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by:  Staci Stallings

Last time we talked about how financial matters can trigger responses in all of the layers.  We talked about a few defaults when dealing with money such as “if only” and “enough.”

Today I want to offer a few more thoughts on the subject of financial issues, triggers, and defaults.

Having Money Defaults Okay, you are going to think I’ve lost it with this one, but I promise you from my experience it is true.  There are a lot of people who have a default about money that goes like this:  ”I don’t have enough money.  I’m constantly worried about it, and I feel very stressed about it.  But I don’t want to have a lot of money.  People who have a lot of money are greedy and mean.  So really, I don’t want to have a lot of money.”

Now here’s the problem.  Your brain is designed to go in whatever direction your spirit says to go.  It doesn’t look at logic and ask if that even makes sense.

So this is what it processes:

Having money = VERY BAD!  Code RED BAD!  Defcon-5 BAD!

Not having money = stressful and worrisome but better than having money.

Well, your brain is designed to get you out or keep you out of pain, and when it’s forced to put things in a hierarchy, the thing that it has been told will lead to the most pain will be avoided at ANY COST!

So, really, if you have this default where it comes to money, you’re destined to spend your life in worry and stress over not having enough money.  Why?  Because your brain perceives that as the lesser of two evils, and it will act accordingly.

Making Money  What are your defaults where it comes to making money?  This has been an interesting avenue of study recently in my house because my 11-year-old has spent some of the summer working for his father.  Now according to family members I will not name, working for my husband is not just work, it’s WORK!  And having worked with him myself off-and-on, I have to agree.

If you want a job where you can stand around, take a lot of breaks, work in cushy air-conditioning, and do things “good enough,” please don’t even apply.  He was taught to “do things RIGHT,” and that’s what he and everyone who works for him are going to do.

So we’ve been talking a lot about what it means to make money.  There was the lesson about how valuable you are to your employer…

If the employer makes $70 for a job, and you make $10 an hour… if you take 5 hours to do the job, how much do you make? ($50) and how much does your employer make ($20).

If you take 7 hours to do the job, how much do you make ($70), and how much does your employer make ($0).

If you take 9 hours to do the job, how much do you make ($90), and how much does your employer make (-$20).

And that doesn’t add taxes into the equation.

So here’s the question my husband posed to my 11-year-old.  ”If I have the choice between an employee who can do the job and do it right in 4 hours, why would I hire him (or her) instead of someone who can do it right in 5, or do it in 4 but then have 2 hours of redoing it because they did it wrong? Which one would YOU hire?”

Have you ever thought about what your effort or non-effort means to your employer?  Or are you just putting in hours to collect a paycheck?

Let’s take this one further…

Does your employer owe you a raise if you are doing a 5 hour job in 6 and costing him money?  Do you actively think about ways to make your company more productive, or do you just get the project lists and shut off your brain?

I well remember a friend of mine who went to work for a company and within two months had redone their whole accounting-computer system.  What used to take one employee 10 hours and a second employee 5 more, now took the first employee 2 hours and the second 15 minutes to check over it.  Now how valuable to the boss do you think my friend became?

What is your default when you think about making money?  Does it encompass any thoughts about the company and boss, or only what you are “owed”?

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