BRUCE SELLERY: The meaning of money. I have long believed that insight trumps knowledge when it comes to getting a handle on your money. Understanding how you think and behave is so much more important than understanding the tax code. Besides, it’s more interesting, too. But uncovering the insights can be tough to do. Today we’re going to look at the facts of money and our interpretations about those facts. David Cunningham is a programme leader at Landmark Worldwide, a personal and professional growth training and development company. Hello David.
DAVID CUNNINGHAM: Hello Bruce.
BRUCE SELLERY: The meaning of money differs for everyone. Why is that?
DAVID CUNNINGHAM: Well Bruce, whenever you and I have a life experience, when something happens to us, whether we’re aware of it or not, in the next moment we have an interpretation of what happened. Simple example is, we’re talking to somebody and while we’re talking to them, they glance at their watch.
That’s what happens. They glance at their watch. We have an interpretation, something like, oh, they’re not interested in what I’m saying. For all of us growing up, we had many different things that happened with regard to money. And, when those events happened, we had interpretations of them. We interpreted them. We came up with stories about those events. And long after the events are over, as adults, we have a view of money. Money means something, and it’s an accumulation of all of those decisions, interpretations, stories we made up about money throughout the course of our lifetime in all those different events.
BRUCE SELLERY: And why does that matter? Like, how does that play out? Why are interpretations so important?
DAVID CUNNINGHAM: That matters in two really critical ways, Bruce. Number one, is what you and I think is possible. What people think is possible. It’s not given by the facts of their life, or the circumstances, but by their view of those circumstances. You know, I just ran a marathon recently, and in the marathon I ran next to a guy who had no legs. He was doing the whole marathon in a wheelchair. What did he prove to us? He proved that whether you have legs or not does not determine whether it’s possible to do a marathon. It’s your view of that circumstance. So with money, in particular, we have a view given by our interpretations that we’ve accumulated over the years. And it’s that view of money, not the money we have or don’t have. It’s the view of money that determines what we think is possible and not possible for us. That’s the first point.
Finish reading the entire interview at the Landmark Forum News website.