Why You Are Not Earning, Even Though You Can

AVAlexander Volchek

You want a high salary, an enormous amount of time, independence from everyone, to do what you want wherever you want, and to live in whatever city you want. The opinions of girls on the street shouldn't matter.

AMAlexander Mineev

What if someone actually has opportunities, even in their own profession, and talents and certain skills that could help them earn money, but they sabotage themselves?

AVAlexander Volchek

An enormous number of people choose suffering instead of earning money. What difference does it make whether it is conscious or unconscious? This whole "conscious or unconscious" thing is the scourge of modern society.

AMAlexander Mineev

Last year, or at the beginning of this year, you and I discussed stability. You gave me an example of how you create stability in my life, right? This year, while filming weddings, I felt what stability is: knowing I would have a certain number of weddings, a certain amount of money, that I could pay for housing, and so on. That takes certain anxious thoughts off my mind during the day, every day. Now they are coming back again, because that stability is gone again. So stability does affect me somehow, doesn't it? My emotional state, I mean.

AVAlexander Volchek

Yes, but where did that stability come from? It came from when I told you that you focus... You don't know how to separate the processes going on inside you. Stability definitely matters to you. I gave you this example: you would be much better off getting a job at an American company and receiving a steady salary there, even a small one. But you want a high salary, an enormous amount of time, independence from everyone, to do what you want wherever you want, and to live in whatever city you want. I tell you, I have nothing against your doing what you want, having as much time as you want, and so on. Just create stability first. Then, from within that stability, think about the other tasks. Think about those other tasks, but first get into a stable situation, a stable zone, a zone where you will gain the strength to make a decision for yourself. While you have no strength at all to make decisions, there is no point living in an enormous number of different illusions. They are illusions. And you also can't admit to yourself that nothing may work out in your life.

You simply need to calmly acknowledge that nothing may work out in your life, that you may lose contracts, that you may not find work as someone who makes videos. You will have to get some other job, and you should say to yourself, "All right, what job, then?" That is fine. Look at it: "What kind?" You and I will start going through possibilities, from a barista in a café to a sales clerk in a store, right? To, I don't know, a security guard. We will start going through them together. We'll find some other jobs too; it doesn't matter. You might say, "Oh, cool!" How do you feel about it? Look, Polina, my wife, doesn't work. When she says, "What could I work as? I couldn't work as anything. If I could work, what would I do? Go work as a sales clerk?" There is a very interesting aspect here. There are certain insecurities, a lack of understanding of what a person could be. They choose some profession they see as extremely negative: going to work as a sales clerk. In this case, I suggest the following option.

I say, "First of all, I think you could work as a nanny for five hundred dollars an hour." She can come in and set her nanny rate at five hundred dollars an hour. She can set it at a thousand an hour. Some people will be surprised, but when you are raising your children, as a doctor I know once said, if you have a Filipino nanny in Moscow, your children will speak not English but Filipino English, and their education will be within the bounds of that person's education. What do you want to show and give your children? What kind of person do you want beside them? Some people come looking for a coach, a strategist, or a consultation and say, "No, that is an expensive price." I say, "Wait a second. You want to earn a hundred million dollars over the next three years, and you can't spend five thousand dollars an hour on a consultation? What are you talking about? Presumably you want advice from people who are at a higher level than you in certain areas." There was a very interesting case involving a hotel chain. The chain was hiring a manager for a million dollars. Someone asked them, "Why are you hiring someone for a million dollars when the market salary for the same position is a hundred and fifty thousand or two hundred thousand dollars a year?" They said, "We want this person to earn as much as our guests.

So that, when he talks to the guests, he understands their problems. He understands their problems. He understands what they mean in financial terms. Otherwise, he won't understand. He will think the other person is just trying to create a problem that doesn't exist. He simply won't understand." It is like when I go into an American restaurant and ask for water that isn't cold, and every time they bring me cold water. They tell me, "It isn't from the refrigerator. It isn't cold." I say, "It is cold." The person doesn't know, doesn't understand what it means to drink warm water. Well, not warm, but room-temperature water. They don't understand what that is. They don't drink it themselves, so they don't understand. They have no understanding at all. They look at you and say, "What are you talking about? Here is your water. Drink it. What difference does it make? There is no ice in it, so it isn't cold. If there is ice, it is cold." You say, "Water without ice isn't necessarily warm water. Yours is from the refrigerator." They don't understand; they don't understand the situation. So, returning to my wife as a nanny for a thousand dollars an hour: when she talks about being a sales clerk, she speaks very negatively about her own possibilities.

I say this: on the whole, I would be perfectly at peace with working as a sales clerk. You come to a café in Los Altos, and there I am, pouring coffee. I really want to be at peace with that, really want to be at peace with it. If I ever need to work as a sales clerk in my life, I will. It is just hard to see why or how those circumstances might arise. Even if I need to earn money, I am unlikely to go work behind the counter at a coffee shop. There are other places where I can earn money, other professions where I can earn a little more. I am not talking about fantastic sums or large amounts; there are just slightly different places. I have certain qualifications that let me do some things and charge a little more for them. But overall, I would be perfectly at peace with working behind the counter in a café, because we have no idea how things will turn out. A situation could arise where the only job in the world is in a café, only as a café counter worker, nowhere else. That could be the only work available. Or a café counter job could pay a hundred thousand dollars a minute, and getting hired there would be amazing.

To get away from those circumstances, people have come up with... You know, "barista" made me laugh. An acquaintance, or I think an employee of mine, says, "I would agree to work as a barista." I say, "How is a barista different from someone pouring coffee at a gas station where homeless people buy coffee?" "Well, the atmosphere matters to me." Who told you a barista necessarily works in a wonderful setting? So a barista is not just someone who makes coffee; it also means a particular atmosphere. Just say, "I'll make coffee at Cipriani," or wherever. You need to choose a particular setting. How else? What you work as... It is like the idea of being an assistant. There is a difference in what kind of assistant you are: an assistant to the president of the United States or an assistant to a porter in a village. There is a difference in what follows the word "assistant." But we overlay this with an enormous amount of negativity, Sasha, an extremely negative focus. It makes sense for you to calmly work through it without tying it to your identity, without tying it to your identity, and not be afraid of it.

Many people are afraid of losing that. Recently, Polina and I were watching a movie where a girl says about her boyfriend, "The girls on the street said you aren't dating me." She says, "What matters most to me is what the girls on the street think." You need to understand that the opinions of girls on the street shouldn't matter. Just understand for yourself that their opinions shouldn't matter, because if they do, you will make very big mistakes. Work through that calmly: what you could be, that absolutely anything could happen. Then the question "Why should I earn more money?" becomes a different question too. I don't need to earn money because that is supposedly how everyone's life should be, because it is prestigious, right, or rational. I want to earn more money, and I need to explain why. The reason cannot be "So I'll be in a good mood" or "So I'll feel good." That cannot be the reason. It cannot. Look at the enormous number of businesspeople earning billions of dollars who spend eighteen or twenty hours working in the office.

Look at that. What sort of inner state are we talking about? Eighteen hours in the office—what is that? It clearly looks like sacrifice. And when there is sacrifice—

UPUnidentified participant

There is sacrifice…

AMAlexander Mineev

Can I ask a question here?

AVAlexander Volchek

Yes.

AMAlexander Mineev

...Self-sabotage, for example? By the way, that is a subject we seem hardly to have touched on. Maybe in some other form, but I am interested. The question is: what if a person actually has opportunities, even within their profession, as well as talents and certain skills that could help them earn money, and so on? But they sabotage themselves, sabotage themselves. They don't take orders, for example. Or there are insecure people who are talented and have something they could monetize, but it doesn't work out. Or they... What is happening here? Why is it like this? Where does this self-sabotage come from?

AVAlexander Volchek

By self-sabotage here, do you mean that someone is supposedly great and amazing and all that, but they don't act because they are sabotaging themselves? Is that what you mean in this case?

AMAlexander Mineev

Not necessarily amazing, but they have skills that are definitely in demand.

AVAlexander Volchek

Yes, but again, look: that is an ego-driven justification.

AMAlexander Mineev

Mm-hmm.

AVAlexander Volchek

Look, it is an ego-driven justification: "I actually have exceptional knowledge, an exceptional profession, or skills, but I am not earning money because I am beating myself up." You aren't earning money because you don't have the strength. You aren't earning money because you are lazy. You aren't earning money because you are acting incorrectly. Or you aren't earning money because that is how circumstances have developed. Who said it is self-sabotage? Who said it is self-sabotage? Who said you want to hurt yourself? Maybe you want to do something good for yourself by not going to work and lying on the couch? Maybe you want to do something good for yourself and have a certain freedom? It is like what you and I discussed about finding a steady job. But a steady job takes time and removes this freedom that you supposedly have, the freedom that lets you work when you want, act when you want, reflect when you want, suffer when you want. Be in whatever state you want, when you want. A job as an employee, with a precise schedule every day, doesn't let you do that. So perhaps you don't want a permanent job not because you are sabotaging the system, but because the system simply doesn't want to work all the time.

Because the ego wants to express itself in different ways. Because you don't want to tell anyone that, for example, you got a job here as a programmer, or got a job there as a project manager. Maybe you just don't want to talk about it? So you don't do it. In general, it would be useful to do it. It would be great to do it. You just don't do it because...

AMAlexander Mineev

I hadn't looked at it from that angle.

AVAlexander Volchek

People don't look at it from that angle, don't approach it from that angle, don't talk or communicate from that angle, don't study it from that angle. From there, you step away from observing your ego's world, step away from your identity, step to one side, and acknowledge that you were simply lazy here, that's all. You stop inventing psychological descriptions for it. You stop inventing things, creating an enormous layer of falsehood, creating an enormous layer of falsehood. Someone says, "It is important to be in a creative crisis." To be in a creative crisis. Why do they say it is important? Because, look at this example: someone was in a creative crisis, and now they are happy, incredibly happy. They eventually found their work and became a star. Could that person have become a star without suffering? We need to look at the causes of suffering, the reasons a person is in one state or another, and whether they have the strength to be in that state. When they stopped suffering and found themselves, perhaps different strengths became active; perhaps different strengths appeared. Many people will choose suffering over results. An enormous number of people will choose suffering over earning money.

Sasha, I know an enormous number of people. I endlessly see examples of people choosing suffering, pride, and ego over money. You look at them and say, "You are just choosing to suffer here." Then decide that you are doing business in order to suffer. You are doing business in order to be in constant conflict with yourself. Just do business for that reason, and stay in that state. Or are you doing business in order to harm other people? Fine, then just say that is why you work. It will become much easier. What difference does it make whether it is conscious or unconscious? This whole "conscious or unconscious" thing is the scourge of modern society. Did he do it on purpose or not? A mother gives birth to a child. That child has the energy to infuriate the mother, and she spends her whole life angry with the child. Whose fault is it: the child's or the mother's? All her life she was angry with him, scolded him, shouted at him, without understanding why. She said it was his fault, while he was generating that energy. But he didn't generate it because he wanted to. It is an uncontrolled structure. Whose fault is it? Who did what consciously? Nobody did anything consciously at all. But that is one level of reasoning.

Do you see what I mean? What awareness are we talking about? What blame are we talking about, then? Maybe there is no blame at all. Maybe it is simply a karmic path, a karmic layer, or living through a certain experience in order to learn. Then there is no blame. And if there is no blame, then nobody suffered at all. The spiritual being says, "I am jumping in, and I want to be in this situation. And end my life by suicide at twenty. I am not suffering at all; for me, it is just a path of movement. I am not suffering at all." The person says, "I will suffer," and looks for this answer: did they do it consciously or unconsciously? Did they do it consciously or unconsciously? Sasha, you take an enormous number of ego-driven actions consciously, definitely consciously, definitely consciously. But everyone wants to suggest, "No, that was an unconscious action. If it was unconscious, it is nothing serious, so we won't punish it." Will we or won't we? Life says, "Of course we will punish it." Someone unconsciously killed a person in a fit of stress. Well, they will go to prison. There will be various mitigating circumstances or no mitigating circumstances. But all of this is a very big question. They made the decision to do it.

When they made that decision, was it a conscious decision or an unconscious one? We live in a world where people don't reach that level of cause and effect. They don't reach it. I suggest looking at these causes and effects. I suggest taking a look. I suggest you stop deceiving yourself. If you are in a bad state and don't know why, simply say, "I don't know why I am in this state. I don't understand at all. I didn't understand, and I still don't. Doctors tell me things, everyone tells me things, but I can see there is no pattern. I just don't understand, that's all. There is no pattern." For example, I constantly need a lot of sleep at night. Whatever happens, whatever I do, I don't see a pattern between how rested I feel after a night's sleep and what I did beforehand. There is no pattern. No pattern. Sometimes I have worked incredibly hard, am wound up, go to bed, and wake up rested six hours later. Other times I have done all sorts of things and don't feel rested after eleven hours. There is no pattern. I have already tried an enormous number of methods, tests, techniques, details, analyses. There is no pattern. And now everyone has been given wristbands and rings that mislead them. Read about their accuracy.

They do have an accuracy rate. For example, seventy-six percent, or seventy-eight percent. Where did you put the other twenty percent? Why does my ring say I woke up four times during the night when I know perfectly well that I woke up fifteen times? "There is a margin of error." Wait, that error matters to me. It matters to me. All of this is abstraction, just abstractions. Just background noise, background noise that might destroy things instead of helping. It will help some people. It will reveal something to them and say, "Listen." Someone tells me, "My ring showed me that I go to bed too late." Really! You didn't know before that you go to bed at two in the morning? Come on. And there are things in life, Sasha, that you shouldn't do. Have you noticed that some people start businesses, make a lot of money, and then go to prison? You've seen people like that, right? Or people start a business, make lots of money, and then their partner kills them. Or they make lots of money, and then a client dies. You've seen that, right? There is risk there. There is risk, Sasha, a risk of losing a great deal.

There is risk; there are areas of risk. As a driving instructor once told my sister when she was learning and getting her license, "If you get a license, always remember that every time you get behind the wheel, you could hit someone." There is a risk. If you don't get behind the wheel, you can't hit someone. You can't. You can't hit someone. That is excellent! He told the truth. You enter that field of probability. So maybe you—

You enter that field of probability. So maybe you don't need to enter that probability? Maybe you simply don't need to? It isn't needed. It isn't needed in your life. Some people earned money and were robbed and killed because of it. Maybe you don't need to get into that. Or if you take a job, earn a lot of money, and spend little time with your wife, your relationship will end, or your family will develop differently somehow. There are enormous numbers of circumstances of very different kinds. I think an endless number of films have been made about this, showing these different aspects of money and its absence, fate and its absence, and everything else. They show very different aspects, but the person keeps craving. The craving continues; it is never satisfied. They keep wanting. Not living for the law of the universe, not living because it is natural and true, but wanting things for themselves, always for themselves. Like the grandmother who said, "The main thing is that there is no war." But no war where? In her country. The main thing is that people don't die. Yet people die constantly, in staggering numbers, including at the hands of other people. The main thing is that children don't die before their parents.

Yet an enormous number of children in the world do die before their parents. An enormous number. So what is the main thing? Are you talking about all children or only your own? The whole situation or only your own? This is one of the most important questions a person should pose and ask themselves. If there are three children, one of them yours, and someone needs to be saved, whom will you save? Whom will you save? There are three women, and one is your wife. Whom will you save?

AMAlexander Mineev

Well, I could say something that sounds nice now, but I know I would probably act differently from what I say and would most likely choose my own chi—

AVAlexander Volchek

So the question is being honest with yourself. It is not about lying or saying pretty words; it is about telling yourself the truth. What would I actually do? How would I act? What would actually be true? Not pretty, but true. Work through that situation for yourself, work through it for yourself. Where is the truth? What is the truth really like? Don't live under a delusion. In a number of traditions, there is this idea of not harming any living beings. Accordingly, you cannot kill a mosquito or a spider, and so on. There is one account of a yogi and his teacher. Suddenly, he kills a mosquito. He says to the teacher, "Teacher, there is a rule against killing, against killing living beings, isn't there?" He says, "There is a rule, but the question is this: do you have a desire to kill, or is it a natural convergence of circumstances, the natural course of life? You don't want to do it, but it needs to be done now." In those accounts, in that example, it says the following: life is structured so that a human occupies a certain place in a hierarchy, and in this case you kill the mosquito to save your own life.

Even under the laws we have, if you go outside and a rattlesnake starts attacking you, and you kill it, they won't put you in prison for that or investigate it as an unintentional killing. They won't imprison you for intentionally killing a snake. They might fine you, yes. There are countries where they will definitely fine you. Or they may not even fine you; they'll say, "You were defending yourself, that's all." It is very important not to keep falling into this deception: "No, that's it, we don't kill any living beings. That's final." Then all hell breaks loose over microscopic, invisible fleas and everything else. You shouldn't vacuum the rug, then, because enormous numbers of carpet mites or whatever else will die. Do you understand? Or the vacuum cleaner might accidentally crush a little spider. What do you do then? You shouldn't walk at all, shouldn't move around at all. What happens then? Don't deceive yourself. Don't deceive yourself with false constructions of cause and effect. Don't be deluded. Stay as close to the truth as possible. That is the hardest thing a person can do today. The hardest thing is to be in a state of understanding how the world works.

People don't want to do that. They say, "Like hell. They didn't invent this a hundred years ago, but we've invented it now because we are the smartest people. A hundred years ago they were idiots, and now we are the smartest." Then they go on a retreat, take some substance, and say, "People used it two thousand years ago, so it is an ancient substance that leads to something." Wait a second. You just said they were all idiots because they made no scientific progress and didn't develop anything. Where is the logic? Where is your logic? Even basic sound logic, never mind knowledge, understanding, and perception of development. Where is your logic? Where is the logic? It is utter ignorance, a closed perception of reality. You perceive reality with a closed mind, want to act only for yourself, and get problems, an enormous number of problems with no apparent basis. Then you live without understanding why you feel a particular way, why you are in a particular state, why you grieve when this person dies but don't grieve when that person dies. Go on, invent explanations afterward: they were your relative, or they owed you money, or you spent a lot of time with them. Invent explanations instead of understanding the essence.

What is the essence of this? What is the essence, what is the truth of what is happening?