Interesting question!

If I were given one minute to present a live message to the entire world, this is what I would say: Money, Meaning and Legacy.

When you graduate from school and venture into the workforce, you will probably prioritise money during job-hunting. People say that experiences are more impactful than material possessions, but what they don’t say is that in order to acquire unique experiences in the first place, you need to have money. And given that costs of living are rising astronomically, you need money to pad your retirement fund.

Then you grow older and hopefully have some savings and investments to call your own. You realise that money doesn’t quite feel your soul as in your younger days. So you start to search for meaning in your life. The Japanese even has a term for it: ikigai. It means “life purpose”. You hope that with your limited time on earth, you will get to spend it on more fulfilling pursuits.

Subsequently, you may or may not battle with a mid-life crisis. You feel that it is no longer enough to have meaning. You want your existence on earth to count for something. Having accumulated knowledge, skills and experiences, you want to leverage them to create contributions that only you can make on the world. You are working to leave a legacy behind.