#MoneyStory #1: Where it all begins.

By Kate Phillips July 10 abundance and prosperity

Your “origin story” with money.

If you trace back why you think what you think and feel what you feel about money—it usually begins HERE.

I remember being in an airport with my grandfather. I may have been six or seven years old, I’m not sure.

My grandfather gave me money for the vending machine. However, the vending machine gave me something OTHER than what I wanted. (Definitely a “first world problem,” but one that was very real for me in the moment!)

I went back to him for more money. But instead of more coins for the machine, I got a lecture.

“You don’t always get what you want,” he chastised me. “Sometimes, you have to just take what you get!”

Now, my grandfather wasn’t entirely wrong! And children who get everything they want can become spoiled.

But it was my first moment of experiencing money as something that could be scarce or limited.

It was also apparent: if you didn’t have money, you could not have what you wanted!

And the Money was the Big Meanie standing in the way.

Many years later, a new money story emerged to counter this narrative, ironically, when I was facing debt collectors in the Great Recession.

It was a challenging time, the combination of a bad economy, bad circumstances and some decisions that didn’t look so great in hindsight.

By that time, I had studied money and prosperity long enough to know that “scarcity” was often a trick of the mind.

There were many things I had cut out of my budget… Massages, home maintenance (such as the window washer/gutter cleaner) and dinners out.

I realized that if I was waiting for money to show up so I could purchase those things, I had a pretty limited view of abundance!

So I decided: I would find a way to have what I wanted… with or without money!

In no time at all, I was trading coaching for massages, a CD for a dinner at a favorite restaurant, and yes—I even bartered to have the windows and gutters of my two-story home professionally cleaned!

It was a lesson that has stayed with me: Prosperity is simply activating the cycle of giving and receiving.

That cycle often includes money, but more importantly, it is an exchange of energy. Offer value and be willing to RECEIVE!

And thus, my money story evolved 🙂

What’s YOUR Money Story?

What are your first memories around money? How was it talked about and treated in your family?

Did you constantly hear, “We can’t afford it,” or “Money doesn’t grow on trees!” Or was everything given to you… perhaps to the extent that you never had to “work” for money?

When we recognize what our money stories ARE… we can determine if that’s the money story we WANT!

In part 2, I dive into my “early years” and reveal the Money Story that drove my early adult experience.

(Continued here…)