Stewardship: Taking Your Seat at the Table

Most conversations about money revolve around tactics.

How to invest. How to pay off loans. How to save and budget. How to retire.

Very few conversations ask the deeper question.

Who are you being with money?

Because stewardship is not a strategy. It is not an optimization. It is not even a skill.

Stewardship is a rite of passage.

It is the moment you stop standing outside your financial life, either worshipping money or resenting it, and take your seat at the table.

Not as a servant or a judge.

And no longer being an ‘economic toddler’, because you are ready to take full responsibility.

In this post, you’ll discover the seven initiations that transform you from someone who manages money into someone who stewards it—so you can finally experience true financial freedom, make decisions with confidence instead of fear, and **build a life where money serves your priorities (**instead of controlling them).

You’ll see how stewardship isn’t about perfection, but about gaining the clarity and authority to design a financial system that actually supports who you are now, reduces stress, and creates genuine choice in your life.

The First Initiation: Letting Go of the Myth

Most people are told a version of the same story.

Start early. Stay disciplined. Don’t touch it. Pay everything off. Don’t worry about the ups and downs in the market.

Someday, you’ll be okay.

This narrative sounds responsible. It even sounds virtuous.

But the problem is, it quietly trains abdication.

It teaches people to outsource thinking. To defer life. To confuse patience with passivity. And limits quality of life.

It promises a future version of wealth while quietly stealing the present.

And it ignores a fundamental truth:

You cannot steward what you are not present with.

If you are not engaged, money does not become safer. It becomes more dangerous.

Risk gets sold as return. Deferral gets sold as discipline. Complexity gets sold as sophistication.

People are handed plans they don’t want because they never articulated enough about what they do want. Often, they weren’t even asked.

So many Gurus teach from their preferences, their trauma.

• Never buy a new car.
• Pay off your home.
• Use leverage for cash flow real estate.
• Buy and hold in an index fund.
• Use life insurance.
• Don’t use life insurance.

The question is, what is their bias?  How do they get paid? What happened in their past that determined what they teach?  Does it consider your preferences, knowledge, or is it projected onto you?

Without clarity, almost any of these statements could sound like a good plan.

But is it?  Is it what you want?  Is it true for you?

The Second Initiation: Facing the Numbers Without Shame

Most people don’t avoid their finances because they’re irresponsible.

They avoid them because money has become a mirror they don’t want to investigate.

Statements feel like verdicts. Accounts feel like judgments. Decisions from the past feel like evidence against their character.

So, they delay or distract – essentially outsourcing their insecurities.

Not because they don’t care, but because caring feels heavy.

Here’s the unspoken truth:

You cannot steward what you are unaware of or ashamed of.

See, stewardship begins with neutrality.

Not optimism. Not confidence. Neutrality.

“I am willing to see what is, without attacking who I am.”

Until that sentence is true, every financial decision will be reactive.

Either too tight or too loose. Too aggressive or too frozen.

But when you can accept the truth – without judgement – then you reclaim the power you need to transform your relationship with money forever.

The Third Initiation: The Death of Accumulation as Identity

In my twenties, more was always the answer.

More net worth. More properties. More businesses. More recognition.

Although more had a cost:

Less rest. Less health. Less fun.

I was winning on paper and losing where it mattered most.

My definition of wealth was external. Comparative. Loud.

Awards. Lists. Numbers that looked impressive to other people.

What I didn’t understand then is that when more is always the answer, standards erode.

You say yes to things that don’t deserve your energy. You tolerate complexity that adds no meaning. You become available to everyone except the people you love most.

Stewardship requires a quieter strength.

It asks powerful, and perhaps uncomfortable questions.

• How much is enough?
• How much can you handle well?
• At what point does ownership stop serving your life and start stealing from it?

There is no award for the most complicated portfolio or the busiest schedule.

It took me a while to really get this, but simplicity is intelligence.

Simplicity is power.

The Fourth Initiation: Letting Go Without Calling It Failure

I once spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on something that sounded incredible.

An NFT that promised direct access to a world-famous DJ Steve Aoki.

We wrote a song together. My kids were in the studio, and for a moment, I was a hero.

It was exciting.

Memorable.

And financially, a disaster.

Around the same time, I bought something far less flashy.

Something I knew a lot more about.

Something with more certainty and control.

A quiet, beautiful piece of land near our cabin with a pond full of rainbow trout.

It appreciated, and has been a good investment.

And now, it’s becoming something else.

A project. A responsibility. A mental tab that never fully closes.

Here’s the lesson stewardship teaches, and it’s not taught anywhere else.

Some things are wins to acquire and losses to keep.

Letting go can feel like regression, even when it’s the most intelligent move forward.

We grieve not just the asset, but the version of ourselves who believed owning it meant progress.

That grief is real.

And it is part of maturation.

Stewardship is knowing when to harvest, not just when to plant.

The Fifth Initiation: Reclaiming the Purpose of Money

You cannot spend net worth.

You can spend cash flow, energy, and time.

Yet most plans are built to maximize a number that sits quietly on a page while life rushes past in real time.

If money grows but your mindset doesn’t, your quality of life will not improve.

If money grows but you don’t have a plan to convert it into usable cash flow, it remains locked away. Un-lived life.

Money is not the goal.

It is a tool.

A tool to create choice. A tool to reduce stress. A tool to invest in yourself. A tool to have more options. A tool to tap into support. A tool to absorb shock when the economy shifts.

The question is not how much you have…

The question is what you want money to do for you.

What does it represent?

What does it not represent?

How do you talk to yourself about it?

Stewardship begins when money starts providing real utility in your life.

The Sixth Initiation: More Active than Passive

Passive income has become one of the most seductive myths in modern money culture. Some people are so passive with their finances that money doesn’t work for them at all, it simply passes them by.

Others become obsessed with passive income as the end goal and unknowingly cap their overall earning potential in the process. They chase returns without understanding risk, do work they hate, drain their energy, and tell themselves it will all be worth it once the income becomes “hands-off.”

But here’s the question almost no one asks:

If something is truly that passive, why would someone pay you so much for the use of your money?

In many cases, they wouldn’t, unless the risk is hidden, misunderstood, or deliberately downplayed.

If banks won’t touch it, if institutional investors pass, if the explanation relies more on hype than mechanics, that is not freedom, that is exposure.

Passive income is not the enemy, but passivity is.

Recurring revenue is powerful, but only when it is earned through understanding, involvement, and stewardship.

The more active and intentional you are upfront, the more durable and sustainable that income becomes. Don’t buy into stories that distract you from growing your skills, your judgment, and your capacity to create value.

Don’t be sloppy. Be a steward.

The Final Initiation: Taking Your Seat

Stewardship does not mean knowing everything.

It means caring enough to stay engaged. It means surrounding yourself with experts without surrendering authority. It means asking better questions before accepting automatic answers. It means choosing alignment over impressiveness.

Stewardship is not about being perfect with money.

It is about being honest with yourself.

And honesty practiced gently compounds faster than any return ever will.

This is the moment most people miss.

Stewardship is about responsibility.

You are allowed to change your mind. You are allowed to outgrow decisions that once made sense. You are allowed to sell things that are profitable but costly to your life or mission. You are allowed to design a financial system that supports who you are now, not who you were trying to prove yourself to be.

Stewardship is not an achievement.

It is an initiation.

A moment where you stop standing outside your financial life, hoping or fearing what it might become.

And you sit down.

At the table.

With clarity.

With humility.

With authority.

Not to dominate money.

Not to escape it.

But to finally lead it.