Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Speaker A: A relative once asked me, why work? You don't need the money.
An ex once said, I'd consider taking you back if you had a job.
Hear the contradiction?
What exactly is a financially independent person, whether inheritor or wealth creator, supposed to do?
When I came into an inheritance while living in Switzerland, my lawyer dropped a bomb.
You will have to budget for the Social Security contribution, he told me. You're in the top bracket now. He gave me the number. Yikes. Then he told me something surprising. I could reduce the contribution significantly by getting a job.
Years later, while writing this piece, I asked Swiss lawyer Erich von Graffenreid to explain the system to me.
Switzerland's first pillar of Social Security, known as AHV or aha FAU in German, is compulsory.
Employees contribute according to salary. People who are not gainfully employed are instead assessed according to their wealth and income.
So having enough money that you don't need to work doesn't remove you from the system.
I had interpreted this as a peculiar Swiss incentive to remain productive.
Eric described it as somewhat differently. Solidarity.
Those with greater means contribute more to a system designed to provide everyone with basic support.
Either way, it made me wonder, what if financial need isn't the only reason to participate?
In the United States, we often describe financial success very differently. Make enough money so you don't have to work.
Retire early, generate passive income, achieve financial freedom. Let your money work for you while you sleep.
But maybe we've been asking the wrong question.
Not do I need to work, but what am I doing with what I have?
And what you have is bigger than money. You have time, health, knowledge, experience, talent, property, relationships influence, opportunity.
Money is only one reason to work. Work provides identity, usefulness, structure, mastery, relationships, creativity and contribution.
And paid work isn't somehow morally inferior to volunteering someone with $20 million who teaches at a community college for a salary and is still contributing. A wealthy person building a company is contributing. A surgeon doesn't become more virtuous by refusing her salary.
Being paid doesn't contaminate contribution.
That question led me to stewardship. Stewardship is the care, cultivation, use and transmission of what has been entrusted to us. I'm using entrusted broadly, not only financially or religiously, but intellectually, culturally, physically and socially.
Wealth isn't the only privilege. Other privileges include beauty, loving parents, a trauma free childhood, health, intelligence, education, talent, connections, citizenship, knowledge, influence, creativity, time and opportunity. And I'm sure there's more.
Whatever advantage you have, it is something you can steward.
Which raises a question I keep returning to. What would happen if we replaced privilege, guilt with stewardship.
I was raised with the sentence to whom much is given, much will be required. I don't interpret that to mean advantage should be punished or that you're morally indebted simply because you have something others do not.
I hear possibility.
Greater capacity creates greater possibilities for contribution.
And contribution can flow from gratitude rather than guilt.
If you are a talented musician, your talent gives you the possibility of creating something others may value sharing. It may also bring enormous joy back to you.
Stewardship doesn't have to be grand.
A friend asked Sister Teresa how his wealthy friends could send money to her center for street children in Delhi. Her answer?
Have the children in his school skip their weekly ice cream and give what they save to their own families and neighbors.
Stewardship starts close to home. Your own family, your own school, your own street.
One of my favorite films. A Good Year captures this beautifully. Max Skinner, played by Russell Crowe, is a ferociously successful London bond trader who inherits the Provencal chateau and vineyard where he spent childhood summers with his uncle, his only family.
At first he plans to sell it, but returning reminds him of something his London life has crowded out meals, wine, games, tennis, conversation, a slow pace, place and time.
His uncle had been stewarding something without calling it stewardship, a way of living.
Later, Max notices a Van Gogh in his chairman's office, the same image he has seen reproduced on a poster in the restaurant in Provence. The chairman explains that the painting on his wall isn't the original. The real Van Gogh is locked safely in a vault.
And there is the absurdity. What is the point of working endlessly to acquire beautiful things if your way of life requires you to lock them away?
Max ultimately chooses a life in Provence instead.
That matters, because using something well can also mean enjoying it.
Live in the house, hang the painting, take care of the garden, spend time with your children. But don't confuse preservation with stewardship.
Stewardship is putting what we have into life.
So why work if you don't need the money? Because needing money is only one reason to work, and work need not mean conventional employment. Teaching karate is work. Writing is work. Raising children is work. Caring for land is work.
Mentoring is work. Building an organization is work. Serving a community is work. It's about contribution, not employment. I don't have a finished theory of stewardship. I have questions. What does it mean to steward a body? Knowledge, beauty, land, talent, wealth and a tradition? Can consumerism and stewardship coexist?
What deserves to be preserved and what should be allowed to die?
And could stewardship offer us a better response to privilege than guilt.
That's what I want to explore in this series.
What do you have, money or otherwise that you've never thought of as something you steward?
[00:07:12] Speaker B: If this episode landed for you, share it with someone who might need to hear it.
[00:07:17] Speaker A: And if you haven't already, subscribe so
[00:07:19] Speaker B: you don't miss what's coming. But here's the real thing. I want you to know if you're carrying something you can't talk about, if you have every resource except someone who actually understands what wealth costs. I work one on one with people like you navigating exactly that.
[00:07:35] Speaker A: You can reach me@diana oehrli.com thanks for listening.
