There are two things in this world that can truly shape people’s financial wellbeing:
(1) Financial literacy – we must teach children about money
(2) Financial Emotional Awareness: understanding what drives our financial choices
My book is about the latter. Financial Emotional Awareness is a pillar of financial wellbeing because even if we have money and know what we should be doing with it we are often irrational about money. This is because we use it / misuse it to act out emotional issues. We overspend to address low moods, we give too much of it away because we don’t feel deserving of it. We self-sabotage financially because of our fear of failure or even of success. I have seen countless families and couples argue about money.
Over 50% of the population is anxious about their finances and often this is because of the phantasies of what we imagine money could get us. For some people money is never enough – enough for what? These are some of the key topics I address in this book: how can we change the way we think about money and act with it? How can we be more financially emotionally aware?
My book teaches Financial Emotional Awareness: it helps people unpack and understand what feelings, longings, fears might be driving their behaviour with money. Only with awareness do we stand a chance to change our relationship with money, to break bad habits.
I am a huge advocate of this. I write a weekly column in the Daily Mail trying to help as many people as I can, and not just my clients, to think about money differently. I hope this book will do that too.