My Money Scripts

Little Kids, Chickens, and My Brain

From Ted Klontz

 

I went to a nursery school the other day with a friend to pick up her two-year old.  As we approached the classroom, I noticed the lights were out.  Looking in the window I could tell it was ‘quiet time’.  All the little ones were lying down on tiny mats, which were strategically placed around the room so as to provide enough distance so they couldn’t see each other and thus be able to rest.

I was sort of surprised when my friend opened the door, walked in and greeted her son.  Within minutes all the kids were up; talking, chatting, and moving around the room.  I was thinking that the children must not have wanted to be left out of the action.  They were coming up to the various adults in the room with innumerable requests to ‘have’ this, or ‘show’ that.

In that moment, the noise level from the kid’s behaviors of “look at me” and “notice me” reminded me of when, as a youngster, one of my jobs was to sleep with the chickens during the Greene County Fair.  My grandfather was the head of the poultry department and for the 6-day run of the fair one of my duties was to feed and water, what seemed to be a hundred chickens, twice a day.  The other duty was to try to sleep in the chicken barn, right amongst them, once the fair closed down for the night to make sure no one broke in and created any chaos. 

As I remember it, the chickens would finally get quiet shortly after the carnival rides finally closed down for the evening, which was at 1:00AM or so.  I would crawl onto my cot, and try to go to sleep.  It never failed that about 4:00AM there would always be one rooster that would start the day off by letting loose one long loud crow.  Hoping against hope, I would lie there and pray that the other chickens wouldn’t follow suit, but it never happened.  Within 10 minutes every chicken in the place was doing their ‘chicken thing’, so I would get up and begin watering and feeding them all the while wishing for more sleep.  Because once awake, there was no getting them to go quiet again. 

What do these two stories have to do with anything?  During these interesting economic times I have been frequently asked for my opinion on how things got to be this way.  So many people, doing so many self-destructive and self-defeating things financially.  What I have concluded is that the worse thing that we as human beings can imagine is to be left out.  So, if it seems that a number of our friends are doing something (buying a ‘hot’ stock, flipping houses, buying things they can’t afford with credit cards, etc.) and it seems to be working for them, like the little kids and the chickens we want to be a part of the ‘flock’, desperately not wanting to be forgotten.

40,000 years ago being banned, shunned or forgotten by the group would have meant certain death.  The more stress we experience (i.e. stress about not belonging or having a place to belong) the more this primitive part of our brain still operates as if this is true and dominates our thinking and our choices.

What Gets Fed

From Ted Klontz

This crossed my desk recently and I thought it would be a good idea to pass it on to our readers.  I know I needed to hear this type of thing again.  I would like to give credit to the author, but none was mentioned.

The story goes:

An elder Cherokee Native American was teaching his grandson about life.  One day he said to him: “I want you to know that a fight is going on inside of me.  It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves.”

“One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.  The other represents joy, peace, love hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth compassion and faith”.

The grandson said, “Grandfather, how terrible.”

Grandfather paused for a moment and then continued.  “I tell you this because I want you to understand that this same fight is going on inside you and every other person too.”

The grandson quickly asked “Grandfather, which one will win?”

Grandfather replied, “The one you feed”.

Redemption

From Ted Klontz

A friend called me from London and asked if I would consider presenting at a conference she was helping organize, called “Be the Change”.  She knew of our work and our book, “The Financial Wisdom of Ebenezer Scrooge” that uses Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” to explain our perspective of how to help people change their destructive financial behaviors.

After quite an extended and engaging conversation, she asked if it would be possible to make my points during the presentation without mentioning the name of Scrooge, our book, or the Christmas Carol metaphor.

Somewhat taken aback, I thought, “Here I will be in London, the home of Charles Dickens, the source of much of his work, and they don’t want me to mention him at all? What’s that all about?”

So, I asked why.  She said “The people who will be attending are very informed, caring, evolved, involved people”, and finished that statement with an adamant “We are not Scrooges!!!”

My response was, “I know you, and if the people who will be attending the conference are anything like you, you are all in fact, very much Scrooge like.”

 

After a very long silence, she responded with a measured coldness that I had not encountered before, “What do you mean?” 

I said “You are very much like Scrooge, the Scrooge at the end of the story.” 

Another long silence and she said “I never thought of Scrooge that way.”

I went on to say that I saw the story of Scrooge as one of redemption and one that gave great hope for all of us no matter how old we were and how fixed we were in our ways.

Her initial reaction to the story of Scrooge is actually very common.  For some reason, very few people consider Scrooge to be an enviable man, yet by the end of the story he has become as good a person as can be imagined.

The moral of this story for me?  Redemption.  I ask for people to judge me on how I am today, rather than judge me for how I might have been in the past; in other words asking them to give me the gift of redemption.  I too am frequently challenged to give that gift to others who have hurt or betrayed me.

Having It All

From Ted Klontz

I met a wonderful lady a few years ago who said she wanted to work with me.  After discussing the details, I asked what she was looking for.  She said, “Though I have all of the money anyone could ever imagine, it is all so meaningless, I have no friends and my children hate me.”  In the years since we have been working together, she continues to get little pieces of what she had been seeking in terms of quality connections to her family and friends.

I was reminded of this conversation during a recent visit to Corsica.  We were working with a couple there.  Their hillside home looks out over a spectacular 210 degree view of the Mediterranean and sland of Corsica.  There are million dollar views and then there are priceless views.  This was one of those priceless ones.  As we were talking late in the afternoon one day, the wife said “It is hard to believe that we have so much.  Look at this view, look at the house we get to live in, and yet we are so very unhappy, to the point where I feel sad when I see this, instead of happy”.

What these precious folks have taught me is that fame, wealth, gorgeous homes and views can never give me what matters most, quality relationships with my friends, and family.  I am grateful for that lesson, without having to pay the huge price others have had to pay to find these truths.  I am also reminded that lessons such as these are available if I pay attention. 

Financial Enabling

From Ted Klontz

I’m often asked what financial enabling looks like.  The most recent example I’ve run across occurred last week.  I had dinner the other night with a man I will call Martin; a man that I have known for more than a decade.  He asked me what was on the cutting edge of my work with money.  After my sharing that, Martin told me that what was on the cutting edge of his behaviors around money.

It seems that recently his 23 year old son was drunk once again and wrecked his car.  It was the fifth car he had wrecked.  It was the fifth car his dad had purchased for him.  Martin was trying to resist purchasing another car and was also feeling some pressure to buy a better house for his son, his son’s wife and their four children.

His son has been involved with alcohol and other drugs for nearly a decade going through a number of treatment centers.  His son and his family live in a small two bedroom home.  Now his unemployed son has nothing to drive, so that if he wanted to work he would have to walk, get a ride, ride a bicycle, etc.  Worse yet, Martin’s grandchildren and daughter-in-law are profoundly affected by his son’s choices over the years.

Martin has several million dollars that he has earned by working and investing wisely over the last 30 years.  On one hand Martin’s clear experience has been that when he has used his money in an attempt to bail out his son, every attempt to help has ended in a disaster, with each one being worse than before.  On the other hand Martin has the money to help his son and his family. 

Martin knows that bailing his son out yet again would probably not help in the long run and yet he struggles to make a decision.  Why is that?  Without knowing Martin better it would be hard to say for sure, but my experience tells me that very often there are significant levels of guilt and shame for not being a better parent throughout the years.  Unconsciously, money is used in an attempt to “make up for” these mistakes.  Money is used in an unsuccessful attempt to buy a sense of forgiveness and peace. Another source of the struggle is that Martin has more than he needs, making it very difficult not to help when he has so much. 

Martin’s past behavior is a perfect example of financial enabling.  Enabling always has unexpected and unintended consequences.  Though well-meaning, by financially supporting his son’s inappropriate behaviors Martin is actually reinforcing them.  By his behaviors, Martin is denying his grandchildren a father.  He is robbing his son of his self-worth. 

Birthday in Guatamala

From Ted

I recently returned from a trip to Guatemala where I had the opportunity to work with 30 wonderful Central American participants in a workshop that we sponsored there. We travel there several times a year and I always learn so much.

My connection to Guatemala began over a decade ago. As I was giving a presentation, a man raised his hand and asked if I would be willing to travel to Guatemala to conduct a program similar to the one he was attending in the United States. I said sure, knowing from experience that 99% of the time those types of requests never really materialize.

Little did I know that that request would result in a decades worth of regular yearly visits to this wonderful country. Over the years, hundreds of Guatemalans and other Central American participants have taken part in the “Learning to Love Yourself” workshops we have offered. We have trained a number of Guatemalans who this time, for the first time, brilliantly led the small groups that are the most important aspect of the workshop experience. It was a gratifying experience to watch these native people work so well with their own people. This trip completed a vision that I had the first time I worked in Guatemala, that the native Guatemalan’s would someday produce and run their own program, without people like me having to be a part of it.

When we travel to Guatemala, we are always treated incredibly well. It just so happened that the last day of this program was also my birthday. Somehow my hosts had found out, and as I was about to close the workshop, the doors burst open and in came a Mariachi Band. Suddenly everyone was on their feet and dancing, pulling me to the middle of the floor where we twirled, spun, line-danced, snake danced, and limbo-ed Latin American style. Forty minutes of joyous sweat and laughter later, the music ended. I’ve had a number of birthday celebrations in my live and this one was one I will never forget.

I keep learning that no matter where we come from or the conditions in which we live, we are all loving creatures. If given half a chance, we can and do share, willingly and openly, our love with others.

From Ted

I recently returned from a trip to Guatemala where I had the opportunity to work with 30 wonderful Central American participants in a workshop that we sponsored there. We travel there several times a year and I always learn so much.

My connection to Guatemala began over a decade ago. As I was giving a presentation, a man raised his hand and asked if I would be willing to travel to Guatemala to conduct a program similar to the one he was attending in the United States. I said sure, knowing from experience that 99% of the time those types of requests never really materialize.

Little did I know that that request would result in a decades worth of regular yearly visits to this wonderful country. Over the years, hundreds of Guatemalans and other Central American participants have taken part in the “Learning to Love Yourself” workshops we have offered. We have trained a number of Guatemalans who this time, for the first time, brilliantly led the small groups that are the most important aspect of the workshop experience. It was a gratifying experience to watch these native people work so well with their own people. This trip completed a vision that I had the first time I worked in Guatemala, that the native Guatemalan’s would someday produce and run their own program, without people like me having to be a part of it.

When we travel to Guatemala, we are always treated incredibly well. It just so happened that the last day of this program was also my birthday. Somehow my hosts had found out, and as I was about to close the workshop, the doors burst open and in came a Mariachi Band. Suddenly everyone was on their feet and dancing, pulling me to the middle of the floor where we twirled, spun, line-danced, snake danced, and limbo-ed Latin American style. Forty minutes of joyous sweat and laughter later, the music ended. I’ve had a number of birthday celebrations in my live and this one was one I will never forget.

I keep learning that no matter where we come from or the conditions in which we live, we are all loving creatures. If given half a chance, we can and do share, willingly and openly, our love with others.

Pronoia

From Ted

Pronoia. I recently ran across the term in a journal I was reading. It is a play on the word paranoia. As I read about pronoia’s premise, it made about as much sense to me as the premise of paranoia.

Paranoia is based on the belief that there are elements of the universe (people, institutions, corporations) that somehow conspire to make my life difficult. Pronoia, on the other hand, is based on the notion that forces in the universe are aligned to allow me a life of great comfort and meaning.

The concept of pronoia vs. paranoia suggests that it is simply my perception of what is happening that determines whether or not I come to the conclusion that the world is conspiring against me or for me. For example:

The rude, unfriendly, humorless airport security guard? Paranoia says “Why did he pick me out to do a further screen?” Pronoia says “Wow, the universe cares about my well-being so much that it has put this person into my life to protect me and allow me to travel safely so that I can continue to be a blessing to my friends and family.”

The loud mouth at the next table? Paranoia asks “What gives that jerk the right to spoil my dinner?” Pronoia says “This man was put before me at this moment in time by the universe to remind me of how it feels to others when I am acting that way.”

The 35 MPH driver in a 50 MPH speed zone? Paranoia says “Why does this always happen to me?” Pronoia says “The universe put this person in front of me so that I can avoid an accident that would happen if I were going faster.”

In his popular book, The Four Agreements, Jose Luis Ruiz suggests that we “take nothing personally.” That is good advice when I can do it. When I can’t help but take something personally, I try to practice pronoia.

The Gift of Amends

From Ted Klontz

I met an old client of mine the other day and he related the following story to me:

A number of years ago, I had suggested that he write a "forgiveness" letter. Though the directions were different than what he ended up doing, he wrote the letter to his ex-wife of 17 years. In the letter he offered a set of apologies for the things he did in the relationship that contributed to its failure. He simply listed his behaviors, without offering excuses or attempting to explain his behaviors.

When he showed me the letter he asked me what I thought he should do with it. I asked him what he wanted to do with it. He said that he thought he would like to send it to his ex-wife. Since he had re-married, I suggested that he let his current wife read it first and then respect her wishes if she felt uncomfortable with him sending it. To his surprise, his current wife was very supportive of him sending the letter.

One day several months later, his adult son said “Dad, I heard you sent mom a letter, why did you do that?” My client answered that he had sent the letter because he felt it was the right thing to do, not to cause trouble. His son told him that far from causing trouble, his mom said that for the first time in 26 years she finally felt free.

This simple (though not easy) act of making amends ended up making the lives of half a dozen people a little easier.

May we all have the courage to make amends.

Denial, It's Just Something We Do!

Sometimes I get in trouble when I don't see what is really happening around me; when I don't see and acknowledge what is right before my eyes. When I finally do see it, usually after suffering a significant amount of pain, I spend a lot of time and energy asking myself mostly unhelpful critical questions like, "Why am I so blind", "How could I have missed that", even calling myself names like "Stupid", etc.

Have you ever done that?

I learned something recently that helped me give myself, and others, a bit of a break from this critical self-talk. I recently went to my ophthalmologist to check out a 'floater' that suddenly appeared in one of my eyes. My floater was a black hairy looking thing that I could see when I looked up from reading. It seemed to be about a half inch long, and looked like an inverted eyelash.

When I went to the eye doctor he said, "Yep, I can see what you are talking about". He went on to say, "After a few weeks you won't notice it anymore".

I asked, "You mean it goes away?"

He said "No, it doesn't go away, it will always be there, it is just that after a while your brain will just choose to not see it any more".

I was stunned.

I walked out of his office realizing for the first time, that denial is a normal human function. It was as if my brain was having a conversation with itself that went something like this. "Well there it is (the floater), there is nothing I can do to change it, it doesn't seem to be hurting anything, so I will just choose to pretend it isn't there".

Then I thought to myself, if my brain makes decisions to do that with something like a floater, I guess I shouldn't judge myself so harshly for automatically using the same coping mechanism in other aspects of my life.

Spirituality, Lakota Style

From Ted Klontz

After a presentation I gave in South Dakota a number of years ago, a Native American man came up to me and said rather bluntly: “You have trouble with this spirituality thing don’t you?”  I answered that in fact I did have trouble with it.  He said: “Let me show you how we view spirituality.”  He then took both my hands into his and said: “Can you feel my hands?”  “Sure,” I replied.  He then removed his hands from mine.  He asked if I could feel the difference between when he held my hands and when he didn’t.  I told him that I could.  He replied: “That is what Spirituality is to us.  When we sense the connection between ourselves and any other part of creation we know that we are in a spiritual moment, and, in fact, we are a spiritual being.”

After being raised within a shaming and often abusive religiosity, and as a result having found myself often turning away from religion, this moment represented an earth shattering shift for me.  There are many times now when I feel connected to a source greater than me; when I walk, as I talk to a friend or family member, as I work, I am often aware of feeling “connected,” realizing I am a spiritual being immersed in a spiritual moment.