I’m going to do a little rant today on a subject that impacts every single one of you every single day.   The success of individuals, families, companies, and nations rises and falls on this subject.  This subject is often not talked about much in the home…sometimes as hush hush or as embarrassingly glossed over in homes and schools as the birds and the bees.  Yet our understanding of this subject has a significant influence on the height of our happiness, the breadth of our impact on the world and the depth of our bank account.   Wanna know what the subject is? Okay, I’ll tell you. It’s a one-word answer. Money. Okay, when I say that word, “Money” what thoughts come to your mind? What emotions fill your heart? I was raised in a religious environment where the prevailing notion about money was that it was somehow evil or at least that it caused a lot of bad things. I actually had a mindset that was a bit afraid of it or at least afraid of having too much of it and I didn’t even know how to define what too much was. But more and more these days, I’m getting these crazy good opportunities to hang around people who have a very different view of money. Shelley, Chellan and I got to spend a couple of days last week at the Prestel and Partner Family Office Forum in San Francisco.  It was hosted on this amazing 100ft yacht in the SF Bay. According to their website, the average Net Worth of the families and individuals at this event was $500M. I have no idea how they know that they sure didn’t ask my Net worth at the door, and it’s probably a good thing as they might not have let me on the ship cause my Networth would have lowered the average too much. Anyway, from how I used to think, you’d think that this would have been some uppity up event with people who were selfishly absorbed in making more money and having cooler stuff.  But it was absolutely the opposite. There were a bunch of normal but ambitious business people but people with a driving passion to make the world a better place through what they do in business and through the money business creates. Honestly, the majority of the presentations and roundtable discussions were all about how to make a bigger positive impact for good on this world. And this wasn’t just for some feel-good stuff. Like we invest to make money but want to have it look like we are doing some good for the world in the process. No, these people are serious about real impact to the point of having very specific ways to measure and report on the impact for good. Impact investments are investments made into companies, organizations, and funds with the intention to generate social and environmental impact alongside a financial return.  The focus is on providing or creating the money needed to address the world’s most pressing challenges. There were presentations and roundtable discussions about how to do this in sectors such as sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, conservation, microfinance, and affordable and accessible basic services including housing, healthcare, and education. Loved hearing one dad talk about how they play this game with their teenage kids where they pick one major problem in society and have a time limit for coming up with out of the box business ideas and plans that could address that challenge in society.  From illiteracy to homelessness, to aids to racial injustice, etc. It was so refreshing and energizing to be around business leaders and families who truly view money as a tool to make society better. So different from the prevailing paradigm I used to have. This made me really wonder, why is it that money seems to get such a bad rap, especially from many well-meaning religious folks? Some people think that the Bible says that money is the root of all evil. In reality, it says: “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.”[