Steve Pavlina & Paul Graham have shed much light on the myth about money being evil. Money is not evil, but neutral. See my entry - Speedlinks: Money - for links to their articles & more, plus my mini-reviews.

As part of my dream to be financially independent, I have the goal of changing my attitudes to money. One important thing I’ve learnt over time is that it’s easier to get rid of negative beliefs, actions etc (e.g. fearing becoming rich might change me in to an ogre) by replacing them with positive ones (e.g. realising money can & does achieve much good).

I’m intending money to come in to my life & I’m creating wealth; I’ll use my money to make the world better. My project to use money for good is Ethical Beads.

Aims of Ethical Beads

• Raise awareness of the ethical issues involved in bead & jewellery manufacture.
• Make it easy for ethical consumers to purchase ethical beads & jewellery, thus:
• Revolutionise bead & jewellery crafting & manufacturing communities internationally.

Achieving goodness & betterment

It’s a long-term project, the first steps are identifying ethical suppliers & researching ethical companies & others, spreading the ideas and building a community of like-minded people.

The baby steps are searching for suppliers & researching so-called ethical companies & their ‘initiatives’ (esp. Ethical Trading Initiative & Fair Trade Federation), finding supporters (via blogging, blog/viral marketing.

Pretty brilliant goals to start the new year, I think!

In related news, watch The Secret, an inspirational documentary film, online for free and achieve your goals: Believe it and you achieve it. No gimmicks! More info. I just watched this and I feel brilliant: Energised, happy, ready to tackle anything. Much recommended.