The 3 things stopping you from making money!

Hey, new listener. Thanks so much for checking us out. And there's a good chance you have adhd, so I quickly wanted to ask you to please follow this podcast in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or whichever app you're listening to this on, don't leave it until later because you will forget. Thank you, Squirrel. Squirrel. We're going to start today's podcast off with a little bit of bad news. It really doesn't matter how good you get at making money. If you don't heal your relationship with money, you're not likely to hold onto it for long. Hi, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach. And welcome to the Weeniecast. Squirrel. So what's actually keeping you from making money? And not just making money, but keeping it and accumulating actual wealth? Now, oftentimes my clients will start with me and we'll talk about their business and we'll talk about their offer, and I'll have to coach them through not being a weenie and raising their prices and creating offers that are high ticket, and all of that is well and good and necessary to making a lot of money. However, that's not the whole story. There's actually a whole slew of other things that can keep you from making more money and keeping it. And today I want to dive into these things because they happen for so many people. So if you're going through one of these things or multiple, know that you're not alone. Okay? There's a reason why it's common enough that I'm bringing it up on the weeniecast. I wanna also acknowledge, before we dive into these things, that being good with money is not a willpower thing. It's not something that you're just not trying hard enough with. It's something that is affecting you on a nervous system level. It's affecting you on a subconscious level. There are things that you learned about money before you could even speak, before you could even crawl. There's an energetic exchange you had with your caretakers about what it meant to have money, and you can't willpower yourself out of that. You also can't just simply read a book and be better at it. So have a big old bucket of compassion for yourself. As I go through this, if there's anything that's a little like, oh, that's a sore spot for you, take a moment and really feel through the feelings there. Oftentimes, you know, it's that sense of anxiety when we talk about money that creates this barrier to More money coming to our lives when we don't give that anxiety power, when we're like, oh, cool, I'm feeling anxiety. Wow. All right, where am I feeling this anxiety in my body and what's happening for me? And we really process it. It makes it far easier to about money, to work through our money garbage and to learn that, like, money's not evil and being quote, unquote, bad with money is not end of the world, and to really take the charge away from the money conversation. Okay, so do you have your big bucket of compassion? Great. So, first and foremost, let's talk about fear of money and dealing with money. Now, fear can show up in two different ways, depending on what your money archetype is. And if you want to learn more about money archetypes, I did a whole bonus episode, so if you go back to the one after episode 87, you can learn more about that. There are two ways in which fear shows up in your relationship with money. Number one is my favorite avoidance. Just not looking at your bank account. Just kind of like, I'm just gonna trust that everything's gonna be okay and it'll be all be fine and just kind of like hoping and praying when you give your credit card to the person at the grocery store. That was basically my whole 20s. So that is one way in which we have fear show up in our relationship with money. On the extreme opposite side, there's a level of hypervigilance. So someone who has a lot of fear with their money, they're constantly checking their bank balance. They're constantly checking their credit card statement. They are so aware of where each and every penny that they own is at all times. And of course, there are elements of that that are positive, and there are elements almost of the avoidance bit, where there's a lot of optimism that is also kind of positive. However, we want to find a happy medium, all right? We want to take the charge away, that anxiety, that fear, and have our checking in on money not elicit negative feelings. So I want to use an example here, because I know everyone gets, like, really crunchy and tight when we talk about money. That'll also make you crunchy and tight, but hopefully won't be super relevant to what you're doing right now. Public speaking, if you're not a big public speaker, if you don't do it often, and maybe you don't do it often because you're afraid of getting up on stage and talking to a bunch of people, avoiding it is not going to help. Avoiding it is Just going to keep you being bad at it. And of course you're avoiding it because you're afraid. You're afraid of getting up on stage and making a mistake and looking stupid and looking out into the audience and seeing them fall asleep or look angry. Or maybe you're really into like Disney cartoons and you're afraid they're going to throw like old cabbages at you. The only way to deal with your fear of public speaking is to go and speak publicly. It's the only way, you have to desensitize yourself to it. And this is really how we deal with that avoidant type of fear. We have to just give you little baby steps to go and try the thing. So for instance, if you were wanting to get better at public speaking, one of the exercises you might do if you were to join, say, Toastmasters, is they have all these different games that you play where you're speaking publicly because you're answering a question or you're following a prompt, but you're not in front of the room speaking. You're just talking in a room full of people who are listening. And often it's something very silly. And I think there's this misconception when it comes to facing our fears that like, when we face our fears, we have to go for the most extreme option, right? When we face our fears. If you're afraid of heights, like we're gonna go jump out of planes. No, no, that's dumb. If you're afraid of heights, let's get you a little four foot ladder and get you comfortable up top. Let's, let's make you feel like, you know, you're not gonna die at four feet. And then let's go up to six feet. Let's figure out ways for you to deal with that fear of heights. Let's figure out smaller ways for you to deal with that fear of public speaking. And let's find smaller ways for you to deal with your fear of dealing with your money. Oftentimes, you know, people think, okay, well, if I'm so bad with money, I have to go and get a financial advisor so that they can deal with my money. But then the next thought immediately is like, oh my God. But then they're gonna know what a I am. They're gonna see all this stuff and then they're gonna judge me. And of course, like, it makes logical sense that that should be the way that you deal with your money. You should hand it off to someone. But if that is just as scary, scary if having someone else See, behind the curtain, of all the things that you've been doing, you're not going to do it. So while it might make sense, it's not good advice. And one of the things that I work with a lot of my clients on are what are the smaller things that we can do to desensitize you to the fear of your money? What are the small actions you can take? You know, for some of my clients, it's literally logging into their bank account and checking their balance once a week and doing so after, like a gratitude meditation and doing some journaling on it and sometimes like giving them full permission to give me a call afterwards if they need to be talked off the ledge. It's not just people who are broke who are terrified of their money. There are some really successful people who are great at making money who are also afraid to check in on their money. Just because you feel avoidant and afraid of your money doesn't mean that you're a failure. It doesn't mean that you're not going to be successful. It just means you have some fear. And where that fear comes from, we're going to get into in a minute. For the hypervigilant fear type, the work is a little opposite. The work is far more around when that fear comes up, when that urge to check your bank balance comes up. Checking in with yourself, noticing. Okay, cool. Where is this fear coming from? Do I have a fear that I'm not going to be able to make my rent payment this month? Okay, cool. So I have a fear around being unhoused. Great. And then if I'm unhoused, then it'll make it really hard for me to get mail. I don't know. Like, our brains love to latch onto random things that can happen in the world and just channel all of the fear that we could possibly experience towards that thing. And for the hypervigilant type, learning how to process that fear without checking the bank balance is going to be the practice. Learning to dial back to maybe just checking it once a day and then maybe a couple times a week. For those avoidant types, it's almost like you have, like, an overdose of optimism that has an undercurrent of scarcity. You're just always optimistic that it's gonna work out, but you're so afraid of checking. Cause you're, like, pretty sure that you're really skating that line. For those who are hyper vigilant, however, it's all about scarcity. There's not going to be enough. There's not going to be enough. Oh, my God, there's $5 less than I thought. Oh, that's right. I bought a coffee. Just because you have fear around money does not in itself mean that you're bad with money. It means that you're a human who's been raised in a world that has literally taught you to be afraid of money. And not to mention, we'll get to this in a little bit if you have adhd. There's also been a ton of messaging about how people with ADHD are impulsive and they're bad with money and they're far more likely to go into credit card debt and so on and so forth. What we're told about our own identity, we do accept. If I tell you that you're a Gemini and being a Gemini means this, this, this and this, you're gonna believe it. It's just human. We love being told, you know, who we are and how we're special and especially how we're up. I want to know all of it. There's a reason why there are so many different, like which Hogwarts house are you a part of Tests online because people love to be categorized. You take it on as identity. I'm a Gryffindor, thank you very much. So when someone tells you that you have ADHD and then gives you a whole list of traits that go along with it, one of those traits being you're bad with money, guess what? You accept as truth. And of course, I just want to acknowledge again, just listening to this podcast and learning about fear and oh my gosh, I'm an avoidant fear type when it comes to money. That alone is not going to make you better with it. It's not going to take the fear away. It's going to, it's going to give you some awareness. But there's a lot of work that you have to do. A lot of this work is what I do in my byob. Build your own business group programs and with my one on one clients. And it takes, it takes a long time and the work is never done. Working on your relationship with money is kind of like being in good physical shape. Unfortunately, you can't work out for three months straight and be in the best shape of your life and then just be fit for the rest of your life. There's a reason why I've decided that if vampires are real, then I plan on devoting myself to a very serious workout regime for several months and then going and finding a vampire and be like, cool. Turn me now, turn me now, while I'm in the best shape, I would like to be this way for eternity. Thank you very much. Your relationship with money is going to be something that you're going to have to constantly work on. And bad news, new level, new devil. Once you work through one thing, there's going to be more stuff until it gets easier. But let me tell you, it's worth it. It's 100% worth it. Okay, so now that we've talked about fear, let's go on to something that's a little more serious. Oh, what am I going to say next? Well, you'll have to keep listening to find out. But first, Squirrel, Squirrel, Squirrel, Squirrel. If you're enjoying this episode, would you do me a small favor? Will you please leave me a review? Don't worry, it's super easy to do and it only takes a few minutes. You can leave your comments in Apple podcasts, Castbox, Spotify, and Podchaser. Just go to weenicast.com reviews and scroll till you find the chosen app. That's weeniecast.com forward/reviews. Let's talk about trauma. There's a lot of trauma associated with money. And I'm talking big T trauma, like a history of financial abuse and little T trauma where maybe four year old you overheard your parents fighting about money and started feeling unsafe. Now, trauma does not come from actually being unsafe trauma. Like it's not like you have to be in a hostage situation at a bank to start feeling a lot of trauma. You know, when we're children, anytime that we perceive the world around us as not being safe and secure, that can cause trauma. So mom and dad screaming at each other in the other room about one of them making a purchase and them not having the money to back it up and maybe the check bounced. Your caretakers are now very scary to you. And as a four year old, you cannot differentiate them being mad at each other from them just being dangerous and not being the safe person that you know and love. Of course we're not going to get into a trauma healing on a podcast. It's way too triggering for too many people. And I'm not going to go into details, but this is something that I do with a lot of my clients. I went through the trauma of money certification several years ago and it was astounding to me the things that even though I had done a ton of work on my money relationship that I literally took months to be able to do because of the trauma I'd experienced financially, the prime example of this was the very first exercise that program had us do, and it was a very simple exercise where you went through, they gave you a form and you had to do an inventory of all the subscription services that you were signed up for. So anything it could be with your business personal, you had to make a whole inventory of them. So your Spotify subscription, Netflix, any business subscriptions that you have for maybe like your email marketing or your payment systems, your scheduler, all of it, you had to go through your bank balance, you had to really figure out what subscriptions you are a part of. And then you had to assess if it was something that you still used, and if it was something that you still use, then you know, and you still liked and you still were happy with it, then you'd keep it. And if it was something that you didn't use, you know, you'd also ask yourself, why am I keeping this? Why am I staying signed up for this? And the answers to that question were fascinating. Oh, you know, like one person had subscription to Peloton and they just really liked knowing that they had the option to do workouts, even though they used it very sporadically. Some people had signed up for stuff and forgotten. I know, we all know that that's a very ADHD thing to do. And it's so easy with all these apps that we could possibly sign up for. Some people went through their subscriptions and were like, oh, my God, I forgot I signed up to that thing. That's amazing. Yeah, I should start using that again. And it was just a great reminder of something that had just fallen out of sight, out of mind. When I was told that this was the first exercise, I was like, oh, cool, this will be easy. And the next day when I was sitting down to do my homework for the certification and I looked at this sheet and then just the mere idea of logging into my credit card and my debit card accounts and looking to see how much I was spending on these subscriptions. I couldn't do it. I literally couldn't do it. I sat there for five minutes just feeling really uncomfortable and like a failure for not being able to do it. And I was certain that I was the only person who couldn't do it. I was certain that there was something wrong with me. I just like, especially coming from someone who coaches others on their relationship with money, I felt like such a failure. Now, fast forward to the next week when we had our next call and the teacher of the program asked, okay, who was able to do that? And I thought that question was really Interesting. Who was able to do that exercise? And only about a third of the class was able to raise their hand. Everyone else, you know, didn't really raise their hand. And some people had started it and then stopped like it was too much for them. But a lot of other people like me were not even able to start. Felt too scary. And, and one of the things that we were taught, you know, early on in this program is that when you have trauma around money, you can either get hyper vigilant about it, you can get hyper aroused. I know that that brings into mind another thing, but like your fear system, your nervous system gets hyper aroused and you just like get into this like fight or flight mode. And that's not a great place to be working through your trauma. That's actually just going to re traumatize you. On the opposite end, you start disassociating, you fawn, you completely check out emotionally. And that's also not a great place to work through trauma because you're not actually working through it, you're just numbing. Where you want to be is in this window of resilience where your nervous system can be activated. You can absolutely feel unsettled, but you don't feel like you have to run away from it. Now this exercise, I tried doing it for, I want to say like a month and a half. I thought about it. I like really like had to process my emotions around like why it was so scary for me, why was it so hard for me to go and do it? And it was very activating doing that. But going through that process where I literally was not able to do it was all incredibly healing, you know, so just like when we're dealing with basic fears around money, when we're dealing with trauma, we don't have to go to the extreme other end of the spectrum and do like the scariest thing we can think of. Literally just thinking about, thinking about, thinking about doing the thing can help us move towards healing. Now if you have a great deal of trauma around money, I urge you to go and get some support either from a trauma trained therapist and you want to be very specific to find a therapist who specializes with trauma. Or if you're. If you're curious about the Trauma of Money program, I'm going to link it in the show notes so you can go to weeniecast.com trauma of money and check it out. I can't recommend it enough. And of course, if you are wanting to start a business and you want to have an all in one little package, I do all of this within my programs. I help my clients through the trauma of money style of coaching. I don't offer therapy. Hey, quick question. Did you follow this podcast on your favorite podcast app yet? It takes just a few seconds. I personally love Apple podcasts, but you can find us anywhere, even on YouTube. So, as the kids say, smash that button and make sure you never miss an episode. The third thing that gets in people's way when it comes to making more money and keeping more money is their sense of worthiness. One of the top debates that I have with my clients is on their pricing, how much money I think they should be charging for their work, and how much money I know they can make from their work. And oftentimes what I'm debating with is not actually their higher self. It's not like the part of them that understands the value they provide. It's the part of them that thinks that there's a reason why they can't charge more. We're incredibly good at collecting evidence about why we're not good enough. It's kind of like that movie Mean Girls. You know how, like, the popular girls have that burn book where they say all these nasty, mean things about everyone else. I mean, we all have that on ourselves. We all have a whole collection of memories and data and proof that we're not good enough, that there are other people who are better than us, that, like, of all of our failures, of all the times that we fell short, and it's especially prevalent for folks with ADHD because we aren't just getting this feedback verbally from people. We're not just having very clear instances of, like, falling short on stuff. Like, the world is not designed for us. You know, how the world is designed just does not work for us. So we don't thrive in it. We don't thrive with how other people organize their desks. We don't thrive with how schools organize their schedules. When we hear that being a part of the 5am Club works for a bunch of other people and it doesn't work for us, that is a little failure. All these things, it's this, this constant gaslighting that we should be better, that it should be easier. Why is it so hard? Oh, it must just be your willpower. Oh, you must not be good enough. You must not be smart enough. And all of that garbage erodes at your sense of self worth, your sense of deserving. And oftentimes that corresponds with what you're willing to charge. Oftentimes it corresponds with how much money you allow yourself to keep. At the end of the day. I've spoken with some really talented, incredible human beings who are kind and funny and intelligent and have decades of experience who've spent so much money on different aspects of their business to prove that they're worthy of the business. You can make hundreds of thousands of dollars in your business and spend all of it trying to prove that you're good enough. You can also completely undercharge trying to get testimonials to prove that your work is good enough before you raise your rates. And if you're guilty of that, know that you're not alone. Most of the people who sign up for my programs do that in the beginning, but don't do it because all it does is train people that you're really cheap. The last little bit here is I want to talk about your track record. You know, all the things that you've done in the past that like quote unquote, mean that you're bad with money. Maybe you're an impulsive shopper. Maybe you're one of those people who really enjoys going to Target and just letting Target speak to you. And all of a sudden you have a $300 bill. I obviously have never been there. I've never done that myself. Just kidding. I have totally done that. Maybe you're an emotional shopper. Maybe when you're feeling really stressed out, you learned early on that going and buying something makes you feel better. Which by the way, is actually a soothing mechanism. It is a self care mechanism that you learned early on. It's a, actually a trauma response in a lot of ways. Your track record of your salary up until now, you know, if you've been massively underpaid for most of your career, you've basically been told by every authority figure that you've known that you're not worthy enough, you're not worth more money. This is a big conversation that I have to have with clients who used to be teachers when they start their own business. Because oftentimes we have to separate them from this pride of doing more work for less money. Because I mean, that's what happens in the teaching profession, that's what happens in the nursing profession, any profession where you're expected to give more and accept less. Of course pride is going to be associated with it because the human spirit cannot survive thinking that they can't be proud of what they're doing. So whether you've made really bad money choices in the past, whether you have some questionable spending habits or, or whether you've had a history of being underpaid. Yes, it's easy to take all that and be like, cool. Here's the evidence of how much money I deserve. Here's the evidence of what I can be trusted with. You can absolutely go with that story, or you can write a new one, because I want to remind you that your past does not determine your future. And of course, if you're struggling with any of this, if you aren't really sure how you're being held back by your relationship with money, if you have a lot of fear around charging more, how to keep your money, how to really feel safe and secure with money coming in, then I invite you to book a generate income strategy call with me. In this call, we'll really assess what's going on with your relationship with money, how it's impacting your business and really creating limitations for you in the business. And if it makes sense, we can talk about a few of my programs where we work very heavily on your relationship with money. If you want to go and book that, then go to weeniecast.com strategycall fear your mommy. Squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel.