Mind Over Money

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

Do you feel like you are drowning financially? Are you looking for someone to throw you a lifeline? I am Timolin Langin and with this book I would like to extend a helping hand. I will share with you the keys to my own experience of financial stability and successful investment that allows me to live like a millionaire on a modest teacher’s salary. Step by step, in the following resource I hope to show you how to begin to think and behave in new ways that over time, with focus, passion and persistence, will help you build true financial well-being, personal authenticity and strategic mastery of your money tool for the rest of your life.

Perhaps at the moment, you aren’t really sure whether you need rescue, yet you do have the feeling that you are neither managing your income as effectively as you would like nor building a future as financially secure as you wish; you feel you are drifting from month to month, year to year, without purpose or direction. It seems your paycheck is gone before it arrives. Perhaps you know something is wrong in your life because debt keeps rising, income keeps falling, and financial stress keeps escalating, but you can’t identify beliefs and behaviors which might be at the root of these problems. This resource is designed with you in mind.

Not long after graduating from college and starting my work life, I felt overwhelmed by a sense that I had no clue what steps to actually take to achieve what I wanted or needed financially, but I never forgot the wisdom I had gained from my great grandmother as told to me by my grandmother, whom I lovingly refer to as Big Mama. I observed the behaviors of other family members and friends who were getting themselves into financial troubles. Over time, I discovered that for many of us money chaos and stress have emotional roots. I began with observing their behavior and went on to discover the emotional dynamic of my own relationship to money. Still, with few resources and no outside financial help, I found a way to plan, to build and live my own life of true abundance. I write this book because I believe you will see yourself in my story.

Like me when I started my professional life, you may be looking for a mentor who knows what it is like to struggle to become financially stable, to need support and guidance along the way. I hope you may use my example and the wisdom I have gained along the way to transform your financial life from what may now be a sense of surviving from day to day to a sense of expansive happiness where you are thriving even as you desire more. As my title suggests, I intend to show you how to take your mind, money and use them to live like a millionaire. The actual amount of money needed for financial success varies, however the formula for increasing and good financial stewardship is quite similar at every economic level. To get us started, I have devised a quick self-assessment inventory which may help identify some unproductive behaviors you might be employing in your relationship to the money you earn. Simply check yes or no to each of the following ten questions.

Your Financial State of Mind

1. Do you often go shopping without a list or a goal? Yes____ No____

2. Does it seem that buying something lifts you out of a bad mood, at least for a while? Yes____ No____

3. Do you sometimes feel you need to buy something just because someone else has it? Yes____ No_____

4. Have you ever purchased something knowing that you didn’t actually have the money to pay for it, already planning to return it the next day? Yes____ No_____

5. Are many of your purchases things you want rather than things you need? Yes____ No____

6. Does making a purchase make you feel a bit more alive or a bit more powerful? Yes____ No_____

7. When you know you don’t have the money in your bank account, do you rely on a credit card to get what you want right now? Yes____ No____

8. Do you feel that purchasing brand name products and high ticket items gives you more self-esteem or more social status? Yes _____ No ____

9. Do you spend more than you can afford on entertainment or gifts for friends and family? Yes____ No____

10. Have you experienced feelings of regret or shame after you make purchases for yourself or others? Yes____ No______ Total: Yes _____ No______

I came to realize slowly that I too was giving or spending in response to emotional triggers like loneliness, wanting to belong, feeling disconnected, and periodic peer pressure. For me it seemed much of my emotional overspending was based on deep desires to feel loved by and connected to friends and family. I overspent by giving gifts and loans to others to the detriment of my own financial peace. I slowly came to realize that there were days when I too was spending in response to an emotional “trigger” like fear, sadness, boredom, doubt, or disconnection. I felt that paying a family member’s rent, loaning money to pay a friend’s utility bill or get my cousin’s car out of impound would somehow reward me with more love and appreciation, improper thinking straightened out by co-dependency counselor, author, and colleague Stephanie Tucker. Maybe you're going on elaborate shopping sprees or keeping up with the Joneses, we are all battling something. New York Times best-selling author of more than a dozen books, Terkeurst assures us that “Having issues isn’t the absence of victory in our lives. It might be the very call to action needed to get you started to victory.” This book is a step toward your victory and financial success.