How Can You Use Emotional Intelligence to Build Wealth?

I thought I understood wealth creation and emotional intelligence, but I was wrong.

After earning several degrees, including my MBA, racking up more than $30,000 (US) in student loan debt, $10,000 (US) in credit card and other debt, a failing start up company, alienating my family and friends, I was just about to give up.

My approach to making money was even making me physically ill. In fact, every time I’d even think about money, I’d experience excruciating acid reflux among other symptoms.

And here’s the funny thing: I’d been following the path everyone told me was critical to achieving success — hard work, advance my education, and move up the career ladder.

But there I was — after all that education, all that hard work (being a start up entrepreneur is a 24/7 job), all that hope and prayer — broke, sick, miserable, desperate and alone

My story can help you

What helped me turn the corner? What helped me to stop worrying about money, working crazy hours trying to get rich, and racking up huge college debt?

I stopped trying to get rich and started focusing on being self aware (emotionally intelligent) and living with purpose and from a vision. I achieved this by doing two important things:

• First, I discovered vipassna meditation. Through vipassna meditation I learned to observe the sensations in my body so I could understand the emotion causing it and the thought behind each emotion. I learned that releasing negative thoughts changed my physical symptoms and in time I started relaxing whenever I thought about money or my company. The more relaxed I became about money, the more clearly I was able to think about my finances, which led me to make better financial decisions. I not only learned about the mind, but observed how it works, which allowed me to change my emotions and behavior towards money and my journey as an entrepreneur.

• Next, I started working with a life coach. Thanks to a referral from a friend, I learned about a coach who works specifically with people to help them change their attitudes about life. With the help of a coach, I changed my entire outlook and attitude about myself, life and success. I discovered that success  — being healthy, wealthy and happy in your life — has very little to do with how much money you make, and almost everything to do with how you think  and feel.

During my coaching sessions, I became fascinated by the link between emotions and financialbehavior and started researching money, emotions, the brain, and evolution

I read everything I could find about the limbic system (the emotional system of the brain), the law of attraction and inner child healing, and was influenced by authors like Louise Hay, Napolean Hill and Byron Katie.

In the process my health improved. I also became a vegan, learned about chakras, fell in love with yoga and went on meditation retreats. My approach to health and wealth became truly integrated.

The more I researched money and entrepreneurship, the more obsessed I became with the way the mind works and changing my emotional reactions to money so I could focus on creating and building wealth.

After years of frustration and anger about my finances and my life, something was finally giving!

The impossible beginning to happen – I was excited about my journey as an entrepreneur, not angry or scared but really bubbling with joy.

This was all new to me so I kept a journal about money and my reactions to it, to see how my emotions and stories about money were affecting my financial reality. I spent hours a day, reading through my journal, sitting with my emotions and questioning my thoughts.

For the first time in my life I made budgets and started keeping track of how my finances were progressing so that I could see if life coaching and changing my emotional response to money was having a direct impact on my finances.

And it was! Changing my thinking about money was changing my life! Because I was becoming more relaxed about money, I was able to increase my fees as a tutor and openly state my value to clients, which resulted in more clients and more money per hour.

I was working 20 hours a week and making more money than when I worked 84 hours a week.

Within 4 months my life changed. I repaired my broken relationship with my mom, made new friends, paid off $10,000 (US) in debts, found my own place to live and forgave my ex (I even gave him relationship advice and had lunch with him several times!).

In the process something interesting happened – people started asking me to coach them and they referred others to me for coaching.

Coaching led me to do more research on emotions and to start exploring how emotions impact behavior and financial behavior, in particular, which eventually led to the book: Heart, Mind & Money: Using Emotional Intelligence for Financial Success and to a speaking career.

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