Transforming Your Money Story: How to Clear the Beliefs Quietly Blocking Your Wealth

Your money story is the set of mostly-unconscious beliefs about money you absorbed as a child, and it quietly decides how much wealth you let yourself receive. If you have a faulty money story, in other words limited or fearful beliefs about money, it literally blocks you from thinking and acting in the ways that create wealth, no matter how hard you work. The good news is that a money story can be exposed and rewritten. Here's exactly how.

Right now there is an almost infinite amount of money flying around in the world. But our willingness to receive it, and to align ourselves with wealth, is largely based on our money story.

Inside our mind we have beliefs and ideas, things we genuinely believe on a deeper level about life, and those beliefs change what we are capable of doing. And here's the hard part: even if you work hard, do the courses, say you want it, even use affirmations, if a faulty story is running in the back of your head, it will block you from taking the actions that genuinely lead to success.

The problem is that this story is unconscious. ("Unconscious" just means it's running underneath your awareness, so you don't normally notice it.) That's why affirmations alone often don't work. The belief is buried beneath them.

So we're going to do three things: expose your old money story, let it go, and create a new one that actually lets wealth in.

What is a money story?

Your money story is the collection of beliefs you hold about money, most of them absorbed in childhood and running below your conscious awareness. It shapes how you earn, spend, save, ask for money, and how much you believe is possible for you.

When the story is faulty, it blocks wealth even when you're working hard. When it's healthy, you find it easy to do the things that create wealth and to align yourself with the flow of it.

This isn't only a spiritual idea. Financial psychologist Dr. Brad Klontz studies what he calls "money scripts," the unconscious beliefs about money we pick up in childhood, and his research links them directly to how people earn and hold on to wealth as adults. Different language, same truth: the story underneath is running the show.

Why can I teach this? Because I lived the broke version

When I started doing business many years ago, I literally refused to receive money. I had such a weird money story that even when I worked for people and they wanted to pay me, I had a hard time taking it. I did graphic design and artwork, and people would come to my house and say, "Thank you so much, here's the money," and I'd say, "Oh, put it on the table. Put it in that bowl over there." When people asked how much a job would cost, I had this awkward feeling and I couldn't even give them a number.

What I realised is that I was carrying a kind of vow of poverty, and on top of that I grew up in a religious background with the idea that money is the root of all evil. I was around a lot of teachers and spiritual people who had similar beliefs. All of that was preventing me from feeling good about money, aligning with it, or doing the things that lead to it. I tried to deal with it by forcing myself through and being logical, but nothing really changed.

So I was broke. I almost only ever had exactly what I needed for rent or food, and often not even that, living on credit card debt. It was an unpleasant, dark place.

Then I was willing to look into it, and I discovered this work on money stories. Once I cleared it out, and it took a while, money started showing up in my life. As I cleared more of it and understood where money really comes from, it led to the companies I've founded and co-founded, and to real wealth. I went from completely broke to free. And I can honestly say that if I hadn't cleaned out my money story, I'd probably still be in a little room barely covering the rent.

Here's the deal: it only works if you really do it. I once sent someone the written version of this and nothing changed. So I went through it with him on the phone for about two hours, asking the same questions you're about to answer. He really did it, deeply. That evening he said he felt profound relief, like a huge burden had lifted, and out of the blue money showed up for him that same evening. I'm not promising that. But I've seen it again and again: when people really go deep, the wealth starts coming, because they start aligning with the things that create it.

So let me ask you honestly: are you willing to really go deep with this and clean it out?

Where does your money story come from?

Your beliefs about money almost always originate in childhood conditioning. Whatever your parents said and did around money was programmed into you unconsciously, before you were old enough to question it.

All those little comments around the kitchen table, how they acted, whether money upset them, whether they had it. As a small child you pick it all up. And as you grow, you either repeat their patterns or you rebel and do the opposite. Either way, you're still bound to those beliefs, and they run your life without you knowing.

If your family was poor and money was stressful, you tend to internalise that money is scarce and a source of problems. If your parents believed money was bad, then having it makes you feel guilt or shame. If there was always plenty around, you may simply expect there to always be money.

For me, my mother has always been very thrifty. She likes thrift stores and secondhand things. I rebelled, I like everything new and the best, and that can actually get me in trouble, because sometimes I buy the fancy thing when it's completely unnecessary. My wife grew up with parents who always had extras of everything, so now we have lots of extra stuff. There isn't just one jar of almond butter, there's a whole bunch ready to go. So look at your own life and ask: am I copying, or am I rebelling?

Here's the thing to see: most of these beliefs aren't even yours. They go back generation after generation. People who grew up in war, or poverty, or under systems of control, naturally picked up strange beliefs about money and passed them down. It's not your fault. But it is now your job to clear it.

What does a faulty money belief sound like?

See which of these resonate:

• Money is evil. Money is hard to get. There's never enough. I can't afford it.
• People like us can't have things like that. Rich people are evil. Rich people aren't spiritual.
• If you have more money, you'll lose your soul. More money means more problems.
• I can't earn more than this amount. We're poor and we've always been poor.
• No matter how hard we try, we'll never get ahead.
• I just need to visualise wealth and it will come to me.

Most of these are toxic. But some beliefs are very helpful, and those are the ones to keep. The most useful one I know is this: money comes in exchange for value received. The more you help others get what they want, the more they'll help you get what you want. Another good one: save at least 10% of what you earn and reinvest it, and give 10% to charity.

So the work is simple in shape. Let go of the bad beliefs, and bring in the good ones.

How do you uncover your hidden money story?

You expose it by answering honest questions and writing the answers down. Get a pen and paper, somewhere private, phone off, and really do it. The deeper and more sincere you are, the more you'll let go. Pause on each question and take your time.

• What did you believe about money growing up?
• What did your parents believe about money? What was their attitude?
• What did they actually do with money, and spend it on?
• What was the energy around money in your home? Relaxed, or stressed and painful?
• How much money did they have? (Often what our parents made is what we feel comfortable making.)
• What did they spend money on, and what did they never spend it on?
• What were your spiritual or religious beliefs about money?
• What ideas did you pick up about money from media, education, other people?
• What have you heard about rich people? About poor people?
• What positive beliefs about money have you picked up?

Now look over everything. What are the five main toxic money messages you've been exposed to? Write the top five. Then notice how it feels to read them. A lot of people feel quite revolted, thinking, "Oh my God, no wonder." That's good. You've just made the invisible visible.

Finish with four lines: I've learned that money is... that work is... that spending is... that saving is... Some people think spending is wonderful and saving is crazy. Others can't spend a penny on themselves. Just tune into what you picked up.