Energy Rich, Money Rich

Energy

Time, energy and money. These are three of the fundamental resources in any person's life. There may be constraints in one, two or all three and we can sometimes trade one for another. Of these three, one tends to dominate the public consciousness. Money.

The interesting thing about money is that people often see it as a thing that is "out there" that they have to somehow get. While this strategy will occasionally work it will often fail. What is truer is that money is given in trade for value. When we give something of value people are willing to pay well.

A 2013 study on poverty and decision making found that people who fall below the poverty line actually have decreased cognitive function and quality of decision making when it comes to making future choices. The study researched farmers in India both before harvest and after harvest. Before harvest the farmers are typically cash poor and after harvest they have more available financial resources. What the study found was that the farmers were better long term decision makers when they had less money stress after the harvest. Before the harvest when they were cash poor they were focused on activities that would get them through that day and their focus and attention were diminished.

In another segment of the study researchers "experimentally induced" thoughts of poverty on both the poor and the well off. The aforementioned cognitive decline was only noted in the poor.

In an interview Eldar Shafir, one of the researchers and a faculty member at Princeton University stated "Perhaps it's the context of poverty itself, being in that context, that brings about a very special psychology, a psychology that's particular to not having enough. And then that psychology brings out problematic outcomes."

Shafir and study co-author Sendhil Mullainathan recently published the book "Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much". Mullainathan also states "When you have scarcity and it creates a scarcity mindset, it leads you to take certain behaviors which in the short term, help you manage scarcity but in the long term, only make matters worse."

From a neurological perspective we can see what is occurring here. A person believing they are energy poor goes into survival and does not see past that state. This leads to survival based decisions and outcomes.

While this study is fascinating lets Reorganize the conversation a little bit here. The study subjects may have limited funds at a given moment in time but "poor" is a state of consciousness manifested by energy poorness. Even Mullainathan (the author and researcher) looks at this from a Discover perspective when he says "when you have scarcity and it creates a scarcity mindset. . . " This is a classical view in Discover. This suggests that the outside circumstances dictate the internal experience. A person who chooses this viewpoint is then a victim of their environment and only able to rise or change to the level that the environment allows them to.

While it is the job of the researcher to research and report, the authors also make some suggestions on public policy. This is problematic. No policy change made from a Discover consciousness will help to bring about a change that will be empowering or sustainable. Sustainable changes starts to occur in Transform when the individual has chosen a new course of action and is actively becoming empowered.

Donald Epstein, developer of Reorganizational Healing and Living has stated "The one thing we can control is what we focus on." When you are money poor, resource poor and /or energy poor and you continue to focus on that scarcity the scarcity will continue to manifest. There is no way out and you are constantly trying to run to avoid the problem without the clear direction and resources that are available in transform.

When the researchers state that "Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function"(study title) it is simply not true. What is true is that the focus on poverty impedes cognitive function. There are endless stories that prove this where a person decided to make a change their focus from scarcity to abundance and they changed their life.

What if a followup study looked at educating a similar population on how to make the transition from discover to transform and how to stay energy rich? Would the conclusions be the same? Would the recommendations for public policy be the same?

This is a place where Reorganizational Healing can make massive change in our world. It is your and our job to create these changes and the time is now.