Extract from Get Growing: A no-nonsense guide to cultivating wealth and financial freedom by Jessica Brady.
Ever killed a plant? Same. You bring it home brimming with pride and anticipation. You buy a cute pot for it to live in and promise yourself, ‘I will look after this one. This one’s gonna make it’. But then life gets busy. Soon enough, it’s not getting what it needs. It’s exactly the same with your money.
You forget to water it, the soil is zapped of nutrients, and it’s not getting enough sunshine to give it energy. Slowly but surely, the plant starts to wither. Then it dies.
I’m sure the plant wanted to survive – it just wasn’t given the right conditions to grow in. It doesn’t matter that the pot you bought for it was really expensive (and perfectly matched your house decor!), or that you set reminders to water it and then forgot. The key ingredients for it to thrive were missing. It didn’t stand a chance.
Just like with plants, your money needs attention, care, patience, sustenance, energy, a little bit of luck (and, of course, some shit thrown in for good measure) to grow. Without the right combination of these elements, it’s very hard for almost anything to thrive.
Nurturing growth
In this nature analogy, think of your money beliefs being a bit like composting. These beliefs come from years of experiences with money that get piled onto a heap over time. You need to take that pile, no matter how rotten you might think it is, and break it down so those memories and lessons can regenerate into something that will grow stronger and faster than ever before.
What once may have felt like a giant pile of decay and waste (including wasted opportunities, wasted ideas, wasteful spending and wasteful waiting) can now become the basis for new, fertile ground. This works because the first stage of composting is literally just creating a pile (continuing the metaphor, your experiences and external influences), and then getting clever little organisms to start munching away and turning the contents of the pile into smaller pieces (your brain neurons creating ideas and beliefs that you can rationalise and make sense of ).
Then, the heat starts to rise (hello, emotions!) and you can start breaking everything down, or letting go of what you need to and building new neural pathways.
The last stage of composting is called maturation, which understandably takes the longest. As you uncover insights and have ‘aha’ (or, more likely, ‘oh shit’) moments about yourself, remember that transformation, just like compost, doesn’t happen instantly. Overriding long-held beliefs and breaking habits takes time – and work. While progress may feel slow, as you keep at it, you’ll start to see small, but important shifts. Keep munching. Soon the pile won’t feel so heavy.
Trust me when I say that I’ve worked with many people over the years who want to skip this bit and head straight to investing, but let me tell you: this is the vital preparation work that does (or undoes) all the rest. Promise.
Where do our money beliefs come from?
Let’s start to explore what might have shaped your money beliefs and stories so far:
- Culture
- Family
- Friends
- Industry norms
- Religion or spiritual beliefs
- Parents and caregivers
- Media
- Education
- Values
- Money behaviours observed
- Workplace dynamics
- Trauma
- Societal expectations
- Location
- Colleagues
- Loss or grief
- Risk tolerance
- Marketing
- Neurobiology
- Legal systems
- Gender
- Cognitive bias
- Financial education
- Intersectionality or marginalisation
- Intimate relationships
- Global events
- Identity
- Social media
- Peers
- Socioeconomic environment
- Government
- Accessibility
Like most things in life, no one thing, belief or behaviour is going to be the reason you aren’t where you want to be. However, research has clearly shown that the core behaviours that impact how you behave with money as an adult are often formed in childhood.
Your beautiful baby brain was like a sponge, absorbing everything quickly and easily. By age seven, you’re likely to have already formed some ideas and concepts relating to finance.
The experiences and environment you were exposed to set the foundation for you to learn how to feel, think and act in different situations. You quickly learned from those around you, adopting the behaviours, values, cultural norms and practices you saw.
You need to dig further into two key issues when considering your early childhood experiences with money. Firstly, you need to uncover what you were shown and, secondly, you need to consider how you are now hardwired to react.
Edited extract from Get Growing: A no-nonsense guide to cultivating wealth and financial freedom by Jessica Brady (Wiley, $34.95), available at all leading retailers.
