As published in my weekly column in today’s Business Newsday

Money, as the basis of any discussion brings up queasiness. MONEY – It can be uncomfortable, unnerving and downright sticky for some! But if you’re in business you are going to have to get comfortable with money. You have to tell people what things cost, determine rates; negotiate deals and payment schedules etc.

The rich keep getting richer and the poor – poorer is a phrase that represents a ‘general think’ about money. If you think you are poor, chances are this thinking will make you poorer. If you are rich, you will continue laughing as they say all the way to the bank.

So what exactly happens when you are in between – neither rich nor poor?

Most peoples’ world view of wealth is as a zero sum game. The belief is that the available wealth on Planet E is limited. If this is your belief I am assuming that for every dollar you earn you will think that it came at the expense of someone else. Your gain equals another’s loss. Ah lie?

Think about the power of your ability to attract wealth resting in the form of a dial where you can either turn your wealth attraction power up or down. What if you could have your power turned on full?

But you see we are programmed to believe that if we operate on full power that it would be harmful and unfair to others. We believe that to be decent means that the minute too much money starts flowing into our lives that we must push it away. We begin thinking that we made that money far too easily and that we should be content with our fair share – but what is that exactly? Who determines what’s fair and what’s not fair?

How many times when you were playing your best game didn’t some careless soul tell you that you were too full of yourself? Teacher, writer and intuitive alchemist Hiro Boga says that when you are fully yourself it means you are cultivating your uniqueness – that which makes you unlike any other being in the world. It’s the task of discovering and honouring your own beauty, power, creativity, vision, and values; feeling your feelings; loving your body; nurturing your gifts; expanding into your potentials; extending your capacities. We live in a culture that is self-obsessed to such a degree that loneliness and isolation are endemic among us. At the same time, if you truly love yourself, delight in your own miraculous being, and express your joy and appreciation for who you are, you’ll most likely run into disapproval and judgment from the people around you. The unspoken message is: Who do you think you are, you egotistical, arrogant jerk?

There isn’t a lot of permission in our society to be full of ourselves, in the best sense of the word.

Whether you work in sales, identify yourself as a salesperson, or are in some other profession there are two things that always reflect wealth inhibition. One has to do with price. Most fear discussion of price, raising prices and are paranoid that their prices are higher than their competitors. The second is about being able to keep a straight face and a voice free of stammer, tremor or terror when quoting the fee! This may be the reason why a lot of art and antique dealers write the price down on a piece of paper and slide it across the desk to you. Our natural tendency is to discount before even being asked to do so out of fear, inhibition and presumption.

Dan Kennedy, known to be an irreverent, sarcastic but effective ‘Millionaire Maker’ says “the queasiness about price, about who somebody is selling to, about their ability to pay, and about their ability to afford it is all deadly. And the truth is, anytime you start to make those decisions for other people, it really reflects more about what’s going on internally with you than it does about anything else.”

If you want your wealth attraction to be operating at full power here’s what you need to understand. First – no queasiness. You can’t have any reluctance or any inhibition. Next you need to understand that whatever financial position anyone you know is in, anyone you do business with is in , or anyone period, is in, has nothing to do with you. Whatever the state of the economic affairs in the world, has nothing to do with how much wealth you accumulate.

Unless you can buy into this premise, I’m afraid you will always suffer from wealth inhibition.

Image from http://www.wagner. nyu.edu