“Money is neither my god nor my devil. It is a form of energy that tends to make us more of who we already are, whether it’s greedy or loving.” ~Dan Millman
In May, I won a cash investment for my company Good Clean Love from the Willamette Angel Conference. Today, almost 3 months later, I went to deposit the prize in the bank with the company’s new CEO. It was a joyful moment, the meeting of so many dreams come together in the form of capital infusion. For the many years that I have been bootstrapping this little love company, imagining this day, was like winning the golden ticket.
There were so many days along the way that the weight of money worries almost made me quit. Not knowing how the next product run would come together or get paid, the monthly prayers that payroll and rent would be covered and the small monthly annuities that was all that we could pay to all of our professionals who kept believing in us just because we kept showing up. That time was a training ground, where I went from being sick and distracted about money to slowly learning to trust that somehow enough money always showed up.
As I stopped fearing the worst about money and came to understand and think about it as the source of energy that it is, I started to learn to forgive myself and believe that what I had been creating out of nothing held way more value than the bank ledger often told. The clearer I got about my beliefs in what Good Clean Love offered in both products and wisdom, the more wealth of experience and trust I collected. Remarkable talents in business management, product design, manufacturing skill, legal and financial help all kept dropping in their two cents, or five dollar bills, or whatever they could afford. Everyone was in it for the same thing, the wealth of offering love.
Even as I write this I know some would consider me to be naïve enough to believe that people want to invest in love however they can. All these years of relying on more good faith than capital has made Good Clean Love more of a social non profit than a for profit business. But now with this investment, we leap into the world of executive business planning and investors who trust in ROI. How thrilling to be part of a dream that has the chance to fulfill its own destiny.
Carl Sandburg once wrote: “Money is power, freedom, a cushion, the root of all evil, the sum of blessings.” Developing a relationship to money is as complex as our relationship to our sexuality- it includes all that is good and most valuable about us and all that is fearful and needy as well. Conscious and loving choices about how to think about, communicate about and show up for our relationships to both are the legs our life stands on.
