Entitlement is actually a good thing...

(why it's a lot more important than you might think...)

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​I was with a good friend recently, who among many other amazing things, has a background in bookkeeping and we found ourselves talking about all things money. But more than that, asking one of the giant pink elephant questions in the room: 
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Why is it that there are so many amazing, talented AF, incredibly capable people in the personal development community, who are always perpetually broke all the time? 
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WHY are they always, despite all the work they’re doing STILL broke after all this time?
And the question that has always been of great interest to us both as Coaches:

What is really getting in the way of them making that shift from adversity and scarcity, to the every day reality of having an abundance of material resources to utilise and GIVE at will?


Having had literally thousands of conversations with Practitioners and Small Business Owners this last several years about their level of comfort with things like charging full stop or putting up their prices, as well as

Having worked in close proximity with a Mentor or two who were born into money and having had a few years of observing first hand how they think and do things differently, plus

Having worked in few Organisations and Clinic environments who's clientele were within mostly Melbourne's financial elite, as well as
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My community services career, gave me some pretty good insight into this and the importance of the notion of entitlement within this.


Beyond all the judgements we hold around money and no matter how much business and financial skill we have or might learn, in the end, a very large part of it actually just comes down to wether, deep down, we feel entitled to it (meaning we feel worthy of it) or we don’t. As well as wether we believe it's realistically achievable or not.


For those who have been born into money and have lots of it, when they walk into any place from a restaurant to Officeworks, often, they were born with an understanding (despite whatever might go wrong with money at times or how people behave when they have or don't have it) that money and the resources they need are readily available for them, so they often perceive having a great freedom of choice and an innate “the sky’s the limit” mindset in terms of available possibilities to them, from what they can do with their life, to what they might buy themselves or a friend for lunch. They perceive that they have a lot of available resources


They often have a freedom and great desire to be very generous with it. Plus, for many, when they walk up to that desk, it is super clear in their mindset that the nature of the relationship is for the person at the desk in front of them to provide a service for them that meets their need, in fair mutual exchange for money…it is a business transaction….and money is a tool with which they can

1. do what they want, but also
2. actually also BE OF SERVICE, HOW they want in the world….and
3. give one form of love

People who were born into lower or middle class families have in common that


They too have a great desire to do good and be of service in the world
an incredible spirit of generosity, and the desire to share what (sometimes little) they have to help both family, friends and a stranger out. Some of these things are just "human."


BUT, when it comes to their innate sense of entitlement TO money and material wealth, and their belief thus in what available resources they have at their disposal, They often WEREN’T born to think they CAN have it all. While we're children and our brains were sponges, we picked up all kinds of perceptions about money and the people who have it, that we might not even realise that we have until life mirrors them back to us through experience later in life.

And a time in history where, for Gex X, Gen Y, Z and below, with the best aspirational paths laid out in front of many on a 40-50K average salary, even to those on a 120k salary, while they’re looking at 1 million dollar plus housing pricing for the place with the backyard they could raise some babies in and having to cover the cost of a working environment that now demands constant up-skilling at an extra 2-50k per piece to keep up, many are actually struggling to believe that their version of the have it all dream is realistically achievable. An when we don't think something is possibly achievable, it can kill our motivation to even try, in a "what's the point" kind of way.  Until, we make a choice to step out of that we of being and thinking and start to surround ourselves with thinking, people and opportunities that are the living embodiment of it BEING possible.


  
Having had a Mother who both had Christian values and was a Social Worker and having worked in Community Services a few years myself, we were talking daily with people from “disadvantaged” backgrounds who had to ask someone, anyone, or the government/agency or charitable resources they were clients of for many of the common basic human luxuries many people take for granted that they have  every day.


Which means, they are NOT feeling innately entitled, in their reality, they actually have to make a case, a sales pitch (and you the worker on their behalf to several other services for them) for why they need and are entitled to that basic human resource. In their head, Someone else has a great deal of power they may not perceive they have in that moment to say “yes” or “no” to them. Which creates a disconnect between them and money/abundance, an invisible psychic wall between them and what they want, which basically sets up the sub-conscious mindset that


“ I AM NOT NATURALLY ENTITLED TO OR WORTHY OF WHAT I WANT AND NEED IN LIFE, I HAVE TO PROVE THAT I AM WORTHY AND DESERVING BEFORE I CAN RECEIVE IT” and “THE POWER TO RESOLVE THIS LIES OUTSIDE OF ME”


They’re not alone in this are they though? How many times have you been to Woolworths or Aldi and watched the middle class child making their pitch to their single parent about why they are WORTHY and DESERVING of that chocolate bar, or maybe for the teenager, why they need and are entitled to that bottle of acne cleanser this week within the wider (and often limited) family budget? But more than that, how many parents within the financial elite, made their kids have to do the same thing before they'd hand them their own money? The learning of those above beliefs in motion. 




For those people who’ve worked IN the government/nfp/charity organisations too, or any organisation that deals with money and resources or the potential of losing them, you have to be careful also not to take on the client’s “stuff” and fall into BELIEVING again in the scarcity mindset and thus further perpetuate the childhood beliefs gained within family environments where financial pressure WAS an issue, that


"It is a constant battle to get money and to prove oneself WORTHY of money and abundance."


 
And that is where a lot of the judgement of money and the nature of people WITH money (and if we’re going to be really honest)  jealousy of the perceived ease they have that people born with less and who’ve had to work their freaking butts of their whole lives just to get to where they wanted to go, have of those who they perceive have “just had it handed to them on a silver platter” and “won’t be generous with giving it to them.”


Having worked with many such abundant people now myself TOO though (and had my slightly smaller share of abundant moments at times too, BUT had to slam face first into my own wall several times now into almost every one of the blocks I’m talking about IN this blog)


I’d say actually though that the “wealthy” DON’T always get it “easy” they can be just as messed up and traumatised at the abundant end of the spectrum too and there is just as much financial pressure and hard work (only now it involves HUGE amounts of money and massive numbers of people who’ll be potentially impacted)…and money and material possessions at ANY end of the financial spectrum can just as much be used as a weapon of abuse and manipulation in the pursuit of trying to bring about a certain outcome. Thus many of these issues are NOT confined just to one end of the spectrum at all.

Thus we as humans potentially have some struggle or some beliefs in common in why we may or may not feel entitled to money and stuff.


And we ALL have in common in this material reality that we have to learn how to manage money and material resources, so that, if we choose: 

• we may have a cushion to full back on in hard times AND
• we may have some freedom to live the life we want and be of service through the good times and the bad ones.

And we ALL have to go through that to financially get off the financial boob and grow up into our grown up material management pants. (And no amount of tanty-ing gets any one of us out of that in the long term in a material world.) Make sense?


Skill with money and finance doesn't just drop out of the sky, it's a life skill we need to take some time to learn and practice in before all other things. In the process of that, if our parents/guardians/family or later the people around us  (like teachers/mentors, employers, partners, housemates, friends etc) heavily scrutinise every choice we make with money and hover over everything we do ready to confiscate it out of our hands at any given moment before we make a mistake (rather than let us make and grow from said mistake) we can take on the idea that


“I can’t be trusted to well manage my money and abundance. I need someone to do it FOR me.”


OR at work, in any number of industries where we might be assigned responsibility for either managing existing resources, allocating existing resources or bringing IN new resources, depending on HOW we’re managed from entry level, this TOO can either help us grow in our confidence around creating or managing money and stuff, or (if we let it) add extra material to the already growing stockpile of psychological damage and the story about money and stuff we already hold, and hence help or hinder our future ability to engage in the process of give and receive that's required to accumulate, grow and give back out material wealth. 




So how do we help our clients, friends or family overcome this and or, if we need to ourselves, overcome this?


EDUCATE- it all starts with creating awareness of what pattern is actually playing out here. You first have to understand the problem before you can fix it. Thus, with love and gentleness, we can either choose to educate to create awareness. Or let life and the people around them/us be our teachers, until they/we "get it" what they're playing out and what's really going on.


MINDFULNESS- Then, having that awareness, one can now keep an inner observer eye out for when one is PLAYING these beliefs and the associated behaviours that follow, out and, with awareness, choose to make a different choice about what to do in future instead.


INTENTION- rather though than constantly going looking for problems all the time (which keys your brain into constantly SEE nothing BUT them) it helps to have created your picture of what it is that you want to do in life with money and material resources:
What would the exact opposite of the above lack based beliefs be for you/them? How will you use money and material resources to be of service and what quality of life could you create or give others in having it? It’s about aligning with and reminding ourselves of that intention daily and intending our connection with THAT reality to be louder than our past perceptions and experiences long enough to create lasting change. (That and you have to both want money and resources to come to you and give it a purpose to come to you FOR.)


ENERGY- but more than that, FEELING it daily. Here's the whoo whoo step of, not only do you want to visualise it like you’re actually doing every day things you would actually do IN that picture and feel yourself doing it. But this is also about consciously calling in and energetically connecting with the reality in which it's already happened.
Whatever your language for it, connecting with the divine and earthly energy and people that will support us to realise our highest potential in living it AND activate and awaken all the qualities within that we ALREADY HAVE to help create this.
As well as to further HEAL and RESOLVE any of those invisible barriers that still exist around the BELIEF that "I am/they are worthy of and entitled to my/their dream life" that you/they may still occasionally collide with along the way.


ACTION- then you follow your inner “ding” and or maybe plan out some concrete action steps that help you create and experience that vision. Generosity and being of service may well STILL be a key part of our/their part in that. Taking action to distance oneself from people and environments that are committed to staying IN the scarcity reality, or at least be very conscious in reminding yourself that the perception of scarcity is an illusion might also be a part of that action. No differently than if you want to get off drugs, you stop hanging out with addicts. if you want to brake the habit of scarcity, stop hanging out with scarcity addicts and if you must, make it other one's who, like you/they are equally as committed to their broke people's anonymous 12 step abundant living plan, as well as those who are already better off and happy to share what they know and have with you, in exchange for what you do.


RECEIVE- having got out of the way of our own invisible barriers, and learned a few things about how to create, receive and better manage our money and stuff going forward, it then it’s up to us to receive without resistance what we keep asking for and

GRATITUDE- forever keep acknowledging and being grateful for all we do and receive along the way.


In the end, as our basic human right, we’re ALL entitled to, meaning worthy of, everything we’ve ever dreamed of. We have to though, challenge ourselves to believe it. In that respect, when it comes to money and abundance, our sense of entitlement, IS actually incredibly important, in that its key to helping us step into the universal free flow of give and receive without resistance. A lot of people get worried about taking that step because so much new (cage) and spiritual literature damns the whole notion of entitlement and privilege as evil. BUT we can't throw the baby out with the bath water on this one. We have to first acknowledge that we CAN have something, before we can ever develop a gratitude-LESS over-inflated sense of entitlement and expectation to ever be judged ON. Like anything, there's a light side and a shadow side to all things and staying heart centred in the end is always the key to staying on track, in business, in love, in life.


Until next time, have fun, take care.

Nat