if i do what feels impossible to do, it might unlock something powerful. so i took a deep breath and committed to slaying the money dragon i have been carrying with me for as long as i can think of. it was time to kill it at last and that day was the day.
after our call, i logged into my account, sold some of my investments and transferred the money. done. and it felt great. and i felt liberated, free from this burden. i could feel the shift and expansion immediately. and it was easy. i was still breathing. i was still alive. i still had a roof over my head. nothing had changed in my life, just the number in my account. i felt a lot lighter because i had just moved out of the complicated web of why i could not do what i had just done. and thereby i also had released the baggage of this open issue sitting in the back of my mind every day. i had turned the tide.
and wow, it was powerful because in that very moment my relationship with money was redefined. i had just hired an editor to help me turn this substack and my learnings into a book and she was waiting to be paid a significant amount as well. after repaying my debt, i logged in again and paid her. no more resistance. done.
i could feel that my ability and willingness to spend and invest in me had been rekindled. i had liberated myself from this shadow. or at least, i had moved out of the darkest part. and all that by “simply” doing what i was most uncomfortable doing.
this is the nugget of this episode: wherever you are stuck, wherever you are resistant to doing something or to stop doing something you are doing, the only way to move out of this discomfort is to break through by doing exactly what you are resisting. and the moment you do that, you will feel free again and wonder why you had not done it a long time ago. you will feel liberated and excited and it will feel like it was a small, easy thing to do. but until just before that moment, not a millisecond earlier, your mind will tell you it is an impossibility and your whole body will scream. and then it is done. boom. transformation. freedom. inner peace.
the very purpose of life is to evolve, grow and expand. every moment i get to decide whether i choose growth or status quo and staying stuck. the mind will always argue to keep doing what i have always been doing because it is the known, the safe and habituated way of being - staying in my comfort zone, even if self-destructive.
what we want deep down is to expand, to fully live, to thrive. there’s a yearning inside of us to break free from perceived constraints. and this requires taking risks by doing what i am most resistant to do no matter how difficult it seems to be. when i find the courage to go there, freedom awaits me on the other side. whether it is my money story, a relationship or job that needs to be changed, whatever it is that you want to do but can’t quite get yourself to do, that’s where you are meant to go.
once on the other side, life feels magical and i literally feel the expansion, the growth and the new freedom. the space of what i perceive as possible expanded in that very moment. the prison of the mind has been forced to loosen its grip and it learned a new skill that it thought was impossible until a moment ago. everything is a gift including every obstacle we encounter. it is all in service to our development. it’s the school of life.
the money story is a pervasive one. because money touches everything we do. as i quoted in the beginning: “if you want to see some really selfish behaviour, stir money into the mix and see what happens.”
i am no longer interested in the money conversation. and with the cancer of greed removed from my system, i can now bring all my efforts, energy and attention in alignment towards one singular thing: to make my life and this world more beautiful and empowered. i am finally getting myself out of the way and that’s the most powerful thing there is.
with love, vincent.
i am coaching again. after a break to do all this inner work, i am ready to serve again. if you are curious, send me a message. we will set up a call and you will experience coaching with me. i won’t sell you anything nor is there an expectation that it turns into an engagement. in that one hour, i will serve you to the best of my abilities and it will be all and only about you. you bring the content and i provide the context for you to move above and beyond where you currently are. coaching is the biggest gift you can make to yourself. and when you found the right coach for yourself, you will start playing on a whole new level. coaching is not magic but it creates miracles.
i am writing a book. as a reader of this newsletter, i am curious to learn about the format that best serves you. i would love to hear what you like about this newsletter, what you don’t and what would make reading the book worth to you. i appreciate negative feedback just as much as positive one. we aspire to make this an incredibly powerful and transformative book and i’d love you to be part of this. just hit reply and let me know your thoughts or a time when you have 15 mins to speak over the phone. i am eternally grateful.
Share this post