Let’s talk about the skill of curiosity. Most people assume that curiosity is more of a trait – something you’re naturally good at – than a skill, which is something you develop. I think it’s a little of both. As children, we’re very naturally curious, because just about everything is new to us. But as we get older, the more we experience, the more we lose that innate curiosity and start to adapt something of a “been there, done that” response to life.

I’m here to tell you that losing your natural curiosity – especially when it comes to money matters – will have a dramatically negative effect on your financial success. Let me tell you why:

When you commit to curiosity, you open yourself up to possibilities. When you’re certain you already have all the answers, you close yourself to possibilities. It’s that simple. But that doesn’t mean I think you should abandon everything that’s worked for you, just for the sake of curiosity. What I’m suggesting is that you look at your financial challenges with a new lens, free from the “stories” and beliefs and habits that may have driven you in the past. Adapting an attitude of curiosity means you reserve the right to go back to your old way of thinking, but only after exploring other options first.

So the next time you’re presented with a new way to think or act with your money, commit to curiosity first, action second. And be sure to post your comments on how you’ve used this skill to better your life.

Would you like to find out how financial coaching can help you use curiosity to accelerate your financial success? Simply email me, at jenifer@playthecoach.com, and we’ll connect!

…there’s a whole lot we can’t control right now. The good news is, there’s still some stuff we can.

When I had my “financial awakening” 12 years ago, the good news of losing everything was that it forced me into some habits that sustain me to this day – in good times and bad. I thought I’d share a few of those, in hopes they’ll help you during these uncertain times.

When the market goes down, it’s a great time to lower your expenses.

And when the market goes back up, it’s a great time to keep your expenses low.

When the market goes down, it’s a great time to detach from things and get more connected to the people you love.

And when the market goes back up, it’s a great time to stay detached from things, and get even more connected to the people you love.

When the market goes down, it’s a great time to get more informed.

And when the market goes back up, it’s a great time to stay that way.

When the market goes down, it’s a great time to let go of where you think you “should” be, and work from what “is.”

And when the market goes back up, it’s a great time to keep operating from that perspective.

When the market goes down, it’s a great time to have faith – in your abilities, resources, and brainpower.

And when the market goes back up, it’s a great time to keep that faith.

I know how difficult things are right now, which is all the more reason for us to pull together to boost each other’s morale.

To that end, I want to offer my time to you if you’d like to connect with me to talk through the challenges you’re facing. I don’t have all the answers, but I know a lot of people who might, and I can definitely lend an ear. I’m not selling anything – I just want to give what I can.

All you need to do is email me, and we’ll set a time. No charge, just reach out. What got me in a financial pickle way back when was not taking advantage of the help that was offered, or reaching out for it when I needed it. Don’t be shy about this – I don’t do anything I don’t want to! My only request is that if our conversation is useful, that you “share the wealth” of those tips with someone who might benefit.

I hope to hear from you.

Let’s talk about what doesn’t work: seeing yourself as deficient, and not in an “I don’t understand the concept of abundance” kind of way. I mean having little to no confidence in your ability to make predictably positive choices with money, or seeing yourself as “One who can’t….”

Who knows, maybe you have all kinds of evidence to support that current vision, but what I do know, from having thousands of conversations about this, is that no matter where you’ve been with money, if you’re committed to being better than you are, then you can be.

Getting good with your money takes self-confidence, and that comes from taking certain financial actions and getting to a positive result, over and over, until you see yourself as “One who can….”

Here’s a simple way to start building your financial confidence:

Identify the most pressing financial challenge you’re having, and boil it down to its essence. Example – “Saving money,” “Spending less,” “Collaborating with my spouse.”

Now, bring new attention to that issue by creating a quality question around it – remember, quality questions create a quality life – starting with the words, “How can I…” Add some accelerator words to give the question meaning and movement, such as “best,” “most quickly,” “more strategically.” Example: “How can I systematically save more money?”

Now march yourself over to our website, and use our Let’sTalk Coaching Steps™ (under the coaching notepad link) to coach yourself on your question. The game instructions are there too, in case you’d like additional tips. Get in the habit of always approaching your financial challenges from a “How can I…” perspective and I promise you will see great results, in your attitude, focus, and confidence.

And while you’re at it, go to www.tinyurl.com/letstalk, join our online community (for free!), and participate in our forums and groups with the great confidence of “One who can…”!

Till next time,

Abundant regards,

Jenifer

p.s. Starting in September, we’ll blog once a month on Let’sTalk MONEY topics, and once a month on Let’sTalk LOVE & MONEY tips. As always, we’d love your comments!

Just hit this link - The $64,000 Question - to access the chapter. Give it a read, and come back and tell me what you think! (feel free to download it as well, and pass it on)

In each case, these individuals got themselves into scalding hot water not so much from the economic shifts as their inability to reach out when times got tough and ask for help.

When huge ego drives someone to think that they are somehow immune to the negative consequences of their negative actions (you know, that whole karma idea?), then they are prone to think the rules apply to everyone else anyway, so why go to “lesser minds” for answers if they can solve (read: manipulate) things on their own?

And these people’s choices never affect just themselves; when they go down, they tend to take a bunch of innocent bystanders with them, which is certainly the case with the folks I’m referencing.

In the midst of my anger and sadness over these people’s inability to accept responsibility for their financial misdeeds is the certainty that out of this adversity can come the opportunity to:

• review my own financial systems to see that they are completely in order,
• renew my commitment to ask for help when I need it, and
• remind me not to lose sight of how my decisions affect others.

That’s our question this week, for members of our Let’sTalk Coaching Club:
“Regardless of where you stand financially, what is the ‘good news’ of your situation?”

There are some excellent posts on our members-only site in answer to this, and I’d like to extend an invitation for you to join the Let’sTalk Coaching Club – for free.

Simply follow this link: http://tinyurl.com/letstalk – post a picture, write a little bio, and Let’sTalk money! Each week we pose a new question, issue a challenge, feature 3 of our members, and exchange information to make us all better with our money.  I hope you’ll join us.

In the meantime, I’ll be clearing my confusion and frustration over the stuff I’ve been telling you about: these individuals didn’t pay to rent the space they’ve occupied in my head, so I think it’s time to evict them and move on.

Playthecoach.com came almost by accident. I was turned down for a trademark on Let’s Talk Money, because of another firm that already held the registration, so it didn’t make sense to pursue a web presence by that name. I had been approved, however, for a registered trademark on my Let’sTalk, Are you Game? logo and on the Let’sTalk Coaching Cards label.

So in an effort to dovetail all the branding elements for the game, I started to think: what is the essence of why I want people to have better “money talks?” There were many answers, not the least of which was my desire for you to enjoy the financial freedom and control I so often hear you wish for.

But as I was brainstorming all of this, it occurred to me that, while I am grateful for how my coaching skills positively impact you, I also want to provide a system for communication and action that you can take into every aspect of your life, with or without me, thereby turning you into your own coach.

The more I thought about that prospect, the more excited I became, because empowering you with these skills creates a sustainability of process and results that I’d never delivered before on this scale. In keeping with the game concept, the word “play” then came to mind and, coupled with this certainty of your inherent ability to be the agent of your own change, voila, www.playthecoach.com was born.

While there are definitely deeper coaching skills of questioning, advising, relating, challenging, and supporting I can teach you, everyone who plays the Let’sTalk MONEY Game learns a solid system for creating quality, compelling questions, and the foundation for conversation in which to develop their answers and action plans.

Imagine having the confidence that, no matter what the concern, you’ve got a system for how to address it, find some answers, and push through to results.

But if I never get the opportunity to share these steps with you first-hand, I still want you to know that you already have what you need to get to a better place in your life: make the time to identify your challenge, create a quality question around it, and walk yourself through to an action plan, and you too will be well on your way to playing the coach of your life.

(Of course I’d love to share my system for how to do this, so consider joining our next Let’sTalk Web Event by following the link below)

Full List of Live & Web Events

So here we go, here’s the timeline of the last six months, and the next few, and what it means to you:
(roll over the colored text to follow the links)

• December 2007 - the Let’sTalk MONEY Game launches to our online community, and with it, Let’sTalk, Inc..
• January 2008 - the game goes “live,” which not only gives us a chance to see how it “plays” in a public setting, but also the chance to start donating 5% of the game proceeds to the micro-enterprise community.
• February 2008 - the first batch of Let’sTalk Facilitators and Wealth Journeys Coaches is trained.
• March 2008 - the first Let’sTalk Game event outside of Denver is held, in Colorado Springs.
• April 2008 - the Let’sTalk Game appears in Rhode Island, as a training tool for a group of 115 direct sellers.
• May 2008 - the first Wealth Journeys Coach outside of Colorado is trained.
• June 2008 - the official Let’sTalk blog is launched (Bookmark this blog - we’ll be posting weekly!)

• August 2008 (For Facilitators & Coaches - August 1st thru the 4th) - we hold the first “Share the Wealth” Training Conference in Denver, a weekend of Facilitator & Coach training, giving you everything you need to coach yourself and others to greater personal, professional, and social impact.

And we’re just getting started. My new book, Making Love & Money Last: The Committed Couple’s Guide to Handling Financial Conflicts, will be out in February 2009, so we’ll be holding lots of couple’s workshops, live and online, leading up to that.

Finally, we’re not leaving www.afinancialminute.com. That’s still the site for Wealth Journeys Coaching & Training, and we’ll work to see that both sites cross-reference each other well. As always, I’m only a shout away, via email or phone, to answer your questions, so if you need something, don’t hesitate to let me know. Thank you for your loyalty to the community, and most importantly, to the cause!

Jen

While he knows what I’ve been up to with it , since it’s all I talk about these days, he hadn’t yet participated.

So it was really intriguing to watch this very private man open up to a perfect stranger and receive the gift of her coaching, not only on the game-card questions, but also on the “life card” question I directed them to create.

I tried not to eavesdrop, but I couldn’t help noticing that he was putting himself completely into the experience - I found myself feeling enormously proud of him.

Twenty-four hours later, while hanging out on our porch, he said,”What I learned from your game last night is that you and I don’t have enough financial goals that we share. You have yours, and I have mine, and we’re great with those, but I really need us to have a big one that we focus on together.”

It made me realize that I’ve been so busy lately helping the rest of the world have better “money talks,” that I had neglected to check in on the quality of ours. Now, in addition to being very pleased by how the game had effected him, I was also humbled to have him take this bold initiative on our behalf.

The upshot of all this? We sat there and worked out a compelling savings goal, got very clear on the benefits for reaching that goal, and determined what priority this strategy would have in our lives. The conversation took some time, and was not without some give and take, but we got it done, and we both feel enormously better for it.

I love what happens when we take our own advice.

How about you? This week’s Let’sTalk MONEY question:
“What is the value in having regular “money talks?”

We’ll draw from your comments for a free Let’sTalk MONEY Game!

As I mentioned in my last column, in our Let’sTalk Game events we teach that two of the essential actions for financial success are talking about money and tracking it. We also assert that these are the top two areas of greatest resistance, and in encouraging people to break through that resistance, have found it helpful to distinguish what we mean by “talking and tracking.”

When it comes to talking about money, we emphasize productive conversation. In other words, no more kidding or crying about it: only take on the subject when you’re committed to improving your circumstances.

When we talk about the critical skill of tracking your money, while we certainly advocate for budgets and the like, we’re stressing first that you claim a clear vision of your highest potential, and then track to what degree you are financially aligned with it.

For instance, if you’ve decided that your highest personal potential as a parent is to “show up” strong, creative, and supportive, and what’s preventing that is the stress of not being financially aware, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad parent, just financially out of whack with your higher purpose. If you commit to making financial decisions that support the greater good as a family instead of letting your decisions be driven by guilt or convenience, you’ll soon find yourself happily back in touch with your money.

This means defining what you want your life to look like, and then creating the means—financially and otherwise—to make it happen.

So when you operate financially from a place of vision and commitment, you’re more likely to track your progress from a practical perspective. Budgeting then becomes a power tool instead of a whip, and something that is not only necessary, but welcome.

In our Let’sTalk Game events, we teach that two of the essential actions for financial success are talking about money and tracking it. We also assert that these are the top two areas of greatest resistance: based on the pushback I’ve gotten on that theory in three of the last five events, it’s apparent that I need to clarify exactly what I mean.

Each of the players who challenged my thesis said “I have no trouble talking about money. I have trouble making it (e.g. what I’m worth, what I need, etc.)”

Their responses left me equally confused: if they’re not having any trouble talking about it, why aren’t they finding more success with it?

I didn’t want to assume the answer, so I asked, “Is it possible there are other ways to talk about it that would bring you more of your desired results?”

They each agreed. They acknowledged that it wasn’t the act of talking about money per se that would bring them success; progress would come from understanding and applying certain nuances to their financial conversations.

For instance, talking isn’t always just declaring something; it’s also making requests.

One’s conversational tone can greatly add to or take away from the result.

And certainly, the intention and clarity with which one comes to the conversation makes a difference to the outcome.

So I asked them to try on these different ways of “being” in their financial conversations over the next few weeks, and to check back in on what shifts as a result. I’m willing to bet there’s a positive change for all of them. And I appreciate their challenge; it’s made the game much clearer since then, which is positively influencing our players.

Next time we’ll introduce some distinctions around tracking your money that will get you closer to your goals.