One's money story is often shaped by childhood environment and parental beliefs, which can lead to subconscious limiting beliefs about the morality of wealth.

“And my story around money was people who have money are doing something bad. So I lived in a home whenever we went to a friend's home and they had a nice home, my family would always say, "Oh yeah, but they do dodgy stuff to make money."”

Financial behaviors and beliefs are heavily influenced by early upbringing and trauma, but individuals can take conscious steps to change their relationship with money.

“We definitely all have our unique relationship with money. And a lot of it comes from our upbringing. It's like an invisible backpack that we carry that we don't even realize that we're carrying it.”

Juan feels that his ingrained scarcity mindset and conservative approach to money have hindered his ability to charge what his skills are worth.

“I am really conservative in a lot of the way I live. Partially because I have never really learned how to leverage my skills for the amount of money that they're worth. So, the idea of abundance really scares me.”

She admits that her deep-seated fear of financial instability, influenced by her background, causes her to be overly conservative despite her high net worth.

“it feels like a virtual number because, you know, the company hasn't been sold. There wasn't a transaction at all. So, it's just a number that you can only imagine, but it's not really there.”

Understanding personal money scripts from early life experiences provides awareness of tendencies that can act as signals for necessary behavioral changes.

“we want to know where we're coming to our relationships with money. Where are we coming from so that we can sort of be aware of our tendencies and use those as signals for things we might want to change.”

Wealth is distinct from being rich, defined primarily by having financial independence and a buffer to survive unexpected negative life events.

“wealth is if [ __ ] hit the fan and I lost my job and the market fell 50%. And I changed my taste or somebody sued me, whatever it might be, I have a level of independence and backs stop and cushion here to make it okay.”

People should not view money as evil, but rather as a tool that grants power and independence.

“Money is just a tool. So, it's just like, if you want to build a house, do you want to use uh, you know, a bunch of tiny little nails and your own hammer, or do you want to have a screw gun?”

Money functions as a source of power that grants individuals the ability to make autonomous life choices.

“I look at money like a tool but I believe money is power and I say that knowing it's a very loaded word and the reason why I say it's power is because when you have your own money and you are able to make your own money and you are able to choose what you do with your money without feeling a consequ”

Being able to avoid dealing with negative or unwanted situations in life is a marker of having a rich life.

“the rich life thing is you don't I I can tell that I have a rich life if I don't have to deal with [ __ ] when I don't want to.”

She admits that her past behavior of using vacations and spending to cope with the stress of working long hours as a resident has been damaging to their finances.

“I kind of have this, you know, like emotional um I'm getting emotional after I spend a lot of time working and then I have this vacation. And when you're in medical training, you do not get to choose your vacation.”

Grace believes that her impulsive, mindless spending is a way to try to take care of herself when she is feeling exhausted and stressed.

“They've got me here. I do look like crap. I am exhausted. I don't take care of myself. This is one thing I can do to take care of myself. Look at me blah blah blah blah blah self-care blah blah blah blah 60 euros.”

He admits that he used spending as a way to soothe his own emotional needs and demonstrate his care for his partner.

“Maybe I was compensating for my feelings of feeling less than by showering her with experiences and gifts that we really couldn't afford”