Your relationship with money influences your business more than you might realize.
And behind every strategic decision you make—how you price, spend, invest, and grow— there’s an unconscious script being played out on the stage of your mind…a script you didn’t write as an adult.
It is the one you absorbed as a child.
What’s a Money Script?
Money scripts are the unconscious beliefs and behaviors formed from your earliest experiences around money.
These stories may have protected or shaped you at one point, but today, they could be running the financial side of your business without your permission.
Maybe you heard:
☑️ “Don’t spend what you can’t afford.”
☑️ “Always buy the cheapest option.”
☑️ “Debt is dangerous.”
☑️ “Money doesn’t grow on trees.”
These sound harmless—or even responsible—but when internalized too deeply, they can erode the way you run a growing business.
How They Show Up in Business (Yes, Even at $20M)
These old lessons don’t disappear when you hit $2M… $10M… even $20M. They just show up differently.
If your parents avoided debt:
You might refuse financing that could help you grow faster.
If your parents were always worrying about money and paying taxes:
You might be stuck between the desire to make a lot of money to break your parent’s curse AND the desire to hide money to reduce your taxes owed.
If you learned not to overspend:
You might under-invest in high-quality advisors or systems, thinking “I can’t justify the cost.”
If your childhood conditioned you to believe money is scarce:
You might price your offerings too low, delay hiring, or hoard cash even when it’s time to scale.
And if you’ve totally delegated your numbers to a finance lead or CPA?
That old detachment might be costing you mental clarity and strategic insight.
How to Spot Your Script
Grab a pen or voice note app. Take five minutes and ask yourself:
1. What’s your earliest memory of money?
2. What did you learn from that moment?
3. Who taught it to you—directly or indirectly?
4. Where does that belief still show up in your business?
5. If you’re like the clients I work with, this reflection will hit deeper than expected.
How to Shift It (Chapters 2 & 3 of Dancing with Numbers)
In my book Dancing with Numbers, I guide you through this mindset work in detail.
📖 In Chapter 2, we go deep into identifying the money stories you’ve carried from childhood.For example:
Separate Your Self-Worth from Net Worth. Detangle personal identity from the business’s financial performance. Embrace the idea that profitability is a skill, not a character trait.
📖 In Chapter 3, we begin rewriting those beliefs so they align with the confident, powerful CEO you are today. Here are a couple of examples.
Step into the Role of Financial Steward. Claim your power as the financial leader of your business, even if you’re not a numbers person. Reframe: “I’m not good at numbers” → “I’m learning to make smart financial decisions.”
Surround Yourself with Empowering Voices. Seek mentorship, education, or a financial accountability partner. Replace disempowering stories with new narratives rooted in confidence and capability.
From Inner Work to Outer Strategy
Here’s the bridge: once you start making these inner shifts, use it as fuel to revisit your financial statements and see them from a new perspective.
Ask yourself:
Is my business profitable?
Is it cash flow positive?
Is it solvent?
Where do I need to lean in more?
Where is fear—rather than facts—driving my decisions?
The Mental Health Bottom Line
Money mindset impacts mental health and when you shift your internal relationship with money, everything external gets better—from hiring to pricing to how you sleep at night.
Let this week be the moment you pause, reflect, and rewrite your story.
Wishing you an empowered money mindset,
Tricia M. Taitt
Author of Dancing with Numbers
Tricia Taitt is the CEO and Chief Financial Choreographer of FinCore. She holds an M.B.A from The Fuqua School of Business of Duke University, and a BS in Economics with a Finance concentration from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. For over 20 years, she’s been a finance professional. Half of the time was spent working on Wall Street while the other half was spent in the trenches side by side with small business owners. As a result of working with FinCore, clients have been able to take control of their numbers and feel more confident in their ability to make decisions, while increasing profits by 10% and building a cash stash to invest in growth. Follow Tricia on LinkedIn and Instagram.
If you’re ready to see what our team of CFOs can do for your small business, Schedule a Financial Strategy Session.