The Million Dollar Answer - It's long but worth it!
I'm so excited about my inaugural issue of Financial Wisdom with a TWI$T! Thank you so much for your interest in helping us all learn how to 'do money' better and in different ways than we've been taught in the past. And thanks to Steve, my delighful partner, for naming it for me.
I thought the best place to start was at the beginning. How it all happened so to speak; how it ALL happens for that matter. How does that sound? Great.
 In April of this year I turned 50 years old. I don't feel 50. I'm sure most of you reading this don't feel your age either. I still feel 26 inside, yet when I look in the mirror there are these funny lines around my eyes. Funny thing is that none of it bothers me. The aging thing I mean. I'm curious about it but it does't cause me to lose sleep or take pills or want to get rid of the signs of wisdom.
Many years ago, when I was creating my first Dream Board, I found a saying printed in a magazine that said, "I love knowing my way around so soon." I loved that saying because for some reason, I learned a long time ago not to make things mean things they didn't mean. This has served me well and those of you who know me personally can attest to the fact that it takes a lot to get me concerned about much, unless it's something I'm passionate about...like financial literacy for the planet. It's just not worth messing up my physiology over, (i.e., my health), because when we get upset over things we can't control or make things mean something they don't necessarily mean, we are the only ones who suffer. If you take a second and imagine how you felt the last time you got angry, you will notice a change in your body. This is what I mean, no pun intended. Now, imagine something pleasant quickly to change your physiology back!
So, where DID it all begin? The simple answer is that my passion for showing people a different way to look at money stems from my not being taught about it when I was young, just like the majority of our population.
The most basic principle in all of our financial literacy programs, Camp Millionaire, Creative Cash for Kids and Creative Wealth for Women, is that it all begins in the mind. The more I learn in this area, the more I am convinced that most of us are destined from childhood to be in the financial positions we are in as adults. The GOOD news is, however, that if we somehow stumble upon this information during a time in our lives when we're truly ready to listen, we can change and turn it around quicker than you might think. We see, sometimes for the first time, that WE are at the root of everything that we experience.
As human being, for some reason, we often don't want to blame ourselves or take responsiblity for our own situations. Yet we are the only person we can look upon for answers to the question, "How did I get into this mess?" That is, if you're in some kind of a financial mess. If you're not, hurray! It's just financial messes is where I find people because of what I teach.
I'm going to give you Creative Wealth's introductory lesson to money, and life for that matter, and it looks like this:
Beliefs lead to Thoughts lead to Feelings lead to Actions which lead to Results
What exactly does all that mean? Well, it means that you are at the cause of all that you experience. In terms of your financial situation, regardless if you've already figured out the amazing "Money Game" or you're just learning about it, it means that what you get is a direct result of what you believe.
Look at it this way...if you grew up in a family where one or both parents or some relative that you spent a lot of time with, believed that rich people were greedy, unconsciously that's probably what you believe. If this were the case, can you see how you might not ever want to BE rich because you wouldn't ever want someone to think that you were greedy? All of life works this way.
Let's go a bit deeper. We all know we have a conscious mind and an unconscious mind (sometimes called the subconscious). Research shows that our conscious mind is capable of being aware of about 2000 bits of information at any particular time (Chris Howard says it's even less than that!) and the unconscious mind is aware of more than 2,000,000 bits at a time! Which one do you think is controlling the show? Right, the one with the bigger bandwidth!
You can liken the conscious mind to a captain on a ship and the unconscious mind to the crew. Even though it looks like the captain is in control, if the crew doesn't agree with the captian, guess who's in charge? Exactly...the crew.
 What does all this mean to you and your financial situation? Basically, in a nutshell, it means that your life (aka the Results in the equation above) is a reflection of all of your unconscious beliefs about what life 'should' be. Problem is, most people are very unaware of the beliefs that are running their lives because so many of our base beliefs were established before we were even 8 years old.
How do I know this personally? From reading tons of amazing books and research. You see, I was about 38 years old when someone put Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad Poor Dad book in my hands and I had the biggest ah-hah in my life! (Take your right hand, hit yourself in the forehead with the palm of that hand and you've got it:-). Literally, I have never been the same person since.
That book opened up a whole new world for me. A world of amazing money information I had no idea I was missing. You don't know what you don't know until you trip over it somehow. Let's look at it another way. Last evening I went out to my backyard where I have a few veggies growing (I love gardens!) and I picked a nice sized zucchini, chopped it up into bite-sized pieces, steamed it up, added a little salt, pepper and parmesan cheese (yum) and enjoyed every bite. It was great. It's had lots of Santa Barbara sunshine, plenty of water, some fertilizer, lots of lovin' from me and then it was prepared just right.
You see, you can only see thing through your conditioning, in other words, the environment that you grew up in. If you grew up in an environment that valued financial freedom (saving and investing), time freedom (owning your own business instead of having a job) and other such values, that's how you would filter the choices and decisions (aka Actions) about money.
Our children are no different. They can't grow into the beings they are meant to be without the right amount of love, attention, information, discipline, limits, lessons, influences, etc. that set the right belief systems up in those little unconsious minds of theirs. And it's our job as their parents and guardians to do our best to make sure that happens. This is ultimately what lead to my writing The Ultimate Allowance.
So, how do you uncover the beliefs that are driving you? How do you make sure that your child develops the beliefs that will set him or her up for success (whatever that means to him or her)? Well, there are many powerful seminars and workshops out there (including our own) as well as many great books that will help you on this journey and each week I will share my favorite with you.
Here however, I want to share with you what I've learned to do...
When I first notice myself having a result that is inconsistent with what I really want in my life, I ask myself, "What action did I take that led me here?"
When I've uncovered the actions I ask myself, "What was I feeling before I took those actions?"
Again, as soon as I figure that out, I move backwards in the formula, "What was I thinking right before I was having those feelings?" This is an important step because most of our feelings happen because we are thinking a certain way. (Any boy-girl situations come to mind?)
Finally, I contemplate the biggy, "What is it that I must believe in order to have caused me to think in that way?" The answer to THIS question is the Millionaire Dollar Answer.
Change the belief and you change the end result. As you begin to practice and get better at quickly backing through the formula, you begin to take charge of your entire life. And there's not much in life that feels better (at least to me) than being fully empowered to create the life you want. Doesn't it feel great to you?
Remember, you might not 'believe' you actually have the beliefs you uncover. It's OK. Most of our beliefs, until we learn to create them ourselves, came to us from our parents, teachers, neighbors, the media, relatives, anyone who was an influence in our lives. It's just important right now to start considering that the beliefs that run our lives aren't necessarily of our own making.
If your life isn't exactly how you'd like it to be, then look back over your beliefs, do a little work on uncovering the conditioning you are operating through (we call this your 'pair of dimes' :-) and do a little work on becoming aware of 'what crew' is actually running your life. If you look below, I've listed some of my favorite programs and a couple of books that will help you because if you're not in the financial state you'd like to be in, I know you want to be and i just want to help share the resources and tools I've used that have made a huge difference for me.
Please remember, there's no place to get to. Just enjoy today and enjoy the journey! |
Camp Millionaire on Fox TV!
Attention all women!
ct empowerment program for them. For ages 16 to 106. 
Elisabeth Donati (aka Miss E) is CEO of Creative Wealth International, LLC, a company devoted to empowering individuals of all ages with the tools and information they need to be responsible for themselves and the world. She is also the creator of Camp Millionaire (formerly The Money Camp) and author of the amazing Financial Parenting Book, The Ultimate Allowance. 
