Collaborative Wealth: How Do You Make It Happen?

19 Apr Collaborative Wealth: How Do You Make It Happen?

Collaborative Wealth: How do you make it happen? For each person, in their own way and in their own time, developing and growing like the piles of coins in this image, symbolically each with an appropriately sized sprig sprouting out of it? That is the question this post begins to answer. Image:  nattanan23.

Collaborative Wealth: How Do You Make It Happen?

In this short series, I’m exploring the why, what, how, and who of something I think I invented: “collaborative wealth.” The “Why?” post shared the concept. The “What?” post detailed it. Today, I want to explore how we make collaborative wealth happen–for and with each other. That is the heart of collaborative wealth, as I articulated last week:

a way of helping each other have wealth while relinquishing any control over what we each do with it.

This relinquishing control takes a lot of trust, as we noticed in our “What is Collaborative Wealth” post.

I know that’s risky. But that is also what makes collaborative wealth interesting and different from some of the cooperative forms of wealth-manifesting that readers articulated in their comments to the “Why Collaborative Wealth” post.

Why Do I Say, “How Do You Make It Happen?”

I write, “make it happen” because when I think of making wealth happen, it is much more creative, rich, and full of possibilities and pathways than what I think of making wealth. “Making wealth” sounds boring. I have had opportunities to do that and help others do that. And I’ve always refused. It’s not me, it doesn’t work for me to do that.

But making wealth happen sounds like the Beloved Community to me. To me, it means “making wealth happen for all.”

Wealth = Well-Being

And remember: I don’t think for a second that my definition of wealth is anybody else’s. Everybody has their own definition. I want to support people I trust in making wealth happen for themselves. Wealth = wellbeing, that’s the meaning of the word.

How, Exactly?

Deepak Chopra, in the book I read every day, Creating Affluence, says the best way to make money is to help others make money. I take this to heart in my business–RAISING CLARITY–by offering:

• coaching: helping you figure out why you don’t have the wealth you want, and changing that
• consulting: helping your organization or project see where it’s blocking wealth, and changing that.

But the exploration I am doing in this series of blog posts isn’t an ad, it’s a way of life. So there are many more ways I create wealth in my own life. I also help others do these same things.

1. get clear on what wealth is to me
2. remove from my life everything that feels like non-wealth (this includes anything that feels to me like cheating or lying, which are not only fear-based behaviors, but in this context, specifically scarcity-based, and scarcity-reinforcing behaviors)
3. yes, I mean I really dedicate myself to luxury; mine just may not look like yours
4. revel in my luxury, even brag about it*
5. challenge myself to go deeper, become bigger, and receive more.**

Once you do step 1, the rest falls into place. It’s not easy but it’s it is a straightforward path. (Of course we can help you with it. What did you think? But more: if you ask pertinent questions that help me know what is useful to say in an upcoming blog post and I do so, you earn a free half-hour of coaching or consulting.)

What this post is especially about is pointing out that if you want to accelerate or deepen this process in your own life, do it for and with others.

Other Posts in The Collaborative Wealth Series:

Why?

What?

Who?

*My primary luxury is having a lot of time. I’m into space and feeling very spacious. I work far fewer hours than most people and don’t aspire to work more. So my “bragging” recently took the form of correcting a soul-colleague who thought she was complimenting me when she said I seemed really busy lately. I am never busy! I took the occasion to let her know I was concerned I was giving the wrong impression, and to ask what I’d done to create that impression so I could correct it.

**Receiving more means to me giving more. There is a slight distinction between my receiving and my giving, but basically, my ability to receive means to me that I am able to give much much more. I am strategic with my time and money, but I aspire to give them and give them.