We all start out as Innocents, believing that everyone we meet have our best interests at heart. Before we even reach our teens, most of us have been disappointed way too often to remain that naïve. Not the die-hard Innocents, though.

Some adult Innocents may have lived very sheltered lives, delaying their disillusionment. But the majority prefer to maintain the illusion of a protected world, in which they don’t have to make an effort to financially educate themselves and where they simply outsource most financial decisions to either a spouse or a team of professionals.

Unfortunately, perhaps because of the large sums of money channelled towards it, the financial industry attracts more than its fair share of charlatans. Becoming one of the victims of yet another swindler, buying a product with more insurance or a longer investment term than you need, or paying too much commission are only a few examples of the high cost of remaining financially naïve.

On the other hand, the trust that Innocents place in people could also be a virtue. When they choose the people who work for them carefully, this trust will bring out the best in their counsellors and employees. Unfortunately, the unscrupulous can often only be kept in check by Warrior personalities. Innocents will therefore naturally be drawn to partnerships with Warriors, but it is only when they have developed the complementary Warrior-side of themselves, in conjunction with educating themselves financially, that they sport sufficient armour to face most financial battles.

PS: Innocents often also believe that the world is a meritocracy. In other words, as long as they work hard and produce good work, they will be rewarded. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always ring true. In a salaried environment, their relationships with their immediate managers, how well they fit into the company culture, whether the company rewards shareholders rather than workers and their negotiation skills all determine whether they are sufficiently rewarded for their efforts.

Always on the fringes, operating outside the ruling capitalist system, stands the Outsider. The Outsider has a negative perception of the type of work and working conditions that society rewards and therefore wants no part of it. She is often artistic or produces work that is appreciated by a very small niche market. At the extreme, she doesn’t really care whether anyone appreciates her talents and will reward them, because it’s her life and she spends every day as she pleases.

No wonder money is not exactly flying into the Outsider’s bank account.

The Outsider is at heart a child rebelling against the reality of a world in which none of us is completely self-sustaining and would always need to exchange our skills and talents for the goods and services of others. She may think that, by being ‘true to herself’, she will escape the stereotypical movie-version midlife crisis of the corporate executive who has spent his entire adult life doing work he despises to build up material wealth and please others. The Outsider does not realise that her midlife questions may eventually look like this: What if I really made an effort to find fulfilling work that also paid well? What would it have been like to be financially successful and secure at my age? Have I been avoiding the real world and its battles? Does my courage as a non-conformist have a shadow, namely the cowardly avoidance of a challenging and competitive professional life?

The Outsider is caught up in a false dilemma, a belief that her work has to be either fully commercialised or completely authentic. Dividing her time optimally between paying clients or commissioned work, and ‘own time’ to play and create is the key to the Outsider’s financial and emotional well-being.

Warrior-like qualities are essential for the day-to-day battles of protecting you and your family against a wide array of undesirables: from external forces like swindlers, spongers and unscrupulous sales people to internal forces like despair and inertia.

It is also no coincidence that so many leading business people attribute at least some of their success to the principles set out in Sun Tzu‘s The Art of War. The more competitive the industry, the more necessary it becomes to approach business strategy as warfare. Or that has been the thinking in the West, probably since the Industrial Revolution.

But the world is re-discovering cooperative behaviour, most notably by developing a plethora of free technology and by sharing knowledge on the web.

While there is a time and a place for fighting your battles, Warrior behaviour becomes debilitating when one start to see every interaction as potentially hostile or as a competition.

How could this affect the pocket? Because the Warrior tends to think in terms of ‘us’ and ‘them’, he struggles to collaborate and therefore misses out on synergies, such as increased revenue through cross-selling, the sharing of resources and the creation of economies of scale.

Picked up the battle axe one time too many? Then you may find Dr Buffington’s ten tips for honing your collaborative skills useful.

Like the Rescuer, the Victim also suffers from poor self-esteem. While Rescuers feel that helping others maintain their superiority, Victims use their perceived helplessness and the accompanying guilt trips to gain and maintain control over others.

The Victim can be the child who grew up under disadvantaged circumstances, the mother who has sacrificed her career to raise her kids, the serial unemployed who doesn’t understand why he always ends up with an ‘impossible’ manager, or the family member or friend who earns less than the rest of the group and constantly needs to be ‘bailed out’ financially. It can be anyone who believes that the world owes him because of his background, bad luck or the sacrifices he has made.

Because she perceives herself as helpless, the Victim often suffers from financial paralysis. It is as if she just can’t bring herself to take the necessary action, be that to obtain the right qualifications, negotiate harder when it comes to salary discussions, or gain more and better-paying clients for herself. Instead, she waits for good fortune and a Rescuer to improve her financial circumstances.

Often the Victim’s friends and family recognise the pattern long before the Victim does. But if you are reflective enough to recognise your own behaviour for what it is, how do you break out of your Victim pattern? Start by working on your self-esteem. If you can’t afford therapy, at least become familiar with a few ego re-training programmes, like the one suggested in Jurriaan Plesman’s free online book, Getting off the hook (from page 36). Practise assertion every day. Develop your talents and find a way to express yourself creatively. Creating something from nothing does wonders for the self image.

Explore your beliefs that someone must first suffer before he is worthy of affection and happiness. Where does this come from?

Realise that, as an adult, you carry full responsibility for your own wellbeing. By sending others on a guilt trip, you are abdicating not only your responsibility, but also your autonomy over your own life.