Conversation can be empowering and solutions based while also can provide anxiety and shame. As we continue over the next two weeks we are going to focus on how to build out health conversations with the people that are important in your life.
When we talk about wealth and our financial lives it is critical that we build healthy communication. We can add strategy, build wealth, and if one person in a partnership or family has more control absent of communication than that creates an unhealthy situation.
What is your financial currency? No I don’t mean the actual dollar bills, I’m actually talking about your personality and how you relate to money.
Family Centered – your drive for financial decisions is rooting in caring for and providing for you family (however defined by you) now and in the future, even after you have passed away.
Independent – you see you financial picture as one that only you can control and separate from advice or instruction of others.
Delegator– the opposite of the Independent, you push off the responsibility to a point of wanting no responsibility and rely on others in your life including a partners or a financial advisor to make all the decisions for you regarding your financial picture.
Incognito – privacy is of the utmost importance to you. You want no one to know your financial picture, carrying everything close to the vest.
Competitor – checking out what everyone else has defines where you want to be at minimum. You would prefer to have a better “this of that”. You find yourself comparing to what other’s might have.
Prestige – think the VIP treatment, you know that you are important and have the expectation that you have the best of the best and usually before anyone else might have the opportunity.
Acquisitioner – finding yourself counting on a regular basis what you have and ensuring that it is safe and protected. You worry more than the other’s because you don’t want to lose you prefer to be able to always see everything you have.
Risk-Taker – that need for speed or adrenaline rush is exactly what you are looking for with your money. You could care less about the downside you are focused on the potential upside and convinced that you will always have a WIN.
Trendsetter – just like skinny jeans are out (well not for me at least) and Zumbas were once cool…you like to have what everyone is talking about. You are the first one to discover the “new” thing and jump on board.
When building a strong foundation of communication, most likely the other individuals that you are partnering with whether your partner, future partner, or a family member has a different financial personality that stems from their previous financial stories that they have been told. So how do you bring those two perhaps very different personalities together? Why does it make a difference?
Here is the deal, I am going to take a moment to specifically chat with those of you who identify as female. Historically women live longer than men. At one point or another women will manage their financial lives solo – by choice, through change in marriage – divorce, or death of a partner or family member that passes wealth along. Taking charge and building a plan of understanding your financial life is necessary for you to be on the right track to ensure that you don’t have a lot of financial surprises but strategy to make sure can live the lifestyle you want and that your wealth outlasts you and not the opposite.
1) What is your story?
Which one of the above financial personalities above do you find yourself leaning toward? Where do you think this spins from? What are the stories you tell yourself around wealth? How about the experiences or the stories others have told you?
2) What is their story?
The person you are trying to build communication with most frequently is a partner that you spend life with. I will also insert that I have many conversations with clients who are now transitioning into the caregiver role for a family member, hold tight we will drill into these conversations next week! With your partner, what is their personality and story? They may have a different one than you, let’s try to bring the two together.
3) Bring it together
Two separate communication styles need to start with a common respect built. Understanding the sources of your experiences and how you make decisions. Setting a foundation through deciding who has strengths in which area. No one person in the partnership can feel secure in the planning if they are left in the dark. Establish together which area each of you can focus on.
4) Establishing Regular Progress Points
After you have establish a standard of where each of you are coming from and who has a passion or strength in the various areas of your financial lives, then it’s making sure that you are checking in. What are the pieces of life that are important to you? How are you feeling like you are in progress towards achieving or living in those important part of life? What parts are still challenging, if any? What advice or resources might you need to seek? Set a regular time frame at least once a month to review these items.
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT DR. ALEX:
Dr. Alex Melkumian founder of the Financial Psychology Center and a financial psychologist joins us on this weeks episode of the Thrive For[e]ward to discuss how we build on having what sometimes feels uncomfortable – conversations about our finances.
Dr. Alex’s Love & Money Course
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Securities offered through LPL Financial, a member of FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services offered through Advisors’ Pride, a SEC registered investment advisor. LPL Financial, Advisors’ Pride, Forethought Planning and the guests of Thrive For[e]ward podcast are separate and unaffiliated parties. Any of the parties listed above are not affiliated with Forethought Planning, Advisor’s Pride, or LPL Financial. The views expressed here are those of the participants, and not those of Forethought Planning, Advisor’s Pride, or LPL financial. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. LPL Financial and Forethought Planning do not offer legal services.
