There is an old Cherokee saying that reveals a great deal of wisdom about manifesting money…

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.

“It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

- A Cherokee legend

I remember one particular incident many, many years ago, before I began my private coaching/consulting practice, when I was driving downtown rushing to complete my errands for the day. I remember noticing the beautiful sunset and the incredible colors in the sky.  And yet in spite of the beauty that surrounded me there was an internal voice that said something like, “Sure the sunset is beautiful – but that doesn’t really matter.  What really matters is that you are STUCK in your life.  How are you ever going to get anywhere?  You got real problems to deal with…”  And the voice continued on and on – round and round.

Ironically at the time I believed this inner voice was just telling me the truth about my current situation.  I assumed my inner voice was the voice of reality and reason – even though it was a huge drain on my energy and mental outlook.

Another time I was feeling overwhelmed about all the credit card debt me and my husband had accumulated after we were married.  And even though we were determined to pay it off I remember wondering how we would ever manage to get rid of it.  Both of us had brand new start-up businesses at the time.  My mind just couldn’t grasp the possibility that life could be any different from the way it currently was.

The “scared wolf” was quite loud during these particular times of my life

Many of us hear the voice of the wolf howling at our doors. We experience a deep sense of anxiety and impending doom and gloom around our current circumstances.  Sometimes the pressure is so intense that it wakes us up in the middle of the night – and we wonder how we’re ever going to break through our current circumstances and manifest more money in our lives.

I used to wonder where all this internal pressure and anxiety was coming from.

For most of us, if our beliefs remain unexplored we find ourselves thinking that our external circumstances are causing the pressure and fear.  We find ourselves worrying about finding a job or making enough money to get through the next month.  We have very real external circumstances that we’re dealing with, and we think – that is what’s causing the pressure and stress after all!

I remember working with a client who experienced a dramatic breakthrough when she realized that SHE was the one who was creating the stress and pressure that she experienced around money.  She had thought that her current circumstances were creating the pressure.  In fact, she became aware that for most of her adult life she experienced pressure and fear that she wasn’t doing it right, or doing it good enough when it came to money as well as other aspects of her life.

If we are experiencing anxiety or tension it’s a sure sign that we are feeding the scared wolf. What I’ve discovered is that whatever circumstance I am facing, I can ask in the midst of it, which wolf am I feeding?  Is it the wolf of joy and peace or the wolf of anger, greed, guilt, and inferiority?  What I’ve noticed is that the scared wolf is very sneaky and clever.

I mistakenly take his voice to be the voice of reality.  Of truth – as if he were an impartial reporter of “just the way things are.”  His voice might sound like this—“People just aren’t hiring in today’s economy… It’s not possible to increase my income by this month…It’s not possible to find my dream job.”

Which wolf are you currently feeding?

It’s one thing to hear the voice of the scared wolf.  It’s another thing to feed it.  When I feed it I am agreeing with the scared wolf’s reality.  I know that I’m feeding and agreeing with the scared wolf’s reality when I experience fear, resentment or anger.

So what can you do?  It’s not a matter of getting rid of the scared wolf’s voice.  That just creates resistance.  It’s an opportunity to explore what you’re believing and which wolf you are about to feed.  It becomes an ongoing practice, a discipline – the personal path of the warrior.

So now when I hear the bark of an scared wolf, I stop and identify the voice.  I am called to create in each moment a new possibility – I can choose to feed the scared wolf or the good wolf.  Either way it’s my choice.  The one I choose to feed is the one who will win.

Action Steps for Manifesting Money

1. Get honest about your subjective “reality” or “truth.”  What is the reason you’ve been giving yourself about why you can’t achieve something that you really want right now? Which wolf are you feeding?

1. Ask yourself how your subjective reality might really be resistance to manifesting what you want (remember this may require a huge stretch on your part – because that’s the nature of subjective reality – it seems so, well real!).

1. Ask yourself what would happen if your subjective reality didn’t have to come to pass.

1. Notice how you feel when you make this mind shift. You will notice that you are left with opportunity.  From this space be willing to take the next step toward what you want – instead of putting it off.  Be willing to see that you don’t need to wait any longer – and that your “reality” is merely resistance in disguise.

But then we find ourselves running up against a wall when our beliefs and behaviors get in the way of taking the action that we know we need to take.  We know that we “should” stick to our budget, yet we find ourselves spontaneously making large purchases on things that aren’t on our budget.  We know that we “should” be able to increase our income, yet we don’t believe we actually can.  As a result we don’t take action.

What Gets In the Way of Achieving Prosperity and Wealth

Our behaviors frequently get in the way of “right” action and create money problems for us.  This is because we mistakenly believe that action is the source of creating results.  Because we believe that action is the source of results we fail to focus on the true source of results, which is who we’re BEING.

Being is what influences the actions that we take.  When I say “being”.  I’m referring to what is actually operating for us at the level of our beliefs, thoughts and emotions.  Let’s say you’re self-employed and you know you need to make more money – yet you also believe that it’s impossible to make more money or bring in new clients in today’s current economy.

However, you know you need to take action so you go out and make cold calls, knock on people’s doors and advertise.  The problem is that you’re taking action from a place of being “It’s not possible to make money in today’s economy.”  This results in a lot of action, but little to show for it.

One of my clients believed that a spending plan would deprive her of freedom and that it would always be difficult to stick to.  Because of this she kept coming up with “justifiable excuses” for putting off creating her spending plan.

How To Create a Financial Breakthrough

It was until we talked about who she was “being” in regards to her spending plan that she was able to see that sticking to her spending plan could actually provide her with the freedom she truly desired and give her the ability to make more conscious choices.  She had a phenomenal breakthrough and was instantly motivated into action.

If you’re taking financial action, but not getting the results you desire in your life.  Take a moment to reflect on “who you are being” in regards to money.  It is by looking at who you’re being that you can transform yourself from being the mouse on the proverbial hamster wheel into taking action from a place of inspiration, ease and effortlessness.

Click here to sign up for my FREE webinar onWednesday  March 31st, “Personal Transformation Through Money: How to Consciously Achieve Your Money Goals And Create Financial Success in Your Life.”

The trail contoured a steep hillside.  I soon found myself at my familiar perch—a rock outcropping that overlooked the valley below.  I’ve looked upon this view countless times, but something struck me on this particular evening as I witnessed the lights coming on inside the houses below and the cars traveling on distant roads.

A passage from Deepak Chopra’s book, The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire, came to my mind. It reads:

“At a deeper level, there really is no boundary between selves and everything else in the world.  When you touch an object, it feels solid, as though there is a distinct boundary between it and you.  Physicists would say that we experience that boundary as solid because everything is made up of atoms.  The solidity is the sense of atoms bumping up against atoms.  But consider what an atom is.  An atom has a little nucleus with a large cloud of electrons around it.  There is no rigid outer shell, just an electron cloud.  To visualize this, imagine a peanut in the middle of a football stadium.  The peanut represents the nucleus, and the stadium represents the size of the electron cloud around the nucleus.  When we touch an object, we perceive solidity when the clouds of electrons meet.  However there is no solidity.  Is there solidity when two clouds meet?  No.  They meld and separate.  Something similar happens whenever you touch another object.  Your energy fields (and electron clouds) meet, small portions meld and then you separate…We can see how connected we are to everything else in the physical world.”

And these words came to me: “Even though it seems we’re miles apart we are connected by our beating hearts.”

It’s easy to go about our days focusing on ourselves without recognizing our connection with others. We forget that the clerk at the grocery store is a REAL person.  We forget that the people driving their cars are REAL people (especially when they cut us off in traffic!).  We even fail to experience real connection with the intimate people in our lives, because that person is “just our brother” or “just our mother.”  We assume we know who they are and how they act in all circumstances.  When we don’t like what we see in others we have a tendency to write them off.  When we do this we no longer experience a real connection with them.  However, whether or not we experience our connection with them doesn’t change the fact that we are all most intimately connected.

My grandma died over a year ago at the beautiful spry age of 101.  At her funeral many of the staff from the rest home approached my father to express how much his mother had meant to them.  They were touched by my grandma’s sincere interest in their personal lives. They were touched by her presence.  My dad on the other hand had a very different experience of his mother as he was growing up.  He experienced her as someone who was extremely controlling, and he always interacted with her in a defensive manner. As a result, he never experienced a true connection with her.  But that didn’t change the fact that he was connected to her.

When we think about building wealth in our lives, the first thing we tend to focus on is how we can create more money.  But we can’t overlook the simple but profound wealth in our connections with people in our lives.

We are profoundly and deeply connected with one another – whether we personally experience this connection or not.  To experience our deep connection with others is one of the most special forms of wealth that life has to offer.  Wealth comes in all people, all forms, all shapes and all sizes.

Learn the art and science to building wealth and creating financial success…

Click here to sign up for my FREE webinar onWednesday  March 31st, “Personal Transformation Through Money: How to Consciously Achieve Your Money Goals And Create Financial Success in Your Life.”

This was an amazing time for both of us. We then honeymooned in New Zealand and had some wonderful adventures that still cause me to laugh and fill me with joy when I think about them.

Eight months later, when we came home, I remember walking back to the house after collecting the afternoon mail. I started flipping through the envelopes. I saw a credit card statement, another credit card statement and our bank statements. It was in that moment that I felt a deep tension in the pit of my stomach.

I realized that even though I had married the man that I absolutely loved and adored, I really didn’t have a clear sense of how he handled money and how the two of us were going to blend our different approaches to handling money in our marriage. I was very organized, detailed and more frugal with money. He was more of a laid-back free spirit type. I also knew that getting on the same financial page was a key factor in creating a successful marriage and financial future.

Going Out On a Limb

I asked my husband if he would be willing to set up a time each week to talk about our finances and develop a plan for getting rid of our credit card debt (we had acquired over $43,300 in credit card debt over a three year period). My husband said he would be willing to do this. He was skeptical—but willing.

We came to refer to our weekly meetings with each other as our Financial Dates®. After we would complete a Financial Date, both of us felt surprisingly uplifted and empowered.

As a result of having our Dates we completely paid off all of our credit card debt within two years, started funding our retirement accounts, quit arguing about money, gained a solid understanding of our cash flow and created a spending plan that both of us were motivated to stick to. That was just the tip of the iceberg. And you know what—those changes didn’t really surprise me that much.

What completely surprised me was the synergy that my husband and I experienced when working together to achieve our financial goals and dreams. We wouldn’t have experienced this in our relationship had we not come together with a unified goal of improving our finances as a team—not individually, but as a team. This added an entirely new dimension to our relationship. I began to think of these Financial Dates as our own holistic approach to money and marriage success.

“Leslie, It’s Imperative That You Share This with the World!”

I was sharing the details of one of our Financial Dates with my mentor coach at the time, and she stopped me in mid-sentence, and exclaimed, “Leslie, you have so much excitement and passion around this Financial Dating concept and it’s an amazing idea. You have got to share it with the world!”

So with her encouragement, I completed my training to become a professional certified coach so that I could teach this process to others. I received my credentials through Coach Training Alliance, which is accredited through the International Coaching Federation. I then began to teach our Financial Dating Process to other couples.

Financial Dating® Created Financial Success for Other Couples

I remember one particular call I received from a man on a cold Montana day. He sounded overwhelmed and frustrated. He said, “Leslie, I heard about you through a friend of mine and you sound exactly like the person that we’re looking for. I really want to talk to you about finances and how to make this work in our marriage.” I invited him to attend a Financial Dating class I was teaching.

After the class he walked me outside and said, “You are the person that we’ve been praying for. I walked out of the house last week and it was the worst fight that my wife and I had had, and I swore to her, I promised her that I would find somebody who could help us, and you’re that person.”

I put together a Financial Dating class and he got together several other couples and I started teaching them how to have Financial Dates. One year later he shared with me that for the first time in 14 years he and his wife had finally put a clamp on the internal hemorrhaging in their finances. They willingly changed their destructive money behaviors, stopped charging to their credit cards, paid off $13,779 of debt, put $4,879 into an emergency savings account and saved over $51,200 in interest by transferring a personal loan. He also shared that he felt significantly closer to his wife. If they could do it, you can too.

Living a Fulfilling Life that’s in Alignment with Our Deeply Held Values

I have come to realize that successful money management is so much more than just paying off debt, buying a new home and stashing more money away in our retirement accounts. True financial success is about living a life that is in alignment with our most cherished values. It’s easy to say that we value our health, marriage, children, friends and family. But when we step back and look at how we spend our time and money, we’ll see that we often don’t spend it on the things that are most important to us. There’s nothing like money to easily pull us off track.

We have to stop and define what financial success means to us. I believe that true financial success is about having a life that is filled with life enriching experiences and time for the relationships that really matter. That means slowing down and not working so hard. Financial success is about the lives we touch and the lasting memories we make. It’s about spending less, giving more and living more.

Discover how you’re creating your current financial situation with your spouse…

Click here to sign up for my FREE webinar onWednesday  March 31st, “Personal Transformation Through Money: How to Consciously Achieve Your Money Goals And Create Financial Success in Your Life.”

Stone then goes on to explain:

“That means you don’t take 100% responsibility for your life.  Taking 100% responsibility means you acknowledge that you create everything that happens to you.  It means you understand that you are the cause of all your experience.  If you want to be really successful, then you will have to give up blaming and complaining and take total responsibility for your life – that means all your results, both your successes and your failures.  That is the prerequisite for creating a life of success.  It is only by acknowledging that you have created everything up until now that you can take charge of creating the future you want.”

It’s a simple concept, to refrain from blaming and complaining, and yet it’s a challenge to change a habit, especially one that everyone else has.  Like sticking to your diet, when everyone else around you is enjoying chocolate cake.  It requires you to resist the impulses, tendencies, and trends that don’t really get you where you want to go. Keep reading and you’ll find out how this relates to your marriage and finances.  Then I’ll share some action steps to help you become 100% responsible for your life.

Three ways we avoid taking responsibility- especially when it comes to money and marriage

1.  We make excuses

Anytime we make an excuse we’re not accepting complete responsibility for our lives.  We say things like: That’s just the way it is,  I can’t… and I’m just not good with…

And when it comes to our money and marriage:

“My partner never listens to what I have to say, and spends money however he wants, and that’s just the way it is.”

“I just can’t make enough money to support my family, so my partner has to make enough to cover our family expenses, and that’s just the way it is.”

“I’m not good with money, so I just let my partner handle it.”

2. We blame and complain

We blame our spouses for our financial and relationship challenges.  We complain about their spending habits and behaviors, that they’re untrustworthy, or too controlling. While we may be speaking some truth, blaming our partner implies that we are powerless to change our circumstances, and so it gives us permission to do nothing.  I had one client who wisely told me, “I get so upset with the way my husband controls the checkbook- and I realize now why it’s easy  for me to just blame him, because then I don’t have to do anything about it.”

3. We make commitments and break them on a whim

Many people, who are thousands of dollars in debt, struggle with making impulse purchases that aren’t in alignment with their financial goals. Others spend time creating a budget only to blow it as soon as the desire comes over them to go shopping, or buy some “essential” purchase.  I call this the “I want what I want, when I want it” syndrome.

I recall the words of two husbands who attended one of my “Financial Dating” workshops:

“If I head out to the mall with my kids, I’ll easily blow $50, without giving it a second thought.  When it comes to my kids, I don’t always consider the big picture, like what my wife wants, what’s good for our family and how much we have in the bank.”

“I’ll write my budget, and calculate how much money I should spend in each category and yet, if something comes up in the moment, like say my wife wants to go out to dinner, I’ll do it, regardless of whether or not I’ve already spent what I budgeted for eating out.  If I want something, I’ll go out and get it, budget or no budget.”

Likely you recognize some parts of yourself in the comments above. Taking 100% responsibility means taking the road less traveled-it requires us to break the habitual patterns of excuse-making, blaming, complaining, and acting impulsively against our better judgment.

Despite the challenge, we can be light with ourselves about it, laugh at our tendencies, and still walk the difficult, but rewarding path of change. For now, I invite you to dive into the actions steps below, and enjoy the life of success that W. Clement Stone spoke of when he taught Jack Canfield about taking 100% responsibility.

Action Steps

1. 1. Track your excuses.  Write down or keep a mental note of when and how often you make excuses, complain, blame and do things impulsively, against your own better judgment.  Notice what you say to others, and what you tell yourself that keeps you from taking 100% responsibility.

1. 2. Create new habits. Make a point to interrupt the speech and actions that don’t support you.  Interrupt excuse-making, blaming and complaining, and replace them with “I statements” about how you feel.  Keep the focus on yourself – your feelings, your desires, your actions. Find ways to prevent impulse spending: use personal financial software like Quicken to track spending, so you can identify spending patterns that don’t support your top financial goals.

1. 3. Get support. Ask your spouse, family member or close friend to help you notice when you’re blaming or complaining.  Ask them for help sticking to your commitments and spending plan.  If you’re ready to move at quicker pace, consider one-on-one coaching.  Email me for more info.

Get on the same page and work as a winning financial team with your partner so you can peacefully talk about money, eliminate debt and create a solid financial plan to achieve your financial goals and build wealth.  Take the steps to transform your relationship with your spouse and money!

Discover how you’re creating your current financial situation with your spouse…

Click here to sign up for my FREE webinar onWednesday  March 31st, “Personal Transformation Through Money: How to Consciously Achieve Your Money Goals And Create Financial Success in Your Life.”

My answer was “yes!”

The following story explains the reasons for, “If I have no debt, why should I bother learning about financial success?”

The answer lies within three common financial mistakes:

1. Maintaining the Status Quo

The first mistake is maintaining the status quo.  We tend to do the same thing we’ve always done and complain when we get the same results.  Dan Kennedy, consultant to millionaires says the following about predicting personal income:

“In one years time I can tell you how much money you’ll have, if you’ll provide me with the following information:

1. The balance in your bank account today.
2. An analysis of how you spend your time in an average week.
3. A list of the books and recordings you’ve read and listened to in the last month.
4. Some information about the five people you hang out with most.

For 90% of the population the answer is “The same.” In one years time you will have the same amount of money that you have in your bank account today.

I share this story to inspire you.  Whether you have debt or not, do you want to do more than just maintain your current financial state?  If so, then it is important to take action and expose yourself to new ideas and concepts. Otherwise, why would you expect your financial situation to be any different one year from now?

2.  Inconsistent Actions

People falsely believe that if they’ve made one really good financial move that they’ve done enough.  For example, they open a retirement account and continue to invest the same amount year after year without re-evaluating, or they start an emergency savings account and put a small one-time lump sum of money in it.  I teach people that the secret to  making consistent progress lies in taking bite-size steps towards financial success.  Consistent action over time creates success.

Focus on Progress Not Perfection.  Regardless of your financial situation the important thing is to make consistent progress.  As long as you’re making progress then you are moving in the right direction.

3. Not Working as a Team

Whether you’re in a relationship or not, this concept holds true. You have to work as a team with your spouse.  Many couples believe their “systems” work fine.  I often hear, “Oh, we’re fine!  I pay the bills and my wife balances the checkbook.”

Well, I’m glad everything is just fine, I think to myself.  But how much of your system is based on mutual discussion and working together as a cohesive financial team?

If you aren’t working on your finances as a team, you’re missing out on a connecting and life-changing process.

For people not in a relationship this concept can also be applied on an individual level, are you working as a “team” with yourself?  Are you supportive, positive and taking consistent steps to improve your finances? Notice your internal mindset and belief systems.  Do you feel pessimistic or optimistic when it comes to improving your finances?  Remember, financial success begins within.

Discover how you can take control of your financial situation now…

Click here to sign up for my FREE webinar onWednesday  March 31st, “Personal Transformation Through Money: How to Consciously Achieve Your Money Goals And Create Financial Success in Your Life.”

I found myself incredibly freaked out when I arrived back home with my new husband.  I desperately wanted to discover wealth building secrets so that I could not only take practical financial steps but so I could attract wealth and money as well.

During the start up phase of my private coaching practice I decided to take up a side job of landscaping gardens (i.e., read between the lines — I had acquired a part-time job as professional weeder for my mother-in-law of all things!).  I would wake up in the morning and wonder if were even possible to have a successful career as a business owner and get out of the crazy debt mess that we had created.

And we did – but it didn’t happen over night. There were times when we felt like the proverbial fish out of water.  There were many times my husband and I felt discouraged and disheartened.

I see clients in my private practice with the familiar sense of overwhelm that I had experienced.  They feel stressed because they are burdened with student loans and credit card debt and back-taxes.  Others are living paycheck to paycheck with multiple overdrafts on their bank accounts.  Still others are searching for more meaning, purpose and direction in their lives as they embark on new careers.

Many people experience the voice of fear and doubt in their head – yet in spite of this, they persevere. After building a successful career and climbing out of credit card debt I now realize that a big part of my/our success was in “doing the inner work.”

In order to win in life we must be willing to do the inner work.  Success isn’t just about achieving a specific desired outcome.  It’s about shifting our mindsets so that we achieve our desired outcome.   This applies to any struggle or challenge that you’re having – not just the financial challenges.

In order to achieve your desired goal you need to:

1. Get determined. I see people all the time who lack determination. They talk the good talk but they really don’t want to take action and do something about their situation.  What they really want is to vent and complain.  And then there are others who have the burning drive and conviction and you just know that they’re going to “make it” in spite of the many obstacles they encounter.

It’s the inner drive that keeps them going when the going get tough, when the bills pile up, and there’s not enough money coming in.  It’s the inner determination that keeps them pushing until they’ve transformed their failures and struggles into successes.

2. Allow yourself to be a beginner. This is such a tough one for many of us.  When we’re learning a new behavior (like balancing our checkbooks, tracking how we spent money, creating a spending plan, having Financial Dates with our partners, getting rid of debt or embarking on a new career) we forget to allow ourselves to be a beginner.  We expect ourselves to do it perfectly and then act surprised and get discouraged when we fail.

You’ve got to be patient with yourself.  It’s like the metaphor of learning how to ride a bike for the first time.  It feels awkward at first.  Remember to be gentle – you’re not suppose to know what you’re doing!

You will fail at times.  And you know what?  That’s okay – Expect it! All you need to do is stay the course until your old limiting behaviors have developed into strong, powerful habits.

3. Have a faith. It’s okay to get discouraged from time to time, but in the end you must find a way to access faith and belief in your ability to turn your situation around. If you’re frustrated and depressed all you’ll see is a dismal, gray future.

If you’re able to shift your thinking from “I’m stuck and I’ll always be stuck,” to “Anything’s possible.  It’s happened for others and it can happened for me as well,” then you’ll access new insights and creative solutions that you couldn’t have seen from your negative state of mind.

If you do nothing else but implement these three inner success steps you will succeed eventually!  Because financial success really is an inside job.