Connect with Fast Company

Back in the late 1990s, we had a lot on our minds. And since there was so much cash flowing around, a lot of it had to do with money: Would the next IPO pop higher than the last? Nowadays, that concern looks like a good one to have. The country, companies, and consumers have flipped from a surplus psychology to a deficit psychology overnight.

Too much. Too little. When it comes to money, we never seem to reach the Goldilocks nirvana of "just right." That's because we're so obsessed with getting money -- earning it, keeping it, multiplying it -- that we don't get money on a deeper level, says Pamela York Klainer, founder of the Rochester, New York-based consulting firm Power and Money LLC. "Money is such a powerful, unexplored thread in our lives and work," says the veteran career coach and financial planner. "The fact is that at a very deep level, our lives as successful people are about our experiences with money. That's taboo to say, but it's true. And it's true whether we make a lot of money or an average amount. Yet few people talk about their experience with money honestly or with any clarity. Gaining clarity about the role that money plays in your life opens a unique window to who you are, what you value, and if you can allow yourself to be happy."

A cross between a brutally pragmatic financial adviser and an empathetic life coach, Klainer worked as principal for a financial-services firm, where she advised hundreds of executives for such big companies as Bausch & Lomb, Kodak, and Xerox, along with scores of entrepreneurial leaders in fast-growth technology companies. Her new book, How Much Is Enough: Harness the Power of Your Money Story -- and Change Your Life (Basic Books, 2002), introduces a powerful framework for unpacking individual and organizational "money stories," along with a set of tools for tinkering with the age-old balance between money, success, and happiness. Here is Klainer's advice on how to follow the money thread and change your life.

You argue that money and happiness are, in fact, tightly linked.

In my 20 years of working with successful people on leadership, career, and money issues, I've been hit over and over again with the question, "If I have all of this money and professional challenge, why don't I feel better?"

The links between money, meaning, and happiness are amplified in a world where work has become the organizing center of life. The things that we used to count on as moorings -- extended family, neighborhoods, participation in community affairs, membership in religious organizations -- no longer carry the same sway in helping us decide what matters. Money rushes into those gaps with a clear and simple standard. In today's culture of success, we -- consciously or not -- plug ourselves into this equation: "Money plus success equals happiness."

A more honest model to pursue might be "Money, success -- then happiness." The problem is that we tend to confuse what money does well with what it does not do at all.

Money does two really big things. First, money buys breathing room. It buys you the time and options that you don't have when you're working every waking moment to pay the bills. Second, money buys what I call "containers." A container is anything that you acquire -- whether it's a consumer purchase, a new house, a job change, a sabbatical, or even a new fitness level -- with the expectation that something will happen.