The Anatomy of Money Energy Part 2 of 3

Have you ever been at a retail store or shop online and chose an alternative product to the one you would normally buy because it was on sale? And when you had the opportunity to try that sale product…were you disappointed? Did it live up to your expectations? Were you saying to yourself: “No wonder it was on sale! I should have bought the one I know and trust.” As a result of this experience, will you buy that product again??In its simplest form, you just experienced a learned behavior—and that’s our topic for discussion.

Previously, in part 1 of?The Anatomy of Money Energy,?we introduced the concept of?Money Energy. As a reminder, money energy is the power and capacity to generate wealth that becomes a stored force releasable into your life at any time. What creates the potential to maximize money energy is a combination of Money Relationship Integration and Opportunities.

We started our last conversation with a deeper understanding of the components of Money Relationship Integration. In particular, we explored your?Natural Financial Behavioral Capability.?These are your money skills derived from genetics, your environment, and life experiences you have accumulated up to the age of seven—but what happens next? How else might you improve your relationship with money?

This is where your?Learned Financial Behavior?comes into the picture and probably where you have one of the largest opportunities for self-improvement. Learned financial behavior is based on the money memories you have forged over your lifetime. It’s the conscious thinking about money and financial-related matters based on experiences, education, and values. The learned behavior commences from seven years old and strongly imprints our behavior up to around fifteen years old, when further brain and emotional development takes place. Although it doesn’t stop there. Different cultural backgrounds fit here as they impact what you are taught about money and your beliefs. Major life events potentially have a huge impact too, as does putting into practice what you have learned, ongoing coaching, various types of therapy that requires action and hard work.

In managing your money energy, it is essential to identify how your Learned Financial Behavior is being used in a given situation and how you might use those behaviors to positively modify your natural DNA behavioral style. Given its importance and its relationship with overall money energy at any time of your life, DNA Behavior utilizes a specific Financial DNA Learned Behavior Discovery Process. This discovery process captures an individual’s preferred decision-making style, attitudes, and investing knowledge within a given situation and in one’s current state. Unlike the Natural DNA Behavior measured insights, which remain stable through life as proven by our validation work since 2001, the learned behaviors are more fluid and can be modified depending on life and market events.

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, credit card balances in the United States grew a whopping $46 billion just from the 1st quarter to the 2nd quarter of 2022.[1]?There may be many catalysts to this rise in credit card debt, such as the impact of inflation and supply chain challenges on consumer pricing. It may also be individual behavioral risk susceptibility such as a predisposition to a bias or behavioral variability. But I wonder, how much of this is a result of a lack of learned financial behavior?

What I’m alluding to is how much of the growing credit card debt is a result of a lack of a budget, a lack of financial planning, or the inability to control impulse buying. Seeking to improve your learned behaviors can help you forge better financial habits and potentially improve your ability to generate money energy, versus reducing it.

Just think of the impact going through our Learned Behavior Discovery Process may have on one’s ability to manage money, and the implications it could have to money relationship integration and its exponential potential to increase money energy. And speaking of money relationship integration, there is another piece to the puzzle—and that’s the contribution of?Quality Life Performance. This is related to your personal relationship with money.

This is the glue to both natural financial behavioral capacity and learned financial behavior. And that glue is only as strong as the healthy relationship you have with money and the desired quality of life you seek, and thereby a higher overall money energy. If you think about it, every life decision is a financial decision. This is where confidence and wisdom applied to the money decision-making process are more likely to deliver a quality of life.

Money flows through every part of our lives, and it takes effort to observe the context of how we manage money, or if it rules over us. Consideration is required to review what aspects of your life are more effective at recharging your money energy battery, and what aspects are depleting it.

Stay tuned for Part 3 of this 3-part blog series explaining the Money Energy Formula. In the interim, I invite you to explore the opportunity to improve your own learned financial behavior as well as your clients, your team, and your organization.?Visit our?Financial DNA platform.?If you haven’t done so already, click for a Free Trial and spend 10 minutes completing your personal Financial DNA. In return, you’ll immediately view the results on a dashboard with two reports.

You’re one step closer to improving your money energy!

[1]?Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit 2022:Q2 (Released August 2022), Federal Reserve Bank of New York