205. 5 Childhood Questions that Reveal Why You Handle Money the Way You Do

In this episode of the Money & Legacy Podcast, Laura shares five unexpected questions that can help uncover your personal money story. From childhood heroes and favorite stories to your earliest memory, these clues may reveal the beliefs and patterns shaping your financial decisions today.

You’ll learn:

• Five questions to help uncover your money story
• How childhood experiences influence financial habits
• Why understanding your past can help you build a stronger financial legacy

Once you understand what shaped your money mindset, you can begin making more intentional choices for your future.

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Transcript

Laura 0:00

Spelunking. It's a funny word and a scary activity. Let's talk about it You are listening to the Money and Legacy Podcast with Laura Sexton. I'm helping families pay off debt, grow wealth, and build a legacy without sacrificing what matters most. This is where money feels easy. Hello, Legacy Builders. I hope that you're having a lovely week. I was talking with my mom this weekend about some of our upcoming Girl Scout trips. Now, I am blessed that I had a mother that was very involved in Girl Scouting, and my girls are going to be very involved in Girl Scouting. And it's one of my favorite things. It's something where they get to learn to be entrepreneurs or artists or anything they wanna be. There's a lot of STEM activities and it really is a chance for them to just try a bunch of different things in a safe environment where There are rules and structures and guidelines, which we love, but also a large chance for them to play. And we were talking about some of the upcoming events that we wanna do with the girls, and the girls were telling us the things that they wanted to do, and it reminded me of this one trip that we went to Carlsbad Caverns. Now, the, the caverns were beautiful, absolutely gorgeous, but they also had areas of them where they would get really, really tight and really, really dark. In certain areas of the caverns, they would not put any electricity in, so you would have to have special lights on. And we were doing something called spelunking. Now, we weren't doing traditional, big cave explorer, crazy people diving into places no one's ever been. But we were doing a guided tour where we had to turn off our lights and explore a little bit in the dark areas. We turned our lights off at one point, we all sat down and turned our lights off, and it was so dark that you could not see the hand right in front of you. This is an activity that has stayed with me my entire life, and we are talking about it today because sometimes we have to go diving into our brain to find out what our money story is. And I'm gonna tell you some things today about how we discover our money story. And this is an activity that I do with a lot of my clients, and I just thought I'd give you some behind-the-scenes, some way to dive in to find something about yourself that you maybe didn't know Usually these questions that I'm gonna ask you today are ones that I do with my career clients. So I work with clients one-on-one to help them discover their career path that is either an entrepreneurial path or working for someone else, but working as if they are an entrepreneur in their company. And I want them to have extreme ownership of the work that they're doing, because when you do that, it's more fun. You feel more invested. You feel more worthy of the work that you're doing. The work you're doing feels worthy of your time. I like working with my clients to help them discover a career path that is best for them. And I got to thinking about these questions that I'm gonna ask today, and how that can really relate to our money story. Who we are with money is developed in our lives somewhere between the ages of five and eight. Really around the age of seven we have solidified our money story, and part of that's because we don't have a lot of memories at those early ages. That is our time of connecting with our parents, with our siblings, and there's not a lot of memory, long-term memory stored there But when you get around to the age of five, six, seven, eight, you start really storing those core memories. And that's going to shape who you are with money. Now, if you have children that are over the age of seven and you're freaking out because you feel like you've ruined them with money, let me tell you that you can always teach an old dog new tricks. You have not ruined your children because you haven't taught them anything. We are talking about you and your money story. And what we're gonna do today is we're gonna go through these five questions and talk about how they can help you discover your money story. And in a couple weeks, we're gonna talk about how to share that money story. That one is going to be a really fun episode to dive into, because I think it's really important that we share the bits and pieces of ourselves with our children, with our spouses, to allow us to make different decisions in the future. We wanna make sure that we are making the best financial decisions for the legacy that we want to leave. And sometimes that means that we have to do a little spelunking. We have to go diving into the dark recesses of our mind and find what makes up our money story. There are a lot of good books that you can read about this. Rachel Cruze has a fabulous book called Know Yourself, Know Your Money, and we're actually gonna talk about the money classrooms, later on in this episode arc. But for right now, I wanna ask you five questions that are probably not on your radar right now. These are probably five questions that you've never thought about with your money and how they pertain to your money. And if you go through these five questions and you're like, "I have no idea what this means. I don't know how this pertains to my money at all," please scroll down in the show notes and click on the button to work with me to learn more about working together. Or just go to accelerateyourlegacy.com and there's a Book a Call button. Grab that. Let's talk about these and how they pertain to you and your money story, how that is how you were set up, and how we can use that to affect your great progress going forward. So here are my top five coaching questions, usually career coaching questions, but today we're gonna use these to talk about our money. So the first question: Can you tell me about three childhood heroes? Three of your childhood heroes. Three people in your childhood that you looked up to, that you admired, that you just thought were amazing It can sometimes be really hard to narrow this down to three, but I want you to narrow it down to three. I had the easiest time in the world picking my first two. My first one was my childhood pastor, Pastor David Dykes. He was amazing, and there's still so many things that he said at a very young age. And again, one of them, I was seven years old the first time I heard it, and he would say so many things, and they would just really get into my brain, and one of them was that you spell joy Jesus others you. I've never forgotten that. That was when I was seven. Hope, having only positive expectations. Fear, false evidence appearing real. These are acronyms that he would say. There are other things that he has done that have stuck in my head, but those are the ones that have really never left me So he's one of my childhood heroes. And then I had a teacher, Miss Becky Harris, and she taught me all about ways to use the Bible. She was my Bible drill instructor, and she would teach me different ways to remember Bible verses, and she just was always so encouraging. And then my third childhood hero is Ginger Bell, who was the admissions director at my middle school and high school. And she just was the person that if you've ever had a bad day, you could go talk to her, and there was no judgment. There was no condemnation. It was always just a calm place to be. So those are my three childhood heroes I will caveat this that a lot of times when I ask for three childhood heroes, a lot of people will just go to, "Well, my mom and dad." and that's great. If your mom and your dad are your hero, then I'm not gonna tell you not to write them down, but I would like to encourage you to push beyond that because we're really trying to get to know you and things in your brain. So I want you to write down your three childhood heroes and why they are your childhood heroes. Now, question number two, and this one's interesting. I would like for you to write down a few of your favorite magazines or TV shows. Podcasts are okay, but books are not You're like, "Well, maybe I love books and that's where I meet all of my characters." Nope, I wanna know about your current favorite magazines, TV shows, or podcasts, things that you are currently consuming on a regular basis I hope that this podcast is going to be on that list as something that is a favorite of yours, that you come back to time and time again, that you are hearing things that you wanna share with your friends. But it's okay if it's not on the list. I'm not gonna judge you, and I'm not gonna be mad. But I would be really happy if it was on the list. Number three: what was your favorite story as a child? We'd like for you to give a paragraph description of the story. Please do not write out all of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Give a description of the story. There's this girl, and she's lost in the woods, and she finds a cabin, and she wants to taste and try and explore a couple different things, and she ends up breaking a few things and eating all of the porridge. And then the bears find her, and she runs away. That would be how you describe the story as opposed to telling me the whole story Number four, this is a really fun one and one that I think for me stands out the most as The thing that is really, really, really impactful to me and my money story. Question number four: What is your earliest memory? Write it out as a clickbait title. That means you're gonna do a headline for an online article, and you wanna make sure that the most people click on this article My earliest memory written as a clickbait title is Young Child Breaks Her Nose on a Brick Wall Running Into a Room That Does Not Exist I know that sounds crazy. And to be completely fair, I did not break my nose. I don't even think my nose bled. I remember it hurting, but I was very little, and so I'm pretty sure there was nothing there to break. It was all cartilage. I was less than three, around three, something like that. And my dad had converted our carport into a library, and the library that he created is kind of the inspiration for the library that I wanna have at my house. I would love to have a library, which means you have to have at least 1,000 books. I'm working on it. I'm getting pretty close I probably have two libraries at this point, an adult library and a kids' library, 'cause our kids have so many books So my dad had 2,000 books, and he had converted the entire carport into a library And when he went to sell my childhood home, that carport library had not been permitted, so he had to take the structure down. He had to take down brick by brick, remove the library and turn it back into a carport. And when he did that, he took the bricks down from the outside of the house, and he put them back in the wall. However, he did not take down the curtains that separated the living room from the library. And I got to the house, and I ran as fast as I could from the front door into the library, through the curtains into the library. And, there was a brick wall there and not a library. And I will tell you, my friends, that time and time and time and time again, I find myself running up to a brick wall and just laying down in pain. Most of the time, these are metaphorical brick walls. They are not always real brick walls. However, I did bump my head really hard in the car the other day. That was insanity. It hurt so bad. Usually, these are metaphorical brick walls that I run into. Days where I feel like my business is crumbling around me because one person didn't say yes on a consultation. Now, my consultation rates are usually pretty high, so when I do get a no, it does sting my ego just a little bit, and it feels like a brick wall, and sometimes I hear a no, and I'm like, "Nobody loves me anymore. I'm just gonna quit," which is silly, obviously. But anytime that brick wall comes, I feel like that three-year-old little girl all over again. This comes up for me over and over and over again. I just wanna lay down and cry for about 20 minutes, and then I'm ready to get up and go again. And maybe, you know what? Maybe I can't go in the library anymore, and that's okay. It's not gonna stop me from reading books. Maybe the client and I just didn't mesh, and that's okay. It's not gonna stop me from reaching out and trying to help as many people as I possibly can. But sometimes I need to take 20 minutes and cry about it, and that's okay. This earliest memory shaped so much of who I am. There's so much pain, but a great amount of tenacity getting up and trying again. So what is your earliest memory? Write it as a clickbait title. I promise you the way that you write the title also says something about the story. I want the title and I want the story. I wanna hear it all. Number five, this is the last question. What are three to five, so three, four, or five... Pick one of those numbers. Do not do less, do not do more. Three, four, or five of your favorite quotes, and who said them? These are pieces of you that shape how you handle everything in life. How you handle your career, how you handle your money, how you handle your family. A lot of how you act today has something to do with who you were growing up. That's why I wanna know about your childhood heroes, your current favorite magazines or TV shows, your favorite story as a child, your earliest memory, and three to five quotes that have helped shape who you are. This is when you get to go spelunking into your mind, my friends. You get to go on a deep dive into who you are, and hopefully you like what you find. However, if you find that you are questioning or you need to talk through some of these or you're like, "Laura, I have no idea what this has to do..." I had one client that told me his earliest memory had something to do with, I can't remember exactly what it was, but something to do with a sinus infection. He's like, "What does this say about me?" And we did a deep dive into how that affects how he handles his career and his money today, and you would be surprised. All of these questions are gonna help you discover a good career path, and also help you dive into how money has shaped you, and how your memories shape how you are handling money today. In two weeks, I'm gonna share how to use your money story to reach your financial goals. And next week, I have a guest interview, so I want you to check that out, but also check out a bonus episode that's gonna come out following that, as I am going to deep dive into my thoughts on what was shared on that episode. It is a great and very interesting episode on how to save money for your kids' college. I know this is on a lot of your minds, and so I had an expert come on and tell us about different ways to save for kids' college. And he shared one point with me that I was absolutely blown away with, excited and surprised by. It was not what I thought he was gonna say, and it was right on par with what I believe, and so I just got giddy and excited. And he shares some things that I do not agree with. So don't miss out on the bonus episode that will come out on Thursday of next week following the interview episode. All right, my legacy builders, that is it for this week. I hope you do some spelunking, and I hope that you choose to go out and make a difference