Money EQ
Those who strive to create wealth through start-ups, real estate, and other successful careers are highly intelligent people, driven to excel in their chosen fields, and often very savvy businesspeople. However, not all wealth creators have a high money EQ—a well-developed emotional intelligence quotient around what money means and how it affects them psychologically.
“Emotional intelligence” (often referred to in shorthand as “EI” or “EQ”) is a term created by two researchers—Peter Salovey and John Mayer—and popularized by science journalist Dan Goleman in his 1996 book of the same name. Emotional intelligence involves recognition of one’s own emotions, as well as those of other people, and awareness of how emotions can drive one’s behavior and affect others. Being emotionally intelligent means being able to manage emotions and their impact, on ourselves and on others. Money tends to elicit strong emotional responses, and appropriately dealing with our emotions around wealth is what I refer to as your “money EQ.”
Money History and Relationship
Your relationship with and emotional response to money is strongly connected to your life experiences around it. Understanding and exploring your own emotions about money will help you make healthier decisions around wealth and decrease the potential negative impacts that money can have on you, your relationships, and the world around you.
Money is a huge part of our lives, whether we have a lot or a little, and we are forced to figure out how to deal with money through our experiences. The first place we go when our financial lives get stressful is remembering what we learned growing up. The problem is that most of us don’t have a healthy relationship with money, and we weren’t taught important lessons about money as kids.
Many of us have never learned basic financial skills, let alone had discussions about an “abundance versus scarcity” mentality, money as a means of achieving important goals rather than money as the goal, the importance of generosity, and the different forms of “currency” that the resources in our life represent. Why would we believe that money can play a positive role in our lives without any training or understanding of what it really means?
Our money history was consciously and unconsciously passed on to us by our parents, regardless of the level of wealth they possessed. Just like passing down family values and holiday traditions, we learn a great deal about our relationship to money from those who raised us, and how they dealt with the opportunities and challenges that money creates. One of the questions I often ask my coaching and wealth management clients is: “What role did money play in your home growing up?” This line of questioning helps reveal the roots of their money EQ.
It nearly always produces a visceral response: A client can almost immediately tell me what was or wasn’t discussed about finances; whether mom or dad was frugal, a spender, or didn’t ever talk about money; if there was a major financial mistake or investment loss that has haunted the family; or how their parents split up because of money issues and the stress that money represented in their home.
The other interesting outcome of this question is understanding a client’s perception of whether she or he was middle class, upper middle class, or even poor. Everyone has clear memories about the quality of the neighborhood they grew up in, whether they had fewer “toys” or possessions than friends, if they had to work for “extras,” or if money wasn’t an issue and they sensed that, even if it wasn’t openly discussed.
A follow-up question I like to ask is: “What lessons about money did you learn that you have taken into your own life?” Again, this question produces immediate and emotional responses such as: Never be in debt, don’t trust people with lots of money, never talk about money in public, save everything you can, work hard and be self-sufficient, and “I’ll never be poor again.” That last statement is the sort of vow that drives career and financial pursuits to obsessive levels because of the fear of not having enough.
The final question in this line of thinking is: “What type of lifestyle do you want for your children?” Again, many people have strong feelings about wanting to provide certain things for their kids, like educational opportunities and sometimes a car, or even a first home. However, it’s important to remember that your children may not have sufficient wealth to live the lifestyle you enjoy due to their choices about work and career.
I’ll often ask, “Do you want your children to live in your neighborhood?” (By this, I mean, “Do you want your kids to have a lifestyle consistent with what they’ve grown up with?”) What if they can’t afford to live in the kind of neighborhood you do? Couples often struggle with the right answers to these questions, and they begin to realize that these are very emotional decisions that they will face sooner than they think.
When we become aware that our emotional responses to wealth are tied to our personal and family history around money, we can see more clearly that our knee-jerk reactions to money matters may not have anything to do with logical decision-making or even our true desires. One wealth creator I worked with named Jane grew up in a household where money was never discussed, but money was always present. She was constantly given more than she needed or even wanted. She recalls her father trying to buy her a new pair of cleats and telling him: “Dad, I don’t need another pair of cleats—the ones I have are just fine!”
There was an emotional disconnect between what was being provided—sports lessons, trips, clothes—and what was needed, and the amount being spent. This caused Jane to become extremely frugal and budget conscious as a teenager. Then, when college expenses needed to be paid, her parents took out loans and required Jane to take out loans. The fallout from these money experiences was that as an adult, Jane vowed never to be in debt and to always be in control of her own money.
Another client of mine grew up in a family where money and finances were discussed extensively, including sharing financial difficulties with the children from a very young age. This wasn’t a teaching exercise; rather, money was used manipulatively as a method to control behavior, including taking money out of the kids’ bank accounts.
The result was a lot of anxiety over money for the members of this family. The message received was that they should try to accumulate as much money as possible, as quickly as possible, so they could be in control of their own lives and no one would have the power to manipulate them. This resulted in an extreme drive to build and create wealth so no one would ever be able to hurt them financially again.
My wife, Kelle, and I have also witnessed how our individual family money histories have played out in our adult lives. I came from a home where my parents were very frugal about money, while Kelle had parents who bought her a cool car in high school and went on lots of family trips, even though this free-wheeling spending created stress in their home. Kelle was in debt when I met her and didn’t have a healthy relationship with money. Meanwhile, I was hyperfocused on making money so I could buy the things that eluded me as a younger person, and I knew that if I wanted something, I had to earn it.
The incongruence of our different upbringings and comfort level with money came into play as we raised our family. We purchased homes beyond our financial means, and our desire to give our kids every opportunity meant prioritizing private school education and private lessons in everything from baseball to piano, even though it stretched our financial capacity, and money worries added greatly to our marital stress.
Examining your own money history can help you increase your money EQ. As you become aware of the experiences and history behind your relationship with money, you become empowered to change unhealthy behavior. Having a high money EQ includes becoming self-aware and making financial decisions about wealth based on a solid understanding of how you feel about money and why you feel that way.
Shame and Guilt around Money
Underneath the excitement and privilege that new wealth brings are dark and sinister feelings that can creep into our psyche and negatively influence our thinking about money, and ultimately our happiness. Shame and guilt are fear-based critics that bombard our minds with messages like: “You’re not good enough,” “You don’t deserve it,” “You’re a rich snob,” or “They don’t really like you for you, just your money.” The natural response to pain of this sort is to cover it up with busyness, hiding, control, and many other coping behaviors.
Some wealth creators narrow their circle of relationships to include only those who have achieved a similar level of wealth, so they won’t have to experience any worry about being judged or shamed for their financial status. Shame and guilt about having “too much” or more than those around you is a real challenge faced by many wealth creators. It’s important to find an outlet to share these feelings, but that can prove challenging when relatively few people really understand what you are going through and might judge you for even having these feelings.
A very wealthy woman I worked with several years ago was living in luxury and was anxious about her grand lifestyle relative to her lower-income colleagues and the customers she served. What if they found out how she really lived when she wasn’t at work? The paradox of her pampered life made her feel uncomfortable about her wealth at times, and she was having a hard time enjoying her affluence.
Should she deny herself things that she could easily afford in favor of a more spartan lifestyle in order to fit in better at work? Could she do more to help the less fortunate, in the hope that charitable giving might curb the nagging feelings of inequity she experienced daily? As we sat in the living room of her mansion, I could sense the tension she was experiencing and her embarrassment in sharing these very personal feelings, and yet she needed to be validated and understood.
In another case, a single woman didn’t want anyone to know she was wealthy because it affected her ability to build meaningful relationships with men. Once her romantic partners found out about the money, it changed how they acted toward her, and she was frustrated and ashamed about that fact. She just wanted to be loved for who she was, not because she was rich. For that reason, she began keeping her wealth a secret and went to great lengths to ensure that only a very short list of people knew the truth about her financial status.
Regret and jealousy are cousins of money shame and guilt. Regret can be caused by the new challenges and changes to your life caused by wealth: You find yourself wishing at times that you could roll the clock back to a simpler time, before the money made everything more complicated. The other form of regret is caused by poor or suboptimal financial choices and decisions when viewed in hindsight. You find yourself saying, “If only.….” Many times, these perceived failures can drive unhealthy future behaviors around money accumulation.
Jealousy creeps in when you start comparing what other people have accumulated or the success they’ve achieved to your financial position in life. No matter how financially successful you are, there will always be someone with a bigger house, a fancier car, and a larger bank account than you. Have you ever found yourself in a situation where everyone wants to talk to the successful entrepreneur or wealth creator at the party and looks past you during conversations? It’s easy to understand how the definition of success has been built using the scale of money and possessions.
Part of increasing your money EQ is acknowledging and understanding these darker feelings about money and wealth, including guilt, shame, regret, and jealousy. Having someone with whom to explore these feelings and uncertainties, whether an advisor, a therapist, a friend or family member, is important.
I call this role the “Wealth Confidant”—part financial guru, part coach, this person ideally should be able to consult with you about money matters and the life circumstances that money influences and impacts. This relationship represents the highest form of trust because you’ll share the intimate details of both your financial life and your emotional life with him or her. It’s the reason I call my podcast The Wealth Confidant, and it’s the role I play for my clients.
Scarcity Versus Abundance
I wanted a way to understand and assess the various emotional responses to money that I was hearing and experiencing from my clients. In compiling the data I had gathered from these conversations, I found that wealth creators tend to be located somewhere along two different continuums when it comes to their money EQ: their level of abundance versus scarcity thinking and their spectrum of ownership versus stewardship thinking.
Scarcity thinking can make one feel like there is never enough money (or time) available and the only solution is to get more. Both of these commodities (money and time) are valuable to wealth creators, and more money begets more time and choices, so the focus tends to stay on amassing more money. Scarcity thinking forces a type of win/lose scenario: There are limited resources with only so much available—if someone else gets it first, there won’t be any left for me.
Just reading that statement, you can probably sense the fear and anxiety created by this mentality. This mindset creates a lot of negative energy around capturing more and more financial resources. It’s almost like playing the children’s game of musical chairs: Scarcity thinkers are constantly going around a circle of chairs where there isn’t a spot for everyone, and they definitely don’t want to be the person left without a seat. Scarcity thinking leads to a myopic form of money attention-deficit disorder: When there is never enough, you never get to relax and enjoy what you already have.
Abundance thinking is the opposite of scarcity—it’s a mindset that believes there is more than enough available for everyone, and I will get my share. This mindset does away with the fear and worry around not having enough chairs for everyone to have a seat at the table. It doesn’t mean that you don’t believe in working hard to earn your share and being very intentional about that, but the underlying feeling is that there is plenty available. There is enough for my current circumstances, and additional financial resources will be available to me in the future as I need them. Having an abundance mentality moves the needle on our money fuel tank to “Full,” where we can experience feelings of contentment, satisfaction, and calm.
Albert Einstein proved that everything is energy (literally). Bruce Schneider, founder of the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching (iPEC), teaches that people produce two types of energy: catabolic and anabolic. Catabolic is draining, contracting, and resisting energy. In the simplest form, it represents stress, and when we are exposed to stress long enough, it causes of all kinds of health and emotional problems. Catabolic processes drain the body’s store of energy. Anabolic energy is constructive, expanding, and rejuvenating energy, and it is the process by which the body builds itself up and grows.29
These concepts are a useful way of understanding abundance and scarcity mentalities. Similar to the way catabolic energy use drains us, scarcity thinkers believe they can only gain something at your expense. Abundance thinking is like anabolic energy, centered on creation and focused on expansiveness. Wealth creators who want to increase their money EQ can learn to shift their focus toward abundance rather than scarcity thinking.
Ownership Versus Stewardship
The other scale I like to measure with wealth creators is their level of ownership versus stewardship thinking. This way of thinking relates to how you hold the money: open-handed or closed-fisted. If, metaphorically, your hands are closed tight around money (and many times, they seem to be holding on to it for dear life), this is an ownership response. The money is mine; I earned it; it’s for my benefit and my benefit only. When we ask “What’s the money for?” the answer for those with an ownership mentality is there isn’t any purpose for wealth beyond myself and my own needs.
Several years ago, I worked with a highly compensated executive in an international professional services firm. Scott was singularly focused on the size and growth rate of his net worth and the lifestyle benefits that then would accrue to him. Periodically, I would invite him into a conversation to explore a larger definition regarding the money’s purpose, but he wanted no part of it. He told me in no uncertain terms, “Look, this is really simple: I view the money exclusively for my benefit, and to share some with my kids and a few close friends, period.”
He was very pragmatic about his daily grind to create and compound his wealth, anticipating reaching higher and higher levels of assets that would then expanded his lifestyle options. Developing a sustainable retirement cash flow from what he “owned” is what brought him energy and comfort. In a nutshell, his life formula was: Work hard and enjoy the money to the fullest. For Scott, the purpose of wealth was solely to benefit himself, and perhaps his closest family members.
At the extreme, an ownership mindset hijacks our emotional response to money and taps into a Gordon Gekko (from the movie Wall Street) “greed is good” mentality, where our focus is primarily on selfish outcomes. Just like a kid at Halloween going door to door collecting candy in a pillowcase, the game is getting as much as you can, with no intention to share it with anyone. Many of the pitfalls of wealth discussed in Chapter Two—increased isolation, depression, self-centeredness, anxiety—spring from an ownership response to money.
On the other hand, a stewardship mindset believes that money flows through one’s life like water, as Lynne Twist describes in her book The Soul of Money. She writes, “Money flows through all our lives, sometimes like a rushing river, and sometimes like a trickle.… it can purify, cleanse, create growth, and nourish. But when it is blocked or held too long, it can grow stagnant and toxic to those withholding or hoarding it.”30
The role of a steward is to manage or care for resources entrusted to him. A steward is a fiduciary, which is the role I play as a wealth advisor. The money isn’t mine, but I am required by law to treat the money with the same care as if it were, and push my own self-interest to the background. In a stewardship mentality, we think of “my” money more like “ours”—owned by someone else, and we are just watching over it and using it for a time. We all realize that “you can’t take it with you,” which means that we have an opportunity to reframe money as something different: a resource that we borrow and enjoy for a time rather than something we hoard and hide. Think of wealth as energy—a resource that we don’t own, but that can be put to use for the greatest good in our own lives and those of others.
Kevin and Carole, a couple who experienced significant windfalls from Carole’s executive roles at two high-growth companies, engaged me to help them balance the need to tap assets for retirement spending while living out their faith-based commitment to steward what they saw as God-given resources. Their perspective was that they were entrusted to enjoy, protect, and grow these assets, but the money was not exclusively for their benefit. Kevin and Carole’s top priority was generosity: After giving modest gifts to their children, they wanted to contribute all of the remainder of their assets to philanthropic causes and their church.
This couple embodied a stewardship versus an ownership mindset. In my role as a financial advisor, it’s typical to exclude homes, boats, and personal property from calculations regarding financial independence as a qualifying simplification. With Kevin and Carole, they made it clear that they wanted to put all of their assets into the pot for calculation purposes, honoring their belief that they were simply stewards of these resources. Each year, we would rerun our financial independence calculations—not to determine how much of their wealth they needed to keep, but how much they could give away!
Stewardship thinking leads to the emotional response of generosity and sharing for the good of the whole, not just myself. Giving is money dopamine, and it can produce an emotional high and feelings of joy. The old saying, “You have never met an unhappy generous person” is a truism. Developing a stewardship relationship with your money is key to increasing your money EQ and protecting yourself and your family from the pitfalls and risk factors associated with wealth.
Conscious Versus Unconscious Money
In a stewardship mindset, we are conscious of the choices we make about the resources put in our care, whether those resources are our time and talents, environmental or natural resources, or the dollars we have in our bank accounts. I have realized how unconscious I am in many areas of my life (for example, not being educated about the harmful effects that my consumption has on the planet, from the waste I produce to the chemicals in my food). As I become more aware of these issues, it is harder and harder for me to go back to a place of relative ignorance.
The same concept applies to our money itself: We can be aware of where it is, what it is invested in, and how we are using it to support and contribute to both solutions and problems in the world. Alternatively, it can be easy to take the unconscious route: We invest on autopilot, without considering the downstream effects our money can have when we support companies and products that cause harm or those that do good. Not allowing money to flow where it needs to go can be another form of unconsciousness. For example, if I hoard monetary resources because I don’t want to put in the time or energy toward understanding where they could do the most good, I can avoid my responsibility as a steward of those resources.
Our level of money consciousness versus unconsciousness can also apply to our money EQ. By examining our family’s financial history, our beliefs, our training, and our deepest fears related to money, we suddenly gain consciousness of our money motivations and impulses. Instead of unconsciously blundering through the experience of wealth, we can increase our money EQ, which leads to wiser decisions and greater happiness in our financial lives.
Joel Solomon, cofounder of Canada’s largest mission venture capital firm, Renewal Funds, offers this advice on becoming conscious in his book The Clean Money Revolution: “Do business and investments the same way you do food and personal health. You are what you eat, and you are what you invest in. The side effects of how we make money live in us.”
Joel adds: “We are our money. It has our name on it.… How we use money is an expression of who we are and all that we believe.”31
Money represents the calling card of our priorities, our values, and our choices. Think about your money as if each dollar bill has your name written on it: How does that accountability change your decisions around money? Raising our consciousness level about the financial choices we make is an important step in healing our relationship with money and increasing our money EQ.
Money EQ Assessment
My goal is to help wealth creators become more conscious of their emotional responses to money, especially given their particular money history and how it plays out in their current relationship to money and wealth. The Money EQ Assessment provides a framework for understanding how and why you are feeling the way you do, as well as an assurance that your feelings about wealth are normal. Examining where you fit within the four areas of money EQ can open pathways to understanding and begin a healthier emotional relationship with money. I believe that shifting toward an abundance/stewardship mindset starts by changing our thinking about money, which leads to changes in our emotions and feelings about money, and ultimately, this will change our actions around money.
There are four Cs that represent four areas of thinking and feeling in the Money EQ Assessment: Concern, Caution, Control, and Content.
The first quadrant, Concern, is grounded in a scarcity and ownership mindset. Those experiencing “Concern” as their emotional reaction to money have a tight-fisted response, coupled with a scarcity mindset of always needing more money. The range of emotions in this quadrant includes worry, anxiety, anger, and even obsessing over money, including overfocusing on accumulation. There is a feeling of jealousy about what others have and the belief that what I have is not enough.
“Concerned” wealth creators need more money to feel safe and independent and to enjoy the life they’ve envisioned. Their focus is constantly on building and preserving lifestyle resources, with the hope of pushing back the ever-present fear and stress that something could go wrong, forcing retreat or downsizing. Catabolic and draining energy is at its highest level here.
Figure 4.1 Money EQ
Kate, an early employee of a very successful technology company, was comfortably retired with a beautiful home, vacation property, and elegant lifestyle, all built on the strength of company stock, which had grown materially over the years and represented security and safety. The amount of stock far exceeded her personal spending needs, even when projected into the future. However, Kate was emotionally hamstrung by her ownership of this stock—even the thought of selling off some of it to diversify her portfolio created significant stress.
While she knew intellectually that her assets were more than enough to cover her needs, Kate was petrified of any real or potential disruption of her lifestyle and comfort. Anything that looked remotely like risk was avoided. She needed constant reassurance that the excess margin was continually growing and providing a sufficient buffer to withstand any seen or unforeseen shocks. It seemed like there was no amount of money that could take away her fear. Kate exemplifies the “Concern” response to money.
Looking at the second quadrant in the Money EQ Assessment, Caution, we shift to a stewardship mindset of “ours” and an open-handed approach to money, while continuing to experience the stress associated with scarcity and feeling that you still don’t have enough. Cautious behavior reigns because of the conflict that develops between the impulse to conserve and protect what you have and still attempt to appreciate the gift that money represents.
This friction may cause you to justify selfish behaviors that lead to feelings of regret and disappointment, resulting in a desire to be more priority-based and trusting. Shame associated with a poor history of financial decisions, or jealousy from watching the success of others, can also land you in this zone, where you feel that you deserve a different outcome than what is present in your circumstances and don’t understand why you have not achieved it.
Lance has a sincere desire to be a good steward of the blessings in his life, and he has a lot to be thankful for. He believes strongly that life is a gift, and so are his financial resources. Living in an expensive suburb of Denver, he is diligent about making responsible spending decisions, while splurging every so often to enjoy the fruits of his earnings. In reflective moments, Lance has shared with me that he is more than a little bit anxious about the future and whether he has enough money saved from his high-paying job.
He wants to let go of fear and be open-handed with his money when presented with opportunities to apply it for a higher purpose, but that can conflict with his need to feel financially safe. Specifically, he wants to increase his level of giving to church and charity, but he often finds those desires overruled by fear and worry about future security, which lead him to take the safe route of doing nothing or doing much less that he would like. Lance is in the emotional space of “Caution” when it comes to money.
The third quadrant is Control, where the ownership and abundance mindsets meet. You have a clear sense that you have enough, and maybe even more than enough, but your purpose for money is focused almost exclusively on your own security and self-sufficiency. Whatever you have is yours—you worked hard for it, and you plan to enjoy it. This intersection of attitudes can lead to overconsumption, hoarding, and arrogance in the belief that you deserve a certain lifestyle.
Those experiencing a “Control” response can get stuck thinking obsessively about money, experiencing feelings of guilt, or trying to avoid introspection about their attitudes and actions. In relationships, those in the “Control” quadrant may find themselves unable to address emotional and communication issues with a spouse or partner around alignment of priorities. Avoidance and an attitude of “I don’t want to deal with it” or “I don’t know how to deal with it” obstruct the flow of money and can create a state of emotional constipation.
Bryan has both a mindset and financial statement that displays “plenty.” He lives a very comfortable life, with all the accoutrements of monetary success: a house in the right ZIP code, a luxury car, and an unlimited food, wine, and travel budget. He wants for nothing materially, and in terms of financial stability, his life is essentially on cruise control.
Even though Bryan doesn’t spend a lot of time worrying, he is primarily concerned with avoiding any risks that would affect his quality of life. There is a nagging sense that he would like to be more generous with and focused on others sometime in the future, but for now, he enjoys splurging on himself. He believes there will be a time for more intentional purposes later. Bryan displays the strong ownership mindset associated with “Control,” and he may someday move toward abundance.
The final quadrant, Content, is the marriage of abundance and stewardship, which creates connection and alignment with your money. The open hand of stewardship and understanding a higher purpose for the money is coupled with a mindset of abundance and sufficiency that allows money to flow freely and confidently throughout your life. Those who are “Content” emotionally understand the connection between purpose and money. Their sense of a higher calling generates a freedom from fear that spawns contribution and generosity in meaningful ways.
An example in the area of “Content” is difficult to produce because no one is a saint when it comes to money. In thinking about someone to write about who embodies the qualities of contentment, I decided to describe one of the most generous people I know. Becca never worked toward the goal of being rich, and she exudes a gentle sense of confidence that she will have sufficient financial resources to meet her needs, regardless of the circumstances. She already feels excessively blessed, and that feeling is not based on her investment statement balances. She has pursued career objectives from a place of purpose and calling, believing that she has a responsibility to use her gifts and financial resources as a steward would, both to enjoy life and to support the issues in the world she cares most about. She is proactive in seeking opportunities to be generous, giving large, sustaining amounts to organizations or as little as a $20 gift to a stranger in need. She doesn’t just give money—she also wants to be generous with her labor, influence, and expertise. Becca feels “Content” and free in her relationship with the money because of her open-handed attitude to those less fortunate, as well as a focus on meaning and abundance rather than consumption.
Because money and life are challenging and always changing, you may experience shifts from one quadrant to another as life circumstances affect your emotional development. I believe that your money EQ can evolve and mature through self-awareness; however, you may experience triggering events that cause you to revert to old ways of thinking and behaving. For example, when the market drops and financial projections look less rosy, it can be easy to feel less confident and generous. It’s helpful to take an emotional inventory, to evaluate your sense of abundance and stewardship and orient your thinking toward a more confident, connected financial future.
In my own life, I want to experience more contentment in my money EQ, but I am often distracted by my own fear-based self-focus and feelings of scarcity. Sometimes the emotional need for “more” comes from within, and sometimes our consumption culture looks awfully appealing. I’ve become much more aware that I am truly in control of my thoughts relating to money. The more I consciously orient my thoughts toward anabolic and life-giving ideas, the less control, concern, and cautionary emotions and behaviors surface, and the more joy and contentment I experience.
For me, this means trusting in God that sufficient resources will be supplied to meet my needs, recognizing that I have incredible abundance when compared to most people in the world, and accepting that I must act as a steward of these resources and gifts in my life. In my case, I believe that God has a purpose for these resources that goes beyond my exclusive personal consumption, and I experience great joy when they are put into motion and aligned with my unique contributions and calling, subjects that we will explore in later chapters.
To help you understand your own ownership/stewardship and scarcity/abundance responses to wealth, I’ve created an online interactive tool for wealth creators, called the Money EQ Assessment. When you visit the link, you will be asked questions intended to uncover your emotional responses to the concepts of stewardship and abundance.
Your money EQ isn’t a number. It is a set of emotions related to money that drive your behaviors concerning money. Some of us sail through decisions concerning money with confidence, while others struggle. Each of us has a unique emotional relationship with money—one that is influenced by a host of attitudes, opinions, and past experiences. These combined elements predispose us to living a life where money works in a positive way to achieve our goals, or money works against us, leaving us feeling uncomfortable or unfulfilled.
I invite you to take the Money EQ Assessment online (http://www.jcchristianson.com/assessment) and gain a better understanding of your own emotional intelligence when it comes to money.
QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER AS YOU EXPLORE YOUR MONEY EQ: