Your Money Story by David Krueger MD

We each have a money story, but we may not know how to tell it to ourselves to fully grasp it. The story seems to write itself, even to just happen. How do you “get” the money story you are creating each day? How do you understand the storylines of internal conversations about money, your personal history about money, hidden assumptions and emotional meanings, projections, money as mirror of self, how money is clothed in secrecy and taboo?

To get the most value out of the following quiz, respond to each of these three questions with a single answer—and do this before reading the explanations that follow.

1. To me money means _________.

2. My current annual income is $_____________.

3. In order to insure happiness and contentment financially, with no more money problems and worries, my annual income would need to be $_____________.

Money Quiz Discussion

Statement 1. The range of answers suggests how much individuals attribute to money. Money provides a window of opportunity through which to see hope, happiness, freedom, or security. Yet as someone gets closer to the glass, money becomes a mirror reflecting a desired or disavowed self. Self-statements made with money glare back: to regulate mood, prove worth, keep score, affirm accomplishment, channel aggression, form attachments, or foster alliances.

Money enters into every aspect of life, a force and energy to be reckoned with daily. Money, as an emblem of feelings and significance, exists as one of the most emotionally charged objects in contemporary life. Always designed to be a symbol, money stands in for what you idealize or want, fear or lack, feel you don’t deserve or can’t have.

Statements 2 and 3. Over 90% of the many hundreds of people I polled thought their annual income would need to be about twice the current level for them to feel happy and free from money worries. Someone who makes $50,000 a year believes it would take roughly $100,000 a year in order to be financially content. Someone who makes $500,000 believes that the figure would be about a million a year. And, in discussions after this poll, individuals who actually experienced their income doubling also doubled their “happy and content” amount. When those who made $50,000 achieved their $100,000 goal, they then thought it would take about $200,000 to be content and worry-free about money.

The answers to these three simple questions suggest how much more we attribute to money than it being simply a medium of exchange. We project a range of emotional meanings onto money: love, security, control, power, worth, freedom, success, and status.

Copyright 2009 David Krueger MD, Executive Mentor Coach. www.MentorPath.com | www.thesecretlanguageofmoney.com