The Money Story You Inherited Is Running Your Financial Life Right Now

What is your relationship with money?

Not how much you have. How does money make you feel? When you think about checking your bank account, what happens in your body? When someone talks about investing, do you lean in or zone out? When you see someone living the life you want, is your first thought “that could be me” or “that’s not for people like me”?

Be honest. I will go first.

I Could Make Money. I Could Not Keep It.

For most of my life, money scared me. Not in a dramatic way. Not in a way I would have admitted out loud. But in the quiet, private way that controls everything without you realizing it.

I earned well. I had a six-figure government job. I built a direct sales team of nearly three thousand people. I worked in real estate for over two decades. On paper, I knew how to make money.

But making money and having a healthy relationship with money are two completely different things.

I could earn it. I could not keep it. I could chase it. I could not let it rest. I could talk about it in a business context, but the moment money got personal — the moment it touched my identity, my worth, my family patterns, my fears — I shut down.

Your Money Story Is Running the Show

Think about the last time you had to quote a price for something you do well. Maybe it was a service, a product, a consultation. What happened inside your body when you had to say the number?

Did you say it with your full chest? Or did you shrink the number before it left your mouth, shaving off a couple hundred dollars because the real number felt like too much to ask for?

That shrinking. That shaving. That hesitation. That is your money story running the show. And it has been running the show your entire life.

Every woman has a money story — the collection of beliefs about money that were handed to her before she was old enough to question them. It was written by the arguments your parents had behind closed doors. By the phrase “we can’t afford that.” By the way wealthy people were spoken about with resentment. By the silence that surrounded money in your household.

The Thermostat

Your internal money thermostat is set to a certain level. When you earn above it, something pulls you back down — an unexpected expense, a bad decision, a relationship that drains your accounts. When you earn below it, you hustle harder to get back to baseline.

But the baseline never moves. Because the thermostat was set before you were old enough to choose it.

This is the thing that has to change BEFORE any financial strategy works. You can have the best budget in the world, the best business plan, the best investment strategy — and if your internal money thermostat is set to struggle, you will find a way back to struggle every single time.

It Is Time to Fix Your Money Mind

I wrote an entire book about this. About the money stories we inherit, the thermostats that control us, and what it actually takes to rewrite both.

If any of this landed in your chest — if you recognized yourself in these words — the book goes much deeper.

Your Money Is Waiting on You: Stop Playing Small, Fix Your Money Story, and Build the Life You Keep Saying You Want is available now on Amazon in ebook and paperback.

Your money is waiting on you. Stop making it wait.

Shaunita N. Holley is a published author, serial entrepreneur, and digital business strategist. She is the author of six books including Done Being Strong and Put the Cape Down. She is the founder of ExitToDigital.com.