Your biggest financial asset isn’t money, it’s your mindset says Shay Myers 

The most important thing about money isn’t the money itself. Wait, what?! Yes, you read correctly. Something that is often left out of the money conversation is how important your mindset is to becoming financially successful. 

Shay Myers is an Ontario-based licensed financial professional and founder of Finance for the Culture. The company offers an accessible, fun approach to financial literacy, with a special focus on young entrepreneurs. 

In this Futurpreneur guest blog post, Shay shares her insights on acknowledging past financial habits, overcoming systemic barriers, and developing a healthier relationship with money to secure a prosperous future. 

Release the past and relearn for your future 

Your mindset impacts your emotional well-being, which impacts your self-esteem, daily routine, spending habits, and more! Did you know FP Canada’s Financial Stress Index revealed that money was the top stressor for Canadians, with 40 per cent of people surveyed expressing it as their main source of stress? This placed money ahead of personal health, relationships and work! 

In recent years, their survey also revealed that Canadians are struggling to save money, with 35 per cent of people expressing that saving enough for retirement and 32 per cent expressing that saving for a major purchase were areas of growing concern. The good news is that people who work regularly with a financial professional have significantly lower levels of stress, fewer regrets about money, and a more hopeful view of their financial futures (56 per cent who work with a professional) compared to 48 per cent who do not work with one. 

We must also acknowledge the layered experiences of Black Canadians when it comes to money and mindset. Many Black Canadians are from immigrant families, whose parents came here with the mission of providing a better life for their children. They worked hard, often not having much time for their family, but did what they had to do to survive. Some of them barely made ends meet, but the ends still met. They held on tight to their money, especially if there wasn’t a lot of it. They never let you know when there wasn’t a lot of it. Or maybe they did. Did you have McDonald’s money? Probably not! 

Some of us saw our parents struggle, and some of us overheard hushed, stressed conversations about bills. Some of us developed scarcity mindsets from our childhood experiences and how money impacted our families’ behaviours. And we cannot forget the continuous, systemic impacts on us, including redlining, unequal pay, racism in hiring, and more. 

Now as young adults, we do a lot of the same things because that is all we know. We are afraid to spend money because we are unsure of the next time we will get it. We either overspend or hoard it in the wrong places. We overextend to keep up with the Joneses. But we can rewrite the financial script. We have acknowledged the past; now it is time to shift your money mindset to move forward. You cannot change the past, but you can change right now. 

When it comes to mindset, you have to unlearn to relearn. Are you your worst enemy? Are you stuck in your parents’ shadows of their poor financial decisions or habits? It is time to GET OUT! 

Here are some questions to ask yourself: 

• What was your relationship with money growing up? What did you learn from your parents? 

• What are healthy and unhealthy habits you picked up? Do you do any of them today? 

• What are some ways you do not want to be like your parents, family, or friends when it comes to money management? 

• What are some financial mistakes you have made in the past? 

• What do you want your money relationship to feel or look like? 

Another reality is that how you feel about yourself affects your relationship with money, and there is no way around that. Your overall self-confidence impacts your confidence with money. 

Here is what you can do right now: 

• Consume different, positive, educational content: Improve your self-confidence through the people you follow, content you watch, and what you listen to. 

• Address where you are: A GPS (Global Positioning System) asks for your current location so it can show you the path to your destination. You have to know where you are in order to get to where you want to go. 

• Write it down: Set some personal, fitness, business, and travel goals—regardless of how realistic they are right now. Give yourself something to look forward to and work towards it. 

• Change your circle: Your friends affect your success. If you want to get better with money, go to where the money conversations are happening! 

Resources to elevate your money mindset 

Here is a list of books that will help you elevate your money mindset: 

• We Should All Be Millionaires by Rachel Rodgers 

• The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel 

• Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki 

• The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham 

• The Lazy Millionaire by Marc Fisher 

Shifting your money mindset does not happen overnight, but the sooner you commit to it, the sooner it can happen. 

Ready to take control of your finances? 

There are so many resources available to help you gain financial confidence. If you are ready to take your finances to the next level, explore free tools and templates from Futurpreneur’s Business Resource Centre. Check out our cash flow templates, including a BESP-specific template designed for Black entrepreneurs. 

You can also explore free resources available to you through Futurpreneur’s KOFE Initiative, a confidential virtual platform designed to strengthen financial confidence and long-term success of young entrepreneurs across Canada. 

And for more on Shay’s financial literacy work, visit Finance for the Culture. Stay tuned for details on upcoming Futurpreneur events to keep building your financial know-how. For a deeper dive into these personal finance basics, Shay recommends Investopedia’s Personal Finance Checkup as a helpful resource.