The Money Type Promise, Part 2

Master Your Money Type: Using Your Financial Personality to Create a Life of Wealth and Freedom
by Jordan E. Goodman

(Page 2 of 4)

I wanted to create some sort of simple process wherein I could help you, no matter what your background, beliefs, or present financial situation. I wanted to reconcile money information (what you need to know about managing money itself) with your money attitudes (what you need to know about your feelings and fears about money) so that you could emerge feeling secure and more confident about money, for now and for the future. This became my mission.

This book grew out of my determination to find effective answers to your money questions in a way that would be meaningful. The result is this guide to mastering your Money Type. The key to real life-changing financial success for you can lie within these types. I'll show you how very shortly.

First let's talk about money and what it means to you.

Everyone gives money all sorts of meanings beyond the value of the goods or services it can buy. Why do some people idolize money while others reject it? Why are yet others afraid of money or believe that wanting it is an unworthy or even shameful goal? Why do some people kill for money or kill themselves if they lose it all? Why do close relatives, spouses, or friends become enemies over one's "rightful share" of the money?

The answers are within every life story-the way your answers can be found within your story. Maybe your parents were stingy with you or generous to a fault. Perhaps you were told that life is tough, money is limited, and that you should be grateful for the money you get. Then again, maybe you were raised to believe that the world was bountiful and that the bounty would have your name on it.

Whatever you were told and whatever you believe, no matter how contradictory, one thing is true for all of us: Money is never just money but a repository for our deepest fears, doubts, insecurities, anxieties, aggressive impulses, and even sense of self. All these feelings can influence and even dominate how you manage money. There is always an emotional component to money. When you think about money, how do you feel? Deserving, powerful, confused, secure, happy, insatiable, entitled, guilty, corrupt, fearful?

More important, your attitudes about money can affect and drive your financial aspirations. If, for example, you have a strong conviction that you will always have money, you'll do everything you can to earn more or take the kind of investment risks that will provide financial prosperity. I recently spoke to a woman who said she figured out that she had "ten pockets" from which she could either put in or take out money. That is, she had a job, but she also invested in a friend's business for a share, rented out the family cottage for the summer, as well as having a trusted broker who guided her investment pockets, and so on. For her, security was all-important, and she made every effort to build it.

Perhaps you feel the opposite. You believe your fate is to struggle and never have enough. In this case, you may be in debt and have a poverty mentality that keeps you broke. I got an e-mail from a family man in his forties who said he "hated money matters" and that he couldn't figure out how to make his salary stretch. He said he wanted to "pursue the American Dream," but for him, "it turned into a Financial Survival Nightmare." For this man, the quest for more money will always go hand in hand with hating the details of acquiring and keeping it.

Or perhaps a sense of personal powerlessness stands in the way of financial planning, thus leading to a disastrous retirement fund. I get so many letters that tell me how much you want to know about saving for a specific goal, but you feel intimidated by the information-and most of all, fearful that you cannot learn how to do it. When you believe that money management is elitist or arcane and beyond your scope, well, as the saying goes, "If you believe you can't, you're right!" Believe you can.

In this book, I'll help you uncover your dominant money values, attitudes, and behavior and pinpoint what emotional baggage is standing in the way of you improving your finances. Identifying your emotional baggage helps you understand the motivation and emotions behind your money behavior. This involves self-awareness-what is really happening in your money life, not what you want or don't want or can't admit is happening. It is about making peace with the past and finally letting yourself master how money works and can work for you.

Why Self-Awareness Counts In Making
Money Work for You

As psychologists tell me, awareness of the emotional impact of an event is the first step toward healing. Denial keeps you where you are and promotes inaction. It takes a little courage to look back, but it has a big payoff: You're relieved of a lifelong burden that is of no use to you. You need to go back and track your emotional history and, hopefully, identify the defining moment or trauma that you keep reliving.

Awareness makes it safer for you to explore practical financial strategies you might not have been able to attempt before. Once you understand your traits, you can take optimal action to improve your entire Money Type profile. You can set goals based on your strengths with money that will help you realize your dreams and learn to manage your core weaknesses so that they do not trip you up any longer. When you get your money weaknesses under control, you can consolidate your debts and pay them off efficiently, start building a growth portfolio, understand retirement and estate planning, work with a financial planner, choose the best mortgage to make the most of your real estate dollar, and accurately assess your risk tolerance (I have a quiz you can take to learn more about this in Chapter 8) and learn how to control a long-term financial and investment plan, and much, much more.

A little more success with finances builds your confidence with money and extends your reach just enough to realize some dreams. You and your money are going to have a lifelong relationship, and to make any relationship flourish, you need to know your strengths, weaknesses, undeveloped talents, and also which traits are so fundamental to your core personality that you'll need to make peace with them.

What you feel and how you show your feelings to the world pretty much show up in your Money Type.

Copyright © 2006 by Amherst Enterprises, Ltd., and Lynn Sonberg Book Associates

About the Author

Jordan Goodman is known as "America's Money Answers Man" because he has been answering Americans' questions about personal finance for over 28 years. He is a personal finance journalist who covers every aspect of helping people make money decisions. He worked at MONEY Magazine for 18 years, ultimately rising to be Wall Street Correspondent. He appeared weekly on Cable News Network on Business Day with Stuart Varney for 3 years, and was the weekly financial commentator on NBC News at Sunrise for 9 years. He did a weekly "Road to Riches" personal finance commentary on the Public Radio's Marketplace Morning Report for 6 years. He continues to appear on many call-in radio stations and TV shows and do speeches around the country, answering average American's personal finance questions and he also answers hundreds of emails sent to his moneyanswers.com website.