of Approach finance from both sides for the best results.

Most of us are familiar with the exterior world of finances – tax returns,statements, retirement planning and such.  But there is an interior world of finance as well that is just as important.

The model of exterior finance and interior finance I have pulled from the book Facilitating Financial Health by Klontz, Kahler, and Klontz.  This model has given me a great way to explain what I do. 

Exterior finance is the “real world” of money – the world of tax returns, bank statements, and retirement accounts.  You can split the world of exterior finance into thirds – past, present, and future.

Exterior finance in the past is the domain of the CPA.  An accountant's primary concern is getting everything reconciled and reported to the IRS so that you can pay your taxes and be a good, upstanding citizen.  While your accountant may have some thoughts about how you are handling your money, she will likely keep those to herself and focus on getting your taxes filed.  While accountants may stray into other areas of finance, such as the exterior future if you come back later in the year for a tax planning meeting, primarily the exterior past is the accountant's arena.

The exterior future is the realm of financial advisors and especially financial planners.  A planner's main job is to capture the vision you have for your financial future and to advocate for your future self to your present self when your present self starts to mess things up for your future self.  Long term goals like retirement and paying for kids college often are a risk of being traded for pleasure in the present – vacations and toys and such.  If you have enough money to do it all, fantastic.  If not, it is your planner's job to remind you of what you said you wanted.

That doesn't mean a planner won't venture into the exterior present.  Keeping track of your progress toward your goals helps them update and modify plans as life circumstances change.  And a financial planner may be able to earn her fee back to you by letting you know about a great tax credit or other strategy in the short term.

Financial planners may move into the interior world as well.  The degree to which they do so is often a product of their training, their personality, and their level of comfort with behavioral finance and emotions.  But even the most spreadsheety of planners will often start their engagement in the interior future by asking about your dreams for the future.

The interior world has more to do with what's going on inside your head – stuff that you may not even be consciously aware of.  It's easy to say that what is happening in your head doesn't matter or shouldn't matter,  but I truly believe Brooke Castillo has it exactly right.  Your thoughts create your feelings.  Your feelings drive your actions.  Your actions lead to your results.  If you don't have your thoughts right, you'll get in your own way over and over again.

The interior past is the primary world of the financial therapist.  By exploring what you learned about money as a kid, you'll uncover hidden beliefs and stories you'd forgotten that related to how and what you were taught about money.  While I'm not a therapist and don't feel qualified to spend all my time in the interior past (and definitely refer out if childhood trauma is uncovered), I think exploring the interior past is one of the most important things we can do to improve our relationships to money.  While you can certainly do this work yourself through journaling, it can be helpful to have a facilitator to draw the information out of you and to help you see how those beliefs may have created patterns in your life.  That's exactly what I do in my Money Mindset session. 

 As you begin to uncover and shift the limiting beliefs and negative money scripts from your childhood you'll begin to live life with more clarity and awareness.  You'll start to be able to make choices based on who you are now and what you believe now rather than what you picked up as a kid and lived by subconsciously.  This is the world of the interior present. Both financial coaches and financial therapists spend time in the interior present with clients.

One of the biggest things you can do to be more present in the present (see what I did there?) is to meditate.  Meditation is just the act of being here now.  Not using our minds to relive the past or to imagine the future, but just being still and aware and moving more into observer mode.  I have yet to develop a consistent meditation practice so I am not an expert here, but I can tell you that meditation is nothing to be freaked out by.  It is basically exercise for your brain. The practice of focusing and being present has been shown to have huge benefits for your brain.  I can tell you from personal experience that even though I'm not super consistent, even the little bit of meditation I have done makes a positive difference. 

Some financial coaches start with clients in the interior future.  “Tell me what buying a house would do for you?  What would it do for your family?”  By having a good idea of the clients dreams and desires, they can help use that emotion to energize clients toward their goals.  While you might talk to both a financial planner and a financial coach about your dream of retirement, the planner will more typically respond with what it will take from a numbers side to get you there, and the financial coach is more likely to help you really paint the picture for yourself and feel the emotion of that dream to help you stay motivated.

What I've given you are rough outlines – what is more typical.  Certainly each of these professionals may draw from different techniques and disciplines to work with clients, and each has their own preferred style.  So while there are no hard boundaries, hopefully you now have a better understanding of where to start.  Are you looking for more interior work – help in sticking to your plans?  Or are you needing more the hard numbers side of exterior work?

 Regardless of where you are today, I hope you will talk more about your finances, even if it's just with a friend or a significant other.  If we can normalize the money conversation it will be easier for us to get the information and support we need to demystify this area of life.

Look to the past to understand the present and change the future.

I can remember first being recognized for my writing ability by Ms. Brown in 4th grade.  It wasn't completely surprising – my mother was a stay at home mom who had been an English teacher and who loves to read.  She taught me to read before first grade.  And one of the best ways to develop an ability to write is to read.

As I remember it, the bullying started in 5th grade.  It could have been jealousy of the attention and recognition for that gift.  My father received a big promotion around that time, so my mother thinks it had to do with that.  It could have just been the age – perhaps that's just when girls get mean or when they started to realize I didn't fit in.  With a mother who was an English teacher from Ohio you are just not going to be allowed to completely develop the same accent as kids from rural Arkansas.

Maybe everyone was bullied.  When I went back for my 20 year high school reunion, one of the guys I graduated with said, “Misty* bullied you a lot, too, didn't she?”  I think that was the first time I was aware that I wasn't the only person in school who was bullied.  I was pretty deep in my own misery, so there wasn't a lot of room to be sensitive to what other kids were going through.

During that time I went deeper into the writing.  I was raised in a family of introverts, so there was a lot of quiet time for reading and writing.  I went to summer enrichment programs and submitted poems and short stories to writing contests and national publications.  I won state level awards and was published in real, grown up journals.  And this was back in the day when to be published someone else had to think your writing was pretty good instead of just typing some sh!t into a computer.

Most of the connection I needed came through summer camps and those extra curricular getaways.  I felt like an outsider at school.  Girls who were in pictures from my birthday parties in years prior fell in line with their ringleader and shunned me.  I spend hours in retching sobs in my room.   My mother was so kind, but at that age I just desperately wanted to fit in with the other girls.

I can remember my mom asking Mrs. Burks, another teacher who really supported my writing, why the other kids were so mean.  She said, “some kids just want to tear the wings off a butterfly.”  This sounded nice, but to this day I don't quite know what it meant, and it didn't solve anything for me.

As I got older I started to realize that a talent and skill for creative writing would probably be tricky to use to make a living after college.  I can't remember if I figured this out on my own or was nudged in the direction of going from more the creative writing to the journalism by well-meaning parents, but I chased this more practical use of the writing with enthusiasm.  I got an (unpaid) gig at the local small town paper covering events at the high school, an opportunity that came about in part due to my gifts, my mother's editing, the editor and owner's admiration for my dad, and the paper's desire for original content on a limited budget.  As I got well into high school, I started researching colleges with strong journalism programs.

Around that time (I'm guessing this must have been roughly sophomore year), I was part of a group that got to tour the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the flagship state newspaper.  I remember asking two of the reporters about journalism schools.  Even then, in the 80s, before the internet was a thing, budgets were tight and the writers seemed tense and anxious about their career prospects.  “Don't get a journalism degree,” they advised.  “Get an English degree.  It's more versatile.”

That advice set me down the path of looking at liberal arts schools with good English degrees.  I had Macalester College on my list, and remember being charmed by the tunnels between buildings until my dad mentioned that they had tunnels because of the cold in winter.  After that, the list got winnowed down to schools in the southeast.

 I was seriously leaning toward Duke, and despite a disastrous interview (the interviewer was obsessed with why I hadn't taken Calculus, which threw me off.  For reasons I still do not understand, when asked who my favorite author was, I said Flannery O'Connor.  I hated Flannery O'Connor, but she was the only author I could think of when asked.  Then I had to answer why I loved her stuff.  Yikes.) I was wait listed. However, the campus at that time had had an outbreak of crime, and the whole time I stayed in the dorm overnight the safety talk made me feel seriously unsafe.  After a magical visit to Sewanee, there was nothing any other school could do – I was in love.  The fact that they offered me a scholarship said they loved me back and sealed the deal.

Sewanee had an epic English department, with an unapologetic focus on the literature written in English by dead white guys.  I read tons of books and wrote a truly staggering quantity of 3-5 page essays.  I did no creative writing (I don't even remember there being creative writing classes) and did not pursue any of the limited journalism opportunities like the school paper.  Sewanee was not about making good stuff, it was about studying the great stuff, and I took the hint.

After not fitting in at school from the ages of 10-18 (teenage years are sort of like dog years – they are seven times longer than any other years), feeling in my element with my slice of Sewanee society was heaven.  There probably were some rich kids who would have snubbed me had I given them the chance, but I was so intoxicated by finding my tribe I didn't even realize that I might not have been welcomed in every circle until decades after graduation.

 Somehow by getting steered from creative writing to journalism and from journalism to reading the works of others and writing papers about them, the creative writing got lost.  The need to live in fantasy worlds of my own making was replaced by finding a real-life fantasy world that gave me the connection and belonging I'd never had.  And nothing will convince you that your writing ability is nothing special like reading the great works of dead white guys. 

As college progressed, the more versatile English degree did not seem to map to any specific after college plan.  I was done with school – I really wanted to go adult in the world.  Along the way toward that English degree I'd taken some really good Political Science classes from really great professors, so I started down that path, interning in Washington, D.C.  Plans toward DC and government were ended by the nasty environment during the Gingrich era.  I remember a story of a staffer accidentally leaving some Democratic party strategy documents on the counter in a liquor store.  The next person to pay happened to work for the other party, and used those documents to wreak havoc.  I wanted nothing to do with a nasty business that seemed to thrive on dividing people instead of helping them find common ground. Plus the revelation that most of the staffers were subsidized by parents meant that path was a non-starter.  My parents had been pretty clear that once college was done we were off the parental payroll and needed to support ourselves.

Four years of college meant more career interests explored and eliminated.  When I graduated I traveled and had internships in Central America, but as Christmas of that year grew closer I started missing home and was running low on funds and so needed to come home and find a “real” job.

I was at a bit of a loss as to where to start, but my dad did business-stuff in an office and seemed able to support us all financially, so with other options eliminated it seemed business-stuff in an office was the next step.  I got a list of alums doing business-stuff in offices in the Southeastern US and went to work reaching out, sending resumes and looking for “informational interviews”.  This was before the internet, so as far as I knew this was how it was done. 

After bugging the career services folks at Sewanee, sending out hundreds of letters to alums, and having a few “informational interviews” that led to little information and no jobs, an alum contacted the career services team looking for grads who could speak Spanish for the international services division of a credit card processor in Columbus, GA.  Despite the fact that my Spanish was deemed mas o menos by the Spaniard who interviewed me (to be fair, I was super fluent when talking about my travels, but didn't have any business-stuff vocabulary) I was offered a job with one degree of separation from the clients at the credit card processor.

I can remember telling my parents I had no idea what the company did, but they said they'd train me and pay me so hey, sounds great!  With that level of discernment, a career in IT was born.

That initial job was not a great fit (although I did get a husband out of it).  I was unhappy and was sure it was just that these were small town folks I didn't fit in with, and that if I could move to Atlanta and make more money that would solve all my problems.

Atlanta it turned out had it's own problems (traffic and a manager who kept a bottle of liquor in his desk drawer and drank in front of us at work, and not in the classy way they do on TV and in movies), and I was yet again a square peg in a round hole.  It was starting to look like work = misery.  If I was going to be miserable, I figured I should do so for as much money as possible, and so I became a consultant.

 That job taught me that money didn't equal happiness, although I wasn't ready to let go of the idea that money and happiness probably went together.  I chafed at the lack of freedom in the corporate world.  I really still don't know if I wasn't just a good fit, if I was doing ok and just was triggered too much and too often, or if I was constantly about to get fired.  I know that I was miserable at all three jobs and always believed I was on the verge of getting fired, despite having never been written up.  I had to get out.  I wanted freedom and fairness and control over my own destiny.

When I was approached by a network marketing company it sounded perfect.  I'd get to teach and train and motivate and mentor women who were starting their own businesses.  YES.  I'd get promoted based on when I met the criteria, not when someone else thought I was worthy.  I'd get to control my own paycheck, and the implication was if you were awesome and willing to work you'd be making  six figures in no time.  Hook, line, and sinker.

I stayed with that company twice as long as any job I'd had despite never making a third of what I'd make at the corporate job I'd quit, which tells you how much it was hitting all my buttons.  There was a ton of applause and recognition and approval from peers and authority figures.  There was a ton of personal growth and learning.  There was the fairness of meeting the criteria and getting promoted. The promise of big paychecks just around the corner kept me going on the financial side.

Eventually I lost faith, though.  While everyone had the same opportunity I'd had, not everyone on my team was bringing the same internal “stuff” to the game.  We were encouraged far more to sell at wholesale, loading new recruits and ourselves up with products, then we were to sell at retail.  To be fair, I have no doubt our team had vastly more support than any other group within the company.  On the other hand, we specifically told new recruits that the business was not about the product, and then immediately told them to buy thousands of dollars worth of product.  While the business may not have been about the product, the fact of the matter was that none of us got paid unless those wholesale orders got placed. 

I cried – not as much as in my hometown growing up, but it was another dark night of the soul.  I'd found something I loved and then decided I had to leave.  I wasn't going to make the money I'd promised myself, my husband, and my team I'd make.  There were entire days where the major accomplishment of the day was getting out of bed and into a recliner while wearing a bathrobe.  I'd found belonging again, but the cost was my integrity, and I just couldn't do it any more.

I also couldn't stand the idea of going back to corporate.  I went further into entrepreneurship, starting a professional organizing business.  I did ok financially, but within a year the idea of telling adults to clean up after themselves just wasn't doing it for me.  Knowing what I know now about business, I probably should have kept going and outsourced the actual organizing work, but it honestly didn't occur to me.  Plus, my husband and his buddies had a going concern in IT consulting, and needed someone who knew about sales and marketing and IT.

 STS has been a fantastic learning experience.  I don't know everything about business, and we've made plenty of mistakes, but we've kept it going for almost 15 years, in large part due to my husband's exceptional skills as an IT consultant.  I certainly have made a ton of contributions, but as best supporting player.  I wanted to really step out on my own and take a starring role.

Over the 15 years of running STS, I'd learned a ton about the entrepreneurial mindset, and I'd (mostly) cleaned up my money stuff with the mentoring of a Certified Financial Advisor(®).  I was proud of our success and confident I knew more about money than most people, so I thought a business helping people learn about money and start side hustles would be a fun side gig for me. 

Here's how starting a business works: 

Step 1 – find something you know more about than the average person

Step 2 – dive into it and realized what you didn't know you didn't know

Step 3 – Freak out.

Those years of focusing on the IT business and shining my husband's star, immediately proceeded by a bumpy career path, had shaken my confidence in myself as a main character in my own life without me knowing it.  Yet again the accidental entrepreneurial spiritual growth started kicking in.

Spiritual growth makes it sound a bit too magical.  That's truly what it is in retrospect, but when you are going through it there's no magic.  There's a lot of self-doubt and fear and wanting to quit, and again there is crying (so much crying).

I decided I needed to look like I had “it” together in order to be successful coaching, so I contacted a life coach who had become an intuitive health coach to heal my thyroid so I could lose weight (clearly it had nothing to do with what I was eating or the sedentary lifestyle).  Instead, that interaction with the coach somehow led to me quitting drinking right before FinCon.  Because I'd quit drinking right before FinCon, I made a new friend who was also fleeing the alcohol infused welcome mixer on the elevator, who invited me to a networking event for financial coaches where I met the team who run Financial Coach Academy (FCA).

At FinCon I signed up for a session in Sedona, AZ with a financial coach who had me openly weeping about some sort of childhood stuff that supposedly had something to do with making money (it did).  I studied for and passed the AFCPE‘s AFC exam and attended the FFC two day live coaching training and symposium so I'd have some credentials in case anyone cared about that (still working on the hours part of this). 

My friend from FinCon and I started having every other week accountability calls, where I set what I thought were totally realistic financial goals and missed them all.  In love she told me, “I believe you know how to run a business.  I just don't think you know how to run a coaching practice,” and told me I needed to take FCA.

Because I was in a Facebook group with the FCA folks and saw it recommended, I started listening to Brooke Castillo's Life Coach School podcast after realizing I'd set myself out as a Financial Coach without knowing what coaching is (not to worry, no one else knows for sure either).  From her podcast I learned about the concept of buffering – of using other things, including food, to avoid really feeling your feelings.  From that I've lost 15 pounds.  So somehow the domino the health coach knocked over 6 months ago had in fact led to me losing weight.

I signed up for FCA and learned a ton, including that I don't want to do coaching the exact way they do (which is totally fine).  At the same time I started a group coaching class with the lady who helps you to weep your way to wealth.  And last Friday, I attended a marketing focus group/networking event where I think I finally dialed in on my ideal client.

 So here I am a year into the business (based on the date I started and updated my LinkedIn profile).  I finally got the business license (there was a bit of a mixup on that) and have my revised initial offer on this website.  I feel like I am just now set up and ready to start.

It's been quite a journey.  In some ways I've come full circle.  It's finally ok to write creatively again (it's not exactly fiction, but I do have a creative memory so there may be those who say what I remember of the past is nearly fiction).  I don't have to map the writing directly to money, but it is supporting my business.  I'm not as good as Shakespeare, but there's some doubt as to whether that was all him anyway.  And I feel like that voice inside who was told in Arkansas it was wrong and bad, and that I turned my back on in favor of acceptance and fitting in and trying to make a living, has my attention again. And that result may be the point of the whole journey.

So here I am a year into the business, and I feel like I'm actually ready to start.  I can't tell you if this will finally be the happy ending – where I find an outlet for my voice, where I tap into my power, where by being vulnerable I build a tribe, or if this will be another dumb a$$ thing I've done for unclear reasons that will just make me feel worse about myself.   I can say that it feels good and terrifying to keep trying to find that place in the world where I can be exceptional in my own right and where that can make a good professional living. Will there be a career for me where money and happiness can finally co-exist?  The jury is still out, but even if this isn't what I dream it will be, at least I will be able to look back and say, damn, that girl just did NOT know when to give up, and that's a powerful and beautiful thing.

*I did not change her name to protect the innocent, because she wasn't innocent. Her family moved away a few years later, although the other girls kept things going for her. In the first draft of this I had her full name, but in thinking on it calling someone on the internet out for what they did at age 10 may in fact be starting a new cycle of bullying, so I took it out.

By interesting coincidence, we ended up on the same hall at Governor's School between junior and senior year.  My mom asked if she should have me moved to another room.  I said no, and went down to say hello to her to see what I was up against.  I guess she'd gotten a taste of her own medicine after she moved, because her spirit had been broken and she was completely timid. 

Now that I remember that part of the story, the fact that I went to see her instead of running from her means I'm kind of a bad a$$, aren't I?  I may need to edit my version of my history in light of that now that I think about it. More spiritual growth, y'all.

Writing in a journal can be a great way to uncover hidden beliefs.

One of the best ways to uncover your hidden money beliefs is by writing in a journal.

If you aren't where you want to be with your money, chances are that the problem is either underearning or overspending.  On either side, this behavior is usually fueled by something you believe that no longer serves you. 

Perhaps you believe that money is the root of all evil.  If you were taught this, you likely have a deep aversion to money, and you may not even realize what is driving your behavior.  You might take a job offer with negotiating pay, as you don't want the employer to think all you care about is money (pro tip – the employer never brings the best offer in the first offer.  They expect you to negotiate, and so they've brought the offer down artificially low so they can negotiate up.  Don't take the first offer.).

You might find yourself in a situation where you are earning money, but you have to get rid of it as quickly as possible to avoid feeling icky.  You might overspend to get rid of the money that way.  You might loan money to friends and family members that you know are terrible with money, and then harbor anger and resentment when (surprise surprise) you don't get paid back.

The worst part is that you may well be completely unaware as to what is driving your behavior.  It may seem to you like you just never have enough.  You'll need to look within and understand what those money scripts say if you want to have any chance of changing them.  If you don't, they will stay lodged in your subconscious, and you will act them out regardless as to whether or not they conflict with what your conscious mind believes you want.

So how can we uncover those beliefs?  Well, you could have a money conversation with a friend or with a coach.  But if you want to work on your own, a journal can be a great tool to help you have a conversation with yourself.

 If you can, making journaling a daily habit is a great self-development tool.  But it's tricky – everyone has an idea for the best daily habits you need to be a success.  After your Ultimate Power Morning Habits (one hour), hour of meditation, and hour of writing in a journal, and hour of exercise, it's not time to start the day, it's time for lunch!  So if you can't figure out how to do this on a daily basis, rest assured that even a one-off session can be helpful.

Here are some prompts to get you started:

What did I pick up from my family about money when I was a kid?

Was there ever an emotionally charged incident around money – perhaps a fight between parents about spending?

Did I ever have any formal financial education around money either at home or in school?

See what comes up for you as you write out your answers.  You may uncover a belief that has served you and that you want to continue moving forward (perhaps you grew up in a family who talked about the importance of saving?).  You might find a belief that got you to where you are, but that you will have to let go of to move forward.  And you may find something that does nothing but hold you back.  Those are the beliefs you'll need to address to get where you want to go.

It's about progress, not perfection.

For years I had a surefire budgeting system that was guaranteed to produce nothing but self-hatred.  Step 1 – make budget.  Step 2 – break budget. Step 3 – decide I'm bad at money and give up on the whole budgeting thing.

 Recently  I got a deck of Money Habitudes cards.  My top value when it comes to money?  Planning.  Not surprising giving my affection for “playing money”, the fact that my parents were natural savers and planners, and the fact that we've been working with a financial planner for years.  Here's the twist.  My second highest value?  Spontaneity. “Oh,” my husband said, “so that's why you always make budgets but never stick with them.”  Ouch.

It's true, though.  I don't think you'll get much of anywhere without a plan, but I also believing in stopping and smelling the roses.  On a hike my husband is all about heart rate and steps, whereas I want to check out a cool flower or an interesting bug.  Yes, the plan is great, but within the plan there should be a bit of wiggle room.  Life happens in the wiggle room.

In addition to realizing I liked both planning and spontaneity, another factor contributing to my conquering the budget thing (at long last) is the realization that the goal of the budget is not perfection.  Big bill you forgot to plan for?  Swear, beat yourself up, then divide the amount by 12 and build it in going forward.  Now you are ahead for next time.  Boom.

Things are going to happen.  Mistakes will be made,  Build in a bit of cushion so when a friend calls and says, “I'm flying out tomorrow, but I'm staying near the Atlanta airport tonight.  Don't you live near the airport?” you can say, “Heck yeah, what's the address,” and go have a burger with them, because friends are important and let's be honest you didn't really want to cook tonight anyway, did you?

So, as the team at You Need A Budget says, roll with the punches.  When you forgot something or you messed something up it doesn't mean you are bad a money.  It means you need to tweak your plan and move on.

If you were driving from Atlanta to Orlando and planned to stop in Macon, but really had to pee in Stockbridge, would you give up on the whole planning your travel thing and declare yourself bad at navigation?  Would you go back to just aimlessly turning left or right as the most struck you?  Or would you say, “surprise!”, roll with it, and get back on track?  Of course you'd think nothing of it, because the great American road trip isn't as tense and fraught with emotion as money is.

Let's model the great American spending plan on the great American road trip.  Yes, you want to get from Point A to Point B, but leave a little wiggle room in there in case you want to explore or miss an exit or just have to pee in Stockbridge.  In the grand scheme of things, you'll still get closer to your destination if you know what it is than if you don't have a plan at all.

Porch time fits in any budget.

I'm all for investing in experiences.  I love to travel, and I think spending money and time to see how other people live and the great sights of the world is worthwhile.  But some of the best time is porch time, and that works within any budget.

 Have you ever spent a hot night on a deck, the bug spray and the fans barely keeping the mosquitoes off you, listening to Mississippi people tell stories?  Only positive Mississippi spoken here.

Have you ever spread out a blanket under the stars with someone you are newly dating, pretending to be interested in conversations on constellations while each of you were really thinking just of the hopes of a kiss?

Have you ever kept a friend company under the carport while she smokes and vents her frustration with her job, her boyfriend, and her family?

Have you ever watched the sun set over the lake, listening to the blue jays, cardinals and robins give way to the cicadas and the owls?

Have you noticed how the conversation always turns from superficial niceties to the deeper conversation about what really matters when the sun goes down and the lights stay low?  How staring at the water soothes people to the point where, when the chatter reaches a natural pause, even the extroverts can stand the silence for a beat or two?

Have you ever sat in a rocking chair on the front porch with your significant other, half hidden from the street by the ferns in hanging baskets, watching the neighbor across the street playing with their kids and thought to yourself, “this is what it's all about”?

Porch time is all about contentment. It's about gratitude.  It's all about taking a moment to truly appreciate what you have – the friends, the family, the porch, the Deep Woods Off – and investing in the relationships with family, friends, and loved ones.

That porch is more than a place to store your Amazon deliveries.  Wipe all the pollen and the dust off the chairs and spend a little time without the TV, without your iShiny, without the constant stress and distraction of modern living, and just enjoy the life you've created.  Right now, today, before you hit your goals, before you reach your dreams, take a moment to enjoy the journey by having a little porch time.

Are your subconscious beliefs holding you back?

If you believed something weird about cats, it would probably come up in conversation and be addressed. “Everyone knows cats can fly for up to 72 feet,” you state.  “Umm, ha ha, no,” your friends would reply. But if money is taboo how would your weird money belief ever come up?

 Money scripts, or money beliefs, are those things you believe about money that may be holding you back from achieving financial success.  If you believe “most rich people got there by doing something  bad,” the odds of you “being bad” in your own eyes and having financial success are much lower than for someone who doesn't have this belief.  You might take the first job offer given to you without negotiating for more.  You might make the money, and then immediately give it away or waste it to be free of the rich people cooties.  And the most disturbing part is that you will likely do this without any conscious understanding of what has just happened.

 You see, you were designed to be efficient.  Back in cave man days calories were hard to come by, so your system was built to be very efficient.  Any extra fuel was stored as fat, and your wiring means you are loathe to waste any of those calories on unnecessary effort.

You might think just sitting and thinking isn't very hard work, but in fact using our conscious mind to evaluate options is actually a big fuel-consumer.  The part of our brain used to make those thoughtful, adult decisions is the slowest and least efficient part of our brain.  So whenever possible, our thinking brain outsources work to lower, more efficient parts of the brain.

That subconscious part of our minds is wide open when we are kids.  We take in what is happening in the world around us, in our families of origin and in the broader culture, and soak it in.  Repetition is a great way to add something to the subconscious.  So repeated conversation over the dinner table where judgement is passed against others, rich or poor, goes into the software.  Anything that is emotionally charged tends to go in as well.  So if mom and dad have a big money fight, the emotional charge you have sends that argument into the memory bank.

Most of us do not receive much formal education about finances.  While Sex Ed might have been limited to “the talk” with a parent plus the one day in Health class when the boys were separated from the girls, that's exactly two more deliberate conversations most of us had about sex than we had about money.  If you think the teen pregnancy rate is high, imagine what the teen debt rate looks like.

 One of the most enlightening things you can do, either with a journal or with a partner, is to work through what you picked up about how money worked as a kid and compare that to what you now understand as an adult who is doing financial self-education.  Were any of those values helpful?  Might some of the money scripts you picked up be true in some situations, but not in others?  Does looking back at those beliefs as an adult cause you to realize where some of your issues may be coming from?

Your thoughts create your feelings.  Your feelings drive your actions.  Your actions lead to the results you are getting.  If you don't like your results, look back at your thoughts.  Dig deep, into not just what you consciously believe, but also those beliefs you may have put on auto-pilot.  Are they true?  Are they serving you? 

Once you find those unhelpful beliefs, raising them up to the level of awareness is often enough for them to dissipate.  If that doesn't do the trick, pick a thought that seems more helpful but is still believable.  Work your way up from negative to neutral to positive and watch your external reality change.

Take a few moments to be still.

I took Lyft home today (because we are one car weirdos in our household and my husband had the car), and when I got into the Lyft, there was a sign stating the driver was deaf.  It was the best rideshare trip I've ever had.

 According to the Myers-Briggs test, I'm right on the line between being an introvert and an extrovert.  If I work from home too many days in a row, I start having strangely long conversations with the mailman.  But if I'm out and about networking,  I eventually wear myself out and need a break. That was definitely the case today.

Normally I chat with my Lyft driver, and I've had some really interesting conversations.  But today, the Lyft driver wasn't able to chat, which was a relief after a week with a bit too much extroverting in it.  On top of that, my phone was nearly dead, so I plugged my phone into the provided charger (this was a really good Lyft, I told you), shut my eyes, and tried to focus on my breath.

I was not raised to meditate and and am a bit suspicious of anything that seems weird and woo-woo, but the science on meditation is overwhelming.  Connecting with the part of you that is the observer (which I've yet to do – I'm much more connected with the part of me that is the narrator, which is like observing but with a lightly neurotic constant chattering commentary) and training your mind to focus can increase your ability to concentrate and to be at peace.

Or it may allow you to connect to the part of you that is just worn out and that badly needs a nap.  The hearing impared Lyft driver didn't even have the radio on (because duh, why would he), and by the time I made it home I was completely relaxed and out of it.

Usually I'm driven and task oriented, and I had plenty on the to do list for this afternoon.  But I got out of the car and out of my dress clothes and went straight to bed, and I slept all afternoon.

I've yet to discover the path to enlightenment, but the path to a midday nap is one of the perks of owning your own business (an therefore your own schedule), and until I get to enlightenment that may be the next best thing.

If you've been running too fast and working too hard, give yourself permission every now and then to take a moment of stillness.  You need the rest.  I know I did.

Lack of visibility and negative emotions are in your way.

Imagine trying to catch a catfish that's swimming in your bathtub with your bare hands.  Your shirt's wet, the floor's wet, you have half a dozen half soaked towels scattered around the room.  Feels a bit like when you pay bills, right?  Well, maybe not for you, but let me explain.

As you are imagining this scene, keep in mind catfish don't live in rocky bottomed, spring-fed streams.  Catfish are bottom feeders that live deep in waters like the mighty Mississippi, in water so murky brown you can't see your hand when it's just a few inches in.  How are you going to catch this fish with your bare hands when you can't even see what's going on?  And isn't there more fear, more anxiety, when you can't see what's lurking in the sinister, dark waters?

Now, imagine what would happen if, instead of trying to catch that fish (the fish is your money in this metaphor.  You got that, right?) in a dark world of fear and secrecy and shadow – imagine that instead you just pull the plug at the bottom of the plug.

Suddenly you'd have visibility into what you are doing.  And letting some of the fear and anxiety drain away make the job less fraught.  You aren't bad at catching fish, you were just so freaked out that you couldn't focus on what the task at hand really was.

People make it Mean Something About Who They Are As A Person when they are having trouble with money.  Please.  If you'd never had a lacrosse lesson and then went out there to try to figure it out, you'd probably suck at lacrosse, right?  Now, how many of you had a money class in high school?  In college?  Did your parents' advice on handling your money extend beyond balancing a checkbook?  Did you even get THAT lesson?  

 Here's what I'd recommend to help you get a handle on your money:

1)  You probably need a bit of financial education.  Take a course, read a book, ask a friend.  Learning more always helps to illuminate a situation and reduce fear.

2)  Drain the bathtub of negative emotions about money.  Meditate to get in a calm space before you pay bills or update your net worth statement. Work with a coach to uncover your limiting beliefs.  Build an abundance shrine in your walk-in closet (you realize a walk-in closet already is a temple of abundance, right?).  Take a deep breath.  Release the guilt and shame you've piled on yourself. Now that you know better, you can start to do better.

3) Track your expenses.  I'm a huge fan of You Need A Budget, an app which easily allows you to track and categorize your spending.  It also allows you to set up “sinking funds” so you can break large expenses into a monthly amount to be prepared for large bills.

 More knowledge, more peace, more visibility.  You can do this.  Catfish for dinner tonight.

P.S. Anyone else wondering how the catfish got into the bathtub? Metaphors are weird.

Read a book and change your brain.

How do you change a tough piece of meat into a delicious and tender meal?  Marinate it.  How do you change your own mind?  The same way.

The great news is that you are creating the results in your life.  While it might not seem like great news if you don't like the results you are seeing in the present, trust me when I say it is the best news you could get.  Because if you can accept that you (unknowingly) created your present through what you were thinking in the past, all you need to do to change the future is what you are thinking now.

 So how do you change what you are thinking?  One of the best ways to change your mind is the same way you changed that meat – through marination.

If you are not a good home cook you might not be familiar with the concept of marinating meat.  The cook soaks the meat in an acid, often vinegar or lemon.  The acid replaces the water in the upper layer of meat, breaking down the protein fibers (or something like that.  I don't know, I'm not much of a cook. You get the idea).

By “marinating” your brain in books, podcasts, and blogs on a topic you are interested in, over time your brain will absorb those ideas, and they will become your own.

If you've ever really gotten into Dave Ramsey, watching his TV show repeatedly or listening to him on the radio as you commute, you've probably had this experience.  After enough hours listening, you can anticipate what Dave will say to a caller.  You'll find yourself thinking, “where do they find these people?  And why would you not listen to a show for a few episodes before you call in?”  After enough time spent listening, you'll be channeling Dave so well you could fill in for him on his show for an hour and no one would notice the difference.

 How did you get to be such a wizard that you can anticipate what Dave will say as he scolds some spendy debtor?  Dave's message is extremely simple and extremely clear, and the constant repetition has drilled it into your own brain enough times that your brain has picked it up and added it to its collection.

Your brain makes little trails inside itself – neural pathways – for the routes it takes repeatedly.  It's a bit like running plays in football.  The constant practice means that when the time comes, you can take that track without thinking about it.  The tracks you laid in the past are not taking you where you want to go, so you'll need to make new ones through repitition.

We move from unconscious incompetence (I didn't know I had a problem) to conscious incompetence (I have a problem) to conscious competence (I have a plan and with a lot of effort I can execute on the plan) to unconscious competence (I execute the plan without even thinking about it).  If you've ever been halfway through your commute and thought “how did I get here”, that's unconscious competence in action.  You've repeated the route so many times it has become second nature.

So mine those books, blogs, and podcasts for the places where the people you want to emulate are thinking differently than you are, and repeat, repeat, repeat until those thoughts become your own.  Before you know it, you'll have changed your thinking, and inevitably after that, your results.