Money-Making Challenge for #PriceLikeAGirl, with Mary Schiller

Hello there, this is Mary Schiller. It is 5 PM here in Paris on this Wednesday, so if you happen to be online, I'd love to have you join me here right now, and if you are watching the recording, that's awesome too. I wanted to make sure and jump on here today for a couple of reasons. One is, of course, that today is day 3 of our 3-day money-making challenge, and it's been really fun for me to see everyone's posts, no matter what they have been about. It's been really exciting to see kind of what this challenge has brought up for people, what they have seen for themselves around money and all that kind of stuff. So if you're watching right now, can you give me like a thumbs up that you can hear me. I see a few people on here, but I can't see who you are. So I'd love to know if you can hear me okay and all of that. I'm just going to assume that you can. Um, are we there? We are live, right? Okay, I guess we're good. Oh good. Okay, thanks you guys. Jill, Jane, Laura, thank you. So, um, I wanted to make myself available here. I have a few thoughts I'd like to start with. Hi, Lena. I have a few thoughts that I'd like to start with, and then of course I'm open to your questions, so feel free to post a comment or a question anytime. First and foremost, I want to make sure you know that as of today, registration is open for this new program called Let's Make Money Honey, and you can learn more and enroll at pricelikeagirl.com/money. Made that as easy as possible. The cost is $297 today through next, I guess it's Friday, August 4th, and then the price will go up to $497. So I would encourage you to jump on now. And I want to assure you that there is a guarantee, a 15-day guarantee. So if you get in there and you decide, no, this just isn't for me, just holler and I'll, uh, we'll settle that. And there's no risk to you whatsoever. So, I hope that you'll give it a shot and see what you think because, for me, this whole area of money has been a really interesting journey and it's one that I've tried to sort of distill in this program where I really try to express and show you that whatever thinking you've got going on, in relation to money is really irrelevant. Now, one of the members of our group just posted a comment, and I really want to address this because I know that this is what used to happen for me. She said that, you know, the whole idea of this challenge seemed to trigger a lot of stressful money thinking, and as a result of that, it seemed like there weren't any new ideas coming through on how to make the money she wanted to make. So I want to go back to the story that I told before because it's really relevant to this question and this concern, and I know she's not the only one. That's why I'm addressing it. So when I had essentially somebody serve me papers saying that this bill was due and payable, this €5,000 bill was due and payable right then, and I was looking at, hmm, you know, how am I going to get this paid immediately? Uh, of course I had a lot of stressful thinking come into my mind at that moment. I think probably most people would. That's a natural thing. And, um, I think what I used to do in the past was I would feel that rush of stress and I would immediately agree with it, essentially. So I would say, wow, I really do need to get stressed out right now because somebody just told me I owe them $5,000 and I need to pay it right now. Uh, hi Jeanette, uh, I will get to that one in one second. Great question. Um, so, you know, I think it's only natural for those kinds of thoughts to arise, but here's the difference. In the past, like I said, I would hear thinking like that and I would go, "Oh my gosh, I have no way of paying this. What am I going to do?" And I would just listen and keep listening and keep listening and keep agreeing and agreeing and agreeing with all those thoughts that came into my head to the point where I was completely paralyzed, like I couldn't do anything. And this time, and this is what's happened for me over the last couple of years, this time Yeah, I had a bunch of stressful thinking come in. The difference was I didn't care. It was like, oh, right, okay, so I got some stress happening, whatever. Now let's see what I can do to create this money. So it was kind of like I was having this experience of being kind of stressed and a little freaked out that somebody came to the door like that because that had never happened to me before. And I just was like, okay, Well, so what if I'm having stressful thinking? That has nothing to do with me. It has nothing to do with what my capabilities are. And that's the main point that I would really love for you to hear is that your thinking, whatever the thinking is that you have, whatever feelings you have about stress or worry or any of that, it's all real. I get it. It, it doesn't feel good. But it doesn't ultimately matter. It has no connection whatsoever to your ability to do something. And I can prove it to you. I can absolutely prove it to you because I know everybody watching this has had some kind of experience when you've been really stressed out, but you've had to perform in some way anyway, right? Maybe it was taking an exam, Or maybe it was helping someone who suddenly needed you and you had all that stress come in, like freaked out and scared, but you had to do something anyway. That is the exact same thing I'm talking about. That ability to tap into an answer, to hear something, to do something, to take action is available to you all the time, and that includes the area of making money. Absolutely. So just as you would in any other situation where it might warrant it, in relation to money, you're allowed to not listen to any stressful thinking you've got going on because it's essentially irrelevant to what you are able to do. So I'm going to pause there and go to Jeanette's question. Uh, rather than money, honey, uh, the bottleneck for me seems to be more about getting products out. "how do you see this in your Money Honey program? Thanks." Okay, great question, Jeanette. So, one of the things that I talk about a lot in the program, particularly in the second half, the second 2 weeks, is that we have a tendency as human beings, I don't know why, but we seem to have this tendency to expect that we have to have all of the answers from A to Z instantly. And if we don't see how something is going to go, if we don't know how it's going to turn out, which we'll never know, if we, if we can't seem to see how things are going to look when they're finished or how they're going to sell, we seem to have this tendency to not go forward. And what I do in this program, and it's part of what I do in all of the coaching and all the books I write and everything, is I try to help you see that the only way to ever move on something is to just do something. Is to take the first step, see where that step leads you, and keep going. So, somebody in fact was asking me the other day, not you, Jeanette, but somebody else, was asking me, you know, how do I know when the time is right to release something out into the world as a professional? You know, how do I know when something is good enough? How do I know when it's ready? And you know what I told them? I said, you don't. You don't know. You have to do the best that you can. And as I say, and I stole this from someone, I don't know who, done is better than perfect. So get it done. Get it out there, get feedback. If people don't buy it, then you'll know maybe something isn't right with the product, or maybe it's the way you're talking about it. Or if they don't buy it and, you know, you can ask them, why aren't you buying it? Is there something missing? The only way to ever kind of move things is to actually move yourself. And what is so beautiful about the way we're designed as human beings is that when we have inspiration to do something, like it sounds like you have, Jeanette, that means we already know what to do. We can take the first step that's right in front of us and the one after that and the one after that. And those steps are perfectly designed for us. This is what I was referring to earlier. It's like we have our own step-by-step system, system or blueprint for anything and everything we want to do already built into us. So if we make a decision, uh, like I did, that I want to make €5,000 in a week or less so that I can walk into that office next Monday or Tuesday and hand them a check, we have the tools and the creative capacity to do that. There's no question. The only thing that ever makes it seem like we don't is when we have thinking that says Mary, you can't do that, and I pay attention to it. If I simply go, yeah, I hear you, but I'm gonna go ahead and make this money now, okay? You know, that's really all we need to see here. And it sounds kind of crazy simple, I get that. It sounds like, oh, you know, just switch off your thinking and you'll be able to create what you want. And that's not exactly what I'm saying. What I'm saying is You don't have to do anything about whatever thoughts you have. There's nothing wrong with them. There's, there's no judgment about them. They simply are what they are. They come in, they do their thing, they create a feeling. They're, they're there and they're just going to always be there. There's nothing you can do about that. But there is something you can do, and that is you can start to see yourself for actually who or what you are, which is a magnificent, infinite, creative machine. This is what you are designed to do. You are creating all the time. Every moment that you are alive is a moment of creating. It's a moment of possibility, of opportunity, of you being part of the larger system that is just going, going, going. So if it ever looks to you like you can't create something that you really want to create, know that it's only because you're looking at something that isn't true. And what I'm asking you to do is just turn your gaze a tiny little bit towards what you actually have as a human being and what is actually available to you. You know, I didn't know this for myself. For a very long time. And as some of you know, and I've spoken about before, I spent lots and lots of years of my life feeling like an absolute failure. I had a disastrous first marriage. Disaster is kind of putting a mild term to it. And the relationship with that person sort of continued for many years after that, and it caused a lot of problems for me, for my daughter, for my second husband who I'm currently married to, for people in my family. So that whole thing looked like one big fat disaster to me. Um, the only thing that I ever really wanted to do was be a parent, and in so many ways I felt like I had screwed that up by marrying the wrong person in the beginning. And I never felt like I really had a good career path, so that looked like a dismal failure. I looked around at other people who who I had been friends with who were doing well, who were happy, who were financially successful, and I was like, you know, what is my problem? Why can't I get it together? That is really how I lived my life up until 3 years ago, where I was walking around in this cloud thinking that I was a broken person who clearly didn't know how to function well in society. And, you know, the outside world was reinforcing that by telling me that I had post-traumatic stress disorder and that I would never really be okay and, and all this stuff. And then I woke up to the truth. And the truth is what has helped me to make major changes in my life, not just financially, but emotionally, in my current marriage, when when things were pretty rough there. Things have improved tremendously. I've obviously changed where I live and am now living, really, I feel like I'm on cloud nine most days here in Paris because I love it here so much. And it's really because I saw what I'm telling you right now, which is that the thoughts that are in your head are simply the thoughts that are in your head. They don't reflect who you are. They don't reflect your capabilities. They don't reflect your creative capacity. They don't reflect whether you're a good person or a bad person. They are simply there, and you have the option to not listen to them. No matter what they're telling you, you don't have to listen because, as I said on the— I think it was on the previous one— thought is like the crust on the outside of the earth. It's just this tiny little sliver. That has very little to do with all the energy and, um, and beauty that is underneath all of that. And that is where I'm trying to get you to look for answers to these things, especially in regards to money, since that's what we're talking about. So I'm going to pause there for just a second and see if anybody else has any questions or comments I can also share a little bit more about what's in the program because you might be curious about it. There's— it's a 4-week program, and the first 2 weeks are really focused on helping you— I'm glad that was helpful, Jeanette— I'm really helping you to see what I'm talking about right now much more clearly for yourself, and I give some fun assignments in there. And then the second 2 weeks are really also about helping you to get things moving if you feel stuck in some area related to money, to really help you make progress on some things that seem really stalled. And if you know me at all through these Facebook Lives or anything else, you'll know that I have a real penchant for helping people to take action, and I feel that in money in particular, that's a really, really exciting area in which to test this out. Hi, Marie-Françoise. You're feeling like a failure now. Okay. The challenge was a bust, no ideas. In fact, I've been in the midst of so much negative thinking, I've been crying every day. Not one idea has come to me. It's been very hard. I'm sorry that you're feeling that way, first of all. I want to— I don't know if you heard what I was just saying before, you might have jumped jumped on late, but the, the main point that I would love to drive home is that no matter what feeling you have, whether you're stressed out, upset, frustrated, all of that, those feelings and thoughts have nothing to do with your ability to change your finances or anything else in your life. So, uh, for myself, I'll give you another example. As I was mentioning a moment ago, you know, I spent most of my life feeling like a failure, and I felt like I was a failure in pretty much everything. And what I kind of woke up to was that the only reason I felt like a failure was that I had some random thinking coming through my head that said, "Mary, you're a failure," and I was agreeing with it. And I thought to myself, now wait a second, if somebody were on the outside of me telling me that, saying, "Mary, you know, you're really a failure in life," would I automatically agree with them? Or might I step back and go, "Hey, wait a second, I don't have to agree with that. Like, there's more to me than what this person is seeing. That's ridiculous." And that's kind of what helped me to snap out of it in a way. It was like, you know, whatever story I'm hearing in my head about myself is a story I'm hearing in my head about myself. It isn't me. It isn't a reflection of me. It sometimes seems that way because it seems very personal. It's going on in our head. But the way to kind of unhook yourself from that is to realize that there is about that, that piece of your experience is about 0.05, and I can't do math, but whatever the rest of the percentage is has nothing to do with that stressful, upset thinking that's going on in your head, that there is an entire world of experience available to you. And you can see this, I'm sure you can, Marie-Françoise, and other people, in areas of your life that you have no trouble with, things that are easy to come easily to you. Marie-Françoise, I'd love to hear something in your life that comes easily to you. I, I have a few guesses, but because I know you a little bit, but I'd love to hear something that comes easily for you. And if you start to look at the areas of your life that come easily to you, you will notice a trend. And the trend is You're not hearing a bunch of noise in your head and you're going about your business doing whatever the thing is. You're, you're kind of acting from a different place— oops— other than what's going on in your head. And so that is the same thing that is available to you in any area of life, even money. If money has been a big problem for you, in the past, you can take heart and know that your creative capabilities as a human being span everything. So if you find it easy to cook, let's say that comes very naturally to you, you don't have to think about it much, you don't even have to use recipes, you just know what to do. That same kind of creative ability is available to you in other things. Like money. You have the same ability in money, with money, as you do with cooking, for example, because you have the same ability to ignore any noise in your head that says you can't or you shouldn't or this is impossible or I can't do it or, uh, I don't know what to do. You don't have to go there because that's not you. That's not you. You are what is underneath all of that. You are what is creating this experience right now of listening to me talk. You are what is creating that beautiful meal or that beautiful performance or a beautiful conversation with a relative or a friend who needs you. That creative capacity is there all the time. It never goes anywhere. Unfortunately, this isn't a good time for that. My last few auditions have been absolutely awful. Stuck in my writing, stuck in my creativity. So things that were easy for me are very hard now. It's been a really hard time. I don't know if this will help, Marie-Françoise. I hope it will. I think that every single person watching this has had times when they feel stuck, when life just seems to be kind of coming to a standstill in most areas of our existence. I certainly have been there myself. And what I can tell you is the, what has made the biggest difference, and I'm going to really emphasize this point, what has made the biggest difference for me and for a lot of the people that I have been fortunate enough to work with over the past couple of years is recognizing that even in those times when things look bleak nothing has really changed within us, that we haven't changed. There's nothing limiting us, that even though things appear to be rough and difficult and stressful— and I get that, totally get it— it doesn't have anything to do with what is true, because what is true doesn't change. And what is true is that you and I, every single person on this planet, and that includes everyone I'm talking to right now, we have been gifted with the most amazing thing. I can't even— I can get really emotional about this, so I'm going to try not to. And that is we have no limits on ourselves. Nothing. There is nothing holding us back. Not even our thinking can do that. There is so much power within us as human beings. It could never be reined in by stress or bad thinking or negative thoughts. None of that has any impact at all on who we actually are and what we are capable of doing. So for me and for a lot of the people I have worked with, the way out of that feeling, if you, if you will, and this is going to sound crazy, Marie-Françoise and others, but bear with me, is to not care that life looks that way, to not care that you're feeling stressed, to not care that you feel bad. It's a momentary thought. That has no bearing or reflection on who you are as a human. And I know this sounds weird because we're taught to not feel bad, especially women. And I know I'm talking to women here. We are taught to smile all the time. We're taught to be happy. I don't know how many times my daughter's walked down the street and people have come up to her and say, "Smile, honey. Be happy." You know, we have this message that is fed to us that says we are supposed to be on cloud nine all the time, and if we're not, there's something wrong with us. Well, I'm here to tell you, you can feel anything you want. Any feeling that comes through, grab it and hold it and say, "Yes, thank you for showing me I'm human." You know, we don't have to feel happy 24/7. That's not a requirement, and it certainly isn't a requirement to make money, for heaven's sakes. So, you know, I now am at a place, and this is what I'm trying to convey probably really badly, but I'm doing my best, where if I have some down days or life looks like it's awful, I just don't care because I know what's really going on underneath. What's going on underneath is the real you and the real me, and nothing on the surface of our experience ever can touch that. Not ever. Like I said before, it would be like saying that the waves on top of the ocean have some effect on what's underneath all of them, you know, that it's somehow depleting what is the riches of the ocean. And that's obviously not true. Well, the same is true for humans. We can have all these ripples of experience and thoughts and feelings— has nothing to do with what we have on offer to us and what we can use at any given moment. So the trick, and I think this was in one of my favorite films, which is All the President's Men, where one of the characters in the film was talking about a gentleman named G. Gordon Liddy, who apparently had a parlor trick where he would hold his hand over an open flame until his hand would burn, and people would say to him, what's the trick? And he says the trick is not minding. That's what I'm talking about. So the trick, if there is one, is not minding having this human experience that includes all kinds of ups and downs. Those ups and downs don't have to influence what you actually do. So I'm gonna pause there for a second because that was a lot that I just said. So thank you, Marie-Françoise, for asking those questions. Because it's really at the core of what we're talking about. It's at the core of what I teach people. It's what the core— it's at the core of what I want to share with women in particular when it comes to money and business, is that we can have a lot of doubts and we can have a lot of fear of stepping forward, and all we need to really understand is all of that can be there It can all be there because it's going to be there, but it doesn't have to influence anything about what we actually do. Hi, Laura. I think you're expressing yourself very well. I'm finding this to be helpful. Oh, thank goodness. Okay. Because, you know, sometimes I can just kind of go and not know if I'm making sense. So I really appreciate that. And I'd love to hear from you too, Marie-Françoise. Let me know if you heard anything in what I said and if you want to listen to the replay and see if something comes to you. That would be awesome. You know, I want to— I think I'll close out this, this conversation by saying that I really have made it my mission to help women like you to know your value in the world, know your worth in the world. If you are working for yourself and you feel like you're not making the money that you want to make, I really want to help you to do that. I went to a concert last night here in Paris of U2, and it was quite interesting because there was a lot of focus from the band, from Bono, on women and our role in the world. And one of the things he talked about in between songs was how much he wished that women could rewrite the story of the world starting now, because he thinks it would be a much more interesting and caring and loving place. And one of the ways that you and I can do that And I don't mean this to sound crass, but we can do it through becoming financially independent and having the, um, the power that comes from the almighty dollar. Because in our society, that is one way that people exchange value, and it does open doors. And I really want to see more women feel more in control of that part of their life. And have the kind of money that they want to be the person in the world that they want to be. Okay, sure, Marie-Françoise. As I was watching Bono and the gang on stage last night, I was thinking, you know, it's really cool that Bono in particular has made all this money and he has started this Foundation ONE that has 8 million members. And I thought, that is what can happen when you have resources in the form of money. And so I would love to see more and more of us women with the resources that we feel we want to have to be the presence that we want to be in the world and to make the kind of difference that we want to make. And that's really behind everything that I'm teaching here and everything I teach in Let's Make Money, Honey, is a strong desire to help women to feel the power that we actually have and are, not just have, but the power that we are in this world because we're a force to be reckoned with. So I'm going to pause there for a quick second and see if anybody else has any comments before I close this out. Um, and the link again to the program information is pricelikeagirl.com/money. I'm happy to answer any questions in the group about it, and I'm also willing to continue the challenge into another day because it's been really exciting to see everything. Oh, great, Laura, I'm glad you're with me on that. That's cool. Thank you. Uh, so I'm gonna sign off for now, and I will probably be back on here tomorrow if you want to check in. I don't know exactly what time, but I'll probably be back, and I just appreciate you all so much. Thank you, Jeanette, for being here, and I would love to have you in the program because I am including a private Facebook group in there that will have, um, lots of facilitation by me as well as a monthly— at least a monthly, probably a bi-monthly— Q&A, uh, Facebook Live conversation as well. So it's quite a lot of support for you if you really want to start changing your financial reality and see money in a whole new way. I'd love to have you in the program. All right, thanks so much. Thank you, Lena. I will talk to you all again soon. Bye for now.