Do you know how to use a chainsaw?
I do – in fact I have a City & Guilds NPTC Level 2 Award in Chainsaw Maintenance and Cross-Cutting (formerly CS30) and the Level 2 Award in Felling Small Trees (formerly CS31).
So there.
But most people don’t.
You probably don’t.
As well as assuming you don’t know how to use a chainsaw, I’d also guess that you don’t feel guilty about it. It doesn’t bother you. You don’t have a voice inside you that says ‘I’m not good enough’. Or ‘I should know how to cut down this tree myself’.
If you need a tree cut down, you call a tree surgeon.
I’d also suggest that calling a tree surgeon doesn’t bother you either.
At a fundamental level, you don’t know how to use a chainsaw because nobody has shown you how.
And that’s OK.
So why is it different with money?
Whenever I give a talk, I always ask the audience if anyone ever showed them how to understand or manage money.
Guess what? The answer is almost always NO.
Same for all my clients.
Maybe you too.
So, why do we blame ourselves for not being good at something that nobody showed us how to do?
Why do we say:
‘I’m an adult’
‘It’s only numbers’.
‘Why can’t I do this?’
‘What’s wrong with me?’
Nothing is wrong with you. Nobody showed you how and money is not just numbers. It’s linked to security, trust, power, status, identity, self-worth and many other things.
So don’t blame yourself.
You’re not bad with money. You’re just learning how to use it. And, when you’re learning, it helps to have a guide or a coach. We have coaches for everything else that we want to get better at.
And if you’re a planner or adviser, you’ve learned how to understand and manage money.
So, make sure your clients know that’s it’s normal to find it difficult or confusing.
Because most of them were never shown how.
If you’d like to learn more about money (or chainsaws), use the link below to set up a free chat.
If you’d learn to learn how to have more open money conversations with your clients, we do that too.
