Exit The Matrix with Me Experiment: Guest: From Financial Fear to Freedom

Welcome to Exit the Matrix Stories of Success with your host Jane Slack-Smith, where we celebrate the incredible journeys of individuals who've transcended their limitations and achieved extraordinary success.

Hello, it's Jane Slack-Smith here, and yes, I am back with another episode— well, let's say interview— of another thought leader on how to exit the matrix, live a life of abundance, true to your heart's desire. And I am so excited to actually have someone with me today who's also here in Melbourne, Australia. See, I have Phoebe Blamey with me. Hey Phoebe, how you going?

Really wonderful, Jane. Lovely to be here. Thank you so much.

Oh, look, I have to say, when I saw your podcast, um, My Happy Money Journey, I was like, I'm kind of at that stage in investigating in the book, how do people create abundance? What stops them from creating abundance? Really getting into that money financial conversation because we know abundance is about all these different things. But you had shared with me a unique story about when you kind of had a, I guess, a realization that women probably weren't managing their money correctly or had been put into circumstances, and that's really what your podcast came from. So as a person who's been a mortgage broker, a financial planner in the finance industry, and having, I guess, the insights into people's finances, you know, why do you think women can get into this type of situation? And what was your experience of that?

I think there's a couple of things, but one of the, one of the main things that happened to me, my mother had grown up very, very wealthy. And she came into my office one day and didn't have enough money for a train fare to— she lives in a country town, didn't have enough money for a train fare back because she never learned to manage her money. She— money was always something that was quite abundant to her. She always have more money. She worked, she worked hard and all of those things, but she never learned how to control it, how to make it behave in the way that she needed it to behave. She didn't really look out for her own retirement when she was in her 50s. She cashed in her super with her partner and they moved to the country.

Yeah.

And she just made a series of very poor financial decisions that come from a lack of education that I think quite often hit wealthier women a lot harder than they hit women that haven't grown up with that kind of wealth, because there's an expectation in that particular social group that someone else will take care of things. Mm.

And that's interesting, isn't it? Because we kind of miss that. You know, that group of women that, you know, maybe through divorce or death or whatever that is, circumstances of business breakup, whatever, they go from a position of having money and then not having money and then potentially needing to show that their life hasn't changed as well.

Absolutely. Um, my friendship groups, my, um, my peers, my— the other mothers from the private school that my daughter went to, there are a lot of women like that. There are a lot of women are faking it until they remake it, if you like. And it's just, it's that thing that by choice or by chance, at some point we're going to have to drive that financial bus ourselves. And if we don't have the knowledge, if we don't have the skills, it doesn't matter how much money we manifest. If we can't manage it once we've got it, it'll just keep slipping through our fingers. So I wanted to put together something and I wanted to have the conversation about not just being able to have a vision and be able to manifest and be able to draw money in, but also to know what to do with it once you've got it.

Mm.

There's a lot of people that talk about money and the mindset work that goes with it.

Mm-hmm.

And I wholeheartedly agree that we need to have a good mindset, but we also need to have the skills and the structure and the know-how to be able to manage our money. And if we don't have that, it's sand through our fingers.

We need that rigor, don't we? And it strikes me you don't need to have had the event to then learn how to manage money. If you can learn to manage money beforehand, the event may not affect you in such a big deal.

Yeah, exactly. My best friend from school came to me the other day. Um, she needed to buy a house and her husband had taken care of everything. She didn't know how much they owed on their home. She didn't know— she knew who their home loan was with, but she didn't know anything else about it.

And she'd signed the documents. And yeah, so here's the thing, right? It makes me think of— do you remember that, um, there was a Sally Field movie that I want to call it— I know it's not Fields of Dreams, but it was like a Sally Field movie that the family was cotton farmers in like the '60s or '50s or something, and the husband through chance dies, and the bank manager comes out to the farm and says to her, Okay, we're gonna have to close unless you can have a good cotton crop. And she's like, close on my loan? What do you mean? And he lays out their financial situation and she's like, how would I have never have known this? And it struck me, I was probably 14 or 15 at the time, and it struck me so profoundly that I thought, I'm never going to be in the situation where I don't know what's happening for my money. And when my husband and I who was my boyfriend at the time, bought our first property in 2001. So we bought two properties. I was like, I want to buy the first one myself so that I know. So he can buy his own, I'll buy my own. We subsequently bought properties together, but I was like, I want this first one for me so I understand everything about it. And I think that there is this kind of even relief of relinquishing the money pressure. Why do you think that is? Is it because money is a dirty conversation, or like, why do people relinquish that ownership over their financial—

I think there's quite a few reasons. I think one of them is that money is masculine and we get taken out of our feminine if we're dealing with money. I think that we are constantly— there's a constant barrage of, of media that says to us that we're no good with money. I was writing a substack this morning and just a little tiny bit of research. If women are shown in control in advertising, 85% of anything to do with financial ownership and empowerment is male related, 15% women. And if women are shown with money, they're shown with coins, and men are shown with wads of cash. Men are shown taking risks. We are shown doing shopping. It is incredible. We, we have that constant messaging that we're no good with money and that we're not good at maths, that we're— I think there was a Liberal Party senator this week talking about how we're no good with maths. What is wrong with people?

Oh my God. You know what is so funny about that is that I had this course, Renovate Yourself, Renovate Your Wealth, and it was around the money stories. And I had people list down all the money songs they had heard and all the stories they'd heard around their kitchen table. But one of the things I missed is that subconscious advertising. Like, that's— that is integrated in almost everything that we see when we're seeing these images of how people are presented. Yeah, there's so many layers that we don't know that are dictating the way that we act.

Absolutely. And I find that sort of stuff fascinating. I, I really, really find that fascinating because at some point we are going to need to look after our money sometimes. It's also we've got the higher mental load on taking care of potentially children, households, our social event calendars, our parents, our whatever. And particularly women in midlife and women that are experiencing menopause or perimenopause, which I don't know, I didn't have the hormone replacement kind of problems. Oh my God, that was unexpected. And I'd be talking to my staff and I'd forget what I was saying halfway go through a sentence. You know, it's just, it's crazy stuff, and it's all happening all at the same time for us because we have children later, or because we, you know, whatever reason. Um, but we've got a lot.

And it's interesting you say that about menopause. I mean, it's the M-word, we don't usually talk about it, but, um, you know, but over 50% of people are going to go through it. It's, um, I've got two stories there. The first is My PA walked in one day and said, you know, David's on the phone. And I said, who's David? And she said, okay, what is wrong? You've got like a photographic memory of everyone and you spoke to this guy yesterday. I'm like, I cannot remember. And I was like, what has happened? And that night I had like a hot flash or something. And I was like, oh my God, I'm in that thing. And I was like, you know, the good engineer, the good mortgage broker, the good finance person. I was like, there's a solution, there's a solution. I just have to work through it. And I remember I was on a, mastermind with this guy, Maish. And Maish had done the first IVF in America and then went into menopause education. And I contacted him and said, I got it. I'm running a webinar next week, live Q&A on property investing for 1,000 people that registered, and I cannot remember anything. Solve it for me. And so he essentially said, go and get this, this, this done. And I remember sitting there going, oh my God, you know, and I just couldn't remember a thing. And I went on whatever it was, the hormones, and I was like, I now have my memory back. But I was having a, having a massage in Fiji, and this lady was massaging my back. She said, what's this patch? And I said, oh, you know, you know when women have that hormone change and, you know, they go, they lose a bit of mind and they, you know, hot flashes and stuff? And she said, yes. And she said, I said, well, this kind of stops that. And she said, 'Oh my God, in my village they take the women and they put them in another hut and they're no longer welcome in the village.' She said, 'Do you mean, do you mean that, that there's a thing for this that fixes it? Because families are like completely separated when the women go mad.' Oh, it was fun. I—

that makes so much sense though. You can see that happening. I spoke to a friend of mine, um, as his wife was going through it, and he was just like, 'I'm gonna go.' And I'm going, just stay the course. He ended up, um, buying her a farm, and she spent most of her time at the farm.

Oh my God, growing organic crops. I had this whole hormone, um, hormone, uh, kind of wasteland, you know, between 2023 and 2025, and you couldn't get the hormones. And I know there was over 50% of the population going mental And I was thinking, if this was men, it was Viagra or something, there'd be like protests on the street. But every now and then, I remember my dad saying to my mum every now and then, I think it's time you changed your patch, which is a really nice way of going, but yeah, I mean, it's true. And I was speaking to Maisha, I had, I went to the, read his book, like, give me the quick course, I'm going to do this. And one of the statistics that I read that really shocked me around this was that they said there was something like a $5 billion wasteland in America when women had got to— were going through the, um, you know, career progression, and they got to this ceiling where they're like, actually, I'm forgetting things, or my KPIs aren't really working. And it was because of, you know, the hormonal changes. And, uh, and I was like, how do you lose 50% of the workforce at a certain age and there's not a this is not something that's talked about. And so when I went to the GP to get the referral to the gynecologist or endocrinologist or whatever, I said to this woman, is this true? Like, people are leaving the workforce? And she said, why do you think I work 3 days a week? And then I went to the Women's Center to have, you know, all the hormone stuff done, and I said the same thing to the doctor there, and she said, why do you think I work 3 days a a week. It's like, how are we losing people from the workforce?

And that's how we're losing people from the workforce. And I'm fascinated with that, that event, that event of women getting to a certain point in their career. And you know, women are starting most small businesses in Australia at the moment.

Really?

So the Small Business Council came out with some stats, I think it was about a year ago. One in three new businesses are started by women over 50.

Mm.

And women as a whole are starting more businesses than men are. And that trend of leaving the workforce, that trend of getting to a certain point. And I always considered it was that, you know, the higher you get, the harder it is kind of thing. But that association with what's going through our hearts and our heads with menopause is just— it makes so much sense, doesn't it, that we would And then, then we've got this big mental load and then we're going crazy. And then where our marriages are starting to fail and other parts of our lives are starting to fail and we've got all this different responsibility as our parents age. And we were talking about it before we came on about women taking the brunt of most of the care for our elderly relatives. And it's just— it just gives us this really high mental load. So when it comes to money, it's very easy to say, you know what, You take that. I'm okay. I've got enough on.

Yeah. So you talk about you're leading this feminist financial fire starters. I love this kind of like the energy around this. And obviously, you know, I'm writing a book for males and females, but this particular, I guess, prevalence of women getting to a certain age and maybe the marriage is breaking down. They have less superannuation retirement funds than the men because 'cause they took time off. And now we've just addressed the fact that they're going through physical changes too that are stretching them and they're in this sandwich generation of looking after the kids and looking after their old parents. So there's all this additional tension. You know, how do you take all of that that's going on and saying, "You can be a fire starter. You can take without shame and be unapologetic about taking back your finances." How does that sit? Start?

It starts, I think, with looking at those retirement savings, because those retirement savings are one of the keys. We will, as a nation in Australia, but also if you look at the same figures in America and in England and in India, we will necessarily retire with about 50% of what men retire with. Wow. At the same level, at the same executive level, at the same, you know, post office worker level, no matter what level it is, we will, we will be retiring with 50% less. It's not just because we take time off, because in Australia and in a couple of other countries, you can actually contribute to your spouse's superannuation or your spouse's retirement. You can, you can do that and get the similar tax breaks. And, you know, obviously get proper advice because this is just general, but You can do all those things and people do those things. It's because we take a more conservative approach. It's because we don't pay attention to how we're investing that money. So we will sit in default funds, we will sit in conservative funds, whereas men will take a high growth fund and we end up with less because we don't invest as well because we're not paying attention to it because it's something that's so far and distant it doesn't matter to us at the time. And so that gender investment, very much— well, it's sort of about our risk profile, but it's more about how we invest. It's, it's about the fact that we don't pay attention to it, and that gender investment gap is the biggest gap.

So, so if I'm getting this right, is that it's not just because women have— well, women end up with 50% less retirement funds.

Yes.

Even if there's a co-contribution from their partner, because if they're responsible for the funds, they leave it in default because the system's going to look after me. You know, this is conservative. Is there a nurturing motherhood kind of thing going, I've got to look after the family finances, and the man's going, you know, actually, let's have a play of this and see what we can do, and I've got time to catch up. Like, what's What's the difference there?

I, I think it's the 'I've got time to catch up.' I see that a lot, um, in what— I had a cohort of customers when I was a mortgage broker that were divorced men, and they'd give up everything. They'd give the family home, they'd give income, they'd give up everything because they knew they were absolutely 100% sure that they could make their million dollars again next year and it wouldn't matter.

So that's what's interesting. Why is that a difference? Why is there that belief that I've done it once, I can do it again. And where we're saying that maybe women are sitting there going, I'm just going to play by the rules and what everyone else does.

Because I think that men look at money as something that helps them grow. It gives them status. It gives them, um, prestige. Prestige. Whereas women look at money as something that gives us safety and security and certainty. And that is very broad because you, like me, we're property investors, I've done property developments and all that sort of stuff. So it's not a, it's not a broad sweeping statement that applies to absolutely every single woman and every single man. But gender-wise, there is a big difference in how we approach money and what we need from money.

So how do we start this education?

Really simply, there's two— well, to me there's, there's really four. Pillars of it. We've got to heal our money stories. We— though all that advertising, all that talk, all that, you know, she'll be right, don't you worry about it, little lady, that kind of attitude— we have to step up and start looking at what— how are we invested in our retirement savings? How are we managing our money on day to day? How— what are our financial boundaries like? I, you know, we can get into talking about sexually transmitted debt and, you know, coercive control in relationships and all of that sort of stuff. But it's, it's not that. It's not, it's not that extreme. It's more that we just don't pay attention and we think it's— the language of money and the language of investment is almost deliberately confusing. But if you break it down, it's really pretty simple. You can invest or you can save. If you've got money in a savings account, you are not going to beat inflation. You're just not.

For people who don't understand that, because I think this is a lot of— and as a mortgage broker myself, a lot of the conversations that we have is this education place, right? And you're sitting there and you're going, savings— when you think you're being safe in putting your money in savings, you're actually— that inaction is putting you backwards. So do you want to just lay that out? Because I know that there's a lot of people who don't get it.

Absolutely. If inflation is at 2.5%, which—

and inflation is what?

And inflation is the cost of living, that is the overall cost of living day to day. General how it increases, how it decreases based on consumer spending in your country. So how you are, how you are, how your country as a whole is.

Your cost of living on average goes up 2.5% a year.

It goes up 2.5% a year. So if you've got your money in a savings account and it's earning 1% a year, then it's literally going backwards.

Very simple, right?

Very simple. You want it to be earning more than 2.5% a year to beat inflation. Now, those inflation figures are pretty conservative. They're the, they're the inflation figures that most countries' central banks are aiming for. And the way that they influence— the way that most central banks influence inflation is to put up and down the cash rate. So the money, the, the amount of the level at the interest rate at which households can borrow at, people that buy money can borrow at. Sorry, I'm just getting a bit— my brain's, my brain's going faster than my mouth.

I love that you're like, oh, I want to get to this too, because what I'm hearing here is we— let's just say it's women, but let's just say it could be anyone who sits there and goes, I don't want to make an investment. You and I are in property investing, business or side hustle or whatever that is, because my money is safe.

My money is safe in savings.

Yeah.

And also savings in various countries is actually government guaranteed for a lot of people.

So there's a—

so in Australia it's $250,000 in savings is, is guaranteed. You're not going to lose your money. Whereas if you invest it, you may suffer a capital loss. So it's therefore riskier. So if I put money into shares or a company and that company share value goes down, then I experience a capital loss. My $500 that I've put into ABC Company is suddenly worth $250.

Mm-hmm. And there's that risk.

There's that risk. And that's only a risk if you need to get to that money. So you can leave it for longer term. At that time.

You could leave it there and over to you. Okay, good.

Leave it there.

Number one is I'm hearing is there's money stories that need to be healed, and to heal them you need to know what they are and have them revealed.

Exactly. So understanding the difference between savings and investing, understanding that life is here to be lived now, but you also need to be thinking about what's going to happen when you retire. So you're building a safety net for retirement at the same time as you're building a life for now.

Which means you can save a bit now, like, you know, not spend it all, but you need to be mindful of the fact that there is some longevity to that money that you've got and the way that you consider and how to, how to use it so it can grow in value.

Absolutely. So understanding the tax benefits of putting money into retirement savings. Understanding that investments are long-term and that you've got a time horizon of maybe— so I'm 55 now, I might have a 20-year time horizon for my, for my retirement savings because I've got 20 more years to work. But I may choose to retire in 10 years, which changes my time horizon, which means that I have to understand the nature of my investments. And how they're going to work out. Because if I'd invested and wanted to get my money this week where there's been a dip in the stock exchange and my $10,000 ETF is now worth $7,000, then this isn't the best week for me to retire.

Now, yeah, I remember actually there was a secretary at the work that I used to work in Chatswood, and she was so excited. She and her husband had set themselves up for retirement, and this, I don't know, this would have been like 1998 or something, and, uh, 1996. And then all of a sudden there was a change in the stock market and she was like, we just lost half. Like, I'm going to be working for a lot longer. And they had everything planned, the caravan, the trip around Australia and everything. And just that whimsy. And I guess that's where the fear is, right? Where, and the importance of diversification and working with someone who understands how to assist you and all of these things. That's what— that's kind of like the worst-case scenario. And then it's like, well, if I have it in savings, it's safe. And it's not safe. You're losing a bit, but here you could lose a lot more. So I guess I understand that mental kind of gymnastics that says, well, these are my two options without seeing there's something in the middle. Then I'm going to go for the safe place.

Hello, just a quick message. I hope you're enjoying this podcast bonus session. Now, if you have heard this interview, then you're probably sitting in there going, what is this all about? Well, this is all about my Exit the Matrix experiment. Now, I decided to write a book because I'm really interested in how do we go from the existence that we have now to exiting the matrix and living with intention from our hearts, following our heart's desires, but also creating abundance in all areas of our lives. And hence, whilst I've been researching this book, I thought, this is a really solitary journey. I want people to come on this journey with me. And hence I've got this very special group. Now come and join me. The first month for founders is free. And if you decide to stay, fantastic. So what I'm doing is I'm interviewing incredible people. I'm getting insights about what's this awakening that people are getting, you know, what's this what's the exit the matrix kind of sliding door moment for them? Now, I've obviously run this podcast for over a year now, and I have more than 30 stories, but I'm also interested in those people who are in this transformational space who are actually not just awakening themselves and they're awakening others. What is the mechanism? As Bashar talks about it, it's the permission slip. Are they going through astrology or meditation or yoga or breathwork? Are they just going within and getting a sense of what's really going on. So that's what all the Exit the Matrix experience is about.

I'm going to let you get back to the interview, but if you want to join me, go to exitthematrix.today/etmwithme, which stands for Exit the Matrix with Me.

So that's exitthematrix.today/etmwithme.

Sign up. I'd love for you to come along.

I'm creating courses.

There's currently courses in there around 4 gratitude.

There's more courses to come. I'm creating custom GPTs on how you can exit the matrix and helping you uncover what lies beneath your subconscious and holding you back, and also other custom GPTs that I'm sure you're going to love. And most of the speakers are actually really motivating me. So I'm creating courses, I'm creating ebooks, I'm creating experiments you can try, I'm creating tools that you can use And I'm also writing a book.

So at some stage I'll get to writing the book.

At this moment, it's just all about the research. And I hope you choose to join me because I'm really excited about this experiment.

So I'll get back to the interview now.

Enjoy yourself. And as always, here's to your success.

And the best thing about the middle of that, they, they could still have retired. They might not have had enough money, but were they going to cash out their entire retirement savings on the day they retired? It's pretty unlikely.

Yeah, true.

So we tend to have very all-or-nothing thinking when it comes to money.

Yeah, black and white.

Good point.

And it's not black and white because, you know, if they've got $2 million in super, do they need $2 million on day one, or do they want $50,000 to travel around Australia and another $100,000 to buy their caravan? Caravans are quite expensive. I've got a friend doing it at the moment, and therefore they only need $150,000. So where's the real loss? Because they can keep a lot of it in, they can keep a lot of it invested in growing.

Which is interesting because what this all comes down to is that there's no one talking about this for people to know that there's choices. It's like, I'm, you know, I'm about to be divorced, for instance, not me, but I'm about to be divorced. But, you know, we've got people who are about to potentially go through a major relationship breakup and we don't have this education. It is black or white. You know, there's these negotiation points or there's this, I've got this much money, this is what it looks like. So the education of all of this, like how do we start with that? Where do— schools seems too young.

I think schools are too young. I think we hide the conversation from each other and we hide the conversation from ourselves. And because I've been in mortgage broking so long and Jane, you'll probably similar because you've worked around money for so long. I'm never embarrassed to talk to people about their money and their savings and their super. They don't have to answer me, but I know what most of my friends earn. I know what most of my friends' retirement plans are. I know how they look. I know, you know, what their wills look like and things like that because we have those conversations as a friendship group. But people can become amazingly private about money. And they can hold a whole lot of shame about money because everyone thinks that it's an innate knowledge that you should just know it. And unless you've grown up in a family where they talk about money— my dad was in a really similar situation in 1995. He'd just lost half of everything he had, but he didn't care because he was in his 40s probably, and he was going to keep working. So what does it matter if he loses half of it now?

Yeah, got it.

It's not important because it'll come back, because over time things shift and change and go up and down. And high risk means high reward, but it can also, if the timing's not right, can hurt you. But if we're not having those conversations about there's an abundance of money, and having a loss on the stock exchange on day one doesn't mean that in in 30 days, we won't be recovered from that loss. It's a game. It's a— it's, it's just money. It's just—

yeah.

And one of the ways that I do it is very initially when I'm having those early conversations with my client groups and my course groups is to talk about money as an energy. It's the energy that fuels your life, right?

It's an exchange.

Yes. And if we consider it as energy, then that— to, to optimize that energy, it needs to be in constant flow, like electricity and water. And we need to keep it in flow. And this is where, when we have instructional things around keeping savings and having multiple accounts— and I've, as a mortgage broker, had seen people with, you know, 12 or 13 accounts between them. And those things are like little dams that are stopping your money being in flow. Whereas if you throw it into an investment, it's moving constantly. It's moving every day.

Yeah, it's interesting you say that because I've been listening to this podcast and course by David Gingham about the Kabbalah, and he talks about energy and money and abundance. And one of the things he talks about is that if money is stagnant, like if it's sitting here and you're like, well, I can't spend some money on a nice outfit or on the kids going to excursion or whatever, you're actually stopping the flow coming in. So the more— it's not like go out and spend a lot, but it's like there is— it like any money is energy, and energy can't be created or destroyed, just moved. Then how are you creating that movement? And even like, I know often when I make a donation to a charity or something and it just feels right to do it, all of a sudden I get an abundance back in another way. And it's just that flow of the energetic exchange of going, okay, you know, I'm going to let go of this tight grip that I have on you know, my, my experience of money and have an abundant experience of it actually creates more of that energetic flow and the money coming in. That's been my experience.

Absolutely, and that's mine as well. And that's why diversification of investment is so important and understanding our investments is so important. If we diversify, if we've got property, if we've got cash, if we've got shares, if we've got, um, commercial properties, if we've got whatever we've got, if we've got a diversification, then there's energy going into all of those things all the time.

Hmm. Interesting.

And what I'm finding really interesting at the moment is I've got— I use ETFs a lot more than I use direct share buying because I am a reasonably lazy person and I want my money to be set and forget, but I want it to still be moving. The more ethical my investments, the more greened up and all of those sort of things they are, the more they seem to be growing at the moment.

Really? What's an ethical investment?

And well, I've got— I was playing around with Vanguard's ethical, and I know that there's a lot of greenwashing going on. So greenwashing is where you say that your investment is more ethical than it is.

It sounds like the '90s kind of thing, the triple bottom line. No, we're looking after everyone.

But it's things that don't potentially use fossil fuels or things that potentially don't invest in arms dealing or invest in blood diamonds, always diamond, blood diamonds, all of those sort of things.

Just—

okay.

So, all right. So let's bring this back to abundance and creating a life of abundance. What I'm taking from this is that there, when we're looking at financial abundance, there is an education point, but it's not really all our fault because we have had some shame and some, you know, stories that we've made up about what money is. And particularly for, you know, a lot of women is that they get through life and it, because they've got all of these other things they're looking after and potentially, you know, the partner is making the money consistently and they take some time off or, you know, they've got more ideas or more time on the family or whatever, then women in particular are not creating the vessel for them to have this money and this energetic flow.

That's absolutely right.

Okay, and so we've talked about how we need to have this understanding of the money, we need to have the diversification for the energy to flow. Is there— there's two more pillars of what you're—

two more pillars. So my pillars are we've got to heal our money stories, we've got to learn, then we've got to actually make the transformation. We've actually got to step into it and do it. Because I get a lot of, um, money mindset people. They, they just tend to fill my socials. Um, a lot of people talking about getting $10K months when you're in business, which I'd starve to death. But, um, just, just that sort of stuff. And, um, and having sort of specific values put on things. There are other people's stories until we take on our own stories. And this is what the transformation is. We need to understand it and how it impacts ourselves, not how we're taught to do it. Elizabeth Warren uses the, the 50-30-20 rule of have 50% of your money taking care of your basic basics, 30% of your money is for spending, and 20% for saving for your retirement. All of those kind of frameworks are interesting to look at, But the real transformation happens when you know what you personally need, right? When you've got— you've healed your money stories, you've learned a little bit about money, and then you can actually apply it to yourself so that it works for you. Not for me, not for Jane Slack-Smith-Smith, not for anyone else, but for you. Because once you're in control of it, then you can start doing things you like. I've got clients that invest in art. I would be so afraid to invest in art because I just think I've got reasonably basic tastes and it probably just wouldn't work out for me. But they invest in some really fascinating art so they can buy a painting for, say, $100,000 that they then sell 3 years later for over a million because they love it, because it works for them, because they do it. And if they lose, they lose. But if they win, it is incredible because they've done something they love.

Of.

That's—

and my husband's an artist, so like, I'm hoping that will happen. It's, it's interesting you say that because, you know, when we make the decision to get this education, we might pick up someone's book or someone's framework. And, you know, I, I looked into the FIRE framework that's, you know, sweeping America or— and some of Australia, where it's like, you live very, very frugally, you know, really frugal, like food stamp kind of stuff. And then put all your money— and I think they were talking about Vanguard or some type of, yeah, you know, fund— put all your money there, make whatever it is, 15, 20%, etc., and retire when you're 40, you know. And then you've got the rest of your life and you've got this money to live off. And it just seems so— for me, I look at these people doing— I listen to studies. I did a a whole economic financial analysis going. It doesn't kind of work in Australia. Like if you want a Tesla, have a Tesla, it's only $150 a month to rent one, you know, to have a hire purchase. That just means you need to buy an investment property that's making $150 a month. And you know, it's, it's very transactional. If I want this, I have that. So you live basically, but if you want anything extra, you kind of have to make the money. And It doesn't work in Australia with our finance property kind of taxes and everything, but there's such a movement behind it. And then I turn around and I look at, you know, maybe, you know, the Tony Robbins wealth movement or the, you know, Robert Kiyosaki or the Scott Pape or the— everyone has these movements. And you're right, you kind of take the experience of all of these people and go, this doesn't feel quite right for me. I don't have to take this on. As part of my education program is looking at where it sits comfortably for me, knowing I have to take action, and then formulating your own way.

Exactly, exactly. And as you know, I was a financial planner for a while, and financial planning was cookie cutter. You had a whole suite of products that you had to push onto a client to get them to have the right insurances, the right wealth creation strategy, but it was all exactly the same for all people. There was no real difference. And that used to really annoy me because we can, we can use someone else's framework as a, as a starting point, but our lives are our lives and our lives are so unique. I've got friends at the moment that have 5 children that have jumped in. They've sold their house. They've made a ton of money from it. They're builders and they're on their second year going around Australia. They are living their best possible life. They're not waiting. They're not living frugally. They're not living not frugally. They're just living their best possible life. I think we've got a lot of wastage that we have from convenience, and I think that we need to get rid of our wastage for sure.

About Uber Eats.

We are talking about Uber Eats. Uber Eats, lunch at work, all of those sort of things. But Friday night Uber Eats is great. Every night Uber Eats is really seriously damaging your ability to control your finances, but also your ability to nurture yourself. Because we nurture ourselves in the food that we give us. We nurture ourselves in, in our health as well. And our health is the biggest part of our wealth, really.

Yeah, true.

And all of those things also, I think, have a big impact on how then we move into that next stage of of, of transforming. Because if you're from a family that has, you know, high levels of cancer, or, you know, my— most of my family has lived to over 100, so I'm thinking I may too. I've got a friend whose dad died when he was 67, whose grandfather died when he was 60. Like, everyone in the family has died when they're 67. He's not expecting to live that much longer. So his whole profile of what he wants to do with his money is so completely different from mine because I've got another 50, 40 years up my sleeve and he's got another 17. You see what I'm saying? This is, this is why it needs to be personal because we've got all these expectations.

But this just goes deeply into also you can create your own reality. Right? And so you're like, I'm living to 100, and he's like, everyone dies at 67. And you make the choice of going, well, that's going to happen to me and I'm going to live my life like that, or this is not going to happen to me and I'm going to create the life to get to 100 as well. And it really— that really comes back to not just the money healing stories, it comes back to your stories about your expectation for your life and how you want to live it to the end of days, really.

Yeah, right. Which is all part of how you create that abundance mindset. It's all part of how you make your plans. It's all part of where you get your diversification from, because you look at your whole entire life, and no one else can look at your whole entire life. Like, you can try and explain to someone what you want and how you're feeling and, and what you're doing, but, you know, if you want to do something, if you create something, if you want to make something happen, or if you want to retire, if you want to be the CEO of Macquarie Group or whatever you want to do, that's your path.

It's interesting.

That's part of your transformation.

Last night, and this gentleman said to me something like, I said, what are you up to, Kieran? He said, I'm living my best life. I said, what's that look like? And he said, oh, he said, I stumble out of bed and I can't wake up and I'm in my pajamas and I have 2 cups of coffee and we get the kids off to school and around about 10 o'clock, I sit down and I write. He's an incredible writer, he writes. And he said, and then the kids come home and we hang out, and you know, I'm living my best life. And it was funny because he said— and I said, oh, I think I'm living my best life too. And I told him what my day looks like, and he's like, oh, but you know, that's amazing too, but you seem to do a lot. And I said, yeah, really? Not really, I've got people who help me. And he's— and he said, I said, but what's the endgame? He said, do you want to travel and do all these things? I said, not really. I'm kind of like doing what I want. If I want to go to do a retreat in Bali or Estonia or Alabama, all these, New Zealand, these ones I'm looking at the moment, I'm like, I'd go and do it, but I'd do it to learn something. He said, oh no, I want to do 6 months in London and 6 months in Paris, and that's my dream. And I thought, ah, at the time I was like like, isn't that interesting? We both now are living our dream lives, but he's kind of— where I want to go is so much different. And I was like, oh, that's good. It's nice that he knows what he wants to do. And the difference that we have was we were kind of celebrating it, going, isn't this great? Like, you know, we, we feel great in what we're doing now, but we also know what we want to do and maybe add on little things in the future, but they're completely different, which comes with a whole different price tag, right?

And it's amazing because you don't want to be on your deathbed going, shoulda, coulda, woulda. You know, you want to be, you want to be, thank you, this has been amazing. Yeah, this, this one wild, beautiful life has just been, has given me what I wanted. And it's not to say every day is fabulous, but if we can control our money, we can control our destiny. If we can get in if we're in charge of things, if we know what our money is doing and where it's going, the world changes for us. We're not beholden to other people. We're not trapped in situations that we don't want to be trapped in. We're not in a job that we don't want to be in. We're not in a relationship that we don't want to be in. We're not in a lifestyle that we don't want to be in. We can walk out and live our best lives.

Mm. Yeah. It makes me think of another friend of mine. It's very, very high up with a very huge company in Australia. And a very senior position. And I was saying to him the other day, you know, how's life? He said, it's fantastic, I'm in a band. And I was like, mm. And we just did a tour, we were at Dubbo. And 10 people turned up. And I was like, living the dream. You're just living the dream. Like he knows what lights him up. He has a job, he does the job, he does it very well, very competently, be very, you know, compensated for doing the job. But he knows also what lights him up, because you need— that's also the energetic exchange of abundance, isn't it?

It's like, you know, absolutely, energy from the, the people that have the stacks and stacks of money that are just sitting there, the unused, and they're living that FIRE life where they're not going out and spending money and enjoying themselves. I mean, there's nothing like going and doing something beautiful for yourself. You know, taking yourself out to a lovely dinner or buying yourself beautiful sheets to sleep on and, you know, upleveling your life in line with what you're doing. I, um, you know, even something as simple as when I was broke, I couldn't afford health insurance. This week I've got a trapped nerve in my neck and I've been to the physio 3 times because I've got health insurance. Yeah, it's just those things that just make our lives that little bit better. And doing it, getting out there and doing it. So transform, and then, um, and then just being able to thrive, to be able to live our best life because we know what it is. Yes. So heal, learn, transform, and thrive is the—

it's interesting. I have a program where I talk about God mode, and that's about being the sovereign creator of your own destiny. And that is the definition of thriving, is having choices. And I saw a quote yesterday, something like Alan Watts had said, choice is the hesitation before action. And I thought, I don't know if I fully agree with that because for me it's the plethora of the action you can take and it's around choosing for yourself what's right at the moment that will create and be in your greater good. It's not about some kind of hesitation. It's just like, there's so many infinite possibilities. Like, make an action to create the movement, to get the energy, because you can't course correct a ship that's not moving, right? You have to be moving.

Absolutely. You have to be moving, and you have to be moving in a direction that you want to go in, not in a direction that you're pushed into. You don't want to be just bobbing along with the currents because a big wave is going to come and take you out. You want to be in control.

I love this, Phoebe, because, you know, I love what you're doing with My Happy Money Journey because you're taking people on this adventure of reclaiming the money stories, doing the transformation, taking the action, and getting to the end result. And so I encourage everyone to listen to your podcast, get the book, and go and check out Phoebe Blamey as well. I'll put a link link to your website because I know you've got a lot of courses and ways that you serve people, and particularly women who are going through a transition stage and, and asking about their relationship with money. And I, and I think that, um, didn't expect to go there into the menopause story, but I think there's so many things that make us pause and course correct and go like, is this like, what's going on here? And what's my relationship with the financial abundance that I want in the future. And I just love the way that you talk about the energy exchange as well, because when you demystify the, the shame or the, the stories that you have around money and you go, this is just something that allows me to activate things that I want in my life, how can I activate this? Then there's a, there's a a kind of release and an ease about it, isn't there?

Absolutely. And I think one of the, the last things that I just wanted to say is I think at a certain age we tell ourselves it's too late and that we can't change. But there's so many other changes going on that we are an absolute vessel for change. It is the time to change. You can learn new tricks. You can actually teach yourself all these things and go on to live your best possible life.

I love it. I love it. Well, thank you so much. You've been just such a gift in, um, in talking about money and finances and abundance. So thank you for contributing to my research.

Wonderful. If you need anything else from me, just let me know. I know I kind of go off on about 20,000 tangents, but Thank you for allowing me to do the same.

And I love the fact that if anyone's seeing the video of this, that her whole room's gone dark, but there's a heart behind her that's throbbing in color. So I don't know what happened there in the video, but it just, you know, everything came from the heart. So thank you so very much. And I really appreciate this conversation because we're moving into what's abundance and finances are usually where people think first about abundance. But we also talked about, you know, the wealth of health and wealth, health, you know, the energy we talked about in finances actually goes through the energetic exchange of everything. And I'm looking behind me here at this photo, which is a picture of me. And I had this kind of, uh, I guess a meditation kind of vision of abundance. And I could see abundance of all different things falling on me. And I was in this beautiful sacred sanctuary in Bali and I looked up and there was all of these gold coins hanging down. I said, I have to get a photo here. Because this is beautiful. It reminds me, this one reminds me of abundance. So, but anyhow, thank you for being such a gift, and I really appreciate your time.

Excellent. Thanks so much, Jane.

Thanks, babe. And to everyone else, as always, here is to your success. Bye for now.

Thank you for listening to Exit the Matrix Stories of Success. Make sure you subscribe to future episodes at www.exitthematrix.io. Until next time, here's to your success.