Over the weekend, my wife, Margaret shoved the newest edition of "O" THE OPRAH MAGAZINE in my hands and told me to read the Suze Orman article. The subject was, "What Money Has Taught me About Personal Power."
For forty-five years, I have been an investor, a student of financial history, and have picked up a few degrees in finance. In recent years, I have taken up pencil and calculator to help others in dealing with their financial issues. With all of my analytical skills, I have always found that money was more than, well, money. Money is infinitely more complex and, in fact, epitomizes who most people are. And that is the most unfortunate part of all.
In my journey to understanding the emotional aspects of money, I joined a think tank of financial advisors known as the Nazrudin Project. Our co-founder, Dick Wagner states the philosophy of our group this way: "Money is more than numbers. Financial planning concerns the whole person and not just dollars. The financial planning profession has come into being and is thriving because people have a need to deal with the interface of money and their lives in a holistic, comprehensive manner. The Nazrudin Project, in turn, is a loose affiliation of financial planners and other professionals devoted to working with their clients and their profession in manners that recognize these forces. We recognize the human aspects of money and the fact that financial decisions can have spiritual repercussions, can affect intangible life goals, and can impact larger social issues." Amen!
Along the way, though, I have succeeded in making every single financial mistake known to man or beast. Every frustration that any client has ever felt about money has found its way into my psyche as well. So it should come as no surprise that I found Suze's article interesting. She does such a good job that I am simply going to paraphrase some salient points and let her thoughts carry the day with a few comments of my own.
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#1 Power Comes From Who You Are, Not What You Have.
We are programmed by society to think that our external achievements are what give us power. Unfortunately, that is only perceived power. She talks about how her grandfather would say, "Suze, they can take your house, they can take your job, they can take your money, they can take your mind, but they can't take your heart. So you have to grow up valuing your own heart, who you are."
So often I (Bob talking now) hear clients say things like, "she is so rich and is a powerful woman." Or, "He is so smart and is filthy rich." Or, "I wish I was as loaded as they are. They have so many friends" All of these tell me that they value money and not the person and sadly, are actually impressed. After all, what does money have to do with being powerful or smart or having friends? Is that what our society boils down to? Unfortunately, yes.
At one of the Nazrudin retreats, we were all stunned when one of our members, who was a practicing psychologist specializing in sexual additions, gave a talk and said that people feel more shame about money than about childhood sexual abuse. You could hear a pin drop. He went on to tell us that our society has never told us how much is enough. When we don't know the boundaries then we simply fabricate lies and half truths in our minds. This leads to overwhelming shame that takes power away from us. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not."
#2 Money Has No Power Of Its Own
"You alone are the power source", Suze says. "You are the one who makes the choices to spend money, to save money or to borrow money." She points out that your choices are what make you powerful or powerless. How many of us make choices simply to impress someone else? Have you? Have you bought things that you thought would make you more esteemed or worthy in someone else's eyes? If the answer is yes, then you have just made yourself that much more powerless.
More insidious is those who really give up power by borrowing to buy. The past ten years have been a cancer in the fabric of our society. As home prices rose and 401(k) plans fattened, many Americans spent the equity like an ATM machine. It is very common for clients to have piled on debt-after-debt and refinanced their mortgage numerous times just to fill their lives with "stuff." Stuff gives no meaning to life; it cannot add one iota of stature to one's life and yet millions seek it as though it were the Holy Grail or the fountain of youth. When money is not used to build wealth or personal security but is used to impress others, then money has rendered you absolutely powerless.
#3 Self-Worth Builds Net Worth
Suze tells us that she realized that until she started acting honestly that she would be broke and unhappy. "It was my own aha moment," she writes, "I realized we spend more than when we feel less than." She relates how she felt less than because she could not afford what the rich folks could and all it did was made her miserable, broke and in debt. Then she began to use money as her guide. She started to pay attention and learned to assess how she was feeling when she made money choices. She learned to give herself and her money the respect they deserved. She found power when she began to stop spending money she did not have and lived within her means.
In our practice, I have noticed that people who are in credit card debt and have no savings are miserable. "If only I made more money" they pine or "when my ship comes in, I will be happy." This is utter nonsense. The greatest money trap is thinking everything will change when the revenues go up. The reality is people abdicate their self-worth because they pin the blame on externals. If you don't have enough money, whatever that is, then there is something wrong with your thinking.
The secret is to be content no matter what the circumstances. This may be one of the greatest lessons that Margaret and I have learned over the years. We learned over our thirty-two years of marriage that having or not having money did not mean a hill of beans. Being in debt or not being in debt did not define us. Having stuff or not having stuff did not give us self-worth or prestige. None of these were the answer. It was only when we had a thankful heart in every situation that our lives improved. In other words, when we stopped wanting more and were thankful for what we had, our lives took on new meaning. We gained self-worth and, in the process, gained net worth. At that point, you realize how insignificant money really is. As one of my clients said last week, "I only want enough."
#4 Do What's Right, Not What's Easy
Running up credit card debts is easy. Suze has 60,000 (each one is a dollar) memories of acting without consciousness. She maintains if she had stopped long enough to have a talk with herself that she would have seen her powerlessness sooner. To know if something is the right thing or just easy, she turns to her three gatekeeper questions: "Is it kind? Is it necessary? Is it true? And I make sure that I can answer yes to all three. Is it kind-to me? Is it necessary-for me? Is it true-for me?"
Credit card debt and all debt, in fact, usually suffers from two things: first of all, it is thoughtless spending and second, it is always justified. We usually make spending decisions based on emotions, justified by the facts. If you ever wondered how a propeller head engineer with a pocket protector stuffed with pens, pencils and protractors and a slide rule (slip sticks to geeks) on his hip got duped into a new car, you now know. Again I repeat, we make financial decisions based on emotions justified by the facts. In other words, we want what we want and all that is necessary to complete the credit card transaction is to tell ourselves, what a good deal we got or how much it was discounted or how we were lucky to get the last one.
Suze goes on to tell something that many of us are guilty of and that is our decisions in helping family and friends. She says we fail the gatekeeper test when our brother comes and asks for a loan to pay off credit card debt. We also fail when a child asks us to co-sign for a loan. She puts it this way, "it is imprinted in your DNA to always give, no questions asked. But if you were to ask yourself the gatekeeper questions, you would often see that what is easy to do is not necessarily right. If you lend money to someone, are you really solving their problem or just getting them off the hook?"
We see this constantly in our practice. Nothing stirs up more emotional conversation than the subject of helping a friend or family member. And, nothing ever goes so bad, leading to all kinds of ill will. I just cringe and bite my tongue when clients jeopardize their financial future to bail out a troubled relative or even more insidious, to help with the newest money making venture. Is there something wrong with helping? Absolutely not! If the gatekeeper questions are applied correctly, you will get the right answer. However, if you loan money that depletes your savings, or causes you to have to borrow or prevents you from accomplishing your own financial goals, then you have to ask if that is really kind and true to you. She says it very succinctly: "Repeat after me: Say no out of love rather than yes out of fear."
#5 How You Respect Your Possessions Says A Lot About How You Respect Yourself
This is one of the more interesting things that she has to say. She recounts her stockbroker days when she would come home and throw her clothes in heap and schlep them off to the dry cleaners on weekends. She describes it as symptomatic of her lack of respect for the money that she worked so hard to earn. Ditto for cars. How many of us trash our cars or look like we live in them. Taco Bell wrappers on the floor and Starbucks cups strewn on the seats are the symptoms of people who don't have control of money.
That advice applies to paying bills. When the PG&E is about to be cut off, there are problems. I can attest to that one as well. I remember many days of yore where our utilities were about to be cut off. If only I had known that I had so little disrespect for myself and my money, perhaps I would have learned sooner. If you don't respect your money then you don't respect yourself. It takes hours, days and weeks to earn the money we spend. To turn around and use it in a wasteful or powerless way is tragic. We deserve better.
She ends her article by encouraging everyone to walk through the house. Examine every closet and ever drawer. Are they organized or a mess? Look at the items with tags on them that have not been used. "Why did you buy it? More important, when did you buy it? Perhaps when you were feeling less than?" Every possession tells a story. Take the time to learn the lessons your money can teach you.
Money is truly a funny thing. You can't live with it and you can't live without it! In my years of being a financial advisor, I have found that very few people are really content with their financial life. Most live quiet lives and never really question what money really means to them and their families. To truly be happy, we must examine why we need money, respect money and be content with what we have. Most of us in America have more than we need and more than we deserve. The legacy of the wealthiest society on earth is one of financial freedom. It is up to each one of us to find the power within ourselves to treat it wisely and handle it with respect.
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