Money is so simple—yet at the same time so complicated—because it operates in our lives in ways that are emotional, unspoken, and unconscious.

Money can make any statement and carry any message. Money says whatever you tell it to. The wonder of money is that it can represent anything. It’s a stand-in for what we idealize and desire, yet fear and lack, for what we covet, crave, spurn, chase, or follow. We use money to show how much we care—or how little. We use it to measure success and buy happiness—or try to. We use it to bolster our self-esteem. We use money to communicate. Money language mirrors the unspoken self. Yet much of what we express with money remains outside awareness.

Everyone has a money story—a money autobiography with a plot, storylines, conflicts, and strivings. Every important relationship, including money, has its own history, develops its own story, and evolves its own language. Even though we talk about money regularly, think about it daily, we may not know how to clearly and simply tell our money stories to ourselves to see what needs to change.

A secret language becomes most developed by emotionally powerful desires. A desire is not quieted by its satisfaction; filling them can create desires. Money is the legal tender of desires. Money becomes the inkblot of the Rorschach test: when our eyes look straight at it, there is only a design on paper. But when offered the chance to imbue the design with meeting, the interpretations will be as wishful and varied as the fantasies of the respondents.

Fortunately, we can learn to decode the secret language of money, enabling us to both achieve greater wealth and derive greater happiness from the money we have. The Secret Language of Money combines two decades of clinical psychiatric and psychoanalytic practice, and most recently a decade of professional executive coaching with ground breaking research in psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral economics to mentor readers to consciously and strategically direct their own money decisions.

The book is a step-by-step operating manual that will make the reader fluent in the secret language of money. It will illuminate money narratives and mentor rewriting an informed, strategic, and successful money story. That money story permeates every aspect of our lives, and is one that consciously or not, we will teach our children.

The Secret Language of Money is a Michelin Guidebook for your relationship with money. It will help the reader:

• Decipher the secret language encrypted in money.

• Move from fear of money to mastery.

• Identify the self-statements made with money behaviors.

• Recognize money behaviors ghostwritten by your mind’s hidden assumptions.

• Overcome your brain’s patterned responses that lead to bad decisions.

• Develop the art and science of money strategies.

• Illuminate options and map possibilities.