If you’ve a social conscience of any kind you’ve probably asked yourself this question at one point or another; is it right for me to even think about having more money when others have nothing?

This is definitely one I’ve struggled with over the years. Supporting those who are suffering is why I spent a decade working in the public sector. I wanted to be of service to others; to improve their lives in some way.

It’s also why I’ve run my own business for the last eight years; because I want to empower people.

But when it comes to money, running a business is a totally different ball game to working for someone else.

At some point you have to tackle your money blocks if you’re going to be of use to anyone as a business owner.

When you work for someone else you can stay comfortably in the ‘I don’t do this for the money’ zone and pretend that money doesn’t really matter to you (all the while receiving a comfortable pay cheque each week).

And while I’m not a proponent of running a business purely for the money, it’s a pretty difficult thing to stay uninterested in money or to ignore it completely, and simultaneously build a profitable and sustainable business.

At some point you just have to look at the financial side of things if you want your business to grow.

For some of us, that’s where things get hairy. Worthiness and deserving, greed, perfectionism, money being a tool for evil, and so many more stories you didn’t even know you were carrying, start to show up as you unpack what money really means to you.

The fact of even wanting money has been an interesting hurdle for me. Not because I haven’t had it. I have. I’m the product of a comfortable middle class existence where money was saved and my parents worked hard and we become more abundant as the years went on. We weren’t too rich, and we weren’t too poor. We were just comfortably in the middle.

The thing is, I don’t want to be comfortably in the middle any more. I want to increase my capacity to give and to do that, I need to increase my capacity to receive.

This is, after all, why I started a business in the first place; because I had a vision of growing a large trust fund and giving away lots of money to people and programs that need it.

The thing is though, that in order to give on a large scale, you must be able to receive on a similarly large scale. Giving and receiving are one and the same energy. You must clear them both if you’re going to live in a state of affluence.

One of the biggest hurdles to this state of affluence is the false belief that in order to help someone else, we either have to take on their problem or we have to stay with them, at their energetic level. We have this very strange idea that the right thing to do when someone is suffering, is to suffer with them. Or at the very least not succeed too greatly ourselves (because if we’re not going to help them, then at least we don’t want to make them feel worse about themselves and their circumstances).

Personally, I don’t want to leave anyone behind ever. I want everyone to rise.

But clearing my own guilt and judgment around wanting things for myself has helped me to see something very clearly; that in order to have the best shot at creating a world where no one is left behind, I first must rise. Because as I rise I serve as a role model, I inspire, I demonstrate what’s possible. I’m also in a position to give a lot back.

Because ultimately, she who receives a lot, has a lot to give in return.

I’m eager that you rise too. I want us all to serve as role models for the future.

For the young girls who are watching us run our own businesses. For the people whose lives are filled with suffering. For the future of this planet.

I want to see us direct our abundant resources toward healing the planet and raising the voices of females everywhere.

I want to see us direct our abundant resources toward cleaning up the oceans and connecting people to their higher selves.

I want to see us direct our abundant resources toward changing the health system and taking on the dogma of organised religion.

There’s so much we can achieve collectively.

Let’s step into our power. Let’s own our divine purpose. Let’s clear our money blocks so that future generations don’t need to.

You deserve to have money, you deserve to be powerful, you deserve to live your dreams.