How Crayons Create Financial Peace

My biggest revelation about how to help others with their financial issues came when I began working on my own financial issues. In Telling the Truth, I point out the rather obvious fact why so many Americans with money problems can’t seem to get beyond them: we don’t talk about money so we have no opportunity to tell the truth about it.

We are a financially illiterate society. There are few places that you can go to work on your money, talk about your money, make your money better. I lay awake at night sometimes dreaming up solutions to this societal problem. And bit by bit, I create answers. That’s how we came to start Financial Boot Camps, and that’s how I tripped upon creating this exercise for a Boot Camp: draw your financial life with crayons.

The accountant in me questioned the exercise that the right side of my brain had created. “Um, that’s silly.” But the right side of my brain, the creative side that has been fed and nurtured by studying a lot of research into the psychological and emotional aspects of our relationship with our money said: “Forge on!”

The exercise was simple. The boot campers were to draw their financial life in a crayon pie chart,

Late charge, latte charge, at least you’ll know.

$3.35 a day

Microsoft Money has this cool new tagline: “Late charge, latte charge, at least you’ll know.” I love it.

When you’re an accountant, people talk to you about their money. Not just your clients, but your friends, relatives, acquaintances, and even people you stand next to waiting in line. It’s kind of fun, because its this secret little window into peoples’ worlds that most don’t ever get to see.

So why do I like Microsoft’s tagline? Because the overwhelming first step to tackling one’s money issues is know how much money is coming in, how much is going out, and where it’s going. Most people have no idea. Even those that use software like Quicken or Money often still have very little idea. They can look it up, but they don’t know. I must admit that there was a point in my life that I realized I was tracking all the data, but not often enough to really use the information in a constructive way. More on that later.

$39 a month

There is an axiom that goes: “What we measure, we accomplish.”

If you have financial discomfort in your life, start measuring. If you’re measuring and still have discomfort, take a step back and look at how you’re doing it. Shake it up; try it a different way. If it’s still not working, check out our Financial Boot Camps. You’ll make movement there; we guarantee it.

How I Do Money Is How I Do My Life

I have a friend who is both a yoga instructor and a therapist. We were talking about a sibling of hers who has constantly had both money problems and all kinds of other problems in his life. In yoga, she tells me, there is a saying that “how you do yoga is how you do your life.” We mused over how that saying could just as easily relate to how you do your money. It was easily seen in the life of her sibling. I’ve turned it into a  question that I’ve often asked people that seem to be “stuck” or “baffled” by there behavior around money.

If how you do yoga is how you do your life, then how does this statement relate to you: How I do money is how I do my life?

Having gotten many interesting responses, I was inspired to ask the question in the Financial Boot Camp. I got a unanimous response: “that’s a stupid question.” I smiled and suggested that they write about it anyway. After a number of weeks we came back to the question and unanimously, everyone had had an ‘ah ha’ moment when thinking through the question.

I’ve put it up on the wall in the office as the question of the month and clients, boot camp members, friends, really anyone that walks in is asked to write a response on the windows in the office. It’s fabulous! There’s graffiti all over the office. So…..how does the question relate to you?

Here are some answers created:

“When I avoid responsibility, I avoid being empowered.”

“When I relax and do what is next consistently with clarity, focus, ease and grace, it is there.”

“When my life teeters out of balance, so does my money.”

“When I allow someone else to become my priority, I become the option.”

“Be it, let it, it will be.”

“When I don’t pay attention to it, it bites me in the @#%.”

“Inconsistently, but with reverence.”

“When I have enough, I pay attention, when I don’t, I run away.”

“If I pay attention to that which I run from I will lose fear, gain experience and live more fully.

On the Honesty Muscle and Financial Boot Camp

Lisa Nichols, in No Matter What, refers to the honesty muscle as a critical component of moving forward in our lives. To get to where we really want to be, we have to know where we are; we have to be honest with ourselves. When it comes to our finances, this can be extremely challenging on many levels. To know where we truly are means that we have to discuss money, a very private, personal, and sometimes painful subject. Where exactly do we do that?

A success of Financial Boot Camp is that it gives people a forum where they get to – and have to – talk about their own money. In the first few sessions, it’s a challenge to convince the group that its not only ok to talk about their own money, but also to ask each other direct questions. We’re raised in a society that frowns on open discussions about money, yet we’re expected to know how to manage it. In the Boot Camp group we’re working with now, honesty has appeared in a number of ways:

• Some have been honest with themselves and the group that they really don’t like how they are earning money;
• Some have been honest with themselves and the group that how they have invested money makes them unhappy and discontent; and
• Some have been honest about their lack of clarity with their monthly spending.

Some of the group, if they had listened to their own little voices, knew these things before Boot Camp. With some, you could see the light bulb of honesty and realization come on right before our very eyes. To get to where we really want to be, we have to know where we are; we have to be honest with ourselves, and sometimes others. Each one of the Boot Camp group has used that honesty to make movement in their lives, movement toward where they really want to be.