A friend and I were talking the other night, and the conversation turned to the emotional effect of money.... My friend's a budding property tycoon, and we both have applied our monetary knowledge the past couple years (in different areas) to start rapidly growing our wealth....

Yet he pointed out another friend of his, who always has money troubles. The worst part is, though, that it's next to impossible to talk to this other guy about the topic of money (and how to make it), to help him out of his troubles....

Some people seem to have a lot of money troubles. By this I mean that they are always worried about money, and can't seem to get out of their predicament....

My feeling is that many people can't get beyond the emotional aspect of money. The thought of gaining or losing money instils such greed or fear in them that they can't think about money in a rational way....

That is, for example, many of us here can sit back and look at money (and how to make it) quite rationally. And there are literally hundreds of techniques -- mail order, chattel trading, selling your services, real estate investment, etc., and these techniques actually DO WORK!

However, some people are so incredibly worried about money, so much so that when the topic of money comes up, it seems to trigger an intense fear in them that they could lose money. At this stage, it can be difficult to discuss money on a rational level, because the of the intense emotion they feel when the subject comes up....

I thought this was an interesting observation.... In a sense, it's a real shame that money has such an effect on some people, because I believe that it does help to block their success. I've heard this before, but I never really understood *why* that was....

But now, I believe that the reason *why* this blocks some people's success is that the intense emotions which they experience -- greed and fear -- completely overwhelm their rationality. Because of this, they may do irrational and unsensible things with money, and lose it all together....

Any thoughts on this? I thought this was an interesting topic to discuss, and one which may go to the very core of the difference between the "haves" and the "have-nots", when the two groups are faced with the same opportunities....

- Dien Rice