Health and wellbeing. We know more about it today than ever before. Through a combination of better information, efficient communication, and folks being ready to listen, change came gradually, then suddenly, as a cultural revolution unfolded.
What about financial wellbeing?
In recent years, health and mental health have gone from acutely private topics to ones now discussed openly at work, in the pub, online, with strangers …
Subjects like sleep, nutrition, meditation and mindset were once for high-dollar gyms and avant-garde cafes but they’re now mainstream topics discussed by just about anyone.
So with more people than ever fluent in health and wellbeing, it’s a noodle-scratcher we haven’t embraced the language of money …
After all, financial wellbeing is another major part of our lives …
Another cultural revolution?
At Money Means we like the model of the Five Pillars of Wellbeing. Pillar #3 (financial) isn’t the most important but it is the one that can spread most damage if we don’t pay it enough attention.
At a minimum, financial ill-health causes stress. Financial ill-health can damage our mental and physical health, degrade our social lives, dent our confidence and jeopardise our relationships.
We need a big shift in financial wellbeing if we’re to pull up its place in public consciousness, and that shift will have three familiar steps:
1) better information
2) effective communication
3) a receptive public
But just like health and mental health, there’s a stumbling block between steps 2) and 3). What is it? Major taboos still exist around money. For many of us, talking cash is rude, private, embarrassing. We just don’t do it.
A running start
Some 88% of people lack confidence in money matters and 33% don’t discuss money through shame, embarrassment or guilt.
None of this is a secret. The combination of money taboos and the need for greater financial wellbeing is a known problem. So to a greater or lesser extent steps 1, 2 and 3 are already in motion.
Banks, institutions and government are communicating more and better messages about financial literacy, health and resilience, while employers are spreading the word in the workplace.
The financial services regulator has written new policy challenging institutions to improve customer knowledge, access and clarity, while lenders and insurers are showing much more flex than ever before to engage customers in their own financial health.
For good or bad, we have social media ‘Finfluencers’ reaching big audiences in money matters, while a new generation of fintech companies are putting power and choice in more customers’ hands.
What’s next?
Perhaps too gradually, steps 1) and 2) are underway, but we need more step 3). People need to be ready to shift their mindsets and embrace change.
One major blockage is the taboo around money, but there’s no reason we can’t drop it the way we did the stigmas around discussing health and wellbeing.
It might be awkward at first, but the results could be transformative.
So if you do nothing else today, why not talk with a trusted person about your money. Your truth might set us all free …
The potential for health and happiness to soar increases many times over when we feel empowered to take control of the financial pillar of our wellbeing
Your challenge, for now, is to talk more money more often. Ready?