Money is all about hard numbers and hard work? Is there any element of ‘feeling’ in matters of wealth?
How we ‘feel’ about money is a strange concept to many. But the awareness is spreading, with increased research in psychology. Feelings about money has more impact than we think. Like other aspects, the feelings towards money shapes up the financial success of the kids. Take a look at concepts like ‘financial thermometer‘.
Not convincing?
Just consider these:
- Stock market is well measured indicator on money and wealth. But, it is mostly about market hopes and fears.
- US $ is the world’s reserve currency primarily due to confidence on USA, less on hard economic data.
- How sales are done in both retail and B2B space involves lot of management of perceptions and customer feeling. The companies are spending lot more on advertisements, branding and managing this feeling than on product itself.
- Google is the biggest brand now and its primary revenue is from advertisements. The advertisements “manage” the feelings.
Coming to the level of individuals:
We see people succeed irrespective of smart work and hard work. We find it hard to understand and attribute it to luck factor. Possibly, one part of this luck is the mindset towards money.
Now an example from real life example. I know a person who has extreme fears about money. He is extremely careful in spending. He became manager. The managers get budget to manage the team. Due to his fears, he is too careful in spending the budget. Even for extremely small requests, he over-controls it. This has led to lesser employee satisfaction, compared to team members in other teams. This team had higher rate of people leaving. Due to this, the performance of the manager suffered. He is getting relatively lesser pay hikes. In difficult business scenarios, he would lose his job too.
It is amazing to see how this feeling towards money manifests and controls the financial success of your kid.
The greed, overspending, under-spending, not bargaining for your fair share etc. is all due to this negative feeling. If you observe, you will see lot of examples around you.
Early age understanding of daily situations related to money and how kid develops her or his own thinking is very critical first step towards it. This is precisely is the point with the book ‘Now, I Know the Value of Money’.
