Review: The Financial Mindset Fix
I read many books about money management and building wealth.
This is the FIRST book that approaches money manage HOLISTICALLY. If that sounds too hokey for you – do you imagine me with my crystals and candles – give it a chance. This year I see my money personality involves more than a combination of knowledge and application, but how I view my self-worth.
Even as a child of God, I’ve lived with a scarcity mindset. I believe that God can do the impossible – but I lack faith in myself as a chosen vessel through whom that impossible can be done.
The author of The Financial Mindset Fix, Joyce Marter, is a psychotherapist, successful entrepreneur, national speaker and thought leader in mental health.1 Now more than ever is mental health recognized as a real and serious issue for people across our country and the world.
Here are the top 4 features of this book that stand out to me the most so far.
Macro View of Money
Joyce starts with an amazing quote from Suze Orman:
I am a financial planner, not a psychiatrist, but I do know that your net worth will rise to meet your self-worth only if your self-worth rises to accept what can be yours.
Too many books I’ve read previously focuses on what we’re doing wrong. Not tracking our expenses. Not paying ourself first. Not putting aside 20% of our income in savings. Not using cash instead of credit.
But Joyce recognizes that unless we truly believe we are worthy of abundance, our money will always cause us uncertainty and frustration.
Chapter Topics
Every chapter focuses on a different mindset that, when adopted, can improve your well-being and financial health… The program includes exercises and practical tools to set you up for success.2
Here is the list of each chapter’s topic:
- Abundance
- Awareness
- Responsibility
- Presence
- Essence
- Self-Love
- Vision
- Support
- Compassion
- Detachment
- Positivity
- Resilience
Tell me – when was the last time you read a financial book that dug deeper than simply saying to have a healthy money mindset?
Don’t those chapters sound yummy? For those of you that are more practical than emotional, this is truly the work that will pull you out of your frustration.
The Wheel Exercises
Each chapter, including the introduction, has a variety of exercises. Some ask you to reflect, others to make a list, but my favorite are the wheel exercises.
At the end of each chapter you are given a questionnaire, rating yourself 1 through 10. You are not GRADING yourself, you are simply identifying where you are currently at. Here’s an example below:
Once you complete the questionnaire, a wheel is provided for you to plot your answers. Once you plot, you connect the dots to see where your dents lie. The dents represent areas you may have a deficit. Again, the deficits do not represent your failures. They represent areas where your financial health could use extra focus. Here’s an example of my first wheel below.
Do you see where my dents are? Own your Worth, Negotiate and Financial Advisor Check-ins. I thought this was interesting because after leaving my job to stay at home with our children, I’ve always struggled with negotiating a fair pay for my talents because my self-worth got lost along the way while changing diapers and cleaning my home.
We all are a work in progress. While those dents exist, The Financial Mindset Fix provides practical ways to help improve each areas. As you do the work, she encourages you to do the wheel exercises more than once to watch you progress to a healthier you!
Beautiful Workbook
Authors will generally provide a workbook or journal to pair with their book. Joyce provides a FREE comprehensive PDF workbook where you can document your journey. If you love a good piece of tangible paper, print the entire book out at your copy store and have it bound.
Heck, if you want to get started RIGHT NOW, the free workbook itself provides enough context for you to start moving towards a healthier mindset.
Last Thoughts
I’m excited to continue working through this book and seeing not only how I can apply it to my own life, but also my clients’ lives. With over two decades of experience in attempting to figure out how money works, I honestly feel this is a huge piece of the puzzle.
Thank you Joyce for writing this book. To help encourage us humans that a simple Income vs Expenses worksheet won’t truly tell us the entire story of our money personality. That it goes deeper. Financial literacy is one aspect. But an awareness of our self takes this journey to a whole other level.
Helping you find the story in the numbers,
Heather
1 Quoted from The Financial Mindset Fix book jacket.
2 The Financial Mindset Fix, 6
