A Healthy Money Mindset
For financial planning, talk to Krista Pasionek, Senior Vice President at Five Rings Financial, and she’s likely to ask you about your relationship with money. She feels that having a healthy attitude toward money and a good relationship with it works along with traditional financial planning. Both are important for a positive outcome.
Krista, who has a biology degree, did not start her career in finances. But now that she’s there, she feels at home. She credits Five Rings Financial for this because “she fell in love with the culture of the company, which has a very education-forward focus.” She adds, “They want to help people feel good about their money.” Another draw for her is their focus on women. They recognize “women think differently, feel differently, talk differently when it comes to money.” The company is made up of sixty-three percent female agents. Of women, Krista says, “We’re nurturers by nature. We want to make people happy.” She doesn’t see these attributes as keeping women from having earning power. Just the opposite. She says, “Women are creative. Women can find darn creative ways to make big money.” However, not all companies have a women-first attitude.
While an inequality in wealth distribution still exists, Krista believes things are shifting. For one, the feminine side of the equation is coming into balance with the masculine. But there is still work to do, and because of this, Krista explains it is especially important for minorities, women, and even the middle class to develop a healthy mindset toward money because it helps bring about change. While some financial planners choose to work with only the wealthiest two percent of the population, Krista’s company is different. They work with middle America, realizing that they too want help with financial planning and preparing for retirement. With all the changes happening around money today, Krista says she imagines there will be a rise in bartering and trading for goods, but she doesn’t envision that money will go away. In fact, she expects it will continue as a medium.
As narratives transform to bring in more balance, Krista says, “We need to change the way we think and feel about money.” This shift requires that each of us explore our conditioning around it. For one, we must realize that it is energy like anything else. It’s an energy exchange, and we have to allow ourselves to receive it. However, our early experiences around money and the stories we’ve been told about it shape our current relationship with it. Because of this, we may associate money with struggle, greed, divorce. We may have been taught as Krista was, it’s best to get a job, work at that job for a very long time, retire from it, collect your pension, then live your life. This belief still influences many folks, even though we all know pensions no longer exist. Another long-held belief still making the rounds is ”if you have money, you will have no stress, you will have no problems, you won’t want for anything.” This doesn’t hold up either. As Krista explains, she knows rich people who are miserable. All these attitudes around money can lead us to take on a scarcity mindset. Once there, it could keep us from attracting prosperity and abundance or feeling like we don’t have enough, even when we’re financially secure. Because of this, Krista recognizes each client is unique and has different needs. It’s her goal to serve them in the best way possible.
She says she’s happy in her career and can’t imagine leaving the field of finance. However, she sees herself focusing more on assisting her clients in healing their relationships with money and developing a healthier mindset around it. She feels it’s her job to see that they not only have peace of mind knowing their money is secure, but that they feel good about it too. Krista envisions becoming a money mindset mentor, helping others to understand to attract money, they must believe they are worthy enough, deserving enough, and there’s plenty to go around.
By Karen H. Lizon
