How to Trust Yourself with Money

In business, trust is key. 

Last week, I heard a speaker talking about how the simplest acts teach people they can trust us, even if they don’t know us very well. 

They see that when we say we’ll show up at 10, we follow through. 

They see that when we say we’ll send a connection email, we follow through. 

They start to believe when we say we’ll provide excellent service, we will follow through.

It got me thinking about how when it comes to money, most of us don’t trust ourselves. 

We said we were going to save for an emergency fund last year, but we’re still squeaking by month to month. 

We said we were going to pay off all the credit cards, but the balances keep growing. 

We keep all of these examples in the back of our minds to remind us we can’t be trusted with money.

Some people do this to learn to trust themselves with money:

Wake up one morning, commit to follow Dave Ramsey or go all-in on Profit First, and turn things around with that guidance from afar. 

You know who these people are, because they are the rare birds who are actually confident in their financial situation and aren't ashamed to tell you about it. These people are proud of themselves, and they should be! They have successfully learned to manage money.

But I think three important points are lost in that story: 

1.Managing money is a skill that needs to be learned. 

Yes, it can be learned from Googling, or listening to podcasts, or following a DIY program that has helped lots of people. However…

2. It doesn’t need to be self-taught. 

The idea that business ownership means you have to be a jack-of-all-trades and figure everything out for yourself is bananas. There are lots of reasons these self-study methods might not work for you, and it's NOT because you’re lazy, stupid, or just not cut out to be a money person. So remember…

3. These methods work for some people, but they don’t work for most people! 

Most people need to learn in a way that’s really personalized and has someone other than you holding yourself accountable. That’s hard because it means you have to let someone in to see your mess and help you clean it up, but having support makes all the difference

So back to the trust thing. As business owners, we think we need to keep the money struggle under wraps, because: 

Who would trust that I’m good at [my thing] if I’m not also good at money?

Does that sound right? 

If it does, I’d like to offer a different perspective:

People trust you when you trust yourself. 

If you want to learn how to trust yourself with money, you just might need some outside help, and there’s nothing wrong with that.