Money Ghosts From the Past

Many of the things that block or limit our prosperity are caused by unhealthy beliefs which we may not even know we carry around. I discovered this for myself years ago in a most unpleasant way.

It was early December and I decided to spend the day beginning my Christmas shopping. Normally, I didn’t carry much cash and didn’t have a credit card of my own, but that day I withdrew what seemed like an enormous amount of cash from the bank and headed to downtown Santa Barbara, my hometown at the time.

Almost from the moment I got out of my car, I was gripped with fear. Everyone I passed looked like a mugger to me. After half an hour of this miserable experience, I drove back home empty-handed.

I did, however, get a powerful gift for myself. I realized that I had an unconscious belief that if I had money, people would harm me.

It didn’t take much contemplation to see that unless I changed that belief, I would be unable to ever realize financial success—or ease.

Over the years, I’ve talked to hundreds of people who are carrying around equally destructive money thoughts. That’s really not surprising when you consider how many messages we’ve received about the money over a lifetime.

Although money is a presence in all of our lives, most of us have learned about it (and inherited beliefs from) people that didn’t know that much about it themselves.

If our elders believed, for example, that you either could work for a salary or you could be homeless, we may tremble at the thought of being self-employed and not having a predictable income.

If our elders struggled or argued about money, we may assume that having an adequate income is difficult—or even impossible.

If we undervalue ourselves and what we have to offer the world, we hamper the growth of our businesses.

If you’re married, you may find that you and your partner have different ideas about money matters. As a financial advisor once told me, “Savers tend to marry spenders.”

Then there’s Barbara Stanny’s story. The daughter of one of the founders of H&R Block, Stanny grew up in an affluent household with repeated reminders that she didn’t need to think about money since there was bound to be a man to do that for her.

In her marvelous book, Overcoming Underearning, Stanny  recounts how this attitude led her to lose her substantial inheritance to an unscrupulous husband. She rebounded from the experience determined to educate herself and other women about earning and managing money for themselves.

Having ease with earning, investing, managing and saving money is only possible when we challenge the unhelpful messages and take personal responsibility for our financial lives.

Before we proceed farther with our exploration of money, give some thought to the money messages you grew up with. What was helpful? Healthy? Hurtful?

Define for yourself what it means to have ease in money matters. (Hint: this isn’t about pulling a number out of the air.)

As Stuart Wilde points out, “It’s not just the emotional, intellectual, and physical gaps between you and money. The real gap is always between what you think you want and what you actually want, deep down.”

 

Recognizing Opportunity

Recently I’ve been thinking about several entrepreneurs that I know who don’t seem to be making progress. One of them (although I know this isn’t an isolated case) is quick to brush off advice and information with a, “Yes, yes, I’ve heard that before.”

Hearing a good idea is not the same as embracing and integrating one. You can have a garage full of power tools, but if you never take them out of the box they don’t serve any purpose other than taking up space.

That’s also true for ideas.

So I’m kicking off the new year with a month devoted to Reviewing and Rewinding. It’s a perfect time to revisit a few basics that can make a big difference in the foundation we’re laying for our enterprises.

Let’s start with thinking about recognizing opportunities.

Opportunities are floating around everywhere, yet they remain invisible to those who aren’t seeking them. That may be because opportunity often appears as a problem needing a solution.

Several summers ago, college student Joe Keeley took a job as a nanny.  Before long, people in the neighborhood began asking him if he had any college friends who would do what he was doing.

“That’s when I started thinking there might be an opportunity here,” he says. Now he runs a flourishing seasonal business called College Nannies and Tutors which matches families with carefully selected nannies who have special skills and interests that fit the family’s needs.

Young Mr. Keeley is an  example of the two most common ways in which opportunity appears: by summons and by serendipity. Summoned situations come after we have set a goal or made a decision to do something.

For instance, you decide to set up a practice as a personal trainer and get busy finding clients. Everyone who hires you becomes a new opportunity to expand your business. By taking action you’ve drawn opportunity to you.

Serendipitous opportunities appear to be unplanned. Let’s say you have a client for your personal training business who happens to be a filmmaker and thinks you’d be perfect for a series of exercise videos he wants to produce.

That’s a possibility you’d never considered, but once it’s proposed to you, it is an exciting idea and you start working on the production, planning the marketing and thinking of new ways to share your expertise.

Either sort of opportunity requires that you have opened your heart and mind to the possibility of favorable events occurring in your life and business.

At the same time beware of opportunity imposters. A Google search I conducted a few years ago turned up 3,810,000 listings for business opportunities. Not only were most of these offers questionable, many of them were outright scams created by con artists who cost Americans more than $6 million that year.

If something advertises itself as an opportunity, it probably isn’t.

Real opportunity is never a one-size-fits-all affair. In fact, when you come across an opportunity that is right for you it will feel, well, right.  You’ll have an intuitive sense that you’ve been preparing for it all along—perhaps without even realizing it.

Whether opportunity finds you by summons or by serendipity, it requires that you respond quickly or it will move elsewhere. When an idea gets your attention, stop and give it your thoughtful consideration.

Does it fit into your current plans? Can you make room for it? Is it exciting enough to pursue farther? Might you want to pass it along to someone else?

We are more likely to attract genuine opportunity when we’re willing to meet it halfway. Stuart Wilde points out that closing the gap between where you are and where you want to be may involve taking exploratory action.

“It may be  a matter of showing up in the marketplace,” he points out, “becoming a face that people know, demonstrating your expertise, and getting into the loop where the movers and shakers are. People who could bestow great opportunities upon you aren’t scouring the distant hills for talent. They’re in the flow.”

Closing the Gap

 

 

A few months ago, NPR reported that traffic is a mess in Buenos Aires thanks to on-going protests that are clogging the streets. The cause of this civil unrest is a declining economy and various types of businesses are organizing to speak out, including nightclub owners who are unhappy about the law forcing them to shut their doors at 5:30 AM.

 

While the protests are causing a lot of commotion, they’re also inflicting a great deal of harm as shoppers are unable to get to stores due to the flood of people in the streets. Consequently, many businesses that were doing just fine are now struggling because of the protests.

 

What’s happening in Buenos Aires goes on everyday on a much smaller scale. Quite simply, actions are out of alignment with goals. 

 

Here’s a case in point. I’m not sure how I began following Peter (not his real name) on Twitter, but I thought I’d like to hear what he had to say about his specialty, building confidence. As time went on, I noticed that Peter had little to say about confidence and a great deal to report on his drinking escapades.

 

This guy sounds like he’s in trouble, I thought, so I sent him an e-mail expressing my concern. I gently pointed out that nobody was going to listen to what he had to say about building confidence if all he wrote about was how much alcohol he consumed. 

 

Peter didn’t reply and he didn’t show up on Twitter for several weeks. When he reappeared, he had a link to a new blog post. I clicked on link and was genuinely moved by his piece confessing to his readers that he’d received an e-mail from someone (that would be me) pointing out a problem he knew he had, but had failed to confront. It appears that Peter’s behavior is back in alignment with his goals.

 

When people are disappointed by the financial results in their lives, there’s often a disconnect between what they want and what they are doing. In The Little Money Book, Stuart Wilde talks about closing the gap between where you are and where you want to be. He says:

 

Certain industries are located in certain places in the world. If you’re a long way from where the action is, you may want to consider closing the gap. For example, if you want to make it big in movies, you’ve got to more or less be in New York or Los Angeles.

 

Closing the physical distance is a matter of showing up in the marketplace, becoming a face that people know, demonstrating your expertise, and getting into the loop where the movers and shakers are.

 

People who could bestow great opportunities on you aren’t scouring the distant hills for talent. They’re in the flow.

 

Closing the gap may require changing behavior, changing attitude, changing habitat. It almost never happens if we are devoted to protecting the status quo.

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