Crucial Conversation: Money and you

This week I have finished re-reading a book called ‘Crucial Conversations’, written by four behavioral change specialists.

It got me thinking again about the most crucial conversation you have…

The one you have with yourself about money.

For some, just the mention of money stirs up thoughts and emotions that maybe aren’t that supportive of your goals.

For others, money is a source of joy, happiness, opportunity, and contribution…

So why the difference? What is it that makes the crucial conversation you have with yourself about money different from those that seem to have everything when it comes to money?

If money is stressing you out, then it is time to do something about it.

I bet that the crucial conversation that you have with yourself may just be part of the problem.

Stress about money is often self-inflicted. You’re doing it to yourself.

Whether you believe it or not, small changes in your thinking can make a big difference in your bank account.

Today I’m going to outline 8 money conversations that you may recognize. If these are part of your crucial conversation, it’s a good chance they are defining how much money you keep.

All we have to do is change the narrative… Simple right?

Money is the root of all evil

This one is very common and is actually a misquote from the bible.

The quote actually reads ‘the love of money is the root of evil’, which appears to suggest greed and obsession with money as evil.

If you strip money back to the basics, it is actually nothing more than a tool, or energy.

We use money as an exchange of value.

Now granted some use it for bad, like illegal drugs. However, generally, it’s used for good, like buying food, and clothes, building schools, and funding cancer research.

Money itself is not evil.

Money Can’t Buy Happiness

This one is a classic line thrown around to justify not having money.

Sure having all the money in the world is not going to give you happiness if you don’t have anybody to share it with or any causes to support.

But, if you want to give someone a gift, travel to new places, or have your own independence, you can’t do it without money.

The ability to make choices dramatically increases when you have money…

…and there is actually scientific research that suggests having more money does make you happier.

The only way to make money is to get it from someone else

This is often a difficult one for people to overcome.

But, the simplest explanation is to think in terms of economies.

The economies of the US, Australia, and the UK are not the same size today as they were 50 years ago or even 10 years ago.

This is because there is more wealth in the world today than there was 50 or 10 years ago.

Wealth results from creating value…

As more value is created, more money is available, which facilitates your ability to have more without having to impact anybody else.

Money is hard to come by

If you really believe money is hard to come by, guess what, it will be…It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

There is science to support the notion that if you think something is true, you will act to make it true.

And sometimes that can happen subconsciously.

I know when I first started I had to deal with this crucial conversation in my head. Before I discovered the truth about money, I believed that it was hard to come by, so I went about making it extra hard for myself with lots of dumb decisions.

In discovering the way forward, I was introduced to a quote by Henry Ford that I still use today: If you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.

If you keep telling yourself that money is hard to come by, it just will be.

You have to take big risks to earn a lot

Taking charge of your money and taking action to provide for your future self is not risky, and doesn’t require a large sum of money to get started.

Sure, if you have a large sum of money to start with you are going to convert it into a larger sum of money a lot quicker, but it isn’t a requirement.

Consider the alternative, do nothing!

If you do nothing, the risks are a lot higher.

With the way governments are increasing their debt, it is highly unlikely they will be able to provide for you when the time comes.

So the risk of doing nothing now is in fact far greater than the risks you need to take to invest for your future.

These risks can be managed and actually form the basis of the returns you receive for putting your money into a particular investment.

The bigger the risk, the bigger the return you would expect…But as I have already mentioned, you don’t need to take big risks to achieve financial freedom. You can see what I mean here.

Too much money makes you greedy

This thought probably relates to the money is evil conversation.

As we noted previously, money is just energy, an exchange of value, and so there is no real context for ‘too much’.

Think of people like Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Oprah Winfrey, and many other successful people who have a lot of money, they have committed to funding many great causes.

It is not necessarily true that greed and money go hand in hand. There are just too many examples of the opposite being the case.

I don’t have the knowledge to make more money

Firstly, ‘don’t’ is not a word the mind knows how to process.

If I tell you don’t think of a pink elephant, the first thing that comes to mind is a pink elephant…

So telling yourself that you don’t have the knowledge to make more money is a waste.

There are many different ways people create more money for themselves.

Investing just happens to be my personal favourite…

What are the skills or talents that you have that could be used to exchange value with those who want what you have?

And if you truly believe you don’t have a talent or skill that can be used to generate money, then you can always learn one, like investing.

Information and courses are freely available these days. Lack of knowledge is not a valid reason anymore, if it ever was.

Everybody starts from somewhere, just get in the game.

I don’t have time to make money

Everybody has used this one at some point…

I recently did a training about how to manage your time to achieve your goals. What was clear from this training was that it is not about having enough time. We all have the same 24 hours a day; the key to success is about how you manage your time.

The key lesson was to prioritise the things that you need to do to make progress toward your goals…

…and your goals need to be juicy enough that you want to achieve them and therefore will MAKE the time to get ‘stuff’ done.

Conclusion: Change the Crucial Conversation

The conversations that you are having about money with yourself, and I have had too, all stem from two main issues…

Not understanding money and how it works, and

Having negative subconscious associations around the idea of money.

To change the crucial conversation, you need to take the time to understand money and develop positive associations with money.

Until you do, it is going to be very difficult to change your money outcomes…

If you would like to start changing your crucial conversation about money, click the link below for a free Smart Investor session. In this session we will work on a positive money conversation and how you can have financial freedom.

Leave me a comment below and let me know which of these conversations is troubling you. Maybe putting it out to the universe will help you acknowledge and overcome it, wouldn’t that be great?