The Money Experiment – My family will Hate me

Posted on 10. March 2016 by fmoebius
Family and Money

Family and Money

We have explored beliefs about money and rich people. Now we’ll take the Money Experiment to yet another level: Family System Dynamics, or systemic family constellations.

Let me quickly cover the basics:

Each family is a little system in itself. And that system has its own rules.

Every family member belongs to the family, irrevocably. (Even the ex.)
There is a certain order to the family members.
There has to be a balance of giving and receiving.

Now, one of the biggest fears that every person has is to be kicked out of the family system – even if that is against the rules. In fact, being ostracized by one’s family is a death sentence for children. That’s why children always and quite automatically adjust to whatever rules exist in a family, spoken or unspoken. We will always, always do our best to fit in.

Now imagine what happens when one of the family rules says:

If you want to be one of us, you have to earn a certain level of money. No more, no less.

Boom. Trapped. Continue reading →

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The Money Experiment – Rich People are Ignorant of Real Life

Posted on 3. March 2016 by fmoebius
Bread

Bread

The most famous line of Queen Marie Antoinette was this one: “Well, let them eat cake!”

She is supposed to have said this when told that the poor people were going hungry because they had no bread. There is no official record, however.

Yet even today, this expression is the most blatant illustration of the kind of ignorance living in luxury can produce, a complete detachment from the world most people live in.

And it is true that simply throwing money at a problem to make it go away is a solution most “normal” people do not have.

Funny enough, I was once told that if something could be solved by spending money, it is not a problem.

That’s another instance of the kind of arrogance rich people can develop – since not having the money to throw at problems is THE true problem behind most suffering of less fortunate people. Continue reading →

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The Money Experiment: Rich People Raise Bad Kids

Posted on 25. February 2016 by fmoebius
spoiled rich kid

Spoiled rich kid

You probably heard of the “Affluenza Kid”.

This young man caused the death of four people in a drunk driving accident. The judge sent him to in-house therapy rather than jail, giving him a 10 year probation. The reason behind this was that the kid was raised in such a way by his rich parents that he never learned to be responsible for his actions, and that he was suffering from “Affluenza”.  And thus he needed therapy to learn how to be a responsible person. Except that he and his mother then fled to Mexico.

It made quite a stir, but it also illustrates a belief that many of us have: Rich people raise bad kids. Or spoiled kids. Entitled kids.

In fact, here in Germany, we have a saying about family businesses:

The founder builds it, the son stabilizes it, the grandson squanders it.

And maybe it is true that having seemingly unlimited amounts of money, and using it to “deal” with problems could create a belief that rules do not apply. Continue reading →

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The Money Experiment – Rich People are Killing Earth

Posted on 18. February 2016 by fmoebius
Lion

Lion

The other day I read a little article in the news:

An anchor chain on the 300-foot mega-yacht, […], has destroyed almost 14,000 sq.ft of reef […]

And of course, we all remember the story of Cecil, the Lion. And many others like it.

Those are the big, singular events making the news. Most damage is done by living a luxury life, however.

Rich people tend to drive big cars, to travel often and far by air, possibly hunt big game, have huge homes and gardens in arid areas that need lots of water, and they have many luxury items and food imported to them. Simply because they can. Rich people are the driving force behind poaching, and extinctions, as well.

Now, this may be called the force of market, but underlying these actions is quite often a wish to show off and display one’s wealth. That mega-yacht mentioned above? The owner has a second, even bigger one.

And many ways of displaying wealth are actually hurting the environment, nature and our home, Earth.

Do you want to be a person who hurts the Earth because they are rich?

Most people would say no. And mentally that means saying no to being rich. I do not want to become such a wasteful person. Continue reading →

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The Money Experiment – Rich People are Crooks

Posted on 11. February 2016 by fmoebius
Rich person smirk

Smirk

For the last four weeks, we have looked at personal beliefs about money as such. Now we move into another level of beliefs – about being rich. Because that’s what most authors dream of, right? We want financial independence, we want to make a living with our writing.

It’s such a dream: Sit at the beach or under palm trees, with your trusty laptop and just write. Sip a cocktail every now and then, feel the gentle, warm breeze on your skin, dive deep into your story… bliss.

And just to trigger that level and system of subconscious thoughts and beliefs about being financially independent, I’m going to put this sentence here:

I’m a RICH, bestselling author.

Read it out aloud to yourself and watch your belief system react. It can be fascinating. We all have lots and lots of inherited beliefs about rich people.

In my family, the underlying thought when talking about rich people was that they must be crooks, or they wouldn’t be rich. They must be lying about their taxes, be involved in shady dealings or otherwise have accumulated their wealth in a shady manner. Continue reading →

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The Money Experiment – I’ll Lose it Anyway

Posted on 4. February 2016 by fmoebius
all gone

All gone.

This is a belief I have encountered several times. It’s very often held by people who have experienced insecurity. They do not trust in money, or the fact they could hang on to it. So they spend it the moment they have it, on anything.

Alternatively, in order to avoid the pain of losing all that money (possibly again), they avoid even making it. Often, they have barely enough to survive. But that’s still “better” than making money and then losing it.

It is a bit of a twisted logic, obviously, but that’s how many safety programs function.

If it doesn’t feel safe, avoid it!

I know this pain. As a teenager, I had a 100 Deutsche Mark bill, saved up from my allowance. I put it into my jeans pocket one morning, certain that it would be safe there. It felt better than putting it in among my parent’s money in my wallet. I planned to shop for clothes and books after school. I even checked on it a few times during school.

But … after school, the bill was gone. Vanished. I never told anyone. I still remember the shock of that discovery. The pain of that loss. The disappointment and the self-blame. Continue reading →

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The Money Experiment – Money is Hard to Earn

Posted on 28. January 2016 by fmoebius
Money from a tree?

Money from a tree?

We’ve all heard those phrases:
“Money doesn’t grow on trees.”
“You gotta work hard, son.”

And so on and so forth. I’m sure you’re familiar with them.

And yet… that’s just another one of those beliefs we learn as kids. This assumption that money will only come to those who work hard, long hours and burning lots of willpower – I believe it is especially prevalent in the US, but of course, it’s something people believe all around the world.

And it’s only as true as you make it.

This belief is especially damaging to entrepreneurs like writers.

While many entrepreneurs start a business to get rich, there are also plenty who do it because for them, it means living a dream. I’m one of those, admittedly. Probably many writers, coaches, therapists and others start their own businesses because they love that work.

I love watching my clients lighten up and feel better.

But when we love our work, yet at the same time believe that we can only make a lot of money by working hard, we create extra obstacles for ourselves.

Sounds weird, doesn’t it? Continue reading →

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The Money Experiment – It’s making me a bad person

Posted on 21. January 2016 by fmoebius
Money corrupts

Money corrupts

(Once again, you’ll find my tapping experience in a comment below last week’s article.)

This one is the logical, ruthless continuation of last week’s belief:

If money is bad, having a lot of money will make me a bad person.

We’ve all heard the phrase “money corrupts”.

And I freely admit it’s a belief I am familiar with. Because it’s so easy to look at the drug tsars and think that yes, they are doing it out of greed and because it’s so easy to make money with drugs.

And it’s highly criminal. All organized crime has to do with power and money. And that combination can be difficult – but is it really “just” the money? Or is it about the personality of people who think nothing of breaking society’s laws and being criminal?

One thing is really clear:

If you believe that money corrupts – you’ll stay away from it. Continue reading →

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The Money Experiment – Money is Bad

Posted on 14. January 2016 by fmoebius
Money is evil

Money is evil.

The Money Experiment continues.

(I posted my experience with the intro tapping in a comment under that article, if you’re interested.)

The next four articles including this one are about beliefs we have about money itself.  And I’m going to tackle the bull right at the horns:

Money is bad.

I think that’s a very old belief. It even existed in Roman times, when money became a big part of the economy. And the background seems to be that money has a bad influence on people and/or causes bad things. It’s connected with:

– greed
– arrogance
– debt
– crime
– bribery
– manipulation

I’ll go into some of those in detail in later posts. But let’s just run with the idea that money is bad for now.

Who would want money, if it’s bad?

Every sensible person would stay away from bad things. Continue reading →

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The Money Experiment

Posted on 7. January 2016 by fmoebius
Money

Money

Today, I’m starting an experiment. It’s from my own point of view, of course, but it’s also something that affects many, many authors. I know that it’ll be challenging, and sometimes, it might even be ugly. It’s also necessary.

I’m going to take a good, deep look at money.

And the blocks we have about it. The beliefs we have about it. The limits we set ourselves about it. All those things going on in the dark, deep zone of subconscious beliefs, family rules and hidden no-nos.

And even better? I’m going to document the work I’m doing on my own blocks right here. So you can see what’s going on, and how to deal with that. I’ll model that work for you, so you can follow a real-life example.

Why now?

Well, I’ve been thinking about the direction of this blog and how it can be useful for authors. And even though I love you, my readers, I believe it hasn’t been as useful as it could be. That was a sobering thought.

And the next impulse came from looking at all KDP statements from the last three years. I started self-publishing in 2013 (under a pen name). So I pulled all the data and looked at how many books I sold and how much money I made in royalties.

In other words, I finally took a good look at my business as author.

That was very sobering. Continue reading →

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