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The Eight Money Types
Most people fall into one or more of the eight money types. Much like Jungian archetypes or the Enneagram, which define different personality types, this system offers a simple way to identify and evaluate your relationship with money. With this understanding, you will learn how to make conscious choices, and, as a result, the money dynamic in your daily life will improve.
In my Money Mindset Course, where I help with women’s financial planning, I refer to the eight money types as players in the money game. Although we may be successful in most areas of our lives, when faced with money decisions, changes, or crises many people revert to an ineffective, emotional approach to making decisions about money. By understanding your unconscious feelings and beliefs about money, you will be more conscious of your habitual money behaviours and better prepared to change them when they occur. Following are descriptions of the eight money types.
The Innocent
The Innocent takes the ostrich approach to money matters. Innocents often live in denial, burying their heads in the sand so they won’t have to see what is going on around them. The Innocent is easily overwhelmed by financial information and relies heavily on the advice and opinions of others. Innocents are perhaps the most trusting of all the money types because they do not see people or situations for what they are. They are like children in the sense that they have not yet learned to judge or discern other people’s motives or behaviour.
While this trait can be very endearing, it is also precarious for an adult trying to cope in the real world. We all start out our journey in life as Innocents; however, as we grow and develop, most of us shed the veil of innocence and replace it with our experience in the real world.
The Victim
Victim money types are prone to living in the past and blaming their financial woes on external factors. Passive aggressive (prone to expressing their feelings in indirect rather direct ways) in nature, Victims often appear to be Innocents, because they seem so powerless and appear to want others to take care of them. However, this appearance is often either a conscious or subconscious ploy to get others to do for them what they refuse to do for themselves.
Victims generally have a litany of excuses for why they are not more successful, and the excuses are all based on their historical mythology. That is not to say that bad things haven’t actually happened to Victims. More often than not, Victims have been abused, betrayed, or have suffered some great loss. The problem is that they have never processed their pain, and so it has turned on them. Victims are always looking for someone to rescue them, because they believe they have suffered enough. They carry a sense of entitlement: “I paid my dues, look at my battle scars. Where ‘s my reward?”
The Warrior
The Warrior sets out to conquer the money world and is generally seen as successful in the business and financial worlds. Warriors are adept investors focused, decisive, and in control. Although Warriors will listen to advisors, they make their own decisions and rely on their own instincts and resources to guide them. The world is filled with Warrior types, from those who enjoy the sport of business and the skillful art of negotiating to those whose single-minded intent is simply to win at any cost.
Warriors often have difficulty understanding the difference between an adversary and a worthy opponent. A worthy opponent presents an opportunity to put down the sword and embrace one’s potential for growth and transformation. A worthy opponent is usually the person with whom you have the greatest conflict.
The Martyr
Martyrs are so busy taking care of others’ needs that they often neglect their own. Financially speaking, Martyrs generally do more for others than they do for themselves. They often rescue others (such as a child, spouse, friend, or relative) from some life circumstance or crisis. However, Martyrs’ gifts have strings attached and they are repeatedly let down when others fail to meet their expectations. The mark of the Martyr is an unconscious attachment to their own suffering.
The Martyr moves between two distinctly different energies: one that seeks to be in control and is controlling of others and the other that feels wounded like a very needy child. Martyrs tend to be perfectionists and have high expectations of themselves and of others, which makes them quite capable of realizing their dreams because they put so much energy into being right.
The Fool
The Fool plays by a different set of rules altogether. A gambler by nature, the Fool is always looking for a windfall of money by taking financial shortcuts. Even though the familiar adage “a fool and his money are soon parted” often comes true, Fools often win because they are willing to throw the dice; they are willing to take chances. The Fool is really a combination of the Innocent and the Warrior. Like the Innocent, the Fool often has impaired judgment and has difficulty seeing the truth about things. An adventurer at heart, the Fool gets caught up in the enthusiasm of the moment, caring little for the details. The primary difference between Fools and Innocents is that Fools are relatively fearless in their endeavours and remain eternal optimists regardless of the circumstances.
In this regard, Fools are like Warriors because they seem to always land on their feet and are not easily defeated. The Fool also sets out to conquer the world but is easily distracted and lacks the discipline of the Warrior. The Fool is much more interested in making money as a sport or form of recreation than as a serious endeavour.
The Creator
Creator/Artists are on a spiritual or artistic path. They often find living in the material world difficult and frequently have a conflicted love/hate relationship with money. They love money for the freedom it buys them, but have little or no desire to participate in the material world. The Creator/Artist often overly identifies with the interior world and may even despise those who live in the material world. Their negative beliefs about materialism only block them from the very freedom they so desire. Creator/Artists most fear being inauthentic or not being true to themselves.
Since it is almost impossible to attract what we are repelled by, the Creator/Artist is constantly struggling for financial survival. This is not because they lack talent or ambition. Rather, they are stuck in a belief system that sabotages their ability to manifest money. Too many people on the creative/artistic path feel that money is bad or lacking in spirituality.
The Tyrant
Tyrants use money to control people, events, and circumstances. The Tyrant hoards money, using it to manipulate and control others. Although Tyrants may have everything they need or desire, they never feel complete, comfortable, or at peace. The Tyrant’s greatest fear is loss of control. Tyrants are often overdeveloped Warriors who have become highly invested in their need for control and dominance. While Warriors are often heroic in their true concern for others’ welfare, Tyrants are purely self-interested. This money type wants power and control for their own sake and will forsake other people if necessary to gain more of it.
Throughout history, the Tyrant has emerged as the ruler who dominates and destroys with no sign of remorse. Today, Tyrants can be found among the political leaders, business people, and family figureheads who use whatever means necessary to win.
The Magician
The Magician is the ideal money type. Using a new and ever-changing set of dynamics both in the material and spirit worlds, Magicians know how to transform and manifest their own financial reality. At our best, when we are willing to claim our own power, we are all Magicians.
The archetype that is active in your life now is a starting point for personal transformation. By understanding your own money mythology and the personal history behind your current money type, you will become conscious of patterns and behaviours that are preventing you from being a money Magician. As this new consciousness grows., you will begin to experience money matters in a new way – the way of the money Magician.