MONEY Master the Game: 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom (87 page)

We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.

—WINSTON CHURCHILL

As we take these final steps of our journey together, I want to invite you to think about
what you are most passionate about in this world. What do you care for most deeply? What excites you? What legacy would light you up? What could you do today that would make you proud?
What action could you take that would be a signal to your own spirit that your life is being lived well? And if you were truly inspired, what would you like to create or give?

All these questions bring us closer to
the final secret of true wealth.
But—and here’s the deal—part of the key may seem counterintuitive. We’ve spent a lot of time talking about how to master money, save, invest, and build a critical mass that can ultimately create freedom and increase the quality of your life. But at the same time,
we’ve all been taught that money cannot buy happiness
. As one study attests, most people believe that if their income doubled, their happiness would also double. But the study’s findings proved that, in reality, people who went from earning $25,000 per year to $55,000 per year reported only a 9% increase in happiness. Additionally, one of the most widely quoted studies on the subject tells us that once you make a solid middle-class salary—about $75,000 per year in America—earning more money doesn’t make any measureable difference in a person’s level of happiness.

“So, what’s the point?” you might ask.

The truth is:
more recent studies have proven that money
can
make us happier.
Scientists have shown that “spending as little as five dollars a day can significantly change your happiness.” How so?
Well, it’s not the amount of money you spend, but how you decide to spend it that matters. “Every day spending choices unleash a cascade of biological and emotional effects that are detectable right down to saliva,”
reports Harvard’s Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton in their brilliant 2013 book,
Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending.
“While having more money can provide all kinds of wonderful things—from tastier food to safer neighborhoods—its real power comes not in the amount but how we spend it.”

They have scientifically proven that there are many different ways you can spend your money that will actually increase your happiness significantly. I won’t reveal them all here and will leave it to you to pick up their book, but three of the most important are:

1. 
Investing in experiences
—such as travel, learning a new skill, or taking some courses, rather than acquiring more possessions.

2. 
Buying time for yourself
—“Whenever we can outsource our most dreaded tasks (from scrubbing toilets to cleaning gutters), money can transform the way we spend our time, freeing us to pursue our passions!”

But can you guess the greatest thing you can do with your money that will bring you massively increased happiness?

3. 
Investing in others
—That’s right. Giving our money away actually makes us really happy!

Research shows that the more you give to others, the happier you are. And the more you have, the more you are able to give. It’s a virtuous cycle. Dunn and Norton demonstrate through their own scientific studies that
people get more satisfaction spending money on others than they do spending it on themselves
. And the benefits “extend to not only subjective well-being, but also objective health.”

In other words, giving makes you both happier and healthier.

According to the authors, this phenomenon spans continents and cultures, rich countries and poor, people in the highest and lowest income groups, young and old, “from a Canadian college student purchasing a scarf for her mother, to a Ugandan woman buying lifesaving malaria medication for a friend.” Again, the data shows that the size of the gift doesn’t really matter.

In one of their studies, the authors handed participants either $5 or
$20 to spend by the end of the day. Half were told to buy something for themselves; the others were instructed to use the money to help somebody else. “That evening, people who had been assigned to spend the money on someone else reported [significantly] happier moods over the course of the day than did those people assigned to spend the money on themselves,” they wrote.

The authors’ colleague, psychologist Lara Aknin of Simon Fraser University, conducted another study in which she handed out $10 Starbucks gift cards to her subjects.

• Some were instructed to go into Starbucks alone and
use the gift card on themselves.

• Some were told to
use the gift card to take another person out for coffee.

• Some were told to
give the gift card away to someone else,
but they weren’t allowed to go to Starbucks with that person.

• Some were told to
take another person with them to Starbucks but to use the card only for themselves,
not the person with them.

At the end of the day, which subjects do you think reported being happiest? You’re right if you picked the ones who were there in Starbucks when they treated someone else to a cup of coffee. According to the authors, people are happiest when they connect with those they help, and “see how their generous actions have made a difference.”

The happiness we feel from helping others is not only more intense, but it lasts longer too.
When I brought up the topic of money and happiness in my interview with renowned behavioral economics expert Dan Ariely, he told me, “If you ask people, ‘What would make you happy: buying something for yourself, or buying something for somebody else?’ they say, ‘Oh, something for myself.’ But that’s not true. Research shows that when people buy something for themselves, they get happy for a few minutes or usually a few hours. But if they buy even a small gift for somebody else, the giver’s happiness lasts a minimum to the end of the day, but often the happiness can carry over for days or even weeks on end.”

Dan also told me about a
“beautiful experiment” in which employees of a certain company were given bonuses in the $3,000 range. Some people got the bonuses to spend on themselves. And some were instructed to give the money away. Guess who was happier?

“Six months down the line, the people who gave it away reported being much happier than the group that kept it for themselves,” Dan said. “I mean, think about what giving is all about, right? It’s an amazing thing that connects you to other people . . . and there’s a cycle of benefits that comes from that.”

When you give away money, especially if you do something for a stranger versus if you do something for someone you love, the level of multiplied happiness is geometric. It’s the equivalent of doubling or tripling your salary.

In my own experience, I’ve witnessed so many amazing things that happen when you give. When you get beyond your own survival and success mechanisms to a world where you’re living for more than just yourself, suddenly your fear, your frustration, your pain and unhappiness disappear. I truly believe that when we give of ourselves, then life, God, grace—whatever you want to call it—steps in and guides us. Remember,
life supports whatever supports more of life.

Let me give you an example of how a young boy’s life was reignited after his heart and soul were nearly crushed in the aftermath of the horrific school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. His is a story of finding purpose and inspiration and a release from pain through the act of giving.

A POWER BEYOND PAIN

JT Lewis will never forget December 14, 2012. That morning a deranged shooter broke into
Sandy Hook Elementary School
with a death wish for himself and 26 others, including 20 children ranging from ages five to ten. At one point during the rampage, JT’s six-year-old brother, Jesse, noticed the shooter’s weapon had jammed and shouted for his classmates to run. That brave little boy saved many lives that morning, but, unfortunately, not his own. The gunman turned on Jesse and shot him dead.

Imagine the devastation if Jesse were your son. Or brother. I had the privilege of meeting 13-year-old JT, and his and Jesse’s mother, Scarlett, when I flew to Newtown on the first anniversary of the massacre to help a group of survivors cope with the ongoing impact of this devastating tragedy. As I expected, so many of these families were tortured with grief. But I was astonished to talk to JT and learn how his pain and suffering had been
transformed through a single interaction with a group of extraordinary Rwandan orphans. These young boys and girls had heard about JT’s loss and wanted to reach out across the globe to share a message of healing.

These orphans had all survived one of the worst tragedies in history. In 1994, mass genocide in Rwanda led to the death of as many as 1 million Tutsis, who were killed by their Hutu neighbors in roughly 100 days. During a Skype call, one of the girls, Chantal, told JT how sorry she was for the loss of his brother.
But she wanted him to know that no one can take away joy and happiness from your life, only you;
the shooter does not have that power.

She then went on to share her own story of how she was only eight years old when she had been forced to witness the horrendous sight of her parents being hacked to death by men with machetes. Next the killers turned on her, slashing her neck and throwing her tiny body in a mass grave. Buried beneath the ground, bleeding profusely and terrified, but filled with a will to survive, Chantal clawed her way out of that shallow grave and made her way to freedom in the mountains above her village. Hiding in the dark forest, she could look down on the community she once called home, as flames swallowed house after house, and the air echoed with screams of the people she loved. She lived on grass for a month while she waited for the killing to stop.

Certainly you would expect a child forced to witness the murder of her own parents would be emotionally scarred for life. One would expect her to live in anger and fear, but she doesn’t. She is a master of the three decisions that shape our lives.

As she told JT, “I know you don’t believe it now, but you can heal immediately and live a happy and beautiful life. It simply requires training yourself to, every day, be grateful, forgiving, and compassionate. Grateful for what you do have, instead of focusing on what you don’t. You must forgive the shooter and his family and find a way to serve others, and you will be freed from your pain.”
Her face was filled with a joy greater than JT could have ever imagined. As bad as his life was, the horror she described was more intense than anything he could conceive. If she could be free of her pain, then so could he. And now was the time.

But how would he do it? He decided he must find a way to give back to this young soul who had reached across thousands of miles to send him love
on his day of need. Chantal found her reason to live, her passion and sense of purpose, in deciding to protect, love, and raise some of the other younger orphans of the genocide. This became her mission, and it freed her from focusing on herself or any sense of loss.

Her example of service to others touched JT deeply, and he became obsessed with the idea of giving. He decided that helping to create a better future for this extraordinary girl was his mission. He began to work day and night to raise money to put her through college. Within several months, this 13-year-old boy was able to Skype back and announce that he had raised $2,100—enough money to send Chantal to college for a year! She was incredibly touched. But like many young people, especially in the third world, university was simply not a practical option for her, especially as she had already started her own small business as a shopkeeper. (And as you might imagine from a woman with her spirit, she is quite a successful entrepreneur!) So, in the continued spirit of giving, Chantal passed this amazing gift on to her best friend, Betty, another orphan who had also been on the call to encourage JT.

I was so moved by JT’s commitment that I decided on the spot to provide the additional three years of college for Betty, and support Chantal by providing her the funding to build a new shop and a permanent residence for the rest of her adopted orphan family.

Today we’re all working together to expand the resources available for many more of the 75,000 orphaned children who survived the genocide.
²⁷

The lesson here is this: human beings can overcome our pain when we choose to see life’s beauty and find a way to give of ourselves. That is where the healing gift comes from. The key is finding something that will inspire you to
want
to give. That sense of mission—that’s the ultimate power in life. That’s when you truly become wealthy—that is when you move from a mere life of enjoyment to a life of joy and meaning.

GIVING IS HEALING

Of course, giving means more than just giving money. It’s also giving your time, it’s giving your emotion, it’s giving your presence to your kids, to your family, to your husband or your wife, to your friends, to your associates. Our work is also our gift. Whether that gift is a song, a poem, building a multinational business, serving as a counselor, a healthcare provider, or a teacher,
we all have something to give.
In fact, after love, one of the most sacred gifts we can give is our labor. And volunteering your time, giving your unique level of caring, and sharing your skills will also give you significant “returns.”

My friend Arianna Huffington cites studies in her brilliant book
Thrive
that show how the act of giving actually improves your physical and mental health. One example I love in particular is the 2013 study from Britain’s University of Exeter Medical School that reveals how volunteering is associated with lower rates of depression, higher reports of well-being, and a 22% reduction in death rates! She also writes, “Volunteering at least once a week yields improvements to well-being tantamount to your salary increasing from $20,000 to $75,000!”