You Don't Have to Be Rich - 4 Steps to Enjoy The Money You Have More

Remember when money was fun? When you were a little kid and it felt exciting to get your first pennies or quarters? With a few dollars in your pocket, you might have even felt rich. Perhaps you had a sense of freedom. Isn't that what we want as adults from our money - a sense of freedom and to be able to enjoy the money we have rather than feel anxious or worried?

Fill in this blank - Rich people are ________. If you're not rich you might say something like - rich people are greedy, or dishonest, or different. When I give talks about money most people respond with a negative statement. That's too bad, because of course those that have money could also be described as generous or giving. But our cultural beliefs about money run deep and quite negative. That's limiting in terms of becoming rich yourself.  

It's true that the rich are getting RICHER. According to The Huffington Post reported Oxfam's "Working For The Few" report that the world's 85 richest people own the same amount as the bottom half of the entire global population." 

But, solving the financial equality of the world is too big a subject for this blog.

Instead, let's talk about the 4 things you can do to enjoy the money you have more. 

A study reported in the book Happy Money by Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton asks:  "Would your life satisfaction double if you made $55,000 a year vs. $25,000 a year?" Most people say yes. But, research shows that those making twice as much money - 55K vs. 25K - were only 9% more satisfied than those making $25,000.

Happy Money's research also shows that once you're making about $75,000 a year, more money has NO IMPACT on day to day feelings of happiness. 

Since making more money to be happier is really more of an illusion than reality, what can you do to ENJOY and VALUE the money you do have?

4 Steps to Enjoying the Money You Have:

As a Money Coach who works with women in small business and direct sales I coach women to look at how they value the money they have and in the process can enjoy what they have, right now, more.

1) Buy more experiences than stuff. When we buy experiences, like the 3 week vacation my husband Dave and I just took, they are more lasting and meaningful than material things. Buying experiences contributes to happiness much more than stuff.

2) Make things special by having treats. For example, people that ate chocolate once a week anticipated and savored the chocolate vs. those that ate it every day.

3) Give away small amounts of money - like putting a $1.00 in the Food Box at the grocery counter.  It feels good to give and it's a good Law Of Attraction action.

4) Voluntarily Simplify:  If one has to live in a small house because they lost their big house in the Great Recession, that's one thing. But, my husband and I choose to live in a small home, drive moderately priced cars and take 4-6 weeks of vacation a year. Living within your means can feel very empowering.

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR NEWSLETTER OR ON YOUR WEB SITE?

You can, as long as you include this complete blurb with it:

Certified Money & Business Coach, Professional Speaker & author, Lynn Telford-Sahl, writes the weekly PowerUP Your Money blog for women in sales and small business. If you’re ready to PowerUP your Money, your Business & your JOY get your FREE Strategy Session with Lynn at www.joywithmoney.com

Women in Business: Work Backwards Formula to Achieve Bold Money Goals

Now that you’ve set your Bold Money Goal for 2012 and have it in writing (see previous blog: Set a Bold Financial Goal for 2012 http://coachingmodesto.squarespace.com/blog/  you'll want to use The Work Backwards Formula to make sure you get the results you want.

To Re-Set your Money Speedometer, which may have been stuck on the same old number for too long, means you have to examine WHY you want to make the amount of money you set for yourself. Your WHY tells you what your motivation is. (To know why your WHY is the most important thing you can do as a woman in business go to this youtube clip in the TedSeries by Simon Sinek:  The Golden Circle http://blog.ted.com/2010/05/04/how_great_leade/

Now, I know the economy has dampened, or for some, even smashed the ability to dream and envision. But we have to take our power back and stay focused on what we want (financial peace & freedom) vs. what we don't want (more financial struggle)  

To Start - Here are some questions to explore your WHY: This is where you get to dream and in order to be the most successful you must stay in touch with your dream and your purpose!!

Next, write down your BOLD Goal for 2012 :  $75,000 Gross

I want to make $_______ so that I can ________.

• ·      
• ·      
• ·      

 The questions you answered above are part of your vision and dream that will pull you towards your goal.

Now fill in these Work Backwards questions:

1)    How much do you charge your clients? The average bodyworker, for example, depending on locale, charges somewhere in the neighborhood of:   $75.00 an hour  Your hourly fee:  _________

2)    How much do you need to earn a month to earn $75K a year? $6,250 (75 divided by 12 = )

3)    How much do you need to earn a week to earn $75 K a year? $1445.00  (6,250 divided by 4.33 = 1436. Rounded up)

4)    How many clients a week do you need to see to earn $1445?  19 clients a week at $75.00 a client = $75,000 Gross Income

Now you have your work-backwards formula to earn $75,000 gross a year.  

Mature Enough to Make More Money - and Keep It?

I work with women in business who want to make more money. Some have what it takes, some don’t. How do we know?

A friend shared a story from T. Harv Ecker of Millionaire Mindset fame. He’s made a lot of money; from what I can tell mostly from teaching people how to make more money. 

He says making more money is sort of like ice cream. We have to be mature enough to earn the right to a double or triple scoop. You know how you take your 5 year old to the ice cream store and they’re all excited to eat ice cream. You're thinking one scoop is plenty. But then they see a 10 year old who has two scoops. Or grown ups with a banana split. Now they're not satisfied. They want two scoops. They throw a fit, but, you let them know that’s it. One scoop. On the way out of the store, plop goes their ice cream. "See, you tell them. You weren’t ready for more than one scoop." After a couple of experiences, they figure out what it takes to handle one scoop. Then they're ready for more.

It's the same with money. In the beginning of our life, we're not ready for more money. Most of us make lots of mistakes with money. We open credit cards, ring up balances, get into debt, overshop or overspend. We haven't yet earned the right to more money.

If we learn from our money mistakes, it matures us. We begin to understand our relationship with money and what it takes not only to make it but to keep it. As Robert Kiyosaki says, 'it’s not about how much money you make, it’s about how much you keep." Play his game Cash Flow sometime. It’s like Monopoly on steroids and very quickly demonstrates where you're really at with your money consciousness.

Financial maturity takes practice and patience. Enjoy and learn from your one money scoop until you're ready for two, or more.

The Lizard Brain on Money: Why More $$ Is Never Enough

When does the "gotta have it- want it now" lizard brain run over the rational, logical neocortex when it comes to how much money is enough?  When the drug of "more is better" is fed over and over again with repetition.  Dr. Peter C. Whybrow, author of "When More Is Not Enough," and chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), connects the dots between the world economic meltdown and the ancient lizard brain that hoards for a rainy day. He states that even when there is an abundance of food and goods, the reptilian brain still acts as though there is deprivation.  Michael Lewis, author of Boomerang, in a recent Vanity Fair article points to an interesting piece of trivia: overlay a color-coded map that highlights American personal credit over the Center for Disease Control’s map for obesity and you get a similar pattern.  No big surprise there - overindulgence in one area of our life slips over into other areas.*(from http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/339566/lizard-brains-and-financial-crises).

As an addiction specialist what I know from 20+ years in the addiction field, hundreds of clients and research for Intentional JOY: How to Turn Stress, Fear & Addiction into Freedom, is that whatever we repetively do trains the brain, either positively or negatively. As Dr. Whybrow says, "If you follow the path of self-indulgence often enough, eventually you will lose the ability to self-regulate, (which is) a higher brain function."  

In simple language that means that in times of plenty the reptilian or lizard brain doesn't know how to adjust it's hoarding instincts.  Addiction anyone? I look at addiction as a continuum. At one end of the continuum are those of us in American culture that have no addictions and the other end are those whose lives are completely unmanageable with their addictions. These are the folks who have major financial, relational or health problems because of their addictions. Most of us lie somewhere in between and we still have choice.

I think the world financial crisis has the potential to awaken us to not only the mistakes we've made with money but to change the addictive beliefs that MORE will make us happy. Research shows that's an illusion and that once basic needs are met, more does not increase lasting happiness. Instead, to get the reactive lizard brain under control we need to face our fears, figure out how much is enough, and practice the discipline of daily right action. 

Greed & The Economic Crisis: Can Women Do It Better?

Could they do any worse? Most of us are rather clueless about what really happened to bring about the crash of 2008, but one thing is clear, while we are all in this mess together, we didn’t all put us in this jeopardy. Greed is the real problem. Yes, individual Americans have a part in creating this calamity. They borrowed more money than they should have. Credit was so easy to get and banks were so happy to push it. But, the real story is more disheartening than just the lack of individual responsibility.

This current economic roller coaster started with the deregulation of the banks in 1999 under President Clinton. This did two things. It unleashed the easy credit frenzy and banks could once again offer stocks for sale. In 1999 the Financial Services Modernization Act was passed which deregulated the old Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. That law was passed after the crash of 1929 to protect the public from banks. With deregulation,  banks were freed to unleash their greediness once again (hmm…. what we don’t learn from our past we are doomed to repeat). Deregulating the banks was like putting the wolf in charge of the chicken coop and expecting them to behave themselves.

The other greed factor and a “hidden cause of the current global financial crisis is that the people who saw it coming had more to gain from it by taking short positions (or by buying credit default insurance- in other words betting against America) than they did by trying to publicize the problem.” (Michael Lewis: Boomerang, 2011)

Here’s my question: If more women were in decision-making roles in Congress, banking institutions and large corporations, would this folly have happened?  One Icelandic woman, Halla Tomasdottir, noticed the financial crisis that was building in her country and quit her high-level position as the CEO for Kaupthing Bank in 2006. She didn’t like the way things were going. She started her own financial services business totally run by women. Her company is one of the few profitable financial businesses left in Iceland today. And, Bloomberg reported that while women make up only 3 % of hedge fund managers, their portfolios profited 55% more than men’s from 2000-2009. (Can Feminine Values Fix Finance? http://www.cnbc.com/id/44860469)