In the venture capital world of startups, we’re obsessed, culturally speaking, with how much money you make, how much your company is valued at, and how much money you can raise.
Money is certainly one indicator of success, and can be an important tool to measure your progress and growth. But money is not the only thing to grow rich in, and often the world of work completely forgets about—or obliterates—the other ways we can grow rich.
Wealth can be created across more areas than just financially. Sure, monetary wealth can be a beautiful thing, and I’ve got aims to grow wealthy in money. But today I want to share three areas that are more important to me for wealth—it’s not always just about money.
Grow rich in… Experiences
The length of your life, your enjoyment of it, and the way you experience it directly relates to the quality of your experiences. When you’re young, travel. Seek out new opportunities. When you’re any age, really. As we slow down and move into habit and routine, we can lose time simply because we aren’t aware that it is passing.
Experiences are the foundation of connection, conversation, memory, and growth. When evaluating opportunities, I think: Will this add to my wealth of experiences?
Children, as an example, are a wealth of experiences and an adventure in themselves. Being able to have children and raise children can be the most beautiful of experiences. Despite potentially being a drain on our bank accounts, I find seeing them grow up and ask questions one of the best things I’ve ever done.
Grow rich in… Friendships
Richness is in friendships. I want to be full, overflowing, satiated, bursting with love for my friends and my family and my colleagues. I want to take on the heartbreak and the sadness and the pain that comes alongside love and laughter and joy, because it means I’ll be there with them, and they’ll be there with me.
True friendship can be inconvenient, it can be messy, it can be laborious (driving hours each way to see someone; giving up other opportunities to make time, whatever it takes)—but it’s also a wealth worth building. At the end of the day, I want someone to hold my hand and tell me we did enough, that our time mattered, and that we were lucky to spend it alongside each other.
Grow rich in… Wisdom
Education is never-ending. One of my favorite ways of framing my own personal education is thinking about life in two-year spans. It takes two years to really dig in deep enough to an area to learn about it and find an intermediate level of mastery of the material. I have, ideally, quite a few two-year spans in my life.
My journey into storytelling and marketing was a two-year self-guided journey into reading 85 different books on positioning, storytelling, communications, and more. It has served me dividends already in all of the work that I do. My parenting journey is another education; my business, yet another one. Never stop learning, or investing, in your education.
Yes, I love money (and I love writing that!)—and I also want to be wealthy in experiences, friendships, and wisdom.