1. Inform and educate you about how the psychological aspects of money influence financial, relationship and life success.

2. Empower your attitudes, beliefs, expectations, feelings and goals with money, relationships and life.

Think About The Kinds Of Behaviors Driven By Money:

  • people marry for money
  • people break up relationships for money
  • people lie, cheat, steal and kill over money
  • people sell themselves out for money
  • people worry endlessly about money
  • people base their self-esteem on money… and the list goes on.

"It's important to realize money itself is not the culprit. Money itself is neutral; it's just little pieces of paper or plastic. The true culprit—the source of our money issues— is what money represents in our minds" .

Prosperity Thinking Vs. Poverty Thinking

There are two phrases that are fundamental to learning how to change our attitudes, beliefs, expectations and goals with money:
1. Prosperity Thinking
2. Poverty Thinking

Prosperity Thinking is a trusting attitude that things will work out. Prosperity Thinking means aligning your beliefs, attitudes, expectations and goals toward realistic levels of abundance, optimism, and self-confidence. It increases financial and personal self-esteem and success. Prosperity Thinking is not necessarily about being rich— it's more about being confident, optimistic and comfortable with our ability to generate and manage money.

In contrast, Poverty Thinking is a limited state of thinking rooted in fear and mistrust. It closes down possibilities and opportunities and frequently leaves us feeling that things will not work out. It is characterized by discomfort, worry and a more passive relationship with money. It diminishes our financial and personal self-esteem and our confidence about earning, handling and nurturing money. Poverty Thinking is not necessarily about being financially deprived—there are plenty of wealthy people who are miserly or who worry constantly about losing their money.

The things we dialogue with ourselves about throughout the day--thoughts, daydreams, fantasies and feelings--and even the dreams we have at night either represent Prosperity Thinking, Poverty Thinking or a combination of both. In 1982, Dr. Gottfurcht developed The Psychology of Money Profile to measure 10 psychological money skills and exercises to help enhance people's financial success. For every skill, people fall into one of three categories: Prosperity Thinking, Poverty Thinking or a combination of both.

One of the skills is Planning which is based upon what we call psychological financial planning:
- Organizing your most important beliefs, passions and values into an evolving vision of your desired lifestyle.
- Designing a congruent and feedback-based set of action steps leading from your starting point to vision fulfillment.

The Five Key Phrases Are:

1. Evolving Vision is a process that develops over time in which you have a vivid and definable set of ideas of what you want to accomplish.
2. Desired Lifestyle means you have the personal and financial freedom to truly enjoy and be satisfied with your life quality.
3. Designing is when you proactively create, organize and arrange the ideas and methods to fulfill your vision.
4. Congruent means your action steps are consistent and true to yourself.
5. Feedback-Based is when you change your behavior and/or vision depending upon what you learn from

To learn how Dr. Gottfurcht used The Psychology of Money Profile to help a certified financial planner to succeed with a client, read Laura's Case.

Prosperity Thinking Cannot Overcome Everything

We are all influenced by the Prosperity and Poverty Thinking messages others send as well as by the messages we send ourselves. When these messages are realistically aligned with Prosperity Thinking, we have a much greater likelihood of creating successful results. We say realistically aligned because our beliefs and feelings cannot overcome certain physical limitations. For example, when Dr. Gottfurcht was a teenager (before he developed more realistic expectations), he had a fantasy to box Mohammed Ali for the heavyweight championship. Despite all the Prosperity Thinking that Dr. Gottfurcht could have mustered, he never would have defeated Ali. Ali was truly a superior physical specimen and was professionally trained and highly experienced. And in this corner, the challenger had never even participated in a boxing match. Ali was an incredible Prosperity Thinker, too. He made the saying, I am the greatest, famous around the world. So even if Dr. Gottfurcht had been successful at psyching himself into a prosperous state of mind about defeating Ali, he knew Ali was one of the best Prosperity Thinkers of all time. With these realizations, Dr. Gottfurcht quickly surrendered his boxing fantasy. Moral of story: Choose goals that are realistic and then apply your Prosperity Thinking to attain them.

Poverty Thinking Can Sabotage Success In Powerful Ways

We know a woman who borrowed her husband's new Cadillac to do some errands. The car had four expensive white wall tires. Her husband had just gotten one of the tires replaced for several hundred dollars. He warned his wife, Don't damage the tire. He looked her in the eye and said, Don't hurt that tire! The wife was a nervous wreck driving around town in heavy traffic all day. She finally arrived at home with the car in pristine condition. Then, all of a sudden, a loud noise rang out. She hit a pipe protruding several inches from the house. The right front tire popped like a balloon hitting a sewing needle. She created the perfect scenario to puncture the right front tire which her husband had warned her about while the rest of the car remained untouched. What he didn't realize is that the subconscious mind usually ignores negative messages such as don't. By telling her Don't damage the tire, he had inadvertently programmed her to damage the tire. And she obliged, in spades!

Prosperity Thinking Can Manifest Almost Everything Else

We all have heard of inspiring stories of heroes who have overcome incredible adversity in order to succeed. Sports history is filled with them. How about the 1980 U.S. hockey team, The Miracle on Ice, that upset the Russian team for a Gold medal? Or Lance Armstrong's long journey back from cancer to win the 2,290 mile Tour de France seven times—an all-time record?

Some of you may be familiar with the story of a struggling comedian and actor whose parents had been laid off their jobs. Things became so tough financially that his family stayed together by living out of their van while they all took jobs as janitors. This man had unstoppable Prosperity Thinking. Eventually, he took the risk and came to Hollywood to try to make it as an actor. He kept rehearsing his material, facial expressions, gestures, and overall delivery. He would drive up to the top of Mulholland Drive late at night to practice. He pretended the city lights below were his audience. He continued practicing until he felt his delivery was just right. He even imagined great applause afterwards. Sometimes, he wouldn't leave until three or four in the morning. He committed one more daring act of Prosperity Thinking. He wrote himself a check for 10 million dollars for acting services rendered and dated it several years into the future. Despite many adversities, he sustained his Prosperity Thinking. He devoted so much time and energy to becoming a successful actor that he actually achieved a couple of box office successes. Finally as the date was approaching on the 10 million dollar check he wrote to himself, he actually signed a 20 million dollar contract for his next movie! As you may recall, Jim Carrey is the man who manifested this incredible self-fulfilling prophecy.

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distraction, mishaps occur when people are having negative or stressful thoughts or feelings. Those are examples of a Poverty Thinking self-fulfilling prophecy. In reverse, have you observed when you are in a groove or zone of self-confidence, how natural and effortless it is to perform well and how rarely you will have an accident? This is an example of a Prosperity Thinking self-fulfilling prophecy. Remember, at every moment, whether you are self-aware or not, you are programming yourself toward prosperous or impoverished outcomes.

Overcoming Poverty Thinking

The next time you catch yourself in a Poverty Thinking dialogue, identify it as such. Realize its detrimental effects, and make an effort to reframe your thinking or feeling onto a prosperous aspect of the situation. For example, if you are dwelling on a mistake you made, try to find something favorable from it. Perhaps the mistake taught you a valuable lesson or prevented you from making a more serious mistake. Focus on appreciating the benefits produced by the mistake. We know a woman who inherited one hundred thousand dollars from her mother. Shortly thereafter, she received a cold call from an out of state sales rep who strongly recommended a biotech stock. It was in final clinical trials for a cure for the common cold. She was so taken with the story and afraid to ask questions that she invested all of her money in it. The clinical trials failed, and the company went bankrupt!

Rather than focusing on her financial storm, she found a silver lining (i.e. Prosperity Thinking) in the clouds. She became motivated to learn from and overcome her setback. She decided to find a coach. She was taught how to investigate before you invest. This meant doing thorough research and due diligence. Next, she saw a certified financial planner who taught her how to understand risk tolerance, diversification and asset allocation. Her efforts paid off a year later when she inherited two million dollars after losing her father. This time, because she had refocused away from Poverty Thinking and redirected her energy to Prosperity Thinking, she knew how to invest the money.

Feel free to e-mail us with any questions or comments at psychmoney@aol.com.

We will answer one e-mail question in each Newsletter. Since we may not have time to respond to all inquires personally, we will try to address additional questions in future Newsletters.

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For further information about Psychology of Money Consultants and our proprietary tools for private coaching or for financial advisors, please consult our website at pyschologyofmoney.com, e-mail to psychmoney@aol.com, call 310-828-1818 or write to 11980 San Vicente Blvd., Suite 900, Los Angeles, CA 90049.

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By James Gottfurcht, Ph. D., President of Psychology of Money Consultants; money, relationship and life coach; wealth consultant; keynote speaker and clinical psychologist (PSY 4861), and Zoreh Gottfurcht, senior consultant for Psychology of Money Consultants and business, professional and personal development coach.

 © 2007 Psychology of Money Consultants. All rights reserved.