The Money Atom exercise is an experiential and visual tool that interactively engages a client in exploring and telling his family’s money history. This communication process, developed by psychologists, replaces the traditional interview method of discovering a client’s money history that can feel scripted or leave the client stumped. It combines a traditional genogram with family sculpt that can be done with pencil and paper in a planner’s office. This communication method deepens and enhances the client’s experience by engaging the right and left sides of the brain, opening new understanding into how they made historical financial decisions.
The exercise uses a blank piece of paper where the client “draws” rather than “writes” how money was viewed in his family and then “tells” the story to the financial planner. Participants will leave the session with the general knowledge of how to use the tool in their client data gathering process.