Episode #12- Improving Your Relationship With Money

Wealth Decisions Podcast Transcript for Episode #12- Improving Your Relationship With Money

Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

You know, I've always loved the quote from T.

Harv Eker.

It says, No thought lives in your head rent free.

Each thought you have will either be an investment or a cost.

And if you haven't read the book, Secrets of a Millionaire Mind by T.

Harv Eker, I'd encourage you to check it out.

He also said, If you want to change the fruits, you will first have to change the roots.

If you want to change the visible, you must first change the invisible.

You know, to improve your relationship with money, we need to get to the root.

And that's your beliefs about money.

And without doing this, you can learn all you want about Roth IRAs or stock investing or ETFs.

But there's always gonna be a piece of the puzzle missing that will hold you back from making the right decisions around money.

So in today's episode, we're gonna be talking about improving your relationship with money.

This episode is for anyone who maybe feels anxious just thinking about money.

Maybe has never felt in control of their money or tends to procrastinate with financial decisions.

But it's also for people that maybe don't feel that great about their financial future.

Maybe for those of you that don't think you deserve to have money.

But this episode is also for those that maybe do feel good about where they are financially, but maybe just haven't been able to take time to really enjoy their wealth like they think they should.

You know, your money mindset is crucial if you wanna change things in your financial life.

It defines how you think about money and it influences how you save, how you spend and how you manage your debt.

It's your core beliefs about money and your attitudes towards it.

This includes what you think you can and cannot do with money.

You know, how much money you think you deserve, how you believe you should manage your money, how you believe you should manage your debt.

And it affects your ability to keep and grow your wealth and give you a sense of financial confidence in your future.

Last week, we talked about identifying some of your money blocks.

And if you haven't listened to that episode, I would definitely stop the episode today, go back and listen to that one and come back and tune in to today's episode.

When you look at these old money beliefs we have, a lot of them, like I mentioned last week, are ingrained since childhood.

Some people call them kind of money scripts, these stories that play out in our life.

And money scripts aren't always right or wrong.

They're often one-sided and based on incomplete truths.

Incomplete truths are true in some situations, but not in others.

And since we don't usually realize our money scripts, these stories that play out in our life, we don't question how accurate they are and whether they really work for us.

There was a really interesting study at the University of Kansas, and they examined four factors that encompass a variety of our money scripts.

They identified these four factors.

The first one was money avoiders, and then there's people that tend to worship money.

Then there's people that look at money as status.

And then there was the very money vigilant people.

And basically a money avoider is someone that has typically negative beliefs about money, which can lead to fear and anxiety.

And they often sabotage their financial status or their financial success by refusing to spend on necessary items or by giving away their money to have as little as possible.

In people that worship money, they believe that money will solve all problems and bring happiness.

This belief is usually associated with destructive financial behaviors like money hoarding or gambling or overspending or compulsive buying.

Then there's the money status individuals.

They believe money determines their social status and basically equates success with wealth.

Many of those individuals pretend to be wealthier than they are so that they appear to be successful.

Then there's the money vigilant person.

They're very frugal and concerned about their finances.

They often are anxious about money matters as well, but they're very wary of financial risk and they limit their ability to enjoy the benefits and security of their money because they're so focused and vigilant on their money.

When I talked about those four factors, maybe you identified with one of those factors that the research study came up with.

We all have different views of money and we all have these different money scripts.

So when you look within those four categories, there's numerous money scripts you could be telling yourself.

And number one, you could say or think, more money will make things better.

There's a lot of families that have that script that if they accumulate more in hopes of, you know, living a better life.

Number two, you might have a money script like money is bad.

That's grounded in the belief that money makes people bad or unhappy.

And this script may kind of lead to some type of financial self-sabotage.

You may even think that you don't deserve money.

And this is a belief that can accompany an inheritance or a windfall.

It may also lead people to kind of earn below their potential.

You might also think that you deserve to spend money because you make a good living.

You know, we all deserve to spend money.

But however, this tends to lead to overspending and can create financial problems.

You may have a money script that you think that you'll never have enough.

And fear and anxiety may cause you to maybe work longer hours, maybe neglect relationships, or really fail to enjoy the benefits of all your hard work.

You also may have a money script that says that money will give your life meaning.

And I truly believe that money can give your life meaning, but a lot of times people with a lot of money, their actions may tell a different story.

So the way you think about money can affect the way you manage your finances.

And once you've identified some of these factors behind how you think about money and you've examined maybe a money script that tends to repeat in your life, you can influence your decisions and behavior and begin working on improving your relationship with money.

You know, I've said this in a past episode.

We all know something is possible to better our lives.

But until we know it's possible for us and not just other people, things don't change for the better until we change our mindset and understand that we can achieve the things we set out to achieve.

There's a lot of self-development people that talk about kind of like a wealth set point.

There's a wealth set point that we have for our income, our savings and our debt, and it's all based upon our mindset.

I remember when I was first introduced to this concept in the book Secrets of a Millionaire Mind by T.

Harv Eker.

He used the analogy of a thermostat.

The only way to permanently change the temperature in a room is to reset the thermostat.

And just like a preset temperature in our home, we all have some type of internal financial thermostat that dictates our comfort zone around wealth and success.

This set point really determines how much money we're accustomed to earning, saving and actually having.

You know, if someone begins to earn more than their set point, they might subconsciously engage in behaviors that bring them back to their comfort zone.

This might manifest in various ways, you know, such as unnecessary spending or making poor investment decisions or just even losing motivation at work.

You know, so to improve your relationship with money, you need to understand that maybe your approach to earning, spending and managing money is based on maybe some outdated rules.

You need to set new income and savings goals based on your value rather than some of these limiting beliefs, maybe that you've had.

You know, challenge yourself to seek what you are truly worth and what you are truly capable of.

What I'd like you to do is create a money success statement.

And I'll have a worksheet that you can download on my website to help you create this money success statement.

And it starts with just asking you the question of how do you feel about money?

If you listened to last week's episode, did you think about what are some of your money blocks?

But how do you feel about money?

And what money block has come up the most in your life?

Then I want you to answer the question why you will be successful with money going forward.

What are you going to do that most won't?

What skills and traits do you have that most don't?

Then I want you to write down your ideal financial situation.

Maybe that's making $150,000 per year.

Maybe that's saving 20% of your income for the future.

Maybe that's reaching $250,000 saved in retirement accounts.

Then I want you to create what I call allowing statements based upon your ideal financial situation.

You know, whatever you start hearing yourself stating a limiting belief or having doubt, an allowing statement will kind of lessen or remove some of your doubt.

And there's four steps to create an allowing statement.

You start by asking yourself if there's anyone currently doing what you want to be doing or having what you want.

Number two, how many people have been doing this today?

Number three, write your statements out kind of in general terms or in third person because making reference to yourself might create more doubt.

I also want you to make sure that your statements are plausible and that they're realistic goals for you to achieve.

Some examples of some allowing statements would be hundreds of thousands of people are making $150,000 per year.

Somebody reached their goal today of having $250,000 saved.

More and more individuals are finding creative ways to earn more income.

Someone got a big promotion today, and that can work toward that too.

Thousands of people check in every day with their money and are feeling better about their current financial situation.

Then I want you to end with a money success statement and say something like, I have identified my money blocks, and I'm committed to becoming better with money today and every day going forward.

I will check in with my money each week and set goals to make progress over time.

Whenever I have doubts about my ideal financial situation, I will read my allowing statements and then reread my money success statement so I can be reminded of my potential.

And that's it for today's episode, Improving Your Relationship with Money.

Tune in next week, and we're going to be talking about designing your rich life.

And if you like this episode, please rate the episode, make some comments, and hit the notification bell to get updated on future Wealth Decision Podcasts.

And please, if you could, share it with a family member or a friend.

My goal with the Wealth Decisions Podcast is to reach over 100,000 people by the end of the year in the Twin Cities and beyond so that people can make better wealth decisions to live a richer life.

If you'd like to schedule a discovery call with me, you can go to my website at momentouswealthadvisors.com and I'll spend some time to get to know you a little bit and find out if I might be able to steer you in the right direction or help you with your financial future.

Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify


-Brian D. Muller, AAMS® Founder, Wealth Advisor

Momentous Wealth Advisors in a fee-only fiduciary advisory firm

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