Kay - The feel rich project reinventing your understanding of true wealth to find true happiness

In The Feel Rich Project, Psychology Today blogger and CFP Michael Kay goes beyond the run-of-the-mill, nuts-and-bolts manuals for personal finance. With a focus on values, strategies, and helpful worksheets targeting insight and change, Kay offers a valuable guide to help readers move from money misery to living richly.

BRADLEY T. KLONTZ, Psy.D., CFP co-founder of the Financial Psychology Institute , associate professor in Financial Psychology & Behavioral Finance at Creighton University Heider College of Business, and co-author of Mind Over Money: Overcoming the Money Disorders That Threaten our Financial Health

Michael Kay gently and expertly guides his readers from Money Misery to Money Mastery. Michaels work is packed with insight, practical tools, and personal stories that will help the well-to-do and the want-to-do-better to achieve clarity and confidence about their finances and their relationships.

MARK BRYAN, co-author of Money Drunk/Money Sober and The Artists Way at Work: Riding the Dragon

Reinventing Your
Understanding of True Wealth to
Find True Happiness

Michael F. Kay, CFP

Copyright 2016 by Michael F. Kay

All rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright Conventions. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photo-copying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without written permission from the publisher, The Career Press.

THE FEEL RICH PROJECT

Edited by Jodi L. Brandon

Typeset by Kristin Goble/PerfecType

Cover design by Howard Grossman/12E Design

Printed in the U.S.A.

To order this title, please call toll-free 1-800-CAREER-1 (NJ and Canada: 201-848-0310) to order using VISA or MasterCard, or for further information on books from Career Press.

The Career Press, Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Kay, Michael F., author.

Title: The feel rich project : reinventing your understanding of true wealth to find true happiness / Michael F. Kay.

Description: Wayne, NJ : Career Press, 2016. | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016010608 (print) | LCCN 2016017462 (ebook) | ISBN 9781632650498 (paperback) | ISBN 9781632659491 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Money--Psychological aspects. | Wealth. | Finance, Personal. | Happiness. | BISAC: BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Personal Finance / General. | SELF-HELP / Personal Growth / Happiness.

Classification: LCC HG222.3.K39 2016 (print) | LCC HG222.3 (ebook) | DDC

332.024/01--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016010608

DEDICATION

To my love, college sweetheart, wife, Wendy, who has walked this journey with me through the laughter and the tears since 1973. And to my wonderful and caring children and their mates, Elyssa and Dave, Mitchel and Rachelthank you for the love, laughter, and unending support. You all keep my values clear and focused.

H uge thanks to Rochelle Moulton who pushed, cajoled, and prodded me to completioneven when I resisted. Her vision for this work was crystal clear even when mine was cloudy. Sydney LeBlanc for her guidance, help, and a multitude of stories: fascinating, funny, and heart-breaking. Christina Guthrie, who worked so hard and diligently helping me through the final edits. And the team at Career Press, including Lauren Manoy and Jodi Brandon, for bringing my work to fruition. Lastly, to my family at Financial Life Focus, for putting up with me during the times I went missing.

T here are hundreds of how-to personal finance books on the shelvesbooks that promise to make you a better investor, help you pick winning stocks, make you rich, make you successful, help you retire at 40. You name it, theres a book that will tell you how to. Nice, right?

The premise of those books is simple: The writer knows a secret that no one else knows, and for a mere pittance, the secret will be revealed to you without so much as having to burn one stick of incense.

Well, I hate to break it to you, but other than some nuts and bolts information that you might never have learned or have forgotten, there are no secrets! What does feeling rich have to do with actually being rich? In fact, our beliefs and feelings have everything to do with the results.

Mary, a single woman in her 60s, was raised by parents who grew up during the Depression; her parents were great savers, but never felt they had enough. Marys money experience told her that nothing was more important than savings. Spending was a painful proposition. When Mary came to see me, she had accumulated well in excess of $7 million. When I broached the idea of her putting her money to some enjoyable means, she rejected the ideanot because she didnt want to, but because she was afraid she didnt have enough. Mary didnt feel rich, even though her resources far exceeded her needs.

Carol, 47, grew up with parents who lived a pretty extravagant lifestyle and showed her the finer things in life. Unfortunately, Carol and her husband were bigger spenders than earners, and soon found themselves drowning in debt. Carol believed she was rich and felt richand couldnt reconcile the fact that their financial ship was sinking fast.

There are hundreds of examples of people holding onto beliefs that steered their actions to create disharmony and dysfunction in their lives. In too many cases there is a misalignment of beliefs and reality. Too many folks hold onto messages that do not serve their happiness, security, or life goals. In fact, millions of people are living in money misery, being hounded by debt collectors and wondering how theyre going to pull themselves out of what seems like an unsolvable problem. Many (not all) of these problems have their genesis in their beliefs and behaviors.

If you look around, you can probably spot many examples of people who are financially secure, and who dont wear their wealth on their backs or live paycheck to paycheck. They place high value on family, education, experiences, and peace of mind, and they place little or no value on showing the world or their neighbors how financially secure they are. There are many who hold the real riches of the world in their hearts. The love they share with their partners, children, family, and friends is all the riches they needsomehow, a 70-inch curved panoramic 3-D flat-screen TV doesnt move the needle for them.

One of the greatest challenges of our world is that we are swimming against a very powerful tide. When I grew up, television consisted of seven channels, and of course commercials were the fuel that drove that engine. We even had to get up to change the channels. (Imagine that!) Today we are bombarded by hundreds of channels and the Internet, which has insidiously figured out how to place ads everywhere. Movies, videos, reality TV, magazines, podcasts, blogs, not to mention e-mails, prompt you to buy the newest, most popular goods that draw a direct link between your minds image of how you see yourself or how you wish to be seen and your credit card.

Carl sat back in his chair, pulled out his flip phone, and placed it on the table before our meeting began. I looked at this relic of the 90s a bit bewildered. He saw the look on my face. It works and its all I need. He was neither defensive nor apologeticjust completely comfortable with who he was and what he cared about. Carl, with his six grandchildren and close-knit family, considers himself rich. He feels rich because he has that which he values most.