Know Your Core Story

If you know me, you know I love to read. I have been inside of a book called It's Not About The Money by Brent Kessel. He's a fantastic financial advisor and had taught me something that underlying I knew but didn't know how to identify. He talks about our core story. We get what we think we deserve he says. He spends a great deal of time in this book talking about the relationship that we have with money and it's from our unconscious beliefs. Our core story came from how we learned about finances. Here's the thing, Society has really failed us when it comes to a true understanding of finances. Sure we are taught micro and macroeconomics in high school or college. But we don't get from our education system, mentors, or our parents, is an understanding of how money works.

His book has been an amazing resource for me and I want to share some of the information with you as well. Many of us have learned about money from watching our parents dealt with it or rather should I say fought about it. 

Think back to your earliest memory of money. What was that? There's a really good chance you've built your adult life about the decisions or thoughts you had from that first moment. And you have spent the years in between justifying and proving your thoughts to be correct.

Brent talks about the seven archetypes when it comes to money. I had always believed there were spenders and there were savers. And sometimes there was that person that could do a little of both. But it turns out we have our behaviors when it comes around finances for some underlying payoffs. This is really important to grasp. We have these behaviors to either protect what we believe or because it's the only thing we think we know about money. I encourage you to grab his book and dig in and learn more. It explains a lot about our actions, behaviors, anxiousness, and even the avoidance of learning about our finances. 

So why am I sharing this with you? Because over half of Americans don't have more than the equivalent of one paycheck in cash reserves in the bank. And the average household has over $8,300 in credit card debt. It's because we don't know what we don't know. But why is it we will spend hours and hours researching where we will go for a vacation to seek out a little pleasure, but we won't invest any time understanding what makes our world go round, and what provides for our safety, security, and putting food on the table. 

Avoiding talking about money allows us to not face our fears about our inadequacy and incompetent when it comes to understanding Finance. I have seen so many couples that completely avoid the conversation of financial goals.  I believe part of it is because we have a belief around money, but we actually can't defend that belief. So I believe money to be something I have to earn for I believe money is something I can't have but for whatever reason, I can't defend or explain why I believe that. Why you ask? Because that's just always been my belief and I don't know why. We create our core story out of something we lived through or experienced or saw as a child. And then we spend the rest of our adult life believing that to be so, rather than seeking out a different or better way. Let's stop being an ostrich and hiding her head in the sand. Let's take this on together, and grow and learn and understand and be better stewards of our blessings. Not sure where to start? I am creating more videos, podcasts, and written content to help us just that. So are you ready? Can we do this together?

Let's go!