The anti-money mantra

Gary Harvey //February 22, 2012//

The anti-money mantra

Gary Harvey //February 22, 2012//

There is a great deal of talk today on the political forefront about money and making money and who does and who doesn’t make it. This is not a political piece, I assure you. What I want to ask is, “Are society’s and your beliefs about money impacting you?” And therefore, standing in the way of your sales success?

What do I mean by these questions? Let me give you a few examples about others and their beliefs about money from a recent CNNMoney column. The CNN author, Charles Riley, was writing about, “Charity on the Campaign Trail” and covered the various candidates. When he was writing about Romney, at one point he said, “The deep-pocketed former Bain executive gave $2.98 million in 2010, and $4.02 million the following year. That works out to 16.4 percent of his $42.6 million in aggregate income over the two-year period.” He went on later with a section he entitled “Rich, Gingrich and crazy rich.”

So do you notice some words used in describing money? The “deep pocketed….” The  “crazy rich.” Doesn’t sound too complimentary, correct?  There seems to be a trace of an unfavorable implication in this column associated with being rich. Are you listening to the self-limiting beliefs you might have about money and the self-limiting and disparaging comments others make about money and the rich? And if yes, I assure you it’s unknowingly impacting negatively your ability to sales success.

People’s behaviors start with both conscious and subconscious beliefs. And as we all know, we all have both positive and negative beliefs between our ears. Here are a few beliefs about money that many of us grew up hearing from society, parents and authority figures in our life:  “The filthy rich.” “Money is the root of all evil.” “Money can’t buy happiness (now this is true, but believe me if I have to choose between the two, I’d rather be unhappy and rich vs. unhappy and poor)” “You don’t deserve to be rich, no one in our family came from money”. “Rich people don’t care about people, they just care about money” “What makes you think you deserve to make that kind of money?”
I write a great deal and also coach my clients about their belief systems and one of those is what I call their “money concept” or what “money head-trash/self-limiting beliefs” are they carry around between their ears about money?

Money is a “conceptual” thing. Randy Gage, author of Why You’re Dumb, Sick, & Broke: And How to Get Smart, Healthy, & Rich! writes about this. Yes, a brutal title, but I like it. In the book he talks about what he calls “memes,” which is basically the same thing that I call “head trash,” about our beliefs and others’ beliefs about money. And unfortunately, most of those beliefs about money that many people carry around are not positive.

There are tons of books you can buy on how to make money. And many of these books offer up some good advice. However, these books miss one major point: unless you have an awareness of what are your “subconscious” beliefs about money, they aren’t worth buying? Is the self talk you have about money positive or negative talk and, equally important, what beliefs are you ”buying” that others in society are telling you about money? I started this article saying this is not a political column and it’s not meant to be at all. I would just ask yourself if you’re in sales and in this year of politics so prevalent around us in the media, what are you hearing out there right now about money? Is it positive or negative and if negative. And are you buying it?