Blockchain technologies, crypto currencies, tokens are new and make the trip into the money world interesting and entertaining for beginners, people go to courses trying to understand how it works. But its freshness goes away and a moment of clearness comes, there's the same old content behind new terms. Our columnist Katerina Mileeva, CEO of Alfa Private Bank knows exactly what money is and how to spend it better.
I'm conservative when it concerns money. Its main power is that it doesn't change throughout the centuries. It is a universal measure, a unit of energy you are ready to change for some other unit, good, service, impressions. World is not so good in coming to consensus so it needs a point of singularity in philosophical sense where everyone will one way or another reconcile and agree. The only point of the kind today is money. They can have any form we agree with. For example, commodification is a wish to turn anything into a unit of universal exchange for everything. And course is a result, a derivative of demand and supply. There are laws that work no matter what exactly you, commodification. The question is who needs it and who is ready to give you something in exchange. We can do this with someone's smile if there is another one who is ready to give something belonging to him in exchange for this hypothetic smile. If there's no one then the price of this commodity will be zero and its energy in the Universe will be the same. There are many disputes about the names our organization's Departments will have in future but I love my job in the place which is still called the Bank. We are blood vessels of a big financial organism and whatever nickname you give to money unites and the system itself its essence doesn't change.
If we believe that all occasional things are not occasional and there is logic in this world then money taken as energy demand a special energetic place where the flow is ruled. Denezhniy ('Money') lane historically is a place of the kind. When I just came to work I felt that in a new strategy limits we don't have space symbolizing its values and goals. At the moment I was about to launch the strategy they showed me the building, Denezhniy Lane, 3. I considered it to be interesting if not talking of the sympathy I have for the number 3 for my personal reasons. We went to have a look at the building and that's how Alfa Private Denezhniy was born. We started to think what content the energy space between the walls of this building should be filled with. We investigated its past, looked what was around it. In the end it turned to be a not trivial story about eternal measure of price money. In Netherlands tulips used to be money. Parmesan was money analogy in Italian Province. Cheese heads were used instead of money. One of our meeting rooms is called 'Cheese'. There was wine money in Yakutia. It looked like wine labels. 'Wine' meeting room is one of my favorites. Not many people know but space currency is already created. Waiting for the moment when human kind explores space more actively new currency quid was created in British University to exchange it for some new format food with those who we'll meet out there. There is a 'Space' meeting room. And African. They use geometric money in Africa, taper, cube, round subjects, any and the main characteristic was having some certain geometric features. All these ideas are implicated in the rooms' design. The building is historical and history will be combined with modern elements here. There is a meeting room 'Bitcoin' with encrypted binary code on its wall. This place is not that simple anymore, it embodies the fragile connections of emotions and intellect for those who already finished and left the Maslow's Pyramid and build on their own superstructure, play mind games. Money is energy with zero polarity, no plus, no minus and it is a man who turns left or right. Dialogues with your own self, possibility to think and make choice will be really comfortable in Denezhniy.
Dialogue 'Me and Money' is a difficult topic. I am in that category where people whose attitude towards money is not careless but quite naturally easy. I accept and let it go easily in this life. Complication appears because I work in a business helping people to not let it go but to keep and multiply it correctly and ask themselves questions to form their own attitude towards money. That is why I often have to work with people in another category. This is not a problem but a complication which is interesting for me, developing and filling. Living through these moments I once again feel sure about the choice I made, it's mindfulness and correctness. I started to actively investigate such type of investment as venture. 90% of investments like this never return to investors and the term itself contains a trace of 'adventure' idea. And I am thinking on solving this puzzle the way that investment comes back and grows. To balance at the edge of adventure gives a feeling of drive, airiness and freedom.
The other side of the coin called 'freedom' is responsibility because your freedom ends there where the other person's freedom starts. The more you enhance the limits of your freedom the more people can be in its range. Freedom is about limits of your will and dreams. It's first of all inside of you. And money is just a way to support your inner feeling of being free or to give limits if taken as a measure of responsibility. This is a choice every person makes himself. There is no unique answer same as with love. Some people are philosophically serious to money taking it as a very big responsibility. They started from the idea of keeping it, then came to thinking of how to use it better. There are those who live modestly, looking at them you'll never guess that they are extremely rich, they believe that they shouldn't spend money on yachts and other attributes of the wealthy life. Some spend all of their new incomes for charity, these cases are real.
As for me I don't regret if money is spent on anything developing, on my or my children's education, some educational programs and coaching. This is in the first rate. Here we can also put the socalled developing of the new neuron connections. When you know how to take off a plane and fly it you have the kind of skill which will help you in other life situations and in work. They for sure will give the higher level of discipline, strategy, complex thinking. To learn playing golf is also a resource, some new parts of brain and body are developed this way. There's no need for too much money for this. I also like to spend money on some business and technologies development. When I see talented people in this field I am happy to help them if I have a possibility.