Most people who come to me for business help don’t say they have a money problem.
They say they want more clients.
They say they need more sales.
They say they want to grow, scale, or finally feel like the work they’re doing is “worth it.”
Money is almost always the undercurrent, even when it’s not the headline.
And here’s the part that surprises people: money itself is rarely the real problem at hand.
Money is a responder. It reacts to beliefs, nervous system patterns, value structures, and decisions that were shaped long before most of us ever opened a business.
We Inherit Money Stories Before We Earn a Dollar
We don’t grow up in a vacuum where money is neutral and rational. We absorb it through family dynamics, culture, religion, and what we witness when financial pressure enters the room.
Did money feel scarce in your home?
Was it a source of conflict or secrecy?
Was it tied to approval, morality, or worth?
Was working hard praised more than working sustainably?
Children don’t learn money rules through spreadsheets. They learn by watching adults regulate or dysregulate under stress. They learn from tone, tension, arguments, silence, and urgency. They also learn from the social cues of their friend groups and school mates things that are observed and felt. Those impressions settle into the body long before the conscious mind has language for them.
That’s why money doesn’t behave like a simple math problem. There may be math involved, but the relationship itself lives somewhere deeper.
Money Is Emotional, Relational, and Somatic
If you could think your way into a better relationship with money, most people would already be there.
Money behavior is embodied. It shows up in avoidance, overworking, undercharging, hoarding, leaking, and second-guessing. Those aren’t character flaws. They’re strategies.
And strategies don’t come from nowhere. They come from protection.
When money once meant danger, loss, instability, or conflict, the nervous system adapts. It tries to control money, avoid it, cling to it, or outrun it. Those adaptations may have been necessary once. But they often outlive their usefulness.
Culture Complicates Value
Layer culture on top of personal history and things get even messier.
We live in a system that ties productivity to worth, outcomes to legitimacy, and income to value. At the same time, we’re fed contradictory narratives about passion, ease, hard work, sacrifice, and success.
Helping professions are undervalued. Creative work is dismissed as impractical. Small businesses are treated as hobbies until they succeed, and then they’re treated as suspect.
Many business owners aren’t struggling with pricing because they don’t understand numbers. They’re struggling because they’ve internalized questions like:
Who am I to charge this?
Is this really valuable?
Will people think I’m greedy, unrealistic, or irresponsible?
Those questions weren’t created in your business. They were inherited.
Trauma Shapes Financial Strategy
Money-related trauma doesn’t have to be dramatic to be influential.
Witnessing parents fight about money.
Growing up with instability.
Experiencing failure, debt, or bankruptcy.
Feeling responsible for others’ financial well-being too early.
All of these shape how safety and money get linked.
In business, that often shows up as overworking to feel secure, undercharging to stay liked, avoiding numbers to avoid feelings, or repeating financial cycles that never quite resolve.
If you’ve ever thought, “I’m working so hard, but I don’t feel supported by my business,” that’s a signal worth listening to.
The Pivot Isn’t Hustle or Fixing Yourself
This is the part where people expect a strategy.
But the real shift doesn’t come from pushing harder or finding the perfect system. It comes from awareness.
Awareness of where your money patterns came from.
Awareness of what they’ve been protecting.
Awareness of how they show up now.
Separating the past from the present matters. Untangling inherited beliefs from current reality matters. Updating your internal definition of value matters.
Money follows regulation, not force. When the nervous system feels safer, decisions get cleaner. When decisions get cleaner, money tends to move with less friction.
Start With Curiosity
You don’t need to fix your money relationship overnight.
Start by noticing when money feels charged.
Notice when value feels slippery.
Notice when your body reacts before your brain does.
Those reactions aren’t failures. They’re information.
Money isn’t your enemy. And when you stop treating it like something hostile or morally loaded, the relationship often becomes much easier to work with.
In this month’s Make It Happen Monday I invite you to do something very practical: write a partnership agreement with money. You can watch it on February’s Resource page.
Because healthy relationships don’t run on assumptions. They run on clarity.