Do you want to be Rapunzel or Cruella?

Do you fall prey to the idea that if I had more money than things would be better? Do you find yourself thinking if you had more money you would dress nicer, your house would be decorated better, or you would be more generous?

Remember it's not really about the money. It's about changing the way we think about money. Unless you are out of gas and forgot your wallet.  Then it's actually about the money.

Last month, I photographed the same house 7,000 sq foot McMansion but with two different owners - to protect the guilty, let's call them Rapunzel and Cruella. It was the same neighborhood, same floor plan, just two different houses. Rapunzel's house was seriously impressive. Beautifully decorated, everything organized, extra effort put into the details, and of course Rapunzel was warm and engaging just as I imagined her to be from her documentary. It was a home you wanted to live in. When you walk into a place like that you think, "man, I would like to have a house like this"

A few weeks later I go back to the same neighborhood and photograph a different house but same exact floorplan but this time I wanted to leave as soon as I got there. Cruella's house was a mess. The furniture was ugly. There was a layer of dirt on every surface. And Cruella barely said two words to me. I realized it obviously had nothing to do with the house, because that same house I had seen in all it's glory. It had to do with the owner. The essence of the person who lived there was permeating the space.

I thought about that second house the whole way home. I was disgusted by it. I thought how could someone that could afford a mansion like that not be able to afford to take care of it. And then I practiced what I preach. I looked at myself and why I would react so negatively. I thought about how my own bedroom was a mess. I had some solid excuses of why it wasn't tidy. But I decided I didn't want my future luxury home to look the way my current bedroom did. And the only way to fix the future is to change the present. So I spent the weekend cleaning my room.