Money Energy Law #10:
If you cannot measure it, you cannot manage it. Start measuring your money energy today.
Measurement is an indispensable aspect of effective financial management. How else would you be able to quantify financial goals, track expenses, evaluate performance, assess risks, and make informed decisions? You most likely know this, but how often do you implement it?
If you ever feel that managing your money is increasingly challenging, struggle with a lack of clarity, believe your financial resources are inefficiently allocated, or foresee experiencing potential financial pitfalls, it may be the result of inadequately monitoring financial well-being and be leading to unnecessary financial stress.
There are a great many articles that discuss how financial stress can impact your physical well-being in the form of chronic muscle tension, stomach pains, a multitude of adverse health conditions, and (what I consider very alarming) long-term heart problems. But what about the other way around? There is a strong and very real connection between our physical health and our ability to generate opportunities to increase our Money Energy. So, it’s not just about measuring wealth, it’s about measuring health.
Ever hear of HRV?
There’s an array of metrics today to measure your physical activity. If you’re like me, you’re watching your heart rate, body fat, cholesterol levels, number of steps, exercise routines, and sleep, all from a fitness band, smartwatch, apps, or smartphone. There’s one form of measurement that has caught particularly my attention; it’s called Heart Rate Variability (HRV). If you’ve never heard of it, let me explain.
HRV captures the fluctuations between heart beats. These variations are very small and measured in milliseconds. Contrary to blood pressure, the higher your HRV (or greater variability between heart beats), the stronger your ability to tolerate stress or recover from accumulated stress. HRV provides information, measurement, and insights into an individual’s physical and mental health, and it demonstrates our body’s resilience to stress and change.
Managing Stress and Managing Money
You may be wondering why so much focus on HRV. Well, considering its ability to detect our capacity and capability of managing stress, it makes sense when you consider the stress associated with managing money. Our reaction to, and relationship with, money influences our heartbeat instantly and constantly. That comes as no surprise when you consider how money is somehow connected to everything we do and every decision we make.
The point: Where HRV builds awareness around coping with stress, Money Energy builds awareness around our ability to generate wealth, to be financially fit, and it’s interconnected with our health. It’s about self-knowledge because if you don’t monitor your stress and strengthen your endurance and opportunities to create money, you become susceptible to financial “un-wellness.”
Just like anything worth achieving, it’s necessary to measure the ebbs and flows of Money Energy. As mentioned earlier, if you don’t measure and manage something, then it becomes invisible. But I can assure you that the stress related to money will eventually be seen! On the flip side, just like monitoring your health amplifies your well-being, gaining an awareness of your relationship with money amplifies its positive power. Only with measurement will you be able to see how your money energy ebbs and flows as events happen.
I talk about this often in presentations and in previous blogs, and it won’t be the last time I mention this: I am proud to say DNA Behavior is at the forefront of measuring and managing Money Energy scientifically. We can validate an individual’s Overall Money Energy (Overall ME) Score, which consists of three primary components:
Your internal motivation to save and make money which requires wealth creation drive and the ability to take and tolerate risk;
Your capability to integrate money awareness into all areas of your life; and
Your opportunities to make money.
Opportunities Amply Overall ME by Quantum Leaps
This is going to sound like a crazy number, but opportunities have the potential to amplify your Money Energy by 10,000 or more times.1 I’m not making it up. Now, I am not saying that it’s humanly possible to take advantage of all the opportunities to improve your financial well-being, but what the formula and score represent is your ability to produce money and integrate it into all areas of your life more easily and readily.
Facing Barriers to Improving Money Energy
I’d like you to meet Craig Moon. He is a 52-year-old entrepreneur and owner of a very successful software business. The company has grown exponentially over the years and is now listed on the stock exchange. As a result, he has a substantial amount of equity in the firm.
From a financial planning perspective, Craig’s investment objective is wealth protection rather than further wealth accumulation at this point. As Craig approaches retirement, anxiety and stress have significantly increased. He has become progressively more anxious about protecting his wealth but would still like to see a portion of his wealth grow to reduce longevity risk (the fear of running out of money). To add another dimension to his stress, he’s concerned about the type of legacy he will leave behind for his children.
Fortunately, Craig employees a financial advisor who is fully aware of Money Energy and how to measure it. Over the course of several meetings, Craig was made aware that the fears and anxieties he was creating around managing money are also detrimental to his body and mind. With the help of his advisor, Craig began his journey to understand, measure, and manage his Overall ME.
Key Questions to Measure Overall Money Energy
Having completed the DNA Behavior’s Money Energy Discovery exercises, he learned that his Overall ME was relatively high, which is why he could answer YES to the following ME Opportunities questions:
Do you have cash representing 6 to 12 months of living expenses put away in a reserve fund?
Do you have any long-term guaranteed revenue streams from investments and contracts?
Do you have a debt management program in place such that your life cannot be spun out of control by liabilities?
Do you have the financial capacity to pay for your long-term needs beyond 12 months and achieve some of your long-term lifetime wants?
Have you protected your life against unexpected events to not have significant financial exposure?
Do you have a written financial plan (including a budget or spending plan) and daily and weekly tactics to achieve your goals?
Have you worked through how money is integrated into your life and where you wish the money to flow?
Have you developed your risk/reward framework for assessing risk in the context of who you are and your financial capacity?
Do you have sufficient financial capability to understand the key decisions you may be required to make?
Have you developed and regularly follow personal energy management practices that build your personal clarity and reduce stress?
Craig Moon is an example of someone who has made the critical step to understanding the impact of Money Energy in his life. He now can track indicators that measure his ability to generate and maintain wealth, which in turn can help alleviate stress. Even more, he can set milestones knowing how to manage his ME in a way that delivers a Quality Life that combines happiness and health down the path toward retirement.
How would you have answered those questions? What’s your Money Energy pulse?
Stay tuned every week as we continue to reveal all 40 Laws of Money Energy.
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1Mastering Your Money Energy, A DNA White Paper, September 2022