Love Is The New Money

My absolute favorite musical artist is Andy Grammer. His music is a refreshing reminder that we’re meant to enjoy life, that we can choose positivity, and that we’re on this Earth to uplift each other. 

Over the years Andy’s message has matured and it’s starting to penetrate pop culture in a meaningful way. Understanding the depth that he has to share, I know his most recent piece is going to make waves. It challenges our value system, makes us question our judgments of each other, and presents an alternative option that if accepted, would make the world a far better place.

He says that “love is the new money”.

Imagine if instead of using someone’s wealth or financial status as an indicator of their value, we asked a question to learn what was on their heart. If instead of taking a quick glance at what people are wearing or driving, we saw their purpose, passions, and ambitions before anything else and drew conclusions about them based on that.

Andy’s big point is that this idea of equating making money with success is a system that we didn’t choose. It’s something we’ve inherited and operate within and it’s run riot without us stopping to examine it.

But the problem is, this quick and unconscious judgment has wide-reaching consequences. It determines how nicely we treat people, how seriously we take people, and how much value we believe they have to offer society. This energy is then felt by them and overtime, accumulates to impact their sense of self-worth and self-confidence.

It’s not fair and not the game that we’d want to play. So why do we play it?

Another leader I’m inspired by, Adam Braun proposes that social impact could perform the same function. Quoting his book The Promise Of A Pencil “I just refused to let the size of my bank account serve as the yardstick of my success.”

My goal today is to further Andy’s challenge to you and make you think about how your own value system is affected by your relationship with money. Hopefully with a little more awareness you’ll be able to interrupt patterns of judgment and criticism before they materialize. We need a wave of leaders to step up and lead this movement, I’m committed to it myself, and I hope you’re with me!

Andy recently released his spoken word all about this topic, and I highly encourage you check it out right now. It’s brilliant, entertaining, eye-opening, and powerful. I have Andy Grammer's spoken word linked here for you to check out!