Is Financial Freedom Ethical?

What images come to mind when you think about financially successful people? Do you see spoilt rich kids, indolent lifestyles and general excess? Many people do. The media constantly feeds us images of the excessive lives of the rich and famous. Lavish wedding celebrations and celebrity shopping trips sell more copies than Bill Gates' latest charitable foundation.

What words are associated with being rich? Filthy, stinking, greedy, irresponsible, and spoilt come to mind. Not how most people would choose to describe themselves. Many people have a love-hate feeling about financial freedom: they'd love the money but hate the values that seem to come with it.

You Can Make Money and Keep Your Values

We all choose our own beliefs and values in life -- at least we should. Many people accept the values and beliefs of others such as family, teachers, or their community, without ever questioning these. Others allow the media or savvy marketers to shape their values. You don't really become more attractive to the opposite sex by wearing a particular perfume; your life won't end because you don't drive the latest model; you don't have to agree with capital punishment or object to immigration just because a newspaper headline tells you to. These are all values and beliefs you have chosen to hold.

Similarly we can choose the values we want to hold about money and financial freedom. It's impossible to achieve financial success while you hold negative values and beliefs about it. If you see negative images and hear negative words when you think about wealth you'll never become wealthy yourself: you're trying to achieve something that is against your beliefs and values. You need to change.

One quick and easy way to begin this is to change your reading and viewing matter. Throw out the celebrity magazines and sensationalizing newspapers. Replace them with success stories of the millions of quietly wealthy people. Read about the foundations endowed by Andrew Carnegie, Bill Gates and other business leaders. Learn how Warren Buffet and Richard Branson use their money wisely. Fill your picture with people using money responsibly. Change your perspective and you'll soon see yourself in a group whose values now reflect your own.

Achieve Your Financial Freedom by Helping Others Achieve Theirs

Many people believe you can only succeed at the expense of others. They see success like a mountain -- the higher you climb the narrower it gets and there's only room for a few at the top. In their view you climb over others to reach success and protect yourself by keeping the others down on the lower slopes.

There is no rule that says your success can only be achieved at the expense of others. It isn't necessary to step on them or do them down in some way. In Think and Grow Rich Napoleon Hill says:

'...no wealth or position can long endure, unless built on truth and justice...'

In fact, Hill goes on to explain, trying to succeed at the expense of others is counter-productive and more likely to lead to failure. Let's think about it:

If I take business from you by using underhand methods you will be unhappy. You may become resentful and look for ways to get back at me. Our business relationship -- and reputations -- may suffer as a result of what happened. Maybe I sold under cost to get the business. I can't keep doing this, and when I put my prices back up I have a customer who knows he's been given a bad deal. No-one wins.

But if we compete on equal terms, accepting that each will win and lose sometimes, we create a better business environment and the potential to work collaboratively for mutual benefit. Maybe I have problems meeting an order due to sickness and need to call on someone I can trust for help. Maybe you need an introduction into a business forum that I'm active in. We're more likely to want to help and support each other, and both of us will benefit by this.

You can achieve financial freedom ethically if you make the right choices.