money vs wealth

Hey friend,

I was chatting with a friend yesterday about an education project she’s working on in Senegal on the west coast of Africa. 

We were chatting about ideas of wealth creation and it’s place in education. And discussing the challenges of the kids in Senegal.

She reminded me their is an important distinction to be made between the skill of making money (which those kids desperately need) and a lifelong mission of wealth creation.

The skill of earning money is the pretty straight forward. Its your ability to make money, to get cash. To provide a product or service that gets you paid, preferably fast. Preferably in a leveraged way that is linked to the value you are able to provide & not your time. Preferably linked to your innate gifts & curiosities. The skill of earning money is tightly linked to the beliefs around money you hold & inherited from culture, your parents, subconsciously from the school system, your friends. 

Then wealth creation. Not wealth creation in the sense of long term financial assets from investments, property, businesses.

But wealth in a broader sense of things that add wealth to the world- and these things may or may not be money producing. Things like making & raising babies, one of the highest wealth producing activities one could spend time on. Or producing a film over years & years that only you could produce that could change a global paradigm in a particular field.

Or dedicating your life to a particular solution that will change the lives of millions or more. Something that will add value to the world at a global level. 

Now, for me, the goal is for the 2 to become one. And i’m getting closer every day for sure, bringing them closer together. But they are 2 separate skills.

And in my experience wealth creation is a lot longer term journey, than making money. I figured out how to make money super early on.

 In fact i was making more money than my school teachers when I dropped out of school.

Making money is easy, straight forward- once you understand the beliefs & skills required to make it. It’s pretty simple. And its quite an easy-to-share skill. For example if you grew up in a home where your parents knew how to make money well, chances are you’ll be able to.

However, if you grew up in a home that held super un-serving, limiting beliefs around money- chances are you will have problems making money, asking for large amounts of money and being able to hold on to & grow the money you do receive. Thats until you make a decision to change those beliefs of course. 

A lot of people feel like they need to make money from their mission (of wealth creation) straight away. However, for most this probably isn’t the best path. Your mission is going to take time to unfold and it’s not something to be rushed by the scarcity of needing money. The need for money will probably corrupt your journey of building wealth. 

That’s why I’d suggest to focus on building the skill (& beliefs) of making money, preferably in a leveraged way, no attached to your time- and then use the space & resources to begin to ask the questions of the greater contribution you want to make to the world and all future generations to come. 

The greater depths you go in the asking of that question & the questions surrounding it, the great what you build will be.

If you’re constantly distracted by the scarcity of needing money- it’ll corrupt your highest possible creation and chances are you will never get to see it, let alone bring it to life.

2 separate skills. 

Learn the skill of making money first.

Then go on the journey of creating something of true wealth. 

-Jay

Jay Topp is a 23 year old writer, marketer, film maker & self-led educator originally from Australia, now based between Latin America & Europe. You can see his films here. Instagram here. And his business website here.

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