My Dad Asked How I’ll “Fill the Fridge.” Here’s a Better Question.

A quote from Star Trek and a painful phone call showed me we’re asking the wrong question about our work, our lives, and our purpose.

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

You know the question. You’ve heard it from a parent, a friend, or the nagging voice in your own head at 3 a.m.

“So… how are you going to fill the fridge?”

It’s a question born of love and concern, rooted in a world where survival is the baseline. I (Cristof) got it from my dad just this morning. He was congratulating me on our new newsletter before deftly pivoting to the critique: “The only thing that’s not clear to me is how are you going to fill the fridge?”

He’s not wrong. But the question itself is the problem.

It had me thinking about a quote I’d just read in Rainn Wilson’s book, Soul Boom (affiliate link). On page 16, he quotes Captain Picard from Star Trek:

“Money doesn’t exist in the 24th century. The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity.”

When I read that, I didn’t feel a sci-fi fantasy. I felt a deep, resonant longing. Not for a world without money, but for a world where our driving force has fundamentally shifted.

Look at the immense dissatisfaction, the lack of meaning, the rising depression and suicide rates in the most “developed” countries. It’s a screaming signal that more wealth only matters to a certain point. Beyond that, it’s empty calories for the soul.

I know this because I’ve eaten those calories. I’ve been in the high-paying world of investment banking and capital markets advisory. It was absolutely soul-sucking. I knew if I stayed on that path, focusing only on maximizing my income, I would be dead in 10, 15, or 20 years. Maybe not physically, but emotionally, relationally, and spiritually. I’d be a ghost in a gold-plated cage.

So, we made a choice.

(Sophia here.) Let me paint a picture of that choice. Around 2012, Cristof joined a folk-rock band touring the US Southeast. We lived under the poverty line. We didn’t own a cell phone. We lived in a 450-square-foot apartment and shared one car. A croissant at Starbucks was a luxury we actively calculated against our rent.

When our cat got sick, we took on a $4,000 credit card loan for her surgery. That was our reality.

Make no mistake, we are not glorifying having less or making poverty a virtue.

But here’s the secret no one tells you: we weren’t miserable.

We aspired for more but didn’t feel poor. We felt purposeful. We were living a life of our choosing. We could have gone back to six-figure jobs, but we consciously chose a different path. The music Cristof was creating, the meditation videos I was making — it felt transformative. We were giving value, and that provided a sense of contentment no paycheck had ever matched.

We weren’t “Wealth-Acquirers.” We were becoming “Value-Givers.”

And that is the identity shift that changes everything.

The Identity Shift: From “Wealth-Acquirer” to “Value-Giver”

The old paradigm forces you to ask: “What do I need to DO to earn money?” This question puts you in a constant state of lack and chasing. You are always behind, always trying to extract from the world in order to…

fill your fridge, 
fill your house, 
fill your bank account.

The new paradigm, the one that Picard hinted at and we’ve lived, starts with a different identity: “I am a Value-Giver.”

The core belief is this:

I am a person who gives value and thrives financially, emotionally, and spiritually. My thriving is directly proportionate to me giving my true, authentic self. The more I give, the more I receive.

This isn’t spiritual bypassing. We live in a society that requires money. The goal isn’t to become a monk or nun who renounces money (unless that’s your calling!). The goal is to flip the equation.

Instead of doing things to get money, you focus on giving immense value, and you learn to monetize that value in an aligned, integral way. When you do this, the money that follows feels like a natural byproduct of your service, not the grim reward for your soul’s surrender.

Your work becomes like that of a monk or nun — you are taking care of a core need (spiritual, creative, transformational) for your community, and the community, in turn, supports you. It’s a virtuous cycle. It’s no wonder studies often find clergy among the happiest of professionals. They live in the flow of giving and receiving.

Your Simple & Aligned Starter Kit to Become a Value-Giver

This shift starts in the mind long before it manifests in the bank account. Here are two simple practices we use daily to cement this new identity.

1. The Daily Value Question (From Cristof)

Every morning, I journal the answer to this one question:

“What’s one thing I can do today to be of service to others?”

I just jot down whatever comes through my stream of consciousness. It takes not even two minutes. This isn’t about crafting a business plan; it’s about setting a daily intention. It immediately orients your brain away from “what can I get?” and toward “what can I give?” The answers can be as simple as “send that encouraging email to a fellow creator” or “finally write that post that’s been on my heart.”

2. The 3–6–9 Abundance Alignment

This is a powerful method to reprogram your subconscious and connect your authentic gifts with financial abundance.

First, craft your new identity statement, such as “I am a person who gives value and thrives financially, emotionally, and spiritually,” see the core belief above. Then repeat it throughout the day, saying it out loud:

• 3 times over breakfast

• 6 times after lunch

• 9 times just before bed.

3. Bridge the Gap with “What If?” (From Sophia)

This final journaling prompt is where the magic happens, building a neural bridge between your authentic desires and your abundant future. This is how we shatter the myth that giving your gifts and building wealth are mutually exclusive.

The journaling prompt is:

“What if my life was filled with financial abundance by expressing the gifts that are wanting to come through me? What is it that I truly want to express in this world, knowing that me doing so is my most expansive, abundant expression — financially and spiritually?”

This exercise isn’t about begging the universe for a check. It’s about building a neural bridge between your deepest, most authentic joy and the belief that it deserves and can create abundance.

The Journey Ahead

This journey from the “soul-suck” of chasing money to the fulfillment of being a Value-Giver isn’t a random event. Sophia has actually mapped out the exact spiritual and psychological process for how this shift happens, which we call The Bridge to Your Next Self. We’ll be diving deep into that framework in one of our next pieces.

It all starts by changing the question you ask yourself. Stop asking, “How will I fill the fridge?”

Start asking, “How can I fill my soul by filling the souls of others?”

The fridge (and other forms of bounty), I promise you, will follow.

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Your Brain Is Angry. It’s Time to Feed It a Cookie.

How a bizarre lesson from Rainn Wilson and Gandhi is saving my creative soul.

Photo by Vyshnavi Bisani on Unsplash

You know the feeling.

You’re cruising along, your mind buzzing with a new article idea or a solution to a client’s problem. You’re happy. The creative flow is humming.

Then, it happens. Someone cuts you off in traffic, their middle finger a stark punctuation to their anger. Or, an email pings in — a terse, unkind message from a collaborator or client.

In a flash, the flow is gone. Replaced by a hot, sharp anger.

This was my (Cristof) default state. My internal monologue would kick in, a cocktail of self-righteous judgment and cynical ridicule: “I’m such a good driver. I went at the speed limit. What a jerk. And for what? We’re both just going to end up at the same red light anyway.”

It felt justified. It felt normal. But I never stopped to calculate the real cost.

That anger wasn’t just a passing emotion. It was a toxin. It would seep into my body, making my knees tense, my shoulders tight, and my stomach churn. With a sick body and a mind buzzing with negativity, I couldn’t create. I couldn’t write. I’d try to sit down at my desk, but the words wouldn’t come. If I had to produce work, it was subpar, forced, and misaligned. The entire cycle would then spiral into frustration and self-doubt.

It was costing me my peace, my productivity, and my power.

The turning point came from an unexpected place: Rainn Wilson’s book, Soul Boom (affiliate link). In it, he writes:

“We all know someone who is rude, selfish, unkind, toxic. We do our best to avoid people like this. But what if we tried instead to consciously find one good quality about that person? For instance, what if they are a total jerk in every way but have great hygiene and always smell like freshly baked chocolate chip cookies? When I’m able to consciously focus on the good quality of a person, not only is my day better but my relationship with that person improves. And eventually, other good qualities are revealed to me that I might not have taken the time to see previously.

In other words, focus on the cookies. and don’t focus on the negative.”

He then quotes Gandhi, one of the grand masters of humility:

“I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won’t presume to probe into the faults of others.”

“Focus on the cookies.” The phrase stopped me. It was so simple, so visual, so… absurd. But it pointed to a profound truth I had been missing.

For all my life, I thought the solution was to simply stop being angry. To suppress it. To let it go. But you can’t reliably power down a reaction with willpower alone. The real shift, I discovered, isn’t about managing your reactions.

It’s about shifting your identity.

The Person Who Finds the Cookies

I realized that “focusing on the cookies” wasn’t a behavior hack. It was an identity. I had to stop trying to be less angry and start becoming the kind of person who, by their very nature, doesn’t get derailed by external circumstances.

I asked myself: Who would I have to become for a rude driver or a difficult email to not be an issue at all?

The answer painted a clear picture. This version of me is:

1. Self-Reflecting: They look inward before casting outward judgment.

2. Unaffected by Circumstances: They don’t take their emotional cues from other people’s bad behavior.

3. Compassionate: They operate from a default assumption of goodness, or at the very least, a default assumption that everyone is fighting a hard battle.

This is the core of manifestation and identity shifting. You don’t wait until you feel like that person to act. You act as if you are that person, and the feelings follow.

When the world gets loud, this identity whispers:

“I am not taking my cues from current circumstances. These circumstances are only the result of my past mind states. My current mind state produces my future circumstances. And I’m not letting anybody decide over my mind states. Every thought counts. Every thought matters.”

Your 30-Second Identity Shift Drill

This isn’t just philosophy. It’s a practical drill you can use the very next time you’re triggered. It takes less than 30 seconds and has two simple steps.

The moment you feel that hot surge of judgmental anger, pause. Take one breath, and repeat this twofold mantra to yourself:

1. Step One: Detach. Say: “I do not take cues from my circumstances.”
   This is the emergency brake. It stops the mental train from hurtling down the familiar track of rage and ridicule. It reclaims your sovereignty.

2. Step Two: Shift. Ask: “Who do I have to become for whom this wouldn’t be an issue at all?”
   This is the rocket fuel. It instantly moves you from a state of reaction to a state of creation. You are no longer a victim of the event; you are the conscious architect of your response. You are putting on the cloak of your highest self.

Then, and only then, look for the cookie. Maybe it’s the fact their car is impeccably clean. (And only decent people keep their cars clean, right?) Maybe it’s Sophia’s wonderful method of assuming their loved one is giving birth and they need to rush to the hospital. (Since we’re the ones dictating our mental narrative, we might as well make it a good one.)

The “cookie” is the proof that your identity shift is working.

The Ripple Effect on Your Creative Life

When you become the person who finds the cookies, you aren’t just being nice. You are engaging in the most strategic act of self-preservation a creator, solopreneur, freelancer, or really anyone can do.

You are protecting your most valuable asset: your aligned, creative energy. You are ensuring that a single moment of external chaos doesn’t derail your entire day’s work. You are, quite literally, building the future you want by consciously choosing the mind state that will create it.

Every thought counts. Every thought matters. So choose to find the cookie. Your peace, your power, and your next breakthrough depend on it.

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