What does wealth mean as a core value?
Wealth as a core value means building and holding significant money and assets, for the choices and security they bring and the chance to look after the people and causes you care about.
For many people, wanting wealth comes down to something concrete: choice. Significant money and assets mean you can leave a bad job, look after ageing parents, fund a child’s education or build something that outlasts you. If wealth is a core value, you probably think in terms of assets as well as income, you enjoy watching a balance sheet grow, and you’re comfortable saying out loud that financial success matters to you.
What does wealth look like in practice?
- You know your net worth, roughly, without having to look it up.
- You take equity over a pay rise when you believe in the business.
- You read about investing, tax and property for the interest of it.
- You set long-term financial targets and track your progress against them.
- You think about what you’ll pass on to your children or the causes you care about.
When is wealth overplayed?
When wealth becomes the main lens, everything gets a price. Friendships, time with family and even your health can start to look like trade-offs against the next deal. You may keep moving the target so that no amount ever feels like enough, or feel your own worth rise and fall with the markets. The grounded version knows what the money is for. It can be worth writing that down in one sentence, then checking your next big money decision against it.
Often confused with
Wealth vs Prosperity
Prosperity is a broader sense of thriving and moving forward. Wealth is more concrete: building and holding significant money and assets.
Wealth vs Security
Security is about being safe from loss and upheaval. Wealth can provide security, and people who value it are often willing to take risks to grow it.
Wealth vs Status
Status is your standing in other people’s eyes. Wealth is what you actually own, and plenty of wealthy people prefer that nobody knows.
Wealth vs Luxury
Luxury is about enjoying the finest things. Wealth is about building and holding assets, and many people who value it spend surprisingly little.
Questions to sit with
- If you reached your number tomorrow, what would you stop doing, and why aren’t you doing that already?
- What are you unwilling to trade for more money?
- Whose idea of wealthy are you measuring yourself against?
More values in Prosperity
Material success and what it makes possible.
About the author
Matt Rutherford is a Career and Leadership Coach. The Values Finder is the same exercise he uses with his coaching clients. He also writes Stuff that MattRs, a weekly newsletter with practical ideas to help you think clearer and work better.
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