6 Steps that Helped Me Move from Scarcity to Faith in My Business as an Author

Welcome to the Author Audience show, the podcast that helps you reach more people with your message. Create a book, connect with your audience, change lives. Here's your host, Shelly Hitz.

Are you ready to move from scarcity to faith in your business as an author? Hi, my name is Shelley Hitz. I'm an author coach and I'm on a mission to help you reach more people with your message. It's time to let your light shine. And today I'm actually recording this training as a result of a question I received. So if you have questions for me, definitely ask, because I like to answer the questions that you're asking me and that you want me to address. You can ask them@shellyhitz.com for.

And the question was I had mentioned in a previous video that I had really been stuck in a lot of scarcity in my thinking. And they were just asking like, Shelli, I struggle with that too. How did you move into faith? How did you overcome that? And so that's what I'm going to share today. I'm going to share with you six steps that I took to move from scarcity to faith. Now, this is not a formula. It works different for every single person. I'm simply sharing what worked for me. And I hope that you will gain from it. But when you're moving from scarcity to faith, step number one, and I think this is similar for most people, but step number one for me was just admitting my problem, admitting that I was stuck in a mindset of scarcity, which scarcity is basically fear, fear. Fear is the opposite of faith. And I had to admit that I was struggling with scarcity. I had to admit that that was stinkin thinkin'. I had to admit that that was an issue for me in order to even begin to address it. For me, it came as a result of many things, my family background. You know, I remember being at a garage sale with my grandparents one time and they had lived through the Depression and they were like fighting over whether or not to buy something for a quarter. They only wanted to pay 15 cents. And I was like, maw Maw, paw paw, I will give you the quarter. It's not that big of a deal. Like, they were fighting over 10 cents. And, you know, it's just the mentality sometimes of growing up through the Depression. They saved everything. Like, I don't know if you guys do this or not, but, you know, save every butter dish, every, you know, just everything. And it really helped them to stay on a really tight budget. But I think there was also some scarcity that leaked in for me as well. And not only that, but I am a Christian, and I'm very open about that. Most of my followers, most of you are Christians as well. And the Bible says that the love of money is the root of all evil. So I think sometimes as Christians, we can get into our minds that money is evil. It's almost like the scarcity mindset comes on us because, like, money is evil. And I don't want to have evil. I don't want to be changed by money. And yet it's the love of money. Money in itself is simply a tool. Money is a tool, just like a knife is a tool. A knife can be used to free someone from the ropes that bind them, or a knife can be used to kill someone. Money is similar in that it's just simply a tool. And I had to get over some of those mindset blocks. Like, money is not evil in and of itself. The second thing was money kind of scared me because, to be honest, I've watched several different people, multiple, multiple people that are successful and they start earning a lot of money. And I watched how it changed them. And, you know, it's very easy to get caught up in the whole scheme of materialism, of worshiping money or self or, you know, all of those things. Like, it's just easy to get in the midst of humanism, materialism, and pride. And I just watched way too many people change because of money. And so as I was growing my business, there was a part of me that was like, I don't want money because I don't want to change. I was scared of what it would do to me. But you know what? That is wrong thinking because it's fear. I need to be putting my trust and my faith in God. And if he sees that I am able to handle it, then he will give it to us. And we can just be blessed. So we can be a blessing. We can just be the vehicle God uses to bless many and to give. And having money is not wrong. So the first step was simply to identify some of that stinking thinking. There was a book that helped me, and it's not a Christian book, it's called the Big Leap. But if you read it through a biblical worldview and read it through that lens, it's a book that really ended up helping me in this area as well, number one. Number two was that I actually took a step and started investing into my business. Now, I know it really scares a lot of people to invest into something when you're not sure what the outcome is going to be. And I'm not saying to spend money you don't have. I haven't done that. I mean, if we don't have it, we don't get it. You know, that type of a thing. But I was stressed out, and I was maxed out to my limit, and I needed to hire staff. I was coaching with Felicia Slattery at the time. She's a speaking coach. And she said, shelley, you have to hire a va because the scarcity also leaked into, like, I don't need to pay somebody to do something I can do myself. But I was limiting myself. There's only so many hours in a day. There's only so much I can do. And so I automatically limited myself in that thinking. So I took the leap, and it felt like a big leap for me at the time. And I hired support staff, a VA virtual assistant. Now, at the time, I didn't need part time or full time, so I simply hired someone on an hourly basis. It's a great way to get started. And for me, that had butterflies in my stomach. I still feel it, like, talking about it. Like, I remember it was such a big step for me, but it was one of the biggest things that really helped me to start overcoming that mindset of scarcity. All right, so that was number two. Number three is, have you ever heard the quote, action cures fear? It's not originally from me. I'm not sure exactly right now, at the very moment, who that quote is for, but action does cure fear. Scarcity is rooted many times in fear. And so if we can start taking some actions that will help us to grow our business, grow our income, so that we do have money to invest in things so we have the money to do what we need to do, that can really be a huge step. And so as I realized that I was dealing with these mindset of scarcity, I realized, like, I started looking deeper and looking deeper into what some of the root things were. And I knew that there were certain things I needed to do in my business, but for some reason, I was resisting them. And it was kind of tied in with the scarcity in a way. It was an interesting thing that came up to the surface as I started dealing with this topic. And I realized one of the things I was resisting was doing webinars. I'm a speaker. Like, it made no sense why I was resisting webinars, but I think I was just overwhelmed. And it just felt like so much. And I took the action because like I said, number three, action cures fear. I took the action. I started doing webinars on a regular basis and webinars have been the number one way that I have brought new members into author audience academy. Now I have hundreds of members in my academy, either paying monthly or yearly and it gives me a stable income to where now I'm able to. At this point I still put tons and tons of time into my academy. I'm still in there every day, I'm still giving trainings, but I've been able to free up some of my time to where now I'm working on a big book project, but I'm still earning income. But it would not have ever happened had I not overcome some of the mindset blocks. I had some of the fear. I had some of the resistance I had towards webinars. And it just they keep getting better, I keep getting better the more I do it. So that was one of the things that I did as well. The other thing in this point, number three in action cures fear, you want to make sure your action is focused on your highest impact tasks. So I have a recent training, you can go to my blog shellyhits.com and just type in high impact tasks in the search bar. You'll find the training and I share with you my top 10 high impact tasks that I recommend authors focus on. So that's a great training to go back to and check out later. Number four was I began to reinvest my profits back in to my business as I was able. So sometimes you want to invest in tools, you want to grow, you want to hire staff, you want to do things, but it's just not really doable at the moment because you're having to pay your own bills, you're having to put food on the table, put gas in the car. But then you also are wanting to reinvest in your business. But I just did it little by little. My husband and I were missionaries in the country of Belize. And in Belize they did this all the time with building their homes so they couldn't get more mortgages like we can get here. So they would just build their house with the bricks that they could afford at that time. So they'd start at the foundation and then as they had money, they'd buy a few more bricks, put a little bit more up, and then once they had something that was somewhat livable, then they would move in and they would finish their house as they had the money. And that's what I've done. So I have just continued to reinvest back into tools, to, to staff, to Facebook ads, to different things that can really help grow my business. Made mistakes along the way. Sure, we all do. I've reinvested back into coaching, reinvested into so many things that can then help me to grow. And I think sometimes when you're stuck in the scarcity mindset, it's just like this tight feeling, and you're just like, I can't. I can't reinvest. I can't invest into coaching right now. I can't invest into that tool I really need right now. However, what I found is when I started to change my mindset, and instead of being like this, being like, okay, Lord, what is it that you have for me? He began to show me that there were things I could do and I could begin to slowly reinvest back into my business. And there are certain things that when you invest in them, they will help you to grow exponentially. And one of those things for me, have been hiring staff, because what they can do, they can offload all of the little busy work that I was doing, and I can focus on my high impact, highly profitable tasks. And so that was another thing. Number five was I worked with a life coach. So for the first six months of this year, I worked with Kathy Zieringer. She's a life coach here in Colorado Springs, and we're in a mastermind together. But I just knew I needed some additional help. Now, I have went to Christian counseling before in my life. I have gotten tons of different outside help. I've sought counsel of my pastors. But in this particular instance, I decided to work with a life coach. And she really helped me uncover some other things and some other issues related to the mindset of scarcity that really helped me to break through. And then finally, number six is I've started having a focus on prayers and affirmations that build the muscle of faith. So this is my prayer journal. At the top there, it says, faith and belief is like a muscle that needs to be flexed. It takes consistency and practice to build the muscle of faith. And it's so true. It's similar to a muscle. If we stop using our muscles and we stop exercising, we're going to lose fitness, we're going to lose strength. But when we do it consistently over time, we're going to see a huge result. And the Bible says all we need is faith as small as a mustard seed. You don't need to start with very much. Just start with whatever you have Start with that little bit of faith that you have right now. Give that to God. You know, begin practicing and praying and just really affirming your faith in God. Have scriptures that you turn into prayers and affirmations. And so I have my prayer journal, and I have a few affirmations I wrote out about money. And I'm just gonna share these with you. If they're helpful for you, feel free to use them for your own self. But this is just what I had written out. And it's not perfect. It's not. You know, it's just where I'm at right now. And it said, money is beneficial and helpful. Remember I said, money is a tool. Money in and of itself is not evil. It's the love of money that's the root of all evil from the Bible. But I just say money is beneficial and helpful. It is simply a tool. I am helping people have better lives and ministries because through my work as an author coach, through the money that I'm earning as an author coach, I'm helping people live out their dreams. I'm helping people reach others with the gospel through their books and products. I'm helping people increase their income. I'm helping people do things they never thought they'd ever be possible. And it's an exchange. They're giving me their money in exchange for the value and the training that I'm giving them. And then I said, money allows us to travel, explore God's beautiful creation, to spend time with the family I love. It allows us to give and bless others to be a blessing. And then I said, I'm willing to receive. So I have a question for you today. Are you willing to receive? Sometimes we have a mind block even that we don't deserve it. And for some reason, I kind of had that, too. It was like I didn't feel like I was deserving or that I should charge. You know, I'm a Christian. Maybe I shouldn't charge for my services. But I'm offering extreme value for what people pay for my services. And so, yes, you know, I wouldn't expect to go to a doctor's office and have a surgery and have him pay, do it for free. We expect to pay them. They expect to be paid. You know, and just because the services I offer are online or in a different way or the books that I write, it doesn't mean that I'm not to be paid for that. Now there is a place for ministry, and my husband and I believe in that. I have given away so many books in the time since 2008 when I wrote my first book, I just sent one out. This week, I just mailed one out to someone that is really, really struggling in an area that I wrote a book. And so I believe in ministry. I believe in giving away books. We've done a ton of free promotions. I give a lot of free training away. If you don't have it checked out, my free training, go to shellyhitz.com free and you can learn a ton. You can publish your book simply by taking in my free training. So I totally believe in ministry. I totally believe in giving back. I totally believe in that. But I also believe that we deserve to be paid for our services and for our work and for the things that we do. And just like anyone else, just like a carpenter would be paid for their services, just like someone else. That was really hard for me. That was a block for me. And so I just said, I'm willing to receive. I'm worth it because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Now, like I said, those affirmations are not perfect. You have to come up with your own, Come up with your own prayers, come up with your own process. But I just want to ask you today, do you sense any amount of scarcity in your heart right now? That fear of, I just don't have enough or I'm not enough or who am I? You know, or I don't have, you know, I can't invest in coaching. Like, I'm not even making money yet, or, you know, it's just like this feeling of.

Scarcity.

Or are you open and surrendered in an attitude of faith, not being reckless, not investing in things you don't have money to invest in, not doing things. Crazy, crazy. But just saying, God, I'm willing to receive. I'm willing to be a blessing. I am willing to go and do what you have called me to do. I don't need to be afraid of money. I don't need to be afraid of success. I don't need to be afraid because you are leading and guiding me. I can trust you. Do you trust him today? I encourage you just to right now open your hands palm up in front of you and just say, I am willing to receive.

Say it. I am willing to receive.

Now I'm going to go ahead and pray for you. And I just pray that God just brings a breakthrough. And so many of you that are struggling in this area. So, God, I just thank you for every person listening to this training right now. I pray that you would do a breakthrough in their lives. I pray that you would work in their hearts. Remove any fear and anything related to scarcity. In Jesus name, Show them what you have for them. Show them the next steps to take. Show them what they may be resisting, that they need to just simply take that next action. Show them, you know, maybe where they need to invest. And Lord, I pray youy provide, you provide for your people. You would provide for us that we wouldn't be reckless, we wouldn't be, you know, mismanaging our money. But Lord, we would be trusting you. May you take that faith. The faith is small as a mustard seed and help it to grow and flourish and thrive. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. My theme for this year is thrive. And God has been doing a really deep work in my heart in this area and that's why I wanted to share more with you today. Where are you stuck? You know, how has scarcity impacted you? Where are you at in this area and was this training helpful for you? If it was, you know, I encourage you to share it with someone that you know that may also be struggling in this area of scarcity. My husband and I are getting ready to head over to Breckenridge, Colorado. We're going to meet up with Shane and Jocelyn Sams from flippedlifestyle.com they're here in Colorado. And I met Jocelyn at a live event. It was such a stretch for me financially to go to that live event, but meeting Jocelyn changed things for me and my business and I wouldn't be where I am today, I believe, unless, you know, without meeting her. And so investing in that, taking that step really made a huge difference. But now we're gonna go and have dinner with them tonight. So that's fun. And one thing I did want to mention is, you know, taking these steps that I took last year was the first year since we have been working full time, self employed and in our ministry that we made six figures. Now that's gross. It's, you know, the big number. But that is a huge step and you know, it allowed us to be able to now hire two part time VAs that work for me. Each of them work for me 20 hours a week. I have staff working for me 40 hours a week on a regular basis. I also hire people on upwork that are working for me on an hourly basis. And so I probably have a team that's working for me like 80 hours a week. And it's freed me up to now do a project that I believe and I know that, I know that I know God is wanting me to do. And so sometimes when God is able to bless what you're doing and you're able to break through these scarcity mindsets, it will actually allow you to have freedom to do what God is calling you to do. I'm a workaholic and I was working way too many hours, first of all. Second of all, I didn't have time for my other stuff. So I've been able to devote a ton, a ton of time to Broken Crayons, Still Color. It's a book and video series. It's a simply because I've been able to hire staff and because God has blessed, you know, the work of our hands. And so I encourage you that it really has made a difference for me moving from scarcity to faith. I'm not going to guarantee results. I'm not going to guarantee that things are going to happen. I don't believe in the prosperity gospel. I don't believe that just because you say something or you, you believe something that it's naturally going to fall from the sky. You know, I don't believe in that. But I do believe in the power of faith. I believe that when we trust God, when we release some of that fear and the self sufficiency and the striving, that we are able then to give room for God to do something amazing. So. All right, well have a great rest of your day and I will talk to you later. Bye bye.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Author Audience Show. Connect with us online@authoraudience.com where you'll find all the resources mentioned in today's episode. While you're there, grab Shelley's free video training on how to write and publish your book using her six Step Ascent method. Join us again next week to learn how to reach your audience with your message.