Introducing the (Financial) Archetypes

The following is excerpted with permission of the publisher HarperCollins from It's Not About the Money: Unlock Your Money Type to Achieve Spiritual and Financial Abundance. Copyright © 2008 by Brent Kessel. It gives a good overview of what this book is about.

No matter who you are, you come to your financial life with remarkably unique life experiences, all of which have conditioned you to respond to money in particular and sometimes peculiar ways.  Your life experiences caused you to develop certain financial beliefs and habits and to avoid others.  The good news is that you are not alone!  In my professional work with people from all financial walks of life, I have noticed that although the details of people’s behaviors and problems are unique, there are great similarities among certain groups of people.  Drawing on the work of various teachers, mentors, and philosophers, as well as my own observations, I’ve created some broad definitions of these groups, or archetypes, so that people can learn from others who have gone through similar experiences.

In my opinion, the optimal human being would be balanced among all eight of these archetypes.  Who wouldn’t want to be the person whose financial life was experienced as secure and abundant, pleasure-filled and joyous, powerful and creative, self-sufficient, significant and worthy, relaxed, generous, and compassionate? Chances are you’ll find yourself and your behavior when it comes to money in at least one of these archetypes:

• THE GUARDIAN is always alert and careful.
• THE PLEASURE SEEKER prioritizes pleasure and enjoyment in the here and now.
• THE IDEALIST places the greatest value on creativity, compassion, social justice, or spiritual growth.
• THE SAVER seeks security and abundance by accumulating more financial assets.
• THE STAR spends, invests, or gives money away to be recognized, feel hip or classy, and increase self-esteem.
• THE INNOCENT avoids putting significant attention on money and believes or hopes that life will work out for the best.
• THE CARETAKER gives and lends money to express compassion and generosity.
• THE EMPIRE BUILDER thrives on power and innovation to create something of enduring value.

Learning about these archetypal energies and patterns gives you the insight and power to change.  This is not intended as a system to objectify, diagnose, or limit yourself or others.  It’s not so important that you peg yourself as one or two of these archetypes—you may recognize parts of yourself and other people in all eight.  For instance, we all worry to some extent when it comes to money, so we all have some Guardian in us.  We all experience the pleasure of buying things, so all of us are familiar with the Pleasure Seeker.

In real life, however, we usually lean too much in one direction.  We fixate on one set of beliefs and strategies—one archetype—in response to our particular life experiences.  It is most often the people who find themselves firmly rooted in just one or two archetypes who feel the least freedom to choose and create the financial lives they want.

In addition, people are imbalanced to varying degrees within each archetype.  Even though behaviors may manifest in imbalanced ways in our adult lives, there is something very intelligent at the source of each archetype’s coping strategy.  For example, a dysfunctional Saver might be penny-pinching or saving much more than he or she needs to, but at heart this person is focused on financial self-sufficiency, which is a reasonable goal.  What follows is a list for each archetype with a few words describing its lower-functioning attributes, or pitfalls, as well as its higher-functioning attributes, or gifts:

• The Guardian -- Pitfalls: Worry, anxiety; Gifts: Alertness, prudence
• The Pleasure Seeker -- Pitfalls: Hedonism, impulsiveness; Gifts: Enjoyment, pleasure
• The Idealist -- Pitfalls: Distrust, aversion; Gifts: Vision, compassion
• The Saver -- Pitfalls: Hoarding, penny-pinching; Gifts: Self-sufficiency, abundance
• The Star -- Pitfalls: Pretentiousness, self-importance; Gifts: Leadership, style
• The Innocent -- Pitfalls: Avoidance, helplessness; Gifts: Hope, adaptability
• The Caretaker -- Pitfalls: Enabling, self-abandoning; Gifts: Empathy, generosity
• The Empire Builder -- Pitfalls: Greed, domination; Gifts: Innovation, decisiveness

We generally understand and appreciate the way our own archetype behaves, and feel like people who exhibit other behaviors are from a different planet.  We may become quite exasperated while reading about the pitfalls of our own archetype, clinging firmly to the belief that ours is the only sensible approach to money.  Some other archetypes may be completely repulsive to us.  This can be because a parent or lover who caused us great emotional pain exhibited the attributes of that archetype, so we reject their financial values, throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

The archetypes are presented not as a categorization system to be fixed in stone, but so you can tease out what might be affecting your financial life on an unconscious level.  It is important to note that at different times we have thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors arising out of different archetypes.  To use my own life as an example, I would say that in late adolescence I was clearly a Saver. I recall as a teenager slowly accumulating the three hundred dollars needed to buy my first ten-speed bike, and a few years later fantasizing about one day having enough so I wouldn’t need to work for money.  As I entered my working life, I became more of an Empire Builder, dreaming of the day when I would have enough wealth to truly not worry and to make a positive impact on the world.  In my early thirties, when my business was struggling, the Guardian kicked in.  I recall many sleepless nights and early mornings when I played doomsday scenarios over and over in my head and felt paralyzed by fear.  Then, as the business became more successful, my Pleasure Seeker began to emerge, as we used our newfound abundance to remodel out home, travel to Europe and Hawaii, and go out to gourmet restaurants and great concerts.  Interestingly, this increase in spending did not come at the expense of the Saver; throughout this time, I still saved at least 20 percent of my income each year.

Identifying the archetypes that are most active within us is an important step toward creating true financial freedom.  By bringing conscious awareness to what is unconscious, we can attain balance and a sense of control over our financial destiny.

Comments

[David]

Very good info!

This also reminds of a neat free assessment I took on Crown Financial Ministries' web site called the "Crown Money Map Personality I.D.".

For more info, go to Crown.org and click on "Financial and Career Tools".

[Curt at PennyJobs.com]

Too many options and too many different conclusions that could be drawn. In the end, 80% make impulsive decisions. The 20% that make long-term rational decisions are nationally more inclined to made better decision with their money.

[Ken Clark - CollegeSavings.About.com]

Very cool... Reminds of Psych 101 and Jungian Archetypes!

[Ryan S]

you forgot one:

WHINER - refers to the poster known as minimum wage.