As many of you know, I do have a somewhat twisted sense of humor. I appreciate a twist of wit that rings true. May favorite comedians often had that way with words, and sometimes they even had brilliant and amusing things to say about money. A prime example is the W. C. Fields comment: “A rich man is nothing but a poor man with money.”

I have held a version of that comment forever. Money doesn’t make a person good or bad. It simply reflects who the person is. If you see yourself as a poor, no amount of money will change that. And if you see yourself as rich, no lack of money will change that. We can absolutely change those beliefs, but the change is an internal process, not one that will happen based on how much money we have.

This is a bit tricky, isn’t it? It might be that your belief of who you are changes, and as a result of that, your money position changes. That is truly possible. If, however, you think that money itself will change those beliefs about who you are, then you are putting the cart before the horse.

Money will mirror, or reflect, your beliefs about yourself, and everything else. That’s what it does, and that’s all it does.

The only thing I think that having a bunch of money really does is make a persons’ core money beliefs more visible. It doesn’t change who the person is, it just makes who they are easier to see.

If they have a world view based on ‘poverty’, scarcity and lack, it will show up in greed, fear, and anger. Conversely if a person is giving, hopeful and positive, then money will certainly reflect that.

Remember good ole Ebenezer Scrooge? He’s an example of both sides of that coin. Yes, it took a bunch of ghosts, time travel, hard truths and ego shattering realizations to bring him around. But what happened when he did? He didn’t become less monetarily wealthy did he? Actually, it seemed as the story ended that he was going to keep on making more money with his new view, didn’t it? But now he would be sharing his wealth.

And just to make the point even more clear, notice that his conversion to being a generous and happy man had nothing to do with acquiring money. It only had to do with changing how he thought about it.

It’s actually never about the money, it’s about how we think of it, and our beliefs about it, and the good news is that those are both changeable!

I’m here to help you untangle your money knots. Give me a call at 503-258-1630 or check out my website at www.sensiblecoaching.com

Ka’ching,

Shell Tain, The Untangler