The Difference Between Financial Literacy and Financial Empowerment
Financial literacy is important, however, I prefer to focus on financial empowerment first.
What’s the difference between Financial EmPOWERment and financial literacy, though?
Let’s dive into it!
Financial Literacy = Knowing How
What is financial literacy?
Financial literacy is understanding and implementing financial skills such as budgeting, investing, and overall personal financial management.
Yet when we first dive into financial literacy, we’re inundated with so much information. Most of us feel overwhelmed by the different financial terms, facts, and figures to the point where we avoid the financial conversation altogether.
This is why I strongly believe in a different starting place for our finances: Financial Empowerment.
Financial Empowerment = Knowing YOU
While learning and understanding the facts and figures is important, I believe in starting with the missing piece to the financial conversation – how we feel about money!
The truth is, money is a human experience and is central to the milestones we experience in life, from paying for college to buying a house, getting married, and even planning for the future.
But what else comes along with all these beautiful life experiences? The way you feel!
This is where Financial EmPOWERment comes in.
Before you even begin to dive into financial education, it’s essential to have a better understanding of yourself and your needs. Then, you’ll be able to base financial education on you and what applies to you.
Connecting to your journey and understanding yourself is the path to understanding what’s been holding you back from the financial success you desire. Through this connection, you realize that emotions are connected to your money - how you feel about money is directly tied to your results.
Knowing You will bridge to the How that is customized for you.
All the messaging and experiences you’ve had in your life have created associated emotions around money. For example, being told by a teacher that you were a bad student may have left you feeling inadequate with the belief that you couldn’t pursue higher education. Therefore, you didn’t. The feeling built the belief, and the result followed suit.
If you want to change the result, you must go back and acknowledge the feeling to understand the belief.
Acknowledge the feeling > understand the belief > change the results.
If you would like to learn more about how to break through financial jargon to discover your true, personal meaning of Financial EmPOWERment, I invite you to explore my book Cleopatra’s Riches!
