Two events provoked this blog. First was an obituary in the Wall Street Journal about a creative director in a Portland ad agency who convinced Nike to go with the ‘Just Do It’ theme. The second was a response to an earlier blog that asked how the Seven Laws were formed from an old Chinese system.
The fellow who got credit for the phrase was the founder of a Portland ad agency who convinced the founder of Nike to use ‘Just Do It’ as a company logo.
I see a connection to the first law of money in The Seven Laws of Money. The first law is ‘Do it. Money will come when you are doing the right thing.’ That law was in response to the most common question I got from people who sought my advice about starting a project. The ad agency fellow in Portland, Dan Wieden, grew up in the hippie milieu and like nearly all hippies he knew the Seven Laws by heart. The founder of Nike, Phil Knight, was part of a running group I was part of in Menlo Park that was around when I first published the book in 1974. He and everyone around there at the time knew the book very well. There is a connection.
A reader of my blog wanted to know what the seven laws were originally. My poet friend, Jug n’Candle, actually a roommate from U. of Chicago, Charlie Roll, told me about them. They come from the 450 BCE Chinese compilation of wisdom called Guanzi, where it is called the Seven Laws of the Universe.
The first law, he told me, was the most important but least appreciated fact of reality. Based on the hundreds of questions people had asked me about getting started with their project or business was ‘How do I get the money to get started?’ The answer is the first law of money. “ Do it. Money will come when you are doing the right thing.” Many people picked it up. The most common version was ‘Do What You Love and the Money Will Come.’ ( Not quite my advice.)
The second law, Charlie said, is the opposite of the first. To me the opposite was “Money has its own rules.” It must be accurately accounted for; debts and bills must be paid promptly and there are many others such as keeping tight control of all financial functions.
The next four follow the same structure:
- Money is a dream.
- Money is a nightmare.
- You can never really give money away.
- You can never really receive money as a gift.
And Charlie explained that the last law was, like the end of a French PhD, an opening to the universe: 7. There are worlds without money.
Those worlds include drama, dance and deep breathing.