When I finished my MBA in January, my friends asked me what I was planning to do with myself career-wise. Debbie Reed, a Life Coach and friend, asked a really good question, “What job would you do even if you weren’t paid to do it?” I said, “I would continue to support BNOW!” With that notion, I started masterminding the relaunch of my women’s group (www.bnow.org). At the time, my focus certainly wasn’t about generating income. It was more about making BNOW sustainable on its own, so it no longer needed me to sponsor it. Many months passed, and as we were about relaunch, I had an uneasy feeling. Perhaps it was prelaunch jitters or knowing that as an entrepreneur, the results of my efforts were now going to be measured in real terms: paying customers, plus profits and losses.

I went to visit a friend who just had a baby, and she talked about a book called Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker. She thought it would be a great read for me since I was a budding business owner. I looked online to check the book reviews, and all of them were positive. A couple days later, I mentioned it to a friend at lunch, and she raved about it. I picked up a copy right after we finished lunch. That night, I settled in to read a few pages, and I found it hard to put it down

I figured out why I was having these fears. It’s my financial blueprint. Eker explains that we all have them. We create our financial blueprint from the way our parents handle money to watching others manage their money. For example, you might have heard your parents or someone say, “This guy is filthy rich.” The word “filthy” insinuates that he couldn’t have earned his money legitimately; he must have done something crooked to be so rich. The same applies to the expressions “stuck-up rich people” and “Money doesn’t grow on trees.” It assumes all rich people are stuck-up and snotty and money is hard to come by. Believe it or not, some people use that as a block to earning more income. It’s not the conscious mind but the subconscious emotional ties to these learnings that steers us away from achieving our financial potential.

Eker talks about his wife whose financial blueprint is to spend. When she was young, she would ask her mom for money to buy something. Her mom’s response was, “I don’t have money, ask your dad.” She grew up thinking women don’t have money and shouldn’t have it because her mom never managed money. Anytime she got money, she spent it. He admitted they fought over money until they figured out the problem and co-created a new financial blueprint that works for his marriage. Nathalie, one of Eker’s students, was also another spender. She grew up with parents who collected and used coupons. Their vacations were road trips and camping, no hotels or motels for the family. As an adult, she ran up her credit cards to the point of not being able to make the minimum payment. At the Millionaire Mind Intensive seminar, she found out her behavior stemmrf from resentment of growing up having to scrimp. Like Nathalie, Emma was on the verge of bankruptcy. She learned from Eker the same system that most of us have learned as kids but that some of us have forgotteb to apply as adults. He advises to split your money into multiple accounts:

• 10% for the Financial Freedom Account
• 10% for the Play Account
• 10% into a Long-term Savings For Spending Account
• 10% into an Education Account
• 50% into the Necessities Account
• 10% into the Give Account

Emma had a dollar to split between these accounts. She went ahead with the exercise and put dimes into five accounts and two quarters into one account. By the end of the year, she was dividing $2,048 into the six accounts! Eker teaches the old adage of “A penny saved is a penny earned,” and he takes it a step further by giving you practical tools that you can use in your everyday life. For example, if you see a penny (in our case, a satang) on the floor, pick it up, kiss it, thank the universe for sending it your way, and put it in your pocket.

Eker’s stories resonated with me. My parents are baby boomers who grew up during the depression. They are frugal. My mother didn’t manage money. My father is the kind of guy who knows how to squeeze a dollar to make it holler! Like most middle-class families, I grew up with the belief that you have to work hard to earn your keep. An important piece of advice that I got from the reading is that rich people play the money game to win, where others play the game not to lose. Basically, it’s an offensive or defensive strategy. If you’re on the defense, you can waste time playing the victim card, blaming others or the economy, and shirking your responsibility when it comes to managing your money. The offensive approach is focused on creating abundance, being proactive in how your money is created and managed, learning from financially successful people, and letting go of biases you may have towards wealthy people. As a businesswoman and mom, I’m changing my financial blueprint.

You know what that means? Next time you drop money around me, I’m going to pick it up, stick it in my pocket and tell you “Finders keepers!”

Pacharee Pantoomano-Pfirsch is the founder of the Bangkok Network of Women (www.bnow.org) and an international marketing communications consultant. For more information, please feel free to spam her at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .