Money. That One Word.
Money. That one word changes everything. Especially when you don’t have it. I just had a conversation with my daughter. We have to talk money. I have to revisit every financial document because everything burned. I fired my broker over inconsistencies. I was tired of making him money and listening to him justify why he was making money when my portfolio wasn’t moving in the right direction. When he said to me, “You took too much money out,” I looked at the numbers. I mean I looked hard. This didn’t turn out for him the way he wanted. Did I mention he got fired?
Your money story determines everything. What your parents told you, how they lived, and the things they didn’t tell you that you absorbed anyway.
We Clipped Coupons
Back to the conversation with my daughter. It is hard for people to look at me and believe that I was pretty poor at some point. Gina, my daughter, says, “We clipped coupons.” We sure did. We had a coupon clipping book, too. I read the Los Angeles Times every week, and on Sunday I would go through all the coupons in the paper. Every dollar counted.
The Numbers Match or They Don’t
When I sold my company, the financial team that did the due diligence sat in my books for weeks and went through everything. I am a beast when it comes to operational excellence. The numbers match or they don’t. It either is or it isn’t. They said to me, “We have no idea what you lived off.” Fact is, I had no money. And then: “We do this all the time, for all kinds of people, and sometimes we see things. Sometimes we are not happy that this person is making so much money on the sale of their business. In your case, we can’t wish it on a better person. Congratulations.” I got the green light, the acquisition closed, and I became a multi-millionaire. It’s nice when the last barrier to financial freedom comes with champagne and well wishes.
Now, you would think that someone who has been through this is completely changed by the size of the outcome. Sorry to say, it isn’t so. I struggled; I tried to repeat my success. Looked for shortcuts. Nothing worked. I am finally at the point where I must look at this from a different angle. Finding someone to do things for me also doesn’t work. Because I can no longer say that someone has my best interest in mind because I pay them, or it’s their job. I believe them when they tell me they do, and I believe them when I find out it isn’t so.
The Child Imprint Is in Charge
Which brought me to the larger point about money. What exactly is my story? Is our money trauma embedded in our family history and genetically imprinted? The answer is yes. We are programmed to believe what we have seen and experienced. And where nobody explained what we saw, we filled in the blanks, often through the eyes of a child. And now this child imprint is in charge of your money story.
More, More, More
Fast forward to marketing. Would you like a nice house, a car, vacations? Convinced that this is all I want, because over here I am clipping coupons to save 75 cents on orange juice, I look at what these people do. They are slick. Their language is persuasive. They make it sound logical, and just like that we are pulled into the money story that makes this country, and every country, work. More, more, more. If you work more, you make more money. Then you can buy more and do better things. That all costs more, so now you have to make more money, because nobody ever wants to go backward. And now you don’t care so much where the money is coming from, or whether it is fully aligned. After all, you have to do what you have to do. You have to take care of your family. Right?
It all comes down to what you are willing to tolerate. If selling your soul and living like you are haunted works for you, and it works for many of us for a long time, then go for it. But inevitably there is a moment when you have doubts. Or a health scare. Or a come to Jesus moment.
This Time It’s Nery Gomez
That is where my podcast lives. The Business Growth Architect Show, Founders of the Future, talks relentlessly about the moment when someone has a massive personal transformation. This time it’s Nery Gomez, and it’s all about money. He walked away from a $3 billion table, in a Gucci suit no less, and then came up with the idea for a conscious investment equity fund. One that is not about flipping companies for profit, but about investing in communities, where each investment goes hand in hand with the next. I have never seen anything like it. Check out this week’s podcast on conscious investing and what is happening in that space.
The Seed That Needs the Fire
As for me, it is no coincidence that I am bringing in people who talk about money. It is a topic I have to come to terms with. After the endless lessons from the fire that took down everything, including my income streams, I am forced to evaluate what I want, where my passion is, what lights me up, and what I want to do. And just like that, I am seeing the first glimmers of hope, and transactions coming my way. Almost effortless. Sometimes it all has to burn for that special seed that needs the fire to germinate.
Who is in charge of your financial decisions? A toddler, a 7 year old, a teenager or an adult?
I’ll keep you posted.
I made my own cut of this conversation with Nery, the parts every Founder of the Future needs to know. We call it The Architect’s Cut: https://youtu.be/rX4EmH3fikg?si=tbGP0wwNJd179Ct5
Let’s grow,
Beate
P.S. The Forge is where founders build the operations behind the money: YourBusinessMC.com