Inspired Wealth: Financial Leadership for the 21st Century is primarily a book about leading yourself, because we believe this is the first step to leading others. However, the 12 principles described here are universal and can be applied to individuals, families, corporations or even countries. Financial leadership is about becoming your own visionary and using your money intentionally with meaning, purpose and direction. The key to true vision is embracing the change we know is inevitable; aspiring to change with it; and maintaining our ability to add value regardless of the challenges: becoming “more,” not “less,” as a result of the change.
Who Are Aileen Miga and Janice Hughes?
We are two professionals from very different backgrounds. Yet what we have discovered is that we are two very similar people, both on a path of exploration. This path is leading us deeper into knowledge about who we are, and what we are here to do.
Dr. Janice Hughes is a Chiropractor who focuses on wellness - integrating mind, body and spirit. On her quest to find more tools and ways to help others, she discovered the profession of coaching. After hiring her own coach she began to discover who she truly is, not simply her role as a professional. She went on to train as a coach, and integrated this into her personal and professional life. By the laws of attraction she began to connect with likeminded people on their own paths of discovery. After coaching thousands of clients, Janice has grown to understand how pivotal money issues are in peoples’ lives.
And then Aileen Miga entered the picture, to challenge and inspire Janice to take her coaching to the next level.
Aileen is a Certified Financial Planner™ and wealth coach. Early in her career Aileen realized that money is never just about money. More and more Aileen began to see that helping people achieve sustainable financial success demands a beyond-the-numbers approach. Through her financial planning practice, Aileen learned that leading people to understand their behavior about money is as important as showing them the numbers. She realized that effective financial planning requires integrating increased personal awareness with greater financial literacy, and this ultimately leads to greater financial resources. As a trained specialist in sudden wealth and inherited wealth issues Aileen understands the need to help people create the “legs beneath their wealth.” She believes the key to sustainable wealth creation involves moving the whole person forward, not just their finances. Focusing on the technical side of money is not enough: the greater challenge is to know our “self” well enough to make optimal choices about money, which work to support, not sabotage, our efforts.
Her search for effective ways to help people make better choices with money led her to explore a holistic approach to financial planning. For Aileen, this meant finding a way to help people understand where they are, where they would like to be, and how to map out their individual paths to support them in getting there. Helping people learn to use money intentionally became her calling.
She began to change her financial-planning practice to implement this holistic approach and immediately discovered that there were very few tools available within the financial planning profession to help her teach clients to use money more intentionally. Aileen began to search out like-minded individuals with whom she could share her vision.
After meeting Dr. Hughes Aileen knew immediately she had found someone who could help her create the tools she needed to build the holistic financial planning practice she envisioned.
One of the first things Dr. Hughes taught Aileen was the principle of attraction. It became clear to both that they were drawn to one another for a reason. As Aileen began to share her vision with Janice it became obvious that their work covered a lot of common ground. Both were trying to help clients achieve their greatest potential. As a coach, Janice would regularly help clients explore their attitudes and habits around money issues. As a financial planner Aileen found herself coaching clients to examine their beliefs and change their behaviors around money. Together they envisioned creating a framework, which would lead people to a new level of connection with their money: to help people achieve true wealth and attain their highest goals.
And so was born the quest for inspired wealth. To answer the questions:
How to make sense of all the information about money
How to reduce its complexity and create real value with knowledge in the context of our individual lives - in a way that expands us and fulfills our desire to live richer, more intentional lives
How to use money intentionally - with meaning, purpose and direction
This is the mission of Inspired Wealth: Financial Leadership for the 21st century.
The Call to Adventure
You are holding this book in your hands because you know there is more to life, and to handling money, than the old well-traveled road of getting and spending. This book will take you on a journey through an adventurous landscape of self awareness. Everything is new and fresh - and much is unexpected. Old enemies turn out to be allies, insurmountable obstacles become bridges to a fuller life. This is the world of inspired wealth and your path takes you through the very heart of a vast, richly varied landscape. You are going to need courage on this journey; the courage to let go of old ways of looking at life and money, and the courage to venture into unknown territory. Fear Not! You have on your side two experienced guides who have themselves taken the journey and have proven they know the way.
Aileen and Janice will be at your side on your first exploration of this new world, and they will leave in your hands the tools and knowledge that will enable you to negotiate whatever challenges you meet. Their fundamental toolkit consists of the 12 Principles for Financial Leadership, which will be a powerful source of inspiration and guidance on your journey.
This is a great opportunity to discover and get to know yourself in a new way - as an adventurer, the hero of your own success story.
Your Inspired Wealth Journal
When people embark on a journey, they often find it valuable to keep a journal. We encourage you to use a notebook to do the exercises in this book. As we take you through the 12 principles consider how applying them in your life can improve your finances and well-being.
We promise not to ask you to write down everything you spend. However, it is often helpful to reflect and write about how money impacts your life day to day. Your Inspired Wealth Journal can help you increase your awareness and clarity about the money issues in your life and can be a valuable tool in helping you make lasting change.
Principle #1 Money = Energy
✓Energy: The ability to get work done
✓A symbol of appreciation
✓Flows to those who add value
✓You can raise your energy to attract more
When was the last time you thought about money?
Was it an hour ago? 20 minutes ago? 2 minutes ago?
If we are honest with ourselves, we will admit we spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about money: how much we have or don’t have, how to repay what we owe or invest what we’ve accumulated, or simply how to get some more!
In today’s society more than ever before, money touches every aspect of our lives.
Never before has money been so pervasive in our lives and so complicated. Today we have more options about how to spend, save and invest our money than ever before:
more options, more demands, more messages and more confusion.
As a result of the challenges money presents, one of the greatest financial aspirations of many has become simply “not to have to think about money.” You’ve probably said it yourself on occasion: “ I wish I didn’t have to think about money.” It’s a common fantasy.