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WEALTH THERAPY®

By Dr. Jacques Jospitre, Jr. MD, MBA

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Wealth Therapy® focuses on helping you find value in yourself and in your investments to achieve and sustain your financial goals.

  I remember, back in 2000, staring at the computer screen in shock. Up until that time, I had made tremendous returns on my stocks. I took my winnings and moved most of my money to options. Since, I was doing so well with my “investment” choices, I decided to use greater leverage to further enhance my returns. Instead of the phenomenal return that I was expecting, I lost my money as I watched the options expire worthless. Initially, there was denial, then anger and frustration. Eventually, sadness stepped in which eventually gave way to insight and confidence. It would be years before I would get my head around what had really happened. The Wealth Therapy® Theory became the silver lining of that experience.

First, a little bit more about me. I am a board certified Psychiatrist with a Masters in Business Administration. Currently, I have a private practice and work at a small private hospital that serves the Harlem community. As an entrepreneur, I have  worked on several startup companies with latest one being BrainMatriX—an educational software firm. This combination of academia and real life experiences led to a theory of a single comprehensive model of the wealth building process.

I have been reading books on success and wealth for as long as I can remember. I learned something valuable from each one, but none gave me a complete view. It was like having pieces of a puzzle, but not seeing how everything fitted together. Eventually a picture started getting painted of what it took to really build sustainable wealth. The essence of the universal model is captured in the Wealth Therapy flowchart.

Identity

How you see yourself and the world can dramatically affect your ability to accumulate and sustain wealth. Who are you? How did you become the person you are today? And, what do you expect from yourself? Your feelings, thoughts, and behaviors are in part due to nature and nurture. Nature refers to the genes that your parents passed on to you. For example, if your parents were prone to mood or anxiety disorders, then you would be at increased risk of having the same disorders. Genes not only make you resemble your parents physically, they can also make you act like them. But there is more to this story. Although your genes serve as the foundation for how you will turn out, nature is a significant component of maintaining and changing your current scripts.

What are your earliest memories about money and career planning? Are these happy or unhappy memories? Were those times relaxed or stressful? How were all of the experiences from then until now? What messages were given to you by the media, your friends, and your family? Which of these messages became part of your “script”, or the things you tell yourself? This internal script shapes the perception of self and resultant behaviors. You can be operating from a negative script and not even be consciously aware of it.

You can think of your mind as divided into two parts known as the conscious and subconscious. You are aware of the conscious part and unaware of the subconscious part. It turns out that most of the mental activity is subconscious, so that you are not “aware” of most of the thinking that your brain is doing. This subconscious thinking significantly affects your life. You are making decisions without even really being aware or actively involved in the process. So, what is driving those decisions? First, let’s go back to the memories of your money and career experiences.

If you had consistently positive, relaxed, supportive experiences around money and career planning, then you would have learned a script based on these experiences. If you had consistently negative, stressful, unsupportive experiences around money and career, then your script would be based on this.

Wealth Therapy® is a registered trademark of Dr. Jacques Jospitre, Jr. Copyright © 2008. All rights reserved.

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Regardless of the source of the internal “programs” or “scripts” that you run, you can still change the way you think to help get the results that you desire. In therapy, the script is pulled up from the depths of the subconscious, to conscious awareness for modification. The modified script is reinforced until it becomes part of the subconscious processing and becomes the new script.

To attain and sustain wealth, you will have to develop a script that is compatible with wealth. Your thinking, feelings, and behaviors will have to be aligned in a way that drives you to make decisions that are financially healthy.

Knowledge

Understanding how something works can help you efficiently accomplish what you set out to do. If you did not understand how a bicycle worked, you might waste energy trying different approaches to getting it to move before stumbling on the idea of peddling with your feet, and steering with your hands. The same can be said for personal finances. When the best practices are defined, they gives you the efficient way to get the best results for the least amount of energy.

For example, let’s look at budgeting. Categorize your spending as affordable versus unaffordable, and planned versus unplanned, you get an interesting matrix: 

If you plan to spend your money in an affordable way, then you have a budget. If you are planning to spend money that you can not afford to spend, then you are being completely self-destructive. If the spending is unplanned, then you may luck out if it is affordable, and be in real trouble if it is not. The knowledge that a budget is important for any financial plan will help you be aware of the need to develop the habit of using it. The knowledge helps you set the goals of what your internalized scripts should be targeting.

Evaluation

You want to have a sense of yourself and how you operate. You also want to know what changes you would like to make in your life. The two points can be compared to see where the gaps are. A plan to bridge those gaps is key to helping you efficiently make the transformation.

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Disclaimer:

This publication provides general concepts and theories in the subject matter. It is sold with the understanding that neither the author nor the publisher is engaged in rendering legal, accounting, financial, medical or other professional services. If expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person shoud be sought. The author and publisher specifically disclaim any liability, loss, or risk which is incurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly, of the use and application of any of the concepts or theories of this work.