The Money Madness Boa and the Money Joke

Posted on May 15th, 2008 in Experiences, Funny

I am drawn to make others take a step back and think outside the box – especially with money.

Have you heard the latest money joke?

No?

That’s probably because there isn’t one. ( Ok, I did find the jokes about money listed at the end of this blog  – but in general, it’s not a huge humor topic! )

Money is serious. Say the word, and people’s posture improves. It’s as if they were hearing a parent’s voice telling them to mind their manners and tuck in their shirt. I’ve seen playful looks freeze into masks of solemnity when the subject of money comes up, with worry lines around the mouth and anxiety wrinkles around the eyes. Money is stressful; as my father used to say, it’s “no laughing matter.”

Well, it should be. All this gravitas around money is actually an obstacle to money success. It keeps us from thinking clearly about money, from looking at it realistically and making wise decisions about it. We feel weighed down by the ponderous complexity we assume surrounds the issue of money. The bulk of all that information hurled at us by the media displaces our common sense. And the freight of a culture that equates financial worth with self-worth produces the kind of stress that makes us react to events when we ought to be responding with objectivity and common sense.

That’s why one of the things I always try to do in my workshops is to get folks to lighten up about money. So when I found myself staring at a money boa in a San Francisco novelty store one day, I bought it instantly.

What’s a money boa? It’s about a hundred folded up hundred-dollar bills—fake ones, of course—strung together like a scarf. The fakes are pretty authentic-looking, so at a glance, I really do appear to be “wearing” $10,000 around my neck.

I first wore the money boa at a curing money madness workshop I did in New York for 500 people. I knew, because it’s always the case, that a lot of the workshop participants were feeling stressed, hopeless, and frustrated about their money situation. Yet even as I approached the podium, boa flapping as I moved, I could hear a few embarrassed titters. Then some chuckles. And by the time I was center stage, the place was downright mirthful. The point was made. A weight had been lifted, and in this more buoyant environment, it was a lot easier to help participants cure their money madness.

A few days after the workshop, I had to fly east on business. To my dismay, I found that I couldn’t really pack the boa; the hundred-dollar bills could not be refolded. So I simply wore the boa, and the reactions this provoked were pretty astonishing.

As I made my way through San Francisco Airport to board my plane, kids ran up to touch the boa and to ask for money. Adults smiled at me and shouted out questions; I just responded that I wanted all of us to lighten up about money, and every one of them agreed and thanked me for the reminder. A security guard asked if the money were real, and once I boarded, my fellow passengers were quick to start chatting; all by itself, the money boa broke the ice.

Then I arrived in New York. Cold, distant, unfriendly New York, as legend has it, money capital of the world. In fact, despite the fact that it was May, New York was chilly and windy—at least, until I walked its streets wearing my boa.

People laughed. They waved. Cops directing traffic at the world’s busiest intersections blew their whistles. New Yorkers wisecracked one-liners at me. Yes, there was a man living on the street in Times Square who tried, somewhat aggressively, to rip some “money” off the boa, and there were a number of people who simply didn’t notice at all, but for the most part, the reaction was: that’s funny.

All of this says to me that there is an untapped reservoir of lightness about money that has been pushed down inside us by a lifetime of stressful conditioning. The conditioning affects different people in different ways: some are obsessed by money, some are determinedly oblivious to it, some find it a distasteful necessity. But it seems to me that if we can access that reservoir of lightness, going back to a time before the conditioning planted distorted childhood money messages in us, we might clear the way for curing our money madness and making better, more successful money decisions.

How to do that? Remember back when you were seven or eight years old and were given a five-dollar bill to spend as you liked? If you could recapture the sense of wonder and excitement those five bucks incited in you, you’d be halfway there. So here are three suggestions for putting the fun back in money:

1. Save in a shoebox. Literally. Identify something you want to save for, find a shoebox (or piggy bank, or similar), and start putting in loose change on a regular basis. Even better, save with a friend: maybe plan a vacation together, and determine that every time you get together, you will each put ten bucks into the vacation kitty. Watch your savings grow, just as you would if you were seven or eight—with a sense of wonder and delight—and have fun spending it.

2. Consider the path your money travels next time you pay for something. The dollar that bought you today’s newspaper, for example: it helps pay the bills of the newsstand vendor, the salary of the driver whose truck delivered the papers, the reporters and photographers who covered the stories you’re reading, the editors, production team, and so on. Money works; it has a function. But it travels light; money is not leaden.

3. Come up with three reasons why you are overpaid for your work. Maybe it’s the lunchtime use of the office computer to do your shopping. Or the skybox at the stadium you get invited to regularly. Or the secret fact that you would do this work for nothing. Think about it, come up with your three, and write them down. No, this is not a joke.

Jere are the jokes about money i could actually find!

Tags: Kids, Money Messages, Saving, Spending