Money is important. It provides opportunity, security, and freedom. In my career, we spend a lot of time talking about money – how to acquire it, manage it, and grow it.
This is because money is a currency. As such, we trade it for goods and services that help to enrich our lives. But money is not our most used currency and is far from the most important.
At this very moment, you have an account. This account has a limited balance; you draw from it daily. You spend its assets, often with little thought, rarely concerned about bookkeeping. This currency you spend is your most valuable resource, yet you are completely unaware of how much of it you have. You spend it down every day, every hour, every minute. The currency I speak of is time.
What is most important to you in life? Are you spending your time in ways that best align with your values and goals? How are you managing it? Where are you investing it? How are you growing it?
Where and what you spend your time on has a massive impact on your life. Allow me to suggest that there is another aspect of time currency planning that deserves some serious thought. We can spend our time in the right places but still fail to achieve the desired outcome.
Our mindset and attitude can derail our return on investment, even when spending our time on those things that matter most.
We live in an increasingly chaotic and demanding world. This can lead to stress, frustration, impatience, and intolerance – all of which greatly reduce the spending power of our time currency.
If we truly want the best rate of return on our time, we must both spend it in the right places AND spend it with the right sentiment. Time spent without happiness is suffering.
The power of positivity cannot be underestimated. In what areas of your life can you be more patient? Where can you be more positive? In what ways can you show greater love?
Money is important, but it has no intrinsic value. It is desired and accumulated only because it can provide us with opportunities to better use our time – and time truly is our most important currency.
As we live our days spending our most precious currency, let’s be more mindful of how and where it is spent and be more positive when it is spent. For that will truly pay the finest of all dividends.
Listen to a deep dive into the currency of our time on the Power Up Wealth podcast.
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