Money Mindset: How to Develop a Mental Framework Aligned with Success

As an entrepreneur, you're often in challenging and potentially highly consequential situations. But what if you already had a psychological framework that allow you not just to survive these situations, but to thrive as well? That's exactly what we're talking about today. And we're joined by Amina Altai. She's a holistic leadership and business coach. She's going to share her experiences for running her own business and how she's helped others as well. We'll talk about having the right money mindset, so when you're in conversations, you don't sell yourself short. How to have the endurance to push through these challenging situations. And then lastly, some resources, further education. But first, I want to start by debunking some myths about what mindset is and what it isn't. Let's jump into that right now.

So I'm Amina Altai. I call myself a holistic leadership and mindset coach. And I say holistic because I take a mind, body and career approach to coaching. So looking at what's happening in our mindsets, looking at the messages our bodies are sending us because we are one system, and then also looking at the strategies and tactics we use in our work that set us up for success or not so much. And I have gotten to coach the most amazing humans, from Olympic gold medalists to Fortune 500 leaders to brand new founders and everybody in between. And it's the most fun work to get to do.

So almost selfishly, I want to go a little bit deeper on what mindset is because it's almost a buzzword these days. Growth, mindset, fixed mindset, so on, so forth. And I want to decouple the buzzword from the actual meaning and application of what mindset is. So let's jump into that right now. What's the difference between having a fixed mindset and just being kind of lazy?

That's such a great question. That's such a great question.

Well, I think laziness, there's resistance there, right? So it's like, well, why are we go, why are we defaulting to laziness? Because there's something that we don't want to do. There's something that we don't want to look at. It's the same with procrastination. Procrastination is a mindset challenge. There's something in there that's intercepting our ability to get to the thing that we want to do. Laziness and procrastination, I think kind of go hand in hand a little bit. And I think that they're absolutely related. There's potentially an underlying belief that we don't have the ability to solve that thing or move through that thing in the way that we want to.

So we procrastinate or we put things.

Off, or we default into laziness because there's an underlying belief of maybe that.

Thing can't happen for us.

Got it, Got it. So they're separate but related based on what you're saying?

Yeah. No one's ever asked me that question before. I love it.

Procrastination is a mindset challenge. Think about that. How many times have you put something off day after day after day? If it happens to you, it might be time to do some soul searching. Why don't I want to do this? Is there a fear of completion? Do I not feel like I'm qualified? Do I just not care about it that much? Whatever it is, just do some double clicking, do some soul searching on that and come to a conclusion. Right. And I'll give you an example. I recently hired some freelancers off of Fiverr to do some work for my agency. And I was humming and haing, not really to pull the trigger and say, this is good, because in reality, I didn't want to present that to the world, not knowing if it was perfect or not, which is impossible. Now, luckily, with Fiverr, you have to confirm yes or no if you want to pay for something within three days or you pay for it. So I think knowing that they built it into the platform, saying, look, people are going to be indecisive. They don't know how to do this stuff because they've never done it before. That's why they hired someone and they built it into the platform. Right. So these are. This is a small example, but we all go through these challenges every day. And if you can just recognize that and say, look, here's an opportunity for me to improve and push through this, you'll be more successful. But how do you keep doing that day after day after day? How do you build that endurance? We're going to talk about that right now. 4 million people voluntarily quit their jobs in April, the largest vacancy in the last 20 years. So a lot of you are saying, look, this ain't it. So, I mean, just in your experience, you know what mindset skills are needed for someone to thrive in the new normal, whether it be changing jobs, pursuing entrepreneurship, like, what do you think is essential to them being successful?

Yeah, and I just want to go.

Deeper into that statistic too, because over.

The course of the last year, the.

People that we've really seen exit the workforce in the largest numbers are women and women of color and senior women, just because of the demands of not only what's happening in leadership for them, but also at home and really feeling pressured and looking at their values and deciding, okay, there's another way for me to make my life feel better and for me to show up in work that I can have the impact I want to have and I don't have to have the trade offs that I'm having in this way. So we're actually seeing more women in entrepreneurship now than we ever have. So it's interesting because, yes, leaving the workforce in droves, but we're seeing this pandemic also fueled a rise in entrepreneurship. So some interesting and positive pieces of the data as well. I think what is really important for us in the next normal is endurance.

So so many of us talk about.

Resilience and resilience is about like bouncing.

Up and bouncing forward.

Endurance is how do we keep the pace for the long haul because we don't know how long we're going to.

Have to keep this pace, right?

So 2020 brought a set of challenges. 2021 brings a new set of. And I think that a year like 2020 in many ways can level the playing field. And I think that there's a lot of opportunity coming into 2021 and 2022 as well. And so for us to really rise to the top, for us to get ahead, we need endurance. So endurance, I have a five step process around it where I talk about managing our thought load, understanding the context that we're in, pacing and replenishing, having the right cheering squad. Like there's all of these aspects that help us cultivate endurance. But I would say of the five pieces, the pacing and replenishing is the biggest part because we all need to take a beat and pause and refuel so that we can be filled as we pour and give to the world as well.

Pacing and replenishing is vital success. Keep that in mind. And that's echoed by Dr. Michael Gervais, who's a high performance psychologist. This guy trains Olympic level athletes and they realize how important rest is to performance, right? So all that hustle hard stuff you heard before, throw that out the window. You cannot be the best version of yourself if you're under recovered, right? So whatever journey you're on, keep the that in mind. And for some of you, your journey might involve entrepreneurship and this might be brand new to you. You're going to be in some conversations that are brand new to you as well, especially around money. So right now, Amma's going to give us some really good tips on how to have the right mindset going into these conversations.

So you know me, and you know I love to talk about money because it is about mindset on both sides. So if you're in a sales conversation, it's about your money mindset, and it's also about the person that you are selling their money mindset. So for us, we need to believe wholeheartedly in our value and our transformation that we're bringing to the table. So if there's even a glimmer of a doubt for you about the transformation that you're giving and if you can really serve and support these people, then we need to really look at that. So examining, okay, what are my limiting beliefs about my value and the value that I can contribute to these people? Do I. Am I fully showing up in this? Are there ways that I feel like I'm not showing up fully for it? Really digging deep there to understand maybe the story that we're in, but really owning the worthiness and the value. And for a lot of us, imposter syndrome comes up a lot. I don't know if you saw that Harvard Business Review article that was like, we stopped calling it imposter syndrome because it's basically all these systems that were designed for certain people to thrive and others to not. So some of us question our worthiness and our value more than others. So really own the worthiness and the value by looking at any limiting beliefs behind it. And then when you're with that person and you're having a sales conversation, it's an opportunity for you to understand where their limiting beliefs are around their money. Because them not putting the money down is about what they're willing to invest for themselves and for their own growth. And if they feel like they have permission to do that. So you need to meet yourself there before you can meet your client there. So you need to do your own limiting beliefs work, but you can coach them through their fears, uncertainties, and doubts. You can say, as you think about investing in this price that I just shared with you, what fear has come up for you? What uncertainties do you have about my program? Are there any doubts? What do you want to get out of this? And let's talk through if you're going to be able to get it. You know, let me show you what I'm able to actually give you, and it becomes a really, really insightful conversation. I find that the coaching actually starts in the sales conversation.

This is a really great example of how having a self limiting belief can project lack and scarcity on those you're talking to. And as a result, you scare them away. I see this happen so often with entrepreneurs, people that are new to entrepreneurship. So what I say to normally is, is your goal to hurt people? Are you trying to rip people off or scam them? And once in a while they'll say yes. No one ever says yes. They'll say no, of course not. I'm like, great. Go into every conversation with that intention of helping people and as a result you will be successful. Now sometimes you might have the right intentions and you're still not the right fit for that person, but at the end of the day you will be successful. Right? So how do we do this? How do we develop this process of knowing how to have these conversations of having the right mindset consistently? You might need some training. And that's what Amina has done as well. Right now she's gonna talk about how much money, which is a lot by the way. She's invested in becoming who she is right now.

And it also is about commitment to growth too, because I don't know if you felt this way, but I never asked my clients to invest in something that I haven't invested in. So I have made like six figure investments in coaching before just to give you an idea. So I've never asked anyone to do anything that I haven't done. But when people come into the session and they're like, oh, that's not possible. I've seen people make everything happen if they really want something bad enough. And I've been that way myself too. It's like, okay, I really want this coaching program. That money's not in my account now how am I going to make it happen so I can say yes to this? So it's really about, are we really connected to the service and committed to our own growth? Because when we are, we can really make the money happen. The money's a technicality.

I'm glad to hear you say you invested in yourself because there's far too many consultants, coaches, whatever you want to say, gurus who want someone to invest in them, but they won't invest in themselves. They'll see like, there's a mindset program for 500 bucks. And they're like, oh my God, what 500 bucks? It's like if you're confident in yourself and you know that you need support in order to Grow as a professional, you should probably pay that money. You know, I paid $20,000 for a 10 second video if it would help me grow my business year over year. She spent six figures on professional development. That's more than I spent on undergrad. It took me five years. But still, that's a lot of money, right? The thing is, when you want to help people, including yourself, you see it as an investment in your future. It's not a cost, it's an investment. There's a very clear ROI from it. Beyond that, if you enjoy what you're doing, it won't feel like a chore, It'll be exciting. That's part of a growth mindset. You want to keep on learning more and more and more about what you're doing now. Fortunately, you don't have to spend six figures to pick up on some good tips. And I'm going to share more resources and books right now in regards to this. I want to go deeper in regards to professional development because I saw on your Instagram that you're doing a giveaway, a book giveaway of some of your favorite mindset books. Can you just select one of those books and let us know why it's one of your favorites?

You know, it's so funny that you asked me this because I actually had a dream about one of those books last night. Total mindset nerd. So the book that I had a dream about was the Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. And this is one of my all time favorite books. So he talks about zones of genius and he talks about upper limits. So Gay Hendricks is a psychologist and a coach and a lecturer and this body of work is incredible. So he believes that we have four zones that we operate in and everybody has a zone of genius. And I love this so much because he democratizes genius. For a lot of us, we think that genius is for the select few, that only certain people have it. But the reality is we each have our own unique form of it and we get to get on the court with it in our lives, right? And when we think about teams and neurodiversity, we each have different gifts and when we come together, it creates this really cool whole. So I love that book so much because it talks about zones of genius, but he also talks about upper limits. And upper limits, as you know, is something that I talk about with the mindset coaching. So an upper limit is a false ceiling that is held in place by a negative belief system. And for a lot of us, that shows up as a ceiling around money. A ceiling around our growth and what we think is possible there. A ceiling around how big we think our businesses can be around titles that we can get. It's a ceiling, and we don't know why it's there. And I'll give you an example. One of my clients, we were doing the money mindset work, and she was an entrepreneur. She's given me permission to share the story.

And she was doing really well in her business, but for the last five.

Years, she'd always paid herself $100,000. And I had said to her, I was like, well, you know, your experience has grown where you're contributing to the world and the business has grown. You're always giving more. Like, why aren't you paying yourself more? And she was like, no, no, no, I can't. All the extra has to be reinvested. Also, anybody that takes more than $100,000 from their business is greedy. And I was like, ooh, there's a limiting belief. And then we pulled back the layers. It was basically something that she'd learned from her entrepreneurial father. And we shifted into a new paradigm of this is a different day, and you're doing different work, and we value it differently. And what do you want that number to be?

If you've not checked out that book, the Big Leap by Gay Hendricks, I recommend doing some research around it. It's a great way to do a personal inventory about what you care about and why, as well as a professional inventory about how you can help an audience solve their problems. So do check that out, because that's how you build a business around your life, as opposed to the other way around. Let's keep it going here. So I'm still looking at your Instagram, and I saw that you have a Passion and purpose guide. Can you unpack what that is, what's inside of it?

Yeah. So we were just talking about zones of genius with the Big Leap. And one of my favorite things to do is really help people find their genius and to build their work around it. So the Passion and Purpose worksheet is essentially my framework on that, where we look at your gifts, what you value in this world, the things that you want to impact, and what you need to bring things to life. Because when we look at our work through that lens, it's really holistic, and we can start to build it in a way that's integrous to us, and in a way that we can do the work for the long haul and not just a season. Because if we look at it in A one dimensional way. It really is work just for a season.

Okay, I'm going to get kind of meta here, so bear with me. I've been in the digital marketing field since 2007, and Amina's passion and purpose guide sounds amazing, but it also sounds a lot like a lead magnet. A lead magnet is valuable information you give your audience in exchange for their email address. If you're an entrepreneur, a service provider, any kind of B2B business, you need to have one of these. How do you exchange value for. For your audience's attention? It's this lead magnet. And then from there you're gonna have a series of emails that guide someone towards an outcome. So please write this down. Keep that in mind. I want to share this example in the moment because it's so important. You need this to be successful and you can probably make one on Canva in about two hours. Right? So put some time in that. Now, after some investigative journalism, I discover that her lead mandate leads into Amina's mindset school. And I'm gonna let her tell you more about that right now. But as she's talking, listen to this. She doesn't talk about herself or her process. She talks about the outcome she delivers. That's the story you want to be telling as well.

I just opened enrollment for Mindset School, and Mindset School is my program where I'm teaching people all of the revolutionary mindset tools that I use with my clients to shift them. So if someone's coming to me and they're stuck, or they're feeling blocked or they can't get to that next level, I'm taking them through a series of mindset tools to really allow them to shift. So basically, this is for coaches that maybe aren't business coaches or mindset coaches, maybe they're wellness coaches and they need the mindset tools to help their client shift or for consultants who are working with people one on one or with teams and the teams are entrenched in a particular way of thinking that isn't expansive enough or for somebody that is new to coaching and just wants to learn mindset.

So before we go, I just want to debunk one more myth about mindset, because some people make it seem like it's this esoteric thing that only the enlightened can accomplish by meditating at Tibet for like 14 hours a day. It's not true. It's accessible to all of us. And Amma's going to explain that right now. Mindset is like a buzzword these days. People think it's a new thing. Like, oh, did you hear about this thing? It's like, no, mindset's not new. Neither is meditation. Neither is, you know, yoga for that matter. But what are some misconceptions that maybe you've been. You've been aware of or heard of in regards to mindset that you can debunk for us?

Ooh, misconceptions. You know, I think one thing that.

I notice a lot when I'm teaching.

These tools is sometimes people think that we're all or nothing. Like we're either entirely growth mindset or we're entirely fixed mindset, or we're lost in a sea of limiting beliefs, or we're totally expanded. And the reality is it's not an all or nothing binary proposition. There are moments in our lives where we might be in limiting beliefs and fixed mindset, and there are moments where we're in the more expanded mindset and every new level of becoming requires something different of us. And so sometimes those limiting beliefs, the fixed mindset creeps back in and it's an opportunity to re look at it. And I think also it's interesting, I get this question a lot too, of coaches rumbling with this. Why would.