Money: the 5 reasons why people don’t have enough

Transcript of the video

Modified slightly for readability (the way I speak is somewhat less formal than the way I write!)

Hi, I'm Jeremy Lazarus. I'd like to talk to you about money or, more specifically, the five reasons why people don't have as much money as they would like. 

What qualifies for me to talk about this?

Since 1999 I've been a business coach and an NLP trainer, and prior to that I spent 18 years in the world of finance. I'm a qualified accountant, qualified corporate treasurer and I was a finance director; so I know a bit about money and a bit about people. So let's look at the five reasons why people may not have as much money as they would like. 

The first reason is that it's just not important enough to them. 
They may think it's important to them but deep down is just not important enough to them. Now if that's the case, one of the things that you could do is to make a list of 10, 20, 50, 100, 200 reasons why it would be useful for you and other people for you to make money. So make a list of the reasons to have money. 

The second reason is what I call 'negative emotions'. 
It could be fear, it could be sadness, it could be guilt. So it could be the fear of having money; the fear of not having money; the guilt of of having money (for some people, if they have money they feel guilty about it). 

The third reason is limiting beliefs in other words the beliefs we have about money and what it represents. 
Beliefs such as, 'I don't deserve money', 'people from my background don't make money', 'I'm just a poor boy or poor girl,' or 'someone from my background doesn't make money', or 'money is the root of all evil', or 'money's bad'. Those kind of limiting beliefs which can prevent you from actually making money or, if you make it, you don't keep it.

The fourth reason is a lack of awareness about how money works. 
A lack of awareness of how to have to use the money you've got; how to save it, how to invest it, how to avoid bad debt. For example credit cards; spending money on credit cards on things you can't afford or things that have got zero value or just disappear very quickly, like going on a holiday. You have a holiday, spend a thousand pounds on your credit card, you come back, you've got nothing to show for it. Possibly a few photographs; are those photographs worth a thousand pounds? Probably not. So the fourth point then is a lack of awareness about money; how it works; how to invest it; how to save it and the ways to spend money.

The fifth reason is a lack of knowledge about how to make sufficient money in your work or your business. 
All things being equal, if you want to make money and be more wealthy, it helps if you earn money. So then you've got money to invest and use wisely. 

So I've mentioned these five areas, the question is what can you do about them? 

For the first point I mentioned (motivation), just make a list of reasons why money is so useful for you.

In terms of negative emotions (point 2) and limiting beliefs (point 3), make a list of the limiting beliefs or the negative emotions. Make a list of several counter factors. So for example, if you think that you that money is bad, make a list of at least three if not five, ten, fifteen, twenty reasons why money is a good thing for you to have. If you think that people from your background don't deserve to have financial wealth, make a list of people from your background who have done really well and make money, and reasons why you do deserve to have that despite your background; so find the counter examples or the contradictions. 

In terms of the fourth point, regarding knowing how money works and understanding how to save, how to invest, how to spend it and how not to spend it - educate yourself. Either read books, go on courses, or speak to people who are really good with money. Quite frankly, just educate yourself! There are lots of good books out there (you can download a list of resources below). 

The fifth point about not knowing how to make as much money as you can from either your work or your business. Again it's about education. If you're employed, find out what you need to do to progress in your organisation, and take action to do that. It will probably mean doing some kind of course or reading or getting a qualification of some kind. If you run your own business, it might be that you need to get even better at providing the service you provide, or learn how to market yourself even more effectively. Whatever it takes, learn what you need to earn more money from your career, your job or your business so you have more money to invest. 

Click here if you would like to find out more about The Money Power Programme.