The Problem with Money? It’s not about the Money!

Jane Honeck believes that at the core of our money troubles are unexamined beliefs that drive us to self-destructive behaviour that limits our ability to succeed financially. In her book The Problem with Money? It’s not about the Money! she lays out a series of exercises designed to root out your hidden beliefs, examine them, and find ways to break out of old patterns.

An example might be a woman who believes that good people don’t have money. This belief would cause her to unconsciously waste money to remain poor and good. To change the pattern, she might seek out counterexamples such as Warren Buffett and recognize that her personality won’t change if she has money.

The ideas in this book are quite far from the rational approach I usually take with financial decisions. However, if people’s problems are emotional, perhaps the solutions to these problems require techniques that deal with emotions.

The methods described in this book are really designed to be used by an expert to help people with money problems. Honeck has tried to adapt them to a book format where the reader essentially helps himself. I had somewhat of a feeling that the book was in part a large ad for Honeck’s services. In fact, the final page of the book is devoted to how the reader can engage Honeck for coaching, a workshop, or a presentation.

In the end, the methods described in the book can be used for good or evil. I can see an expert using these ideas to help people with deep-seated issues with money. I can also see these techniques used to draw people into ever more expensive workshops and treatments without really helping them. But this isn’t the fault of the methods themselves. It’s possible that some readers really will figure out how to help themselves using this book.