“I’ve been thinking about our work together and it’s caused me to explore my yeses and no’s around money.

What instantly comes to mind for me is my ‘unfriendly no’ in regards to money.  My unfriendly no doesn’t give me any choices.  My unfriendly no says ‘no’ to creating a spending plan – or a budget.  My unfriendly no says that a spending plan will strangle me – that sticking to a spending plan means I’ll have to deprive myself for the rest of my life and say ‘no, no, no, no’ to everything.

The Unfriendly and Resentful “No”

My unfriendly no makes me feel deprived, angry and resentful.  It falsely leads me to believe that I must resign myself to living a life of lack, that I can’t ever do anything fun. My unfriendly no is controlling and tells me that my life is going to be filled with misery and I’ll never have enough money.  And because life is destined to be so miserable, and this is as good as it gets, why not splurge and live it up a little and have some fun?

My unfriendly no is a very intimate friend to my ‘unfriendly yes’ that says ‘yes’ to everything.  I do this because I feel so bad that I’ve said ‘no’ and denied myself for the past several days (or hours) to myself or to my children.”

At this point Nancy paused, took a deep breath, and then went on to excitedly share:

The Supportive and Friendly “Yes”

“I’m experiencing a huge breakthrough around what a friendly yes is like.  My friendly yes says that working a spending plan can create freedom for me.  My friendly yes reassures me that a spending plan doesn’t have to be difficult and painful.  It lets me know that it’s okay to buy clothes and necessities for my children and me. My friendly yes says ‘yes’ to life, and ‘yes’ to the unlimited possibilities of what I want to create, be and do. It gives me freedom!  And my friendly yes also has a close friend as well.  It is a close friend to my friendly no.

My friendly no is filled with choice, compassion and understanding.  It says, ‘Let’s say no to this, but let’s say yes to these other things.’ My friendly no empowers me with the opportunity to make wise money choices so that I can experience true freedom.  A friendly no can gently guide me and provide me with hope and security.

What I now realize is that I can choose to use my friendly yes and no in each moment.  My friendly yes and friendly no support me in saying ‘yes’ to life.  They are here to guide me to true freedom and the truest enjoyment of my money!”

* Names have been changed in this story

Your 1-Minute Action Step

Write down your responses to the following questions:

1. What are the images and thoughts that come up for you when you think of saying “no” in regards to money or financial decisions?
2. What are the images and thoughts that come up for you when you think of saying “yes” in regards to money or financial decisions?
3. What are the internal conversations that come up around your unfriendly yes and unfriendly no?
4. What are the internal conversations that come up around your friendly yes and friendly no?
5. How might you become more empowered around managing money if you respond with your friendly yes and friendly no?

Train yourself to recognize when you respond with your unfriendly yes and no and choose a friendly yes or no instead.

Learn how to create a positive relationship with money so that you take the financial action you need to take 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.”

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.”

It’s amazing to recall all the struggles I used to experience around money.  One of my biggest challenges was my overall lack of knowledge about finances—I felt completely inadequate and money management seemed very complicated… Something other people were capable of succeeding at but not me.

I believed that I would never be successful at balancing the constant onslaught of money demands and needs for our large family (my husband and I have four girls).

I was afraid that if I took an honest look at our family’s expenses in relation to our income, I would feel like we had nothing to hang our hats on.  I also experienced a lot of resentment.  I blamed my financial inadequacies on my girls—my excuse was that I was too busy taking care of them to sit down and create a budget.

I also blamed my husband for not making more and managing better.  I resented that he made the majority of the money decisions in our family.”

Through our work with Leslie I realized that the reason my husband had more say with our finances was because I gave him more say. He made the money decisions because I wasn’t willing to step up and assume more responsibility! And yet I was secretly afraid that if I assumed more financial responsibility our situation would get worse and I would feel overburdened.

I experienced a breakthrough when through Leslie’s coaching and support I realized that I actually suffered more when I didn’t step up and assume financial responsibility.   Ironically, when I started taking on more responsibility around money I felt lighter, freer, and more empowered.

The Financial Freedom Light at the End of the Tunnel

Working with Leslie has brought me the confidence and peace around money that I never knew I could have. Learning to create a spending plan was especially empowering for me.  A spending plan gives us the flexibility to decide how we’re going to spend our money each month based on our needs and wants for a given month.

Instead of being locked into a budget that remains the same month after month, we decide each month exactly how we spend our money.  We base our decisions on our past month’s spending (which we track closely, looking at how much we spend in each area of our lives).

Creating our Financial Headquarters

One of the actions we took that made the biggest impact on our lives was creating what Leslie refers to as our ‘financial headquarters.’ We now have a specific place we keep our mail, our bills, our ‘bill pay calendar’ (which lists all our bill due dates) as well as an organizer that contains all the necessary items for paying bills like stamps, staplers, envelopes, pens and post-it notes.

During the week I open the day’s mail and sort it in the proper place, making sure the bill due dates are recorded correctly on our bill pay calendar. I recycle the day’s junk mail. Every week my husband and I sit down together and look at our bill-pay calendar to see what bills we need to pay.  We have truly created order out of chaos.

I used to equate spending money with love.  I thought that if I began to take control of my finances and reign in my spending habits I would be withholding love and freedom from my girls, our family, and myself.  But much to my surprise I discovered that love is really about being more conscious about my money decisions.

I realized that I’m not being loving when I randomly purchase things and don’t have a clear sense of how much I’m spending and what impact it will have.  I’ve learned I can say “no” from a loving and supportive space.  Saying “no” to an unplanned dinner out means that I get to say yes to something else that is more meaningful to me – like paying down our debt.

Creating a Break Through With Money

This work has been an amazing transformational process for me.  Just this last Christmas my teenage daughter told me that this had been one of the best Christmas’s ever.  Instead of fighting over money, my husband and I had a clear plan for our spending and were working together as a financial team.

Our commitment to our financial journey and working with Leslie has not only resulted in us getting rid of over $3,000 in debt but it has improved our relationship.  And because of that my husband and I are able to be role models of true financial responsibility for our girls.  I can’t imagine a better legacy to pass on to our children.

. Click here to sign up for my FREE webinar onWed.,  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.”

“I can’t begin to tell you how frustrating it’s been having a partner who says, ‘yes, yes, yes’ and then doesn’t come through!  My husband just won’t do his financial homework.  I’ve loved and encouraged him when he chooses positive financial behaviors but somehow it’s still too scary or hard for him to own his part. It doesn’t matter how much I encourage, cheerlead, or try to convince him otherwise.   He says he’ll work on his finances but then he doesn’t follow through. WHAT DO I DO WITH THIS?”

A client sent this email to me. I completely understood her frustration and overwhelm.  Unfortunately her situation isn’t unique.  This is a common complaint that I hear from couples.

Get curious about your reactivity

“NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”—this is usually our first reaction when we experience marriage conflict and money problems and our partner does something that we don’t like.  And when it’s in the financial arena it can drive us absolutely bonkers because it’s so directly tied to our survival fears.  Our reactive reptilian brain kicks in producing fearful thoughts like, “I’m all alone with this—he doesn’t care,” “He’s going to put me in the poor house” and “If it wasn’t for me we’d be totally broke.”

So we defer to our control tactics.  We resort to our learned behaviors that supported us in getting what we wanted in the past.  We cheerlead, “Come on honey–I know you can do it.  I sincerely believe in you.  You’ve got what it takes.” Or we get angry,  “I can’t stand it anymore. You are so inept.”  Or we rationalize, “He’s just like this because his parents were like this.”

In the area of finances the greatest challenge is to resist the urge to point our fingers at our partners and take the opportunity to do our own personal work.

Stress equals opportunity

In the book, Loving What Is, Byron Katie says: “Every stressful moment you experience is a gift that points you to your own freedom.”  If you feel reactive it’s a sure sign that you’re being given the opportunity to look inward, investigate, grow and learn something new about yourself.  This is actually the secret to transforming yourself and your situation.  It actually isn’t about getting your partner or situation to change. As long as we believe that it is about our partner we will continue to stay stuck.  And yet ironically, when we focus on our inner healing, our relationships and challenging life situations “miraculously” transform.

Most of our reactivity comes from our inner resistance to having a relationship with what is.  Something happens and in a split second our minds spin out of control and add stories that we instantly and mistakenly take on as being “the truth.”  Most of us have gotten so good at telling stories that we’re no longer able to separate fact from fiction.

My mentor, Jim Bergquist, shared a situation about a boss that he had worked for in the past.  Several times a week his boss would go into an emotional tirade after reading the daily paper.  His boss would stomp into the office and yell his frustrations at one of the employees–usually Jim.  Jim would think: “This guy is a lunatic!” “What is wrong with him?”  “How come he doesn’t like me?”   After many painful episodes with his boss, Jim made the decision to stay completely present the next time his boss yelled at him.  Jim also made the commitment to drop his internal story and judgments about his boss.  After a few days the opportunity presented itself.  This time, as his boss was yelling, Jim stayed completely present to the experience.  He noticed that his boss had a gold crown on one of his back teeth.  He saw a vein with a bluish tint popping out on the right side of his forehead.  He observed the spit as it came flying out of his boss’s mouth.  Then all of a sudden his boss stopped in mid-sentence, looked at Jim, turned around and walked into his office—he never yelled at Jim or anyone else again.

Having a relationship with What Is

When Jim was able to be completely present with what is, without resistance to his situation and without adding any additional stories, assessments or judgments, Jim experienced an internal transformation.  This in turn supported his boss in being present, which gave his boss sudden access and insight into how ridiculous he was being.

My client who emailed me was able to notice her internal story about the way she felt her husband “should be showing up with finances.”  She also knew that what she wanted most was for her husband to speak his truth.  The two of them engaged in a conversation where they shared openly and honestly with each other.  Her husband shared the ways in which he genuinely wanted to be involved with the family finances  and the ways in which he did not.  And together they created a new way to work on the family finances that resonated for both of them.

Whenever we experience reactivity to the people or situations in our lives, we are being given the golden opportunity to look inward–instead of outward.  It is through our own personal exploration and transformation that our life situations and relationships magically transform as well.