Jan. 7, 2015 – When it comes to money, do you try to keep up with the Joneses, or are you a Spartan at heart? Whether you are conscious of it or not, your financial personality affects both your personal and professional life. According to financial counselor and consultant, Connie Kilmark of Kilmark & Associates LLC, maintaining a successful and ethical practice requires that lawyers have a better understanding of how they feel about money. Self-reflection and proper role models are key to gaining the necessary wisdom.

What is Financial Personality?

Financial personality is “a shorthand way of speaking about an entire constellation of [responses] to value propositions, to emotions that arise over the question of money,” says Kilmark. “The tempo with which you make decisions, the style with which you perceive and behave in the presence of money and the things that money can buy,” all of these contribute to your unique financial personality.

Money is a “highly charged symbol.” For this reason, “we’re all involved in the drama of how each of us responds to [it].” Making good decisions and dealing with the complex emotions surrounding money requires a basic understanding of your own financial personality and that of the people in your life. It requires wisdom.

Understanding what is ‘Enough’ Removes Temptation

The trouble with money, says Kilmark, is that it “promises things that it cannot deliver.”

As a culture, we are constantly told that we need ‘more’ and newer. “This leads us a sense of constant insufficiency, a sense that ‘I’m not there yet,’ a sense that ‘I am incomplete.’”

The question “What is ‘enough’?” is often overlooked. “We don’t think about it nationally. We don’t think about it in a community… most especially, we don’t think about it deeply enough within ourselves.”

However, asking yourself that question can provide a clarity, a kind of wisdom, says Kilmark. Knowing when you have enough to satisfy the basics of life, provides peace of mind. It “gives you a kind of invulnerability to some of the more common ethical temptations that arise” in positions importance and trust. Moreover, knowing when you have enough, provides “a sense that you are less corruptible than you might be” if you were always chasing after more money.

For attorneys, who are duty-bound to be honest role models in the community, removing such temptations are key to a successful practice.

Better Comparisons for Financial Wellbeing

How we perceive our financial wellbeing is often rooted in the comparisons we make. We are quick to measure our own success by that of our peers, and set our sights on those we admire. Here we must be careful, cautions Kilmark. If you choose to revere those “whose primary quality or characteristic is prosperity or huge amounts of conspicuous consumption, you will constantly go through life feeling that you are either a failure or that you’re not ‘there’ yet.”

Better to seek balance in your life and in your practice by associating with those who are somewhat less fortunate. This will help you to develop a sense that you’re “somewhere in the very happy middle,” says Kilmark. Understanding and accepting a healthier comparison “is a necessary step in successful maturation.”

Know Thyself, Attorney

The question of financial personality is especially important for attorneys because they are in positions of exceptional trust. “If you are unaware of some of your own deepest temptations … are either insecure … or want to put on a kind of appearance that isn’t supported by your actual earnings, you open yourself to breaches of trust and of the kind of fiduciary duty you owe your clients,” says Kilmark.

By definition, lawyers serve relatively vulnerable people. And because their clients know less about the law, unexamined temptations put attorneys at unnecessary risk for unethical and even illegal actions.

To be a lawyer requires “an exceptionally secure person with excellent boundaries,” argues Kilmark. Understanding your financial personality, “knowing your temptations, and knowing what to do about dealing with those is a highly important quality in a successful attorneys practice.”