Why is money so powerful?
Demographers tell us that the number one thing people worry about, fight about and trace their unhappiness to; is money. Why is a simple currency so powerful?
It is not the money itself, but the meaning of money to us that makes us all crazy.
In a nation of wealth, many suffer from a lack of enough money to feed, clothe and care for their children. So many choices are eliminated without money, yet six months after winning the lottery people are no happier than the group of people who were injured and placed in a wheelchair in the same time frame. What? How could that be possible? For thirty years I have worked with people and their investments and I can assure you that having 10 million dollars does not eliminate some of the worst things life has to offer up. Addiction, cancer, loss of a child, a spouse or a sibling, car crashes, murder, theft, depression, stroke, falls, heart attacks, job loss, carjacking, rape, and relentless physical and or emotional suffering have all been a part of my clients’ lives. Having money does not make any of these tragedies feel better.
There are people who live in fear over money issues, ignore problems with their spending compulsions, and suffer a lack of self-worth because they did not make their money. People lose themselves and their families in the process of striving to make money, to provide for the very security they think money will provide. Over and over people use the same techniques to cope with life’s difficulties. When your child is addicted to heroin, it really does not matter that they are from a rich family, their personal bottom will not be more easily hit. Rehab, they can afford rehab. Indeed, they can, but you can send them to rehab all you want, but until they are ready to crawl out of the ditch of addiction and fight for their own life their parents are as helpless as those with no means. Having worked in psychiatric hospitals, day treatment centers, juvenile detention centers and jails, I can say that the problems I observed there are the same ones I observed in brokerage firms.
How can we realign our feelings and our behavior
and put money in its proper place?
Can we knock money out of the top 5 list of things we fight about and worry over? I believe we can by examining the emotions behind our feelings about money and our subsequent behaviors. After the market crash of 2008 and the overall economic fallout, I was reminded of how paralyzed and how impulsively people respond to money. I judge this by the number of “talk them off the ledge” conversations I had, with people that were not even my clients. It is a painful thing to watch billions of capital evaporate in days or even hours and it tends to make people feel the world is ending. My great-grandfather jumped off a building in the early part of the 20th century in the great bank panic. Evidently, he had reached a level of either not caring or thinking his demise would be helpful to his wife and 11 year old son. Naturally, this came under the heading of things we did not talk about in my family. Did the loss of the status of his job seem insurmountable? I would have loved to ask my grandfather more about this, but he died when I was 8.
I have embarked on a mission to help people find out what their “money scripts” are and to help them understand what they are doing, so we can get money off the top 5 list. I have been inspired by a number of people and my workbook has been Mind Over Money by Drs. Brad and Ted Klontz. Understanding oneself if a powerfully empowering tool and can help anyone worry less, behave more appropriately for their circumstances. I am acutely aware of financial mistakes, as I have made my fair share. I have had the privilege of observing the mistakes of companies, Foundations, families, individuals and financial advisors who manage billions of dollars. Getting to the “heart of the matter” (thank you Don Henley) involves a process that forces us to interact with ourselves and others in ways that can be uncomfortable, but it can be done.
So come on along, there will be more about this because you are worthhealing.
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