Money, Happiness, and Productivity
Being the money and happiness nerds that we are, we found this episode to be fascinating. We’re always curious about how others view this topic.
This conversation is between Indie Hackers host Courtland Allen and guest Pieter Levels, founder of NomadList among other initiatives.
The question that is posed is : “Are you happy? Does money make you happy?” Below are some of our favourite thoughts and quotes.
“Money is a scam” - Pieter Levels
Pieter brings up the fact that society teaches to think that if you make money, you get all the good stuff in life (power, attraction of the opposite gender) but in reality, beyond a certain base amount of money to provide for the necessities, it doesn’t matter, and people don’t care. People who care about your money are probably not the ones you want to hang out with anyways. In the end, “Everyone is just looking for another nice person.”
Society promises that money will solve all our problems, but this is not true. If we look to the extremes, there are many examples of people who are depressed or have committed suicide despite their wealth and achievements.
“Rich people with their crazy lives, so much work, they’re stressed out of their mind, burn out from just existing”
He goes on to talk about how humans are tribal and “signaling” (showing others where we fit in the hierarchy) is a part of our psyche. However, different tribes may value different ways of signaling and it seems the key is to find the right tribe for you. The example he cites for instance is if you live in LA, your signaling may include owning a massive mansion and driving the latest car. However, if you’re part of tribe that values creativity, signaling may take the form of creating new pieces of work or consistently shipping product.
In the end, sometimes it’s the simple things in life that can make you the happiest.
“If you can’t be happy with coffee, you can’t be happy with a billion dollars... You wake up and drink tea, and have a cookie, this is life … this is the best thing”
Some ideas and recommendations to find happiness
The podcast recommended the listeners to think about the things that made them intrinsically happy when they were a kid. What were the things you did because it was fun? If you could hone in on these interests and make a life out of it then when you hit financial independence you don’t have to change anything because you’re already doing what you love.
Reference:
Indie Hackers - Episode 242 - Money, Happiness, and Productivity as a Solo Founder - Part 2