When it comes to running your business, what is your relationship with money? Are you charging your worth? Are you spending the money necessary to grow your business? If you struggle with your relationship with money—you’re not alone. Many entrepreneurs and business owners don’t know their numbers or they’re afraid to talk about money.
Johanna Lynn joins me on the podcast to talk about the relationship we all have with money. She works with what we inherit from our family. She believes none of us are who we are by accident; our childhood blueprint shows up in more than you may think, including in our relationships with people and with things, such as money. This is all due to our family and how we were raised.
Who taught you about money?
Even though money is so important, no one really teaches us about money and finances. As adults we make every day decisions when it comes to money and with those decisions come emotional attachments that live right below the surface.
Whether you are wealthy or struggling to get by, there are common themes in people’s relationship to money. You need to look at what is running you on the inside when it comes to money. It is more than just skills learned through financial books; we need to understand our feelings around money.
How our thoughts around money differ
Think about it: you could have two successful women entrepreneurs who own their own business, who are married and are both mothers and on the surface it may seem like we have some of the same things, however our blueprint, set out by our relationships with our parents, is different. It is our blueprint that makes people think and act differently from one another. Those two woman can make vastly different decisions with money, impacting how they spend it, how they receive it and how comfortable they feel with what they have or don't have.
When it comes to money you either think you have enough or you think of money in terms of scarcity – in turn this affects your relationship with money, right down to the little purchases you make. Money is a big part of being an entrepreneur. You need to spend money to earn money, whether that is investing in a business coach or equipment. So, you need to be comfortable in your relationship with money.
Myth: You’re born a spender or a saver
Believing you’re born a spender or a saver is an unconscious loyalty that can come from seldom allowing ourselves to do better than our parents. If you have parents who were all about keeping up with the Joneses but did not have the money to support this habit, then as children we notice the strain of living beyond our means. In turn we grow up to repeat the same behaviours or grow up to do the opposite: save every penny we earn to avoid the strain our parents had.
Regardless of which path, our relationship with money is often not our own but is a subconscious relationship based on the relationship our parents had with money.
Your relationship should not be the same, though. You would not want your children to fall into these pitfalls and neither do your parents—they do not want you to make the same mistakes they did with money. At the same time, letting the pendulum swing too far the other way isn't necessarily a solution either.
It all comes back to clarity.
A fulfilled life is a lot more than just doing what you think you should – it’s thinking about what you really want. Does your spending match with your desires? If you’re overspending, but realize you want a different life then you need to examine what that is and match your spending to match your savings.
The grass is NOT always greener on the other side
We need to get clear on what we want. We can easily get caught up on the idea that making a certain amount will make us financially free. But what does that number mean to your ideal lifestyle? Will you keep working for it? Does your work make you happy?
Many people easily fall into a pattern of doing over being. This comes from an early memory in our body where we needed more from our mothers than she was able to give us at the time. We take this memory and turn it into our relationship with money – it’s never enough (money, affection from my spouse, etc.).
What does success look like for you?
Society’s picture of success is not your picture of success. It’s what’s behind your desire – is it paying off your mortgage, or paying off your car? Get behind your “why?” By getting clear on your money relationship you get a lot more clarity around how you are going to get to your ultimate goal.
Your relationship with money is a lot deeper than recognizing your credit card debt. It’s recognizing the feeling places in your body and how you feel when that credit card bill comes in and how it feels when you have to ask to borrow money to pay it off.
Johanna has spoken with multi-millionaires who are still not secure with their money because they are constantly afraid the rug will be pulled out from under them. This is about more than just the money, there is another underlying reason for their relationship with money that needs to be investigated and uncovered.
What to look at in your relationship with money
We need to look at how our early templates were formed and how they are affecting our current relationships. What were your parents like? What was your childhood like? We are affected up to three generations back as to how we will react with money. We need to understand our influences in order to get clear on why we make the decisions we do.
Money patterns are multi-generational and influence us until we address them by becoming conscious of our own patterns and then tracking it back to how we fit into our entire family system.
Resources & Links
Johanna’s virtual workshop: Your Inner Relationship with Money
Join the Free Facebook Community
Subscribe on iTunes
Podcast Contest
Congratulations Marie Shinmoto and Kim Be who have won The Big Leap and You're a Badass!
As this new podcast gets off the ground, I’d really love your help to make sure that it gets in front of the right people. The first weeks of a podcast’s life are the most important in terms of the opportunities for iTunes to showcase you to other listeners. Because of that, I’m starting out this new podcast with a bang. There are 3 episodes available for you right now, and there will be at least two more episodes every week for the remainder of the eight weeks.
I thought I’d find some extra ways to thank you for all the sharing and supporting you do of the new podcast so every week until July 15th I’m going to be giving away one of my favourite business books to one person who either:
- subscribe to the podcast or leave a review on iTunes; or
- share the podcast on social media; or
- come in to the Biz Studio and post your favourite tip from a specific episode (along with a link to that episode)
In all cases, you need to make sure that I either know who you are (email me a screen capture of the review or showing you are subscribed) or that the posts on social media are public and tag me (@larawellman) or the Biz Studio (on Facebook you can tag my page).
Each week I’ll be announcing the book winner on Wednesdays on my Facebook page
Some of the books I’ll be giving away are (I’ll be adding more titles soon):
- The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks
- It Starts with Why by Simon Synek
- How to Live a Good Life by Jonathan Fields
- E-myth Revisited by Michael Gerber
So get out there and start sharing your reviews and sharing the podcast and good luck. AND THANK YOU!