Discover and Maximize Your Money Psychology

What do happy and successful people have that separates them from their equally smart, well educated, less financially successful peers? Why is it that people whose resumes are no better than yours, haven't gone to the "best schools," or who may in fact have struggled with learning disorders end up so wealthy and happy? Why do some of us work so hard but never seem to get ahead?

We, Dr. Stephen Goldbart and Joan DiFuria, as co-founders of the Money, Meaning & Choices Institute (www.mmcinstitute.com), felt that the answer to these questions held a vital secret just waiting to be discovered and unlocked. Our work has focused on the challenges and opportunities of wealth; our best clients are people who have achieved a combination of financial and personal success. Yes, these are the people who have attained the 21^st Century version of the illusive American Dream -- who through ingenuity, optimism, timing, smarts, people skills, competency, and sheer persistence obtained what most of us want: money and fulfillment. As we spent more time with the truly affluent, getting to know who they are and what makes them tick, we learned that they have that "certain something" that we decided to call Affluence Intelligence: the seemingly mysterious quality that made some of us-often not the smartest or best educated-able to create rich and fulfilling lives for themselves.

Most of us believe that affluence is largely a result of external factors. But the surprising truth is that affluence is actually based on a certain way of thinking: Affluence Intelligence, a mindset that makes people not just wealthy but deeply fulfilled.

We have discovered the four key areas necessary to unlock Affluence Intelligence:

Priorities: These give direction and energy to your financial and lifestyle choices.

Behaviors: These are the ways in which you act that foster or impede your progress in attaining Affluence Intelligence.

Attitudes: These are the beliefs and mindset about money and your life, both conscious and unconscious.

Financial effectiveness: The capacities of both financial competency and financial ease that enable you to be both capable and secure in your hands-on relationship with money.

These areas of Affluence Intelligence are in all of us –so why do some people get it while others just can't seem to unlock its power? Almost all of us know what makes us feel happy and fulfilled (a vital part of affluence), but for many reasons we have learned to ignore these desires or have convinced ourselves that it is out of our reach.

The current economic climate adds to feeling demotivated and depressed. Getting the daily dose of bad economic news from the media, colleagues, and friends leads many of us to feel blocked, ignored, or disempowered. It may feel as if you are caught in a trance in which someone or something has wrestled control of your financial destiny away from you. Like a ship without a navigational system, you may feel adrift and not in the drivers' seat of your own financial life choices. When we lose track of our financial locus of control, it is easy to feel increasingly unsure and defeated --leading to a downward spiral, which can become a chronic state of financial and psychological helplessness and powerlessness.

The forces outside of our control are real, and powerful, but so are you. Crises bear opportunities, challenging us to take a fresh and creative look at ourselves and our operating assumptions---how we think about and make day-to-day life choices that either help or hinder our progress. What better time than now to review and renew your relationship to money--your values, competencies, strategies, and choices.

In our book, Affluence Intelligence (Da Capo/Perseus, 2011, www.affluenceintelligence.com) we offer a program based on what some of the most successful people in this country have done to meet their own challenges--what they did that worked, and what they learned that didn't work. The goal? To bring you the keys to unlock real and lasting change in your life that will help you to create wealth and fulfillment. How? Begin by determining your Affluence Intelligence Quotient (AIQ), a measure of your capacities, highlighting your strengths, what gets in your way, and what requires change. Next, use the step-by-step Action Plan to raise your AIQ and reshape your life choices: whether your goals are more money, more security, and/or more joy. Affluence Intelligence will help you live the priorities that are most important to you, set and achieve ambitious goals, and make the changes that enable you to succeed-while enjoying the ride!

Here are the first steps:

• Take the AI test and discover your money related psychological resources and vulnerabilities. You will see a clear profile of where your strengths lie, and where your resources are blocked or are vulnerable,

• Next, learn how you get in your own way--how your psychological defenses affect your AIQ. When it comes to affluence, we all have a baseline that we consider normal. This is based upon what you believe is true, your personality predispositions, and your social construction of reality. Your psychological coping mechanisms, particularly those that relate to your money psychology, are at work, day and night, to maintain your Affluence Intelligence baseline. You can think of this baseline maintenance much the same way as your blood pressure and body temperature is maintained, by regulatory systems that are inside and outside of your direct awareness. Bettter yet, think of this method of regulation like a thermostat in your home. If your thermostat is set at 75 degrees and the outside temperature drops, the heater will automatically come on to warm up the room, or, if it gets too hot, the air conditioner will cool it down. The same is true of you. Your psychological coping mechanisms provide a familiar AI comfort zone but at a price, serving your past and present but not necessarily your future, inhibiting necessary growth and change.

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Fortunately, like a thermostat, you can choose to reset your AI quotient, thereby unlocking Affluence Intelligence and start to live, perhaps for the first time, according to your full potential. You will move your financial locus of control back where it belongs: firmly planted in you, aligned with your values and objectives.

In future blogs we will share, through story and case illustration, what people have done to raise their Affluence Intelligence. We invite your questions about the psychology of money: for the individual, the couple, and family!