In 2025, Make the Right Risks

Create good energy exchanges

I remember when I first consciously felt the result of exchanging money for time. My apartment was in need of a deep clean. For weeks I’d tell myself I’d clean, but due to heavy work hours, I put it off. At the time, my moral compass wouldn’t allow me to hire someone to clean my filth. Eventually though, I caved.

When I came back to my apartment after the cleaning, it was lemon-smelling and bright white. Waves of new energy—gratitude, joy, and expansion—enter my soul. Initially, I felt bad for the cleaner, but he was excited and gracious for four hours of work. The energy exchange felt amazing.

Here’s where the math gets more exciting. It’s not just that his four hours of labor was equivalent to one hour of my labor (at the time)—it’s not even that with the quality of his work and expertise that may have taken me ten hours to do as good a job—it’s that if I had spent that ten hours in the mire of dusting, mopping, vacumming, bleaching, and powerwashing, you know what would have happened to my energy? For that weekend, I would have been WIPED OUT.

But instead?

I was FULL of positive and expansive energy, so much so I took that new energy and allocated that to projects and relationships. Instead of dining out, I gained energy from cooking healthy on a clean stove; instead of staying up late, I gained energy from more restful sleep with a clean bedroom.

Whether or not we’re conscious of it, we’re constantly exchanging resources with others. It could be a smile, buying a bagel, or closing a deal on a house. However, the majority of the world is only concerned with how they can aquire more resources (or perahps status). Because of it, people are subconsciously viewing others in a manner of how they can aquire more financial resources, which, ironically, is a poor mindset.

What’s a richer mindset?

How much is your time worth? If you haven’t yet figured your personal dollar-per-hour figure, you will literally be giving away your time and money to others without realizing it. If you’re in a fight with the manager because of a five-dollar overcharge, but your time is worth $50/hour, is that a good use of your time? Even if you win, that’s still a net loss.

But there’s an even richer mindset. Since EVERYTHING in life is an exchange of resources, how do your interactions impact the rest of your day? Or week? Or year? The richer mindset you have, the longer your time horizon becomes. Does this energy exchange help you expand or does it make you contract?

What if instead of viewing yourself in tangible terms like money and time, you viewed your life force energy in more incorporeal and esoteric terms? Like mojo, freedom, ALIVENESS, danceability, opportunity, risk, or…propensity to heal yourself and others? Go outside the box. Expand your method of exchange and see what happens? What if you had INFINITE internal resources to give, such as thoughtfulness, kindness, integrity, gratitude and compliments?

Reevaluate what you’re valuing. How can you create more of that value? In doing so, you’re likely risking your internal peace. You’re risking getting shut down, criticized, ostracized, or financially crippled. You’re exchanging what you know to be true for the unknown, but in doing so, you’re taking a bet on a new type of life.