072 What to Do When Your Financial World is Crumbling (With Brandi Mowles)

Hey there, real quick before we jump into the episode, listen, if your earnings treadmill hasn't set you free yet, running faster won't either. Listen, hustle without principles just going to burn you out. So here's what I want for you. I want you to join me for my money machine experience live. It is three free trainings. Deep dive into how to escape the treadmill and build a money machine that actually works for you. All right, grab your spot here by going to moneymachinelive.com and I'll see you in the free training. What do you do when you have a brand new baby, a husband, and a financial world that is caving in? Well, in this episode, I'm talking to Brandi Mous, and that's exactly what was going on. She was an entrepreneur. She was an accidental entrepreneur, but she found herself in a situation where the business was crumbling, her financial world was crumbling, her husband wasn't aware of it, and she's trying to figure out how to take care of her family. And she was, she. She pulled herself through it. And it's an incredible, amazing story, not only inspirational, but instructional, about the things that she did to deal with it, the things that, the steps she took, the tactics she used. So whether you're struggling financially or you're on a financial journey and you're not where you're at, or maybe you are where you're at, this one is pure gold. You need to listen to it. You need to understand some of the tactics that, that she's using and no matter where you're at to realize that you too can come through it the way Brandi has. So I'll see you in the episode. Enjoy. This is the affluent Entrepreneur show for entrepreneurs that want to operate at a high level and achieve financial liberation. I'm your host, Mel Abraham, and I'll be sharing with you what it takes to create success beyond wealth and so you can have a richer, more fulfilling lifestyle. In this show, you'll learn how business and money intersect so you can scale your business, scale your money, and scale your life while creating a deeper impact and living with complete freedom. Because that's what it really means to be an affluent entrepreneur.

Hey, Brandi. So good to have you on the show. I mean, this is going to be a cool conversation. We met, like I said in the intro, we met a couple of years back and you've been on quite a journey and part of the journey I didn't know about and we're going to talk about it here. So welcome. Welcome to the show.

Oh, my goodness. Mel, I'm super excited. You are? I feel like that I just connected with you from the moment I met you, and I felt like we both met at a really interesting time in our life. You were just diagnosed. I was just starting a new business. And so I'm so glad to be sitting here now as friends and having this conversation.

Oh, my gosh. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Yes.

Lots of transitions, lots of growth in the time that we've known each other. And so do me a favor. Well, just to start out, for people that don't know you, and they should know you, but they will after this. Who is Brandy Mouse?

Oh, my goodness. I am a wife and mom, first and foremost, in that order. I'm a taco snob. I'm a podcast host, and they say I'm a digital marketing guru, but I just like to nerd out over marketing and offer creation. And I am just. I'm your, like, best digital marketing friend.

And it's true. It's true. And for those of you just listening, Randy and I happen to be in actually two masterminds together. And so I. I hear the things, though. The stuff that goes on in her brain is incredible. But it wasn't always this way. Listen as if you're listening to this. We've come through the pandemic where we're kind of going through uncertainty in the markets. We've gone through a lot of different things. And. And I'm hoping that you'll hear this from the perspective of if you're dealing with that, you're not alone. And just because Brandi and I are having this conversation, you're going to find out that we're right there with you. We've been right there with you. And Brandi, when we met, I was speaking at an event that she was at, and we had a conversation. And at that time, she had student loans in excess of $100,000. And we had a conversation at that event. And then what happened with those? Because I want to. Want to start where we started. But then we'll give them the backstory that I was completely unaware of.

So you came and you were talking about wealth. And this is something that was definitely. And it wasn't even the wealth part of it. Just how to manage money correctly was definitely on my mind in that moment for a bunch of bad reasons. But I come from a very low middle class family, blue collar workers, worked so hard their entire life, and I just knew paycheck to paycheck, like, that's all I knew. And so coming in when I met you, I was making really great money at that point as a one on one service provider, just transitioning into digital products. And I wanted to know, like, what the heck do we do with this money that we're making? And I wanted to make sure it was the right thing. And we talked about, you know, I wanted to buy a house eventually, but that felt really out of range. We had a hundred thousand plus, it was actually 130,000 between my husband and I, student loans from law school and undergrad and stuff like that. And I was like, what do I start with? Like, do I. Do I invest? What does that mean? Like, do we buy a house? Do we pay off student loans? And I remember we talking about this and at that moment, the best thing for us to do is pay off the student loans. And so I think eight months after we had that discussion, we paid off over all of the student loans. I think we have like $5,000 left that will pay off this year. And so that was so big to have that massive debt just gone.

Through my business.

Yeah, yeah. And the interesting thing is in that conversation, I had that conversation isolated. I had no idea the journey that you were on. I now understand even more so why money management was at top of mind, because you're. And we were just talking before.

Before we started recording, is that three years prior to that or three years ago.

You had to actually file bankruptcy. You had a business that put you in debt and you had to file bankruptcy. Tell me as we walk through this.

What, what got you there? What got you to the point where thinking bankruptcy is the solution? All the things that came out of it? Because I think that there's. The rebirth is an amazing thing.

Yeah, for sure. And we don't know it in that moment. It feels really horrible in that moment. And so I went. I was the first generation in my family to go to college. Like I said, very blue collar family went to college. Um, and I actually started college at 17 just because of how my birthday falls. And so I signed some big loans when I was 17, thinking that that was the only way. And so undergrad. Racked up about $35,000 in undergrad. And then I had a double major in international relations and history with a minor in African studies. Like, what the heck are you going to do with that? And so my options were go be a teacher or go to law school. And so law school sounded like a really great option to me. So I went to law school at the age of 20, signing massive loans, like nothing on undergrad loans, and went to law school and then found myself in a really dark place. I was doing super well in school, top 10% of my class. But law school is like, mentally really difficult. You're reading horrible things that happen to children and people. And my whole viewpoint on the world started to change. And then it got to the point where we had to do summer interns and I needed a job, like a paying job, because that's always been my, like, Since I was 14, I've worked and because I went to Alabama very much, still is boys. I mean, it's the boys playground there. And so I was told that there was no way I was going to get a paid internship. She was very honest with me and I couldn't afford to work for free. And so I went to an event and. And it was like a direct sales network marketing event. And there was this woman sitting up there and she was telling me about all this money she was making and how she didn't even have a high school education. And I was like, oh my God, if she can do this, you better believe I can figure out how to do this. And I had always been a bartender or server. I knew people, I knew how to sell. And so I was like, I'm going to do this. And very quickly I was able to earn a free car and like all these, like, they give you like diamond rings and stuff. And this was so out of my life, like what I was used to. And for the first time, I was making like amazing money. And so then I ended up leaving law school and took a lot of debt with me and pursued this for eight years. And I moved very quickly to the top. And through that I learned how not to manage a business very, very quickly. I'm not bashing network marketing or mlm, but there is a culture in a lot of them of not really discussing how to manage money or that there will be, you know, times where you're not making as much. And also how this one was set up. As I actually moved up the company, which was encouraged. My paychecks kept on getting smaller. And then also I had partnered with David's bridal and so lead generation and stuff like that. So I had so many expenses. I had a brick and mortar studio, like, I mean, and at this point I was 20 to 23 years old, all of a sudden had 10, $15,000 a month, but also really heavy expenses and not knowing how to manage a business, not knowing how to manage personal finance. And there wasn't a culture of communication on how to do anything like that. It was just, make money, make money, move up. Like, this is what you do. And I lost myself in that. And I took really bad business advice and through that racked up quite a bit of debt to maintain my status in a company. And I think that's a really dangerous place. And it doesn't matter if you're in network marketing or anything, but when we tie our self worth to our, like, our title, our status, it can be a really dangerous place. And so when I was eight months pregnant with my daughter, I told my husband, I was like, I'm done. Like, this is not what I'm going to do anymore. Um, I didn't feel right about having other people, like, do the same thing. I was. It was so out of alignment with who I was. The purses, the statuses, the cars, like, that wasn't me. And I didn't want my daughter to also, like, have those things. And so he said, what are you doing? Like, we're bringing in money. At the time, he had no idea how much debt we had racked up. And I just said, we'll figure it out. And so when my daughter was five months old, we had to figure it out. Like, it got bad. And so we contacted. I had to sit down and have a really tough conversation with my husband. We never were late on any payments. It just got to the point where, like, it wasn't going to be maintainable. And so I had to have a really hard conversation with my husband, tell him where we were. We went and talked to a attorney. After looking at our student loans, our credit card stuff. He was like, like, the best thing you can do right now is file bankruptcy. That was his advice. We went to another attorney. They gave us the exact same advice. And the crazy thing is that when you're struggling so bad, you also have to pay these attorneys a lot of money, a lot of money to get a lot. And so I remember after I had so much shame around this and we didn't tell anyone, we kept it to ourself. Only, like, two people knew. And I reached out to a best friend and she was like, this is the biggest mistake you'll ever make in your life. And at that point, I literally shut down and was like, we cannot tell anyone. We're going to do this. It's the best thing for our family. But, like, we're not telling anyone. And so I remember hustling, like, I went into pawn shops to get rid of rings. I held a Yard sale where I was literally taking credit cards on the square reader and selling all my designer purses just to pay for the attorney. And we paid for the attorney. And then it was like, okay, this is going to be taken care of, but we still have $130,000 in student loans. We still have to live like, it wasn't like we were living a fancy lifestyle by any means. We have a five month old that has to be fed. And I couldn't go back to work because she was like, she was just a very needed baby. And so that's when I started googling and I was like, what can I do online? Like, how do I work at home? And I came up with a virtual assistant.

So I want to take you back because I want to keep this going. But because here's, here's the thing. I think there's a couple things you said that I want to just dig a little deeper in because I think this is really important in our world. You were spending money to keep status.

Yeah.

I just actually did an episode called and I'll hook it up here too, at the end of this. But social media is stealing your financial future.

And even if you're not in a company.

Social media is creating an environment where we start to spend money to create status. Let's put it this way, a facade of status.

Yeah.

And that's a, that's, that's a slippery slope. That was, that's the thing that, that really kind of got you, is that the emotions of that kept you in the game.

Yeah. And it wasn't even social media. It was inside the company.

Yes.

Speaking on stages in front of 10,000 people as an extrovert. That's like, oh my God, like, I'm speaking. No, like this is like my dreams are made of this. And I was driving a car and I was recognized by the car I drove because it was a symbol of success. And I. We had jackets. Like everything in the company was tied to your success. Like the jacket you wore, how many diamond rings you had. Because these are. Showed that you were successful in the company. And these are things that I had never cared for in my whole life. Like, I never wanted a designer handbag. I never wanted rings. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. It was just not me. But I was so worried about losing my status and the company that I took bad business advice and did what other people in the company were doing to keep their status.

So in the process of being afraid to lose your status, you lost yourself yeah, absolutely. And. And that's a. It's a tough. It's a tough place to be that now the aha came. The realization came. And, and good on you to be able to say, wait a second, this is, this is a problem. And I got a family and I've got a newborn and I have a husband, and, you know, and I'm.

Extracting it out. So if I misstate, correct me, and I haven't been totally honest with my husband about where we're at. So you're going to sit down and have this conversation. Now, those of you that are listening, you might be in a similar situation for. For different reasons. And so as we walk through this, understand the courage.

That it takes, because I want you to hear the outcome and what it makes when you have the courage to take the steps. So you're going to sit down with your husband. How did. I don't want to bring up the emotions, but how did the conversation go?

I first and foremost want to say that I have the most incredible husband in the world. And when I sat down with him, I explained our situation. He did not once blame me. He took full responsibility because he said he's also a partner in this. Like, he should have. I shouldn't have been the one that had to manage all of our finances on my own. There should have been a conversation and that he also took responsibility for it. And I'm so lucky. But I did hold on to a lot of that blame for a long time. Like, it's taken me four years to, like, actually get through that blame and know that at the time I thought I was doing what was best for our family. Ultimately, it wasn't, but I do. I mean, I don't think I've ever felt so ashamed, so embarrassed. I cried a lot, showing all the numbers where we were, but it was the best thing I could have done because I knew if we. If I kept on trying to do what I was doing, which was, okay, here's the money, let's pay the minimum, but then we need to turn around and use those credit cards just to buy groceries or formula or diaper, like, it wasn't sustainable. And I recognized that. And I was like, we have to get ahead of this because it was just draining on me and it was draining on our family. And so it was the hardest conversation, but it was the most important conversation I've ever had.

Tell me. I mean, first off, he sounds like a good dude. Keep him.

Yes, incredible.

Because here's the thing.

It's been stated that finances is one of the biggest stressors.

And part of it is because we don't talk. We don't talk about money and everything. But I look at it differently. I believe that when you talk about money, you're talking about something bigger than money. You're talking about your vision, your family's vision, your life together. So having gone through that, how has it changed your relationship?

Yeah, now Austin's very aware of any money we spend. He's very aware of, like, he's not going to come and ask. We don't really ask before we buy. Like, we don't have one of those rules, but we are respectful of each other. And so we'll come and be like, hey, this is where we're at financially. This is what I would like. What are your thoughts on it? And so we'll talk that through. We're also. We do have credit cards now. They're paid off every single. Every other week, but we do have those to build our credit and everything. And so both of us are fully aware what's on there, what was put on there when it's paid off. So there's an open communication. Um, he knows how much our expenses are a month, which also helps because I think, like, I still manage our money, but he knows what's coming out, what our expenses are it and what's came in. Which makes it really, really helpful because he's not asking for stuff because he doesn't know anymore. And I don't have to say no to something, you know, like, it creates a really weird dynamic when you're saying no. You can't get that. When it's like, well, I'm not saying no. You can't get it just because I don't want you to get it. It's because, like, we don't have the money. Like, he would know that. So I think it's opened up our relationship. Now. Is there still work to do? Yes, I still manage, like, 99.9% of it. And he could definitely be more involved, but it's a working progress. And I think just where I am in our business and stuff, I'm managing money every single month. It's just. It falls onto me because that's what I do.

Do you find that it brought you closer?

Yeah, I think it taught us that communication's super important. Where. I mean, we got married when I was 23. I met him when I was 17, and so we had high school sweethearts. Well, he's in college. I was in high school. I had just Graduated high school when we started dating. So we were college sweethearts, but we've been together for a long time, and we had to grow up together. And so both of us come from very Southern roots. We're where you don't talk about money, and it's. One person manages it, and that's how it is. So we've had to learn a lot along the way. So it's definitely made us stronger in that sense, and it's creating a different dynamic for our daughter. She now grows up in a home where we talk about money openly, we discuss finances openly, even with her. And so hopefully we're changing generational expectations and communication about finances and money as well.

I can't tell you how much I love hearing this, because I am. I'm a. I'm an absolute believer that we need to have these conversations as a family, as a couple. And it doesn't mean that you say. Say to the. The kids, here's the bank accounts.

Yeah.

But when we give our children some skills, communication, financial skills, they're going to serve them the rest of their life. And yet we demonize money. And it's not the money that's the challenge. It's. It's. It's how we view it, it's how we use it. It's the tool. But yet we won't have the conversations around it. So you have the conversation, you decide. And. And look, I get it. I'm not a proponent that says bankruptcy is the way to go, because I think sometimes.

We can use it when we don't need to, because it seems easier in the moment. Bankruptcy comes with a whole lot of burden. It comes with a whole lot of. As much as you felt shame and guilt and all that before it, there was a whole new level with this.

And so how did you navigate that to make sure that it didn't just spiral you down?

Yeah. So I don't know. I just got in this, like, mindset that, like, I had to change our dynamic. My husband had a. When we had our daughter, he took a pay cut for better benefits. And so we were doing the. He was doing the best he can. And so I was like, how can I contribute to our family? That was definitely, like, first and foremost, the, like, I think sometimes when your back's up against the wall, you just make stuff happen. And so I found this course on how to be a virtual assistant. And I had hired virtual assistants before, and they sent out birthday postcards to my customers, and I was like, I do not want to do that. But one thing that I learned a lot from my business that was so incredible is I got so good at marketing. I was so good at sales. I was so good at text marketing. Like, now text is popular. I was doing text 10 years ago and helping, like, companies fly me out to Utah to learn how to text market. And so email marketing, I had social media. Like, I knew how to do all of that. And so I came online and I started doing it for clients. And then I got into Facebook ads, found out I was really good at that, and ran with that, and very quickly was able to scale my business to six figures and then added a digital program and did a million then very next year. And through all this, my number one focus the entire time was, how do we stay as profitable as possible? Like, that was always in my mind, like, we're doing this different. If it means that we have to slow down, that's fine. If it means I say no to some things, I was totally fine with that. How can we be profitable? And then how can we not go out and just spend all that money? Like, I didn't want to live paycheck to paycheck. I wanted this money to make a difference in some way. And we've been able to donate to, like, a lot of money to charities that we would have never even been able to, like, think about donating before. And we've been able to buy our dream home and all these different things that came with that. But I'm so grateful for knowing, like, going through that experience now. I can look back and be like, okay, I'm grateful for going through bankruptcy because it taught me how to run a business correctly. But I wish I would have learned it a different way, but because it was definitely hard, and I've struggled for four years. I'm so grateful for the mastermind that we were in together, because that mastermind was supposed to be for marketing, but for me, it was for healing. And I met incredible people that helped me heal through this that, you know, I didn't. I've never thought that I experienced trauma in my life, and there's different forms of trauma, and I was able to heal from this and forgive myself and know that, like, this is just a part of my story, and it shouldn't be hidden, because as long as I'm hiding it, I'm holding on to that shame. And so how can I turn this around to help other people?

So this is. This is beautiful because. And I get where you're. Where you're coming from, where you're feeling, I mean, I felt the same thing with the Ponzi scheme. You know, this guilt. Here's the thing, and maybe it helps those listening, but even, even you at some level, with all the interviews that I've done, billionaires, millionaires, 100 millionaires, people starting out, every single one of them without question, as some level of guilt or shame around money. And some because they have it, some because they had it and lost it, some because they don't have it, some because they did something wrong with it, all kinds of reasons for it. But we, it exists. I still deal with it at times, you know. But now you're aware of it, you're more equipped.

Right.

And you've given it. We talked about a couple things and I think that I want, I want to hit on a few. You mentioned your run. So you, you went into a new business out of necessity because you needed formula, you needed to take care of the little, the little one and you need to take care of the family. And, and out of necessity you decide to get in business. And this business turned into, like you said, it's a seven figure business today.

You actually did this in a very short duration.

Yeah.

And, and so the recovery time wasn't too long. But the thing that, that I, I want to, I want people to make sure they understand.

Is you said you have a huge focus now on being as profitable as possible.

And so there's a couple questions that come up for me. One is because I want people to hear it, what's your margins now? Margins, your profitability? Because it's insanely good.

Yeah. So it was at 87% and then to hit million, I have a life coach as my bookkeeper, paper and accountant. So like it really worked. She was like, okay, Brittany, if you want to hit that next level, like you have to also be okay with still being profitable, but not at 80 some percent. Like that's not gonna maintain. And so our, my goal is always to stay above 50. So we're running at a 57 profit margin. And that feels so good to me.

I mean there's a whole lot of room for error there, you know, but it, especially in, if you're in the digital space, bricks and mortar, there's going to be some differences there because you have a different level of overhead. But what I, what I'm hoping that they all take away is that when you were at the other company and what I hear a lot of people get focused on is sales, sales, sales, sales, sales, revenue, revenue, revenue, revenue. And I've always Said revenue is a vanity metric. It doesn't matter how much you are selling if it doesn't end up in the bottom line. And now you're. You're profit focused first versus sales.

Absolutely. And one of those things, we've made decisions, like my bookkeeper said, what's your goal for this year? And I was like, let's just do 2 million and run at a 50% profit margin. I think it helped me also learn that I don't want a $10 million business. Like, that doesn't hit my financial goals because I know that that's going to be more team. I'm not saying that at that level you're not running at 50%, but to get there, probably not. And so for me, it was like, what's going to sustain? Like, what brings what lifestyle do I want to live? How much money do we want to give to charity? And what does that look like in revenue? But more importantly, what's that profit margin? Because to me, I much rather have a $2 million business running at 50% profit than a $10 million business running at 10% profit. Even if I take home more, like, the stress, the lifestyle, all that doesn't. It's not what I want. And I think that when you focus on profit, you can get really clear on, like, what do you actually want in life? What do you want your lifestyle to look like? What do you want to have money to give back? What does that look like? And since focusing on profit, I don't say no to things like people think I'm always like, I don't like, go on travel and all that kind of stuff. And my two biggest expenses in my business are education and travel. Those are my two biggest ones. Where most people, it's team, that's not the case for me. We run a small, mighty team. But like, those are the two areas that light me up the most. I love being in masterminds, I love travel, I love education. And when I invest in those, my business grows. And so I don't say no to stuff. I just know if I invest in the right things, my business is going to grow because of it and my profitability will stay the same.

So it's really about being intentional and, and what's beautiful about what you just said, it fits really well with the affluence blueprint. Because when we walk through people, the affluence blue, through the affluence blueprint, the first thing we do is define lifestyle. Too often we're chasing income. But if the income.

Sacrifices Our lifestyle because of the, the pace we're going at, our health, our relationships, or, or it doesn't get us the lifestyle, then what are we, we're on the wrong path. And so I love hearing that. And you've come to this organic, I'm going to say organically, but it was, it was with stress.

Yeah.

You know, because I wasn't, I wasn't openly teaching this when, when you were going through this. But, but I think that the important thing is then profits. Now one of the elements that we talk about is you want to move profits to portfolio, we want to ship. And you made a comment when we were, before we started about one of the mistakes that you're seeing and one of the mistakes that the, that came out, that the. I don't want to say bad. It is bad. It's bad business advice if you're not getting it. And that is the duty to keep the money.

Yeah.

Talk to me about that realization and how that came about because this is the core premise of pretty much everything that we do is that if we're not building a money machine outside of what we drive, it's a challenge, it's going to be a problem.

Yeah. So one of the things that I was really frustrated with in direct sales and I actually went to the company and expressed my frustration was like, no one's teaching us how to manage the money. Like, what is good business sense? They would just say, you know, you pay 50% for it, you sell it for 100%, but that doesn't include like your expenses and all that kind of stuff. And so I was really frustrated that that wasn't provided. And that frustration also led up to when I left. And so when I came into the online space, I guess I was, I didn't know what to expect, honestly. But I saw a lot of people throwing out revenue numbers and when I would ask questions like, oh, but what was your profitability? Or how much did you spend on ads like that? Those numbers were hush hush, no one wants to talk about that. And I was starting to be like, okay, also, is this cash collected? Like I was asking all these questions because I was curious and no.

So, you know, that warms an accountant's heart.

So like people were very like kind of sketchy about giving me these numbers. And so on our road to a million, and before we hit a million, I had done 250,000 the year before. And that was when we were running at over 80% profitability because it was mostly one on one services, no crazy overhead Ad spend, stuff like that. Then I came out January of 2020 and said, I'm going to have $1 million year, and I'm going to take you all with me behind the scenes. So on the podcast, we literally have a whole year of me going through my income reports where I talk about the difference between revenue generated and cash collected and my profitability and where that was going and how much I was paying myself. And I was very transparent through that whole year of just showing that. Because one of the things that I believe is educators online that teach people how to make money, we also have a duty to teach them how to keep the money. Now, I'm not an expert at money management, so I make sure that we have podcast episodes. We have resources. We give bookkeeping and accounting references and all of those to our students. Like, Mel, you've been on the podcast. We also have other Amber Duggar and other professionals that are in this industry that that's their specialty, and we're always highlighting their episodes. And I'm always super transparent about my numbers because I think that that helps other people know what's realistic for them. It knows what's possible. It also shows them, like, this is what it looks like to run a business. If I'm bringing in $80,000 a month and my expenses are 40,000, that's common, like, to have, you know, $40,000. And if you're not willing to spend, spend, you know, even 5,000 on expenses, then, like, how do you expect to get to 83,000amonth? And so I think that sharing those numbers more openly helps. And one thing I will say, though, is I had to take a step back from the income reports because as I was healing from this, I realized, like, it wasn't always good for me to be sharing these numbers when we were also buying a house. And it just created a lot of anxiety. And, like, what if we have one lower month? And so I always told my listeners, like, when it stopped serving them and it stopped serving me in a healthy way, we wouldn't. So for 13 months, it served so many people. People love those. But now it doesn't really help me mentally to be sharing all of those numbers every single month. Now, if people ask, I'm so open about it. But I think that also knowing when you've been through something like this or there's sometimes, like, I don't have to share my numbers if I don't want to. Like, that's up to me as a business, own owner. And so how can we be transparent but also know there's boundaries. Like, I'm still working through money management and shame and things like that. And being. Giving people grace for when they do share numbers. Also giving them grace when, like, they just don't want to and they don't have to.

Yeah.

So let me get this straight. If I heard you right, you did $250,000. You had never done a million dollars before, and you declared openly, I'm doing a million bucks, and I'm taking you for that ride.

Yes.

I love it. Oh, man.

And people are like, wait, what? I even remember my coach at that time was like, brandi, now we can shoot for a million, but what's, like, your realistic goal? And I was like, million. Like, that's the realistic goal. And I didn't know how it was going to happen, but it did. And we actually did 1.2 million, which was. And 1.2 million was generated. One million was actually cash collected. So it was super fun. And we documented the whole thing.

So good. So good. I had no idea that you did that.

Yeah.

Oh, man. Because it gives a whole new light to it. 1. The fact that you made a declaration and you put it out there to me in. In the context of what you just came out of makes it even more powerful to sit back and go, I was down, but I'm. I'm back, and I'm coming back strong. And because you could have. You could have laid down the fetal position and wallowed in the guilt and the shame and the. And. And all that and just said, I don't. I don't know what I'm gonna do. I don't know. And I think that there may be some people that are listening that are struggling in that, and they're uncertain, so they don't make a decision, and they don't make a declaration. They don't move forward. And speaking to them, what was the catalyst for you to turn around and say, no, I'm going to drive this stake in the ground, and I'm going to let the world know.

Yeah. I think it's because, I mean, I've always had to be a fighter in a sense. Like, I mean, my parents did the best they could, but, like, when it came to school, I had to pay. When it came for, like, wanting to go, like, get a car, I had to pay for it. Like, everything's always been Whereas fighter. And I was like, you know what? Like, I was just down and out big time. And we, like, I made. I was able to bring my husband home and everything before hitting millions. So I think I was kind of like in a momentum, like, it was just adrenaline and I was like, you know what? If we don't hit a million, who cares? We'll get so stinking close. And then, you know, all, well, like, they went on a journey. I didn't hit it. Most people don't hit their goals. And then it will just show people like, I'm a normal person. And so I think it was just a way for me to stay accountable to myself. And then those episodes turned into something so much bigger. I mean, like, it grew our podcast tremendously and it gave people a super transparent look. Like, there was a month where I was like, oh, we just had a native. Like, I think it was $120,000 cash collected month. And then the next month it was like 25,000. And I remember having to record that episode and I was like, you know what? This is online business. This is what it looks like in this type of launch model that I have. But, you know, like, I didn't go spend all 125,000 last month. Like, it's already been divided out through the next 10 months or whatever. So our business is good, but, like, this is what it looks like. And that's why you can't just go out and spend every single thing that you got. Because not every month is going to look the same, especially in the online world, especially when, if you're on launch cycles and stuff like that.

So this is big because a lot of people that I talk to, they say, you know, what do I do? Because my money is up and down. Said, this is. This is big. I just got a question about, do I average it for the year? The problem with averaging it for the year is you don't think about the peaks and valleys. And there may be a month, like you said, from 120 to 25. And if we are looking at averages and we're not putting money aside, this is why a lot of people demonize the whole idea of budgeting. I don't call it budgeting. I call it cash resource planning. In the sense that if we, when we decide to give each dollar a job, it will then do the work that it was meant to do for us. Just the same as we hire an employee. We wouldn't. We wouldn't hire an employee, not give them a job description, not give them goals, not give them tasks and tools and everything. We got to do the same thing with our money. And by virtue of looking at the actual flows in and out, one, we understand profitability to you understand that, hey, this 120 is going to have to last a little longer. I was just having a conversation with someone earlier today. We were doing an interview and. And you know, he's talking about the money coming in. I said, are you, are you carving a slice that out for taxes? I could just see on his face.

No. I said.

Yeah, so let's carve a piece out for taxes, put it aside, because it's not all yours to spend, right? And it's not all yours to spend today. I mean, it is, you can do it, but it's going to create a problem later on.

And I think this is one of the areas where you also have to know what you need help with. Like, I know that like budgeting and like putting things in a sheet and stuff. Like, that's not my sweet spot. And if I had to do it each month, I wouldn't do it. I show up for an hour long call where we go over everything. And my bookkeeper uses this service called ynab. I think it's for personal finances, but she's kind of like, Jerry rigged it where it's for business and all the money that comes in has a job. And so I like to pay for things for the year. But what most people do is they pay for it for a year, but they're not budgeting for when that year comes back around. We already have that set aside. We're already setting aside each month for taxes. So when you know, your estimated taxes come, like, it's already in there. I'm not worried about it. The money's there, like, and so all of the dollars, they get an assignment like you were talking about. And if there's excess, then it's like, okay, great. We have a folder for what we call the profit folder that is just like my little nest egg that I take whenever I want to take it because it's there for me. Or we also plan out, like, if you know you're going to join a $30,000 mastermind, I knew that January 2020. Soon as 2021 came, I knew what mastermind I wanted to be part of. I knew how much it costs and we saved that whole year for it. So when it came, I could just pay the 30,000 in full. And it was like, great, here you go. That money's already been set aside for it. So with using that, like, every dollar has an assignment, and if it doesn't, it goes into my little nest egg that I get.

Oh, man. The level of peace that Comes from that.

Yeah. Like, knowing that my business, if we don't bring in a dollar for the next eight months, my business still runs, everyone gets paid, I still get my salary. Like, everything's taken care of is like, oh my gosh, the amount of, like, stress that removes, especially this past year when we were buying a house, like, it was just like, everything's taken care of. Like, I mean, the chances of nothing happening for eight months is so rare. But if it did, like, we're good.

So. So, I mean, just contrast that with the emotions, the stress and the feelings you had back when three, four years ago.

Oh my gosh. In that business, it was always an up and down roller coaster because December came and you would think that that would be a big month, but it's not. It's like you would go from a $15,000 month to $100 a month. And that's when your family, like, needs more money for Christmas and stuff. And so I wish someone would have said, like, when we're having these $15,000 months, this is what's going to get us through. Like, there was none of that. And it was always like, am I going to make production? Am I going to have money to put on the table? Am I going to have money to pay for these credit cards? Like, what is that looking like? Am I going to have to make a car payment because I didn't make production? Those kind of things. And now with the business, like, I don't stress about business at all. Like, I just know that what will come, will come and we're taking care of.

Man, I love this. This is such a, this is such a good topic in conversation that people aren't and we need, you know, this is gonna, it may open up some emotions for people, but. But at the same time, I think it's gonna open up the possibility of what.

What.

What'S important. And to realize, like you're saying you still. I'm still dealing with different elements of hinges of guilt or shame and working through it all.

And I'll say it was super hard last year as we were preparing, we were building a house. And for anyone who's never billed, you actually go through the approval process twice and you have people in your bank account for 12 months as the build. And so, like, I knew there was moments when I couldn't make business decisions that I wanted to because I knew where we had to fall to keep the banks happy and stuff like that. And I was also like, that moment, like signing the contract for us to start Building the house is when all these emotions flooded in because it's the biggest investment you'll make in your life. All I felt like all the pressure was on me because I am our, you know, my husband's a full time stay at home dad. And so going through that, I think, like, accelerated my healing process because I had to heal in order. And there was moments in my business where I was like, I just want to throw it all out. But it wasn't because my business. It was because of the stress of, like, this is a lot of money and what does that look like? But also, it set us up. One thing is we went and when we talked to the lenders and stuff like that, you know, it's a whole different ball game when you've filed bankruptcy, especially before the fourth year window. So we had to go through an FHA loan, which you're only allotted X amount. So we put down a ton. But it was so crazy because our lender told us if we hadn't had bankruptcy, we would have been approved for a $2.5 million home. And I looked at my husband, I was like, thank God for the bankruptcy because it would have been really hard. You know, we live in Florida. 2.5 would have got us on the water, like, oh, and water. And we would have had a massive mortgage and we would have been house poor. Like, just honest. Like, we would have been house poor. And I looked at my husband, I was like, oh, my God, thank God for the bankruptcy.

Because there's a gift in it after all.

It's keeping us in check. So. But also, what's so amazing about it is because we were only allotted X amount from the federal government for funding, we put down like a massive chunk. I think it's like 40% down. So our mortgage payment is so low, which gives us so much freedom to experience life, travel, all that kind of stuff, and still, like, it's lower than what we were paying in rent. And soon as we moved in, we have $250,000 in equity in our house just because of how the mortgage went and everything and how crazy Florida is right now. But I was just like, there's moments where I had to heal, but then there's moments where I'm like, thank God for bankruptcy just because it keeps you in check.

So cool. So you have. So if we. If we bring this to where you are today, no more student loan debt?

No.

Paid off credit cards, paid every month.

Yep.

Cash in the bank to take care of things if, God forbid, something happens for eight Months or so.

And that's for the business.

That's just the business. That's just the business. And then we have quite a healthy nest egg. I've gotten this. I'm. See, I'm still working on stuff. Like, now I hoard money, which. My. This way.

I went the other way.

Yeah. My accountant was like, brandi, you cannot keep all this money in your bank account. She's actually the one that's like, you need to just take this and pay off your student loans. I was like, okay, I was saving it for it, but I didn't know. And she was like, no, take it. Pay it off right now. And that's when we did it. But I've now, like, I'm working through, like, you don't need to hoard money. He's like, you like, here's how much we set aside for emergencies and all that kind of stuff. And then also, like, the business has its own. Where we're good for eight months with the business, and then my family, we're good for a year. And so it's so much peace of mind with that.

And that's exactly. That's why I call it a peace of mind fun. And it's exactly what, like, I tell people, you know, you're going to want to have something in the business for contingency. You're going to have something personal. And then they turn around and say, well, what happens when I start buying property? You want that for that, too? It's. It's a separate entity in itself in the sense of if. What happens if it goes vacant or it gets like, I have a. Had a rental property where. Holy moly. I had no idea people lived this way. Like, when we went in, it was so trashed that it was so bad that we were able to declare that. That it was damaged as vandalism.

Oh, wow.

It was that bad. It wasn't like wear and tear. I mean, it was.

Right.

It was vandalized. And so we see this when we.

Watch those shows on hgtv and they, like, flip the houses in California. And we're like, oh, my gosh, how would something get this bad?

It was that bad. I mean, so here's this house that had to get redone, but the mortgage still had to get paid. We weren't getting rent. And so if you don't have those peace of mind funds. And I know, especially today, as we're in an inflationary time, people say, oh, cash is trash. You shouldn't be doing it. You're right. Excess Cash is a challenge, but we need liquidity in these times. We need liquidity if we happen to go into a recession. We need liquidity to take advantage of opportunities. We need liquidity for the peace of mind in our health. I'm willing to give up the possible loss of purchasing power, so I don't take an actual loss if things hit right. And I think that's. You're. You're doing it. You're doing it right. I mean, I'm loving everything that I hear, Randy. I mean, this is. This is incredible. So as. As we start to close out, you're an entrepreneur.

As you said, you're a wife and a mom first. You're an entrepreneur. You're balancing.

Those roles. You're balancing the financial roles, you're balancing taking care of team. And there's probably other people listening that have similar roles. They may not be in the same financial position. They might be struggling. They might be back to where you were three years ago and. And. And everything. What. What would you tell them?

Yeah, I would just say whatever your situation now doesn't mean that's the situation you're gonna be in six months from now, 12 months from now, you know, three years from now. And it's so hard to see that when you're in it and you're in that moment and it feels like you've hit rock bottom or like you're just not gonna be able to climb out of it. And I would just say, like, you will. Like, you just have to. There's going to be changes that you have to make. You have to ask for help. I think that's one of the biggest things, especially as women, we are so bad at asking for help because we take on this nurturing role that we have to be the ones that take care of everyone. And sometimes you just need someone to take care of you. And so through this whole process, I think one of the things I've got really good at is asking for help when I need it, especially when it comes to finances, money, like, all of that. So, like, if you're in that spot, start asking for help and take little steps at improving. But, like, just because you're in a certain situation right now does not mean that's your future by any means.

So good. So good. Brandy, how name of the podcast for.

Everyone Serve Scale Soar. So Serve Scale Soar. We drop episodes every Tuesday. This is for service providers and course creators. I nerd out over marketing and just how to run your business.

It's an amazing show. I've been on it.

So this is the number one podcast episode on it.

Oh, mine is.

Yeah.

Oh, man. So good. And. And where can I find you?

Yeah, so probably on Instagram. If you want to chat with me, it's at brandymiles. It's just my name. I don't post a ton, but I am always in the DMs. You will get me. Not my team or anything. Like, I love connecting with people. I'm a connector. I'm extrovert, I'm super friendly. So, like, message me on there. That is the best way. And then of course, our website's brainymiles.com and we have some cool trainings over there for you as well.

Cool. I'll make sure that we hook all of it up perfect on in the show notes and in the description and all that stuff. So, Brandy, this I learned. I learned more. I had no idea when we had those conversations where you were at, where you were coming from. And I like, even the, the whole thing with the house, you talked to me about the house and everything. Had no idea that that was going on.

No one did. So I wasn't just hiding it from you. Like five people knew, so.

Oh, my God. So good. So proud of you. So excited for what this means, not just for you and, and, and your husband, but for your little girl.

Yeah.

You know, it's going to be a total, totally different light because of how you chose to step up, show up and take, take, take the battle on and, and, and say, I've got this and I'm going to conquer it. And, and, and you did. You have, you are. And you continue with. And, you know, thank you so much. You know, if there's anything I can do for you, man, hit me up.

Thank you so much and thank you, everyone for listening.

Thank you for being a part of the Affluent Entrepreneur show with me, your host, Mel Abraham. If you want to achieve financial liberation to create an affluent lifestyle, join the affluent entrepreneur facebook group@melabraham.com group and I'll see you there. Cheers. Bye.

And that's it for this episode of Building your money Machine, where we help you learn how to master your money, eliminate financial stress, and live a life of choice. If you found this valuable or helpful to you, here's what I'd love for you to do. If you do me a favor, go to Apple, Apple Podcast, or wherever you're listening to this podcast and rate and review the show. It helps us tremendously to keep us at the top of the list so we can continue to get this information and this message out to people because I truly believe that financial freedom is your birthright. And I want to help each and every one of you claim it. Thanks so much.