Birth to Net Worth with Bethany LaFlam

Join us as we unravel our deep-rooted relationship with money, from earliest memories to eureka moments and building wealth. Birth to Net Worth with me, Trystan Trenberth. Welcome to another edition of Birth to Net Worth, where we talk about our genesis, our life, and our evolution relationship with money, finances, and financial literacy. Today we have a wonderful guest who I met in the last couple of years. Again, a lot of these guests coming through real estate. They're just great people to level up in life with and align with and find similarities and obviously contrast as well. I'm going to invite into the room Bethany Laflamme. Bethany, welcome to Birth to Net Worth. Thank you for spending time with me.

Thank you. I so appreciate you having me.

So I met Bethany through a webinar or a webcast probably about a year and a half ago now, I think, wasn't it?

Yeah.

And I've got some bubbles of the similar type that we, we had back then. So Bethany's an attorney, wonderful human being, an investor in real estate, now a hotel owner as of Monday. And I would love, love you to share with us some of your experiences around money. So, you know, where do you first remember money being mentioned in life or a memory around money? Is there something that sticks out from your childhood?

You know, it, it, I'm trying to think as early back as I could. We, I grew up really poor. We didn't, we did not have money. And so there wasn't, it wasn't what I would consider a healthy relationship with money because my thought was simply that there just isn't enough and it, it, that's just not a thing that I get to have. Yeah. So growing up it was, you know, we don't have, we can't afford that. You know, we can't have that because we can't afford it. And, and beyond even just we can't afford it is there was sort of just this, um, ugliness around people who had money, right? And I— you did that post, and I, uh, and the— my answer to your post was that people who have money are somehow bad.

Yeah, yeah, it's so common. It's so common. So, you know, with, with parents and family, what was the Obviously you just described kind of some of the foundation which caused you to build your understanding and relationship with money from that point. What were your observations of other people, other kids in your community with— you had a lens on at that point, you had a colored lens that was kind of causing you to see other people in a certain way. Did you see generosity in there, out there in the world? In contrast to scarcity? Maybe. Is there something you remember around there?

I did see generosity. And in looking back, you know, as a small child, I don't think I, I fully grasped what I was seeing that I can put words to now. But when I was, when I was younger, and even though we couldn't afford things, people who lived very similarly to us could, right? Or just did, right? And I What I didn't recognize then that I recognize now is it may have been the same amount of money. I don't know. I have no way of knowing. Yeah, but it was— it's a mindset. Always. It's a mindset and it's a relationship to money which always boils down to mindset. Right. And, and the thing that I always say is, is you can— anyone can create conscious wealth. You'll hear me say this over and over. Anyone can create conscious wealth. And it really comes down to education. Yeah, access to opportunities and mindset. And if you have the right mindset, then you'll figure out that your access to education and your access to opportunities are fine. They're, they're fine. Is it the same as everyone else's? No. And I think that's where people get hung up is just because I didn't have the same access to money or the same access to education or the same access to, to opportunities that other people or kids might've had doesn't mean that I couldn't start to create wealth. I just didn't know it was for me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Corey was talking about the four pillars, and he's got physical, mental, emotional, and, um, and, and financial health. And it's very often that people go after the money and the other three just fall apart. They're not there, and they never will be there until you rectify the, the love of yourself. And not in an egotistical way, but just a self-care approach, which takes care of your mind and your body and, and your, your emotional state. And then the money just generally follows when people are in alignment with themselves and the world around them. And, and that's where the abundance lies. I mean, you and I have, we've, we've had different teachers, different experiences in life, but I love the alignment that we found, you know, several months ago when we were talking about different projects and, and how we think about things.

Yeah, and I love it too. And it took a lot of work. So that self-care you talked about, right? Yeah. I love myself. You have to get there to allow yourself to have something that you didn't grow up thinking you could have. Right? There had to be a huge shift and a lot of work that went into me even thinking, one, that people who have money aren't bad. Wanting to have money isn't a bad thing, a shameful thing to want to have money or crass. Whatever word people wanna say, right? Yeah. And not only is it not a bad thing, but I personally, I get to, I just get to, you know? And so it took a lot of work on myself to get to that. And the truth is, is that until you do that, even if you do figure out a way to find money, if that's the only thing you're after, if you don't have that mindset shift to allow yourself to have it, you won't keep it. I know plenty of people who are, Amazing at making money, terrible keeping it.

Yeah, it's, it's what Uncle Bob says, Robert Kiyosaki. It's not how much you make, it's how much you keep.

That's right, that's right.

Did, did, did that guy play any part in your evolution with money? I mean, so many did.

Yeah, you know, he did. And it's interesting because I read, I read Rich Dad Poor Dad when it came out, what, 20-something, 23 years ago, maybe something like that around there. I was, I was just fresh out of law school. Or just graduating from law school. And I read it and I thought, oh my God, this is amazing. But something still hadn't clicked in my mindset, right? So in my mind, I was still like, as soon as I establish myself in my career, then I'll do these things in this book. It's great. It's brilliant, right? I grew up with Poor Dad, you know, and Poor Dad is still in your brain, right? You've gotta, so it's one thing to read it. That's the education piece. But if you don't have the mindset to accept it, You can read all you want and you won't— it won't stick.

Yeah.

If you don't have the mindset, you know, and I went to law school for that very reason. I love being a lawyer, don't get me wrong, but I didn't know that being an entrepreneur was a thing that I could have or do. I was told, hey, you're a really smart girl. To get out of here, you either go to law school or you go to medical school. Yeah.

Yeah. It's amazing. I don't know when Rich Dad was published. I don't think it was published when I was young. I think it was the late '80s, '90s kind of time, if I remember rightly, maybe a little bit later than that even.

Might have been later.

Yeah. But you know, we look back and had we read that book at that time, our life would've been different. But maybe it wouldn't because we have to go through the journey we live, have the experiences we've had, for that light bulb moment of the engagement of the mindset with the knowledge to take the action in a, you know, directed, meaningful, and intentional manner to create the results that we're looking for.

True. It's true. And that's, that's why I think that's such a critical component, the mindset piece, because, you know, I know, you know, I know lots of people that have very advanced degrees, multiple advanced degrees. They're not, they're not wealthy people. So it's not that, right? Yeah. And we've seen plenty of people that have opportunities all around them. So it's not just that either.

And then people that come from money with money that lose it all or do nothing with it. And, you know, really, yeah, like we say, money is an exchange of energy. You know, it really is just energy at a different level than we normally think of. And that exchange can come so freely. Without those, you know, those, those resistances and, and the, the obstructions to money. And yeah, so going through, you went to law, law school. Had you done any sort of entrepreneurial stuff, even if it was a lemonade stand or any of that kind of stuff when you were younger, that kind of gave you some sort of perspective? I did a paper round when I was about 12 or 13, so I delivered newspapers, got up at 5:30 in the morning, rode a bike down the road, got a pile of newspapers, put them in order, got out and delivered them, put them through mailboxes. We can't just throw them on the driveway in the UK. Did you do anything that kind of, you know, caused you to generate money in that kind of transactional situation earlier on?

I did earn my own money early. I babysat at a very young age, earlier than was responsible to let me babysit.

Yes.

I don't know. I can't believe that the adults in my life let me take care of other children when I was that young. So I babysat any free time I had and I got paid. It started off with literally $1 an hour. I mean, yeah, as a young— as a young girl. And then the other thing that I did is we would make— we would make these for whatever reason, the kids in our class, they would like to chew on these cinnamon toothpicks. Have you heard of this?

I don't think I have, no.

But it's basically, it's just toothpicks soaked in cinnamon oil, right? And then chew on it like the, um, yeah, but it tasted like that, that's right, you know. And I, so I would get, I got some of the oil with my babysitting money and some toothpicks, you know, $3 or whatever, and I would sell the toothpicks for 25 cents a piece. Yeah, I got shut down. We weren't allowed to have those at school, so I did get shut down. It didn't make a lot of money. Um, and then of course we did the— we made bracelets, friendship bracelets, and, and just kinds of things. So, um, so yes, although I didn't realize that's even what it was. There was no name, it was just, yeah, this is what I'm doing. But you know, a lot of those things, they got shut down just by the mindset of the, the, I think, well-meaning adults in my life Yeah, they're like, okay, you need to be reasonable and you need to be realistic about what your future holds. And again, if you want to get out of here, you go to college, you go to law school or medical school if you're really smart, and that's how you get out of this. But that was it. That was the only way you went. And I was like, well, I definitely want out of this. Yeah, no disrespect, but I wanted out of that.

Yeah.

And, and I, I thought I was going to go to med school. I was pre-med for a year and I thought, well, no, this isn't for me. So in my mind, the only other alternative was to, all right, I guess I'm going to law school then, you know. Yeah. And it all worked out. You're right, you have to go through your journey. And, and if I, I often think if I could go back and tell my younger self anything, but what I, what would I tell her? And there are a few things that I would tell her, but I'm not really sure she'd listen. Yeah, I'm hoping my daughter does, um, just because she sees a better example, I think, of what what you can do there. I mean, money is really just a resource, right? It buys you freedom. It's not about the money, it's about the, the freedom that you can buy with the money. Yeah. And yeah, so again, that's also a mindset shift. I mean, I'm not, I'm not earning money to hoard money.

Yeah. I mean, the other thing as well is not just abundance, but when we look at finances overall, it just amplifies the people that we are. And again, that journey with mindset and the human being that we are, or the soul that evolves with the meat sack that we inhabit while we're here, that is really what, what matters through life is who are we before we get money? And, and the fact that many people don't have money due to mindset and abundance issues or lack of, I think that really is a, is a, the universe telling us that you're not ready for that money right now. And some people are hustlers, they're grinders, they go and make the money like you said. Some don't hold on to it, but some keep it. I remember Carlos Reyes told me about the 4 S's at one of his conferences. There was— you, he started out in survival, and then he gained some success, and then, um, the third S was, um, status. He then wanted to show off that he was wealthy or rich. And then he became aware that he needed to provide some significance to the world. I think once we understand the process, some need to go through more things in the survival to get to the success. Some people need more success to get to the status, and some people kind of bypass the status in some ways. Some people lag a long way in the status, but You know, we can look at people like Keith— not Kiefer Sutherland, Keanu Reeves. Really, he's providing— he gives away most of his money that he earns and does so much good that, you know, he takes the subway train. Not that taking the subway train makes him the best human being on the planet, but there's that level of humanity about him and the fact that it's not important for him to be— and nothing is wrong with Tom Cruise, but just the contrast of the lives that they live. Tom gives a lot of money. That's not what the topic of this is really about, but it's the fact that he just lives and he sees the good in people and he, and he's not pub, you know, he's not so public about it. There's a lot of people that give a lot of money and do so much good with their money. It may happen to be a write-off, a tax write-off. Who cares? They're willing to do it. Some people do it because it's a tax write-off. Some people do it just because they care and it happens to be a tax write-off that benefits them. And I think that when we look at mindset around money, that's, that's, that's that abundance really out there. Clearly, you must have come across a lot of people with great contrast in those, those two extremes.

I, I have, I have. And, and I gotta tell you, motivation, I think, does matter, right? I think it matters because, again, that's your mindset, right? So is this a a sustainable thing or not. So I think going at charity or giving back only because it's a tax write-off, fine, thank you. That's, you know, we still need the money, but it's like you said earlier, it's an energy exchange and that's just not the best energy to have attached to a resource that could provide so much good. Yeah. Right? I'm all for it being a tax write-off. I think that's good energy. It's, let's incentivize with things. I totally understand why that is, but I do think the motivation in some ways does matter. I used to not think that. I used to think, well, who cares, just give it to charity. I don't really care why. I do care why, actually.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, we talked about that idea with the funds to create like an align— find an alignment of investors to create a fund to, you know, give back and, and, and kind of amplify their energy in that way. But there's, there's so many great opportunities out there, but I wonder what it is in people that— and it's generally people that come from a, a lack background that tend to turn around and have that more generous, that bigger heart, as we would say, or, you know, the bigger, um, more abundant mindset than necessarily some people that grow up, you know. But I guess it can't be that different as far as there are just going to be people that have their karma their, their experience that they're born with and they grow up with and around, and it just amplifies. But I guess it's the people that we spend time with that really amplifies what we can become. And, and we talked about masterminds with several of the guests. It's so important to level up, be the, you know, in some cases the educational side is the dumbest person in the room, but also be a sponge and absorb what's around you. Put your hand to lift up people to what your level, and also, you know, have hands come down to you to raise them, you, to somebody else's level. And we can talk about mindset and money, but it's not just about the mindset and money. It's really being vulnerable, understanding the— maybe the mechanics of the universe are not really a rule set that we can document, but it's got to feel so good to be part of something that is so beneficial and so You know, giving in the sense that we contribute to ourselves to a level that we can better contribute to others. Like you said a little earlier on, unless we're good within ourselves, we can't give more on the outside. It's setting that foundation of self-love, the, um, self-care, and enabling us to, to really share the essence of who we are and what's around us with everyone else.

And it all rubs off.

A smile in the street could save somebody's life. Arguably, somebody's having a shit day, the worst shit day of their shit month and their shit year and their shit life as they see in their mind. That smile could be that ray of hope. Hey, is everything okay? You may not be able to solve the problem, but the fact that you cared for somebody, and that could be in a financial sense, it could be in any sense whatsoever. But the ripples that we can create can be, you know, impact things so far out outside of our awareness. I know we're getting a little bit off the topic of the normal podcast, but I love it because it makes each and everyone different. But tell me about your background with, with, you know, spirituality and, and how that's obviously been a cause of a shift in your relationship with money and people and other things because That's really how we had a huge conversation a few months ago. This is so important to these conversations too.

Yeah, I think it is. And my journey has been, gosh, all over the place. Some of it may be not popular, but that's okay. I grew up not with no religion really at all. My parents were teen parents, just really, and still in that S stage, trying to survive that first S, right? And, um, you know, I think they were doing the best they could. So, you know, I— there's no, there's no resentment there at all. But there was no— they avoided the church. I mean, teenage pregnancy isn't— is really frowned upon in most churches, right? Yeah. So, um, my father actually had been in the Mormon Church, um, Latter-day Saints, and then my mother, uh, was Methodist. And basically when they, they got pregnant with me— I'm the oldest— they got pregnant with me, um, my, my mom's parents kind of dropped her off at my dad's parents' door and said, figure this out, you know. And so I think my, my grandparents on that side, they tried to keep my dad in the Mormon Church, and he just kind of ran at the time. And so growing up, I didn't even know— I didn't even know that, actually, until I was an adult, um, that, that our family was in a Mormon Church at all. Yeah, so I didn't grow up with it, right? I didn't— I wasn't really that close with my grandparents when I was young. I wasn't around it at all. They moved away. Um, a lot of my friends growing up were Catholic, and so I would visit Catholic church with them, and it just wasn't a fit for me. Um, but I was trying to figure it out, right? Because there's a lot of guilt around religion when you're young and you didn't know anything. Yeah. So I was like, I don't know, I just have to figure out which religion, because it wasn't an option to not have and I just was like, I don't know how to figure out which one because I feel like God knows I'm phoning it in right now. So I gotta figure this out, right? There's a lot of fear and angst around it and I never really found my groove and then I went away to college and I'm like, I don't think I believe in any of this, honestly. And so I went through that. I think a lot of people when they go to college, they do that, right? Like, I don't think I believe any of this. And then I kind of swung back around as an adult um, that I— what I believe is in universal energy, right? And I don't really care what people call it. I don't, I don't care about the dogma, and I don't care about the, the rules necessarily, because I, I aim to be a good person because I want to put good into the world, not because there's some consequence if I don't. And I'm not— religious people only do it because they want to not go to hell. That's not what I'm suggesting. I'm just saying that none of it made sense to me for my life personally until I kind of shifted into, um, I believe that I just need to put that energy out there and good energy comes back. Yeah, it's just how it works. Um, so, you know, it's gonna sound maybe trite, but I would say I'm spiritual, not religious. Um, and once I found that, and, and it wasn't until I found that that I really started to see success though. So I will say those years when I'm like, nope, I'm an atheist. I don't— that, that's it. I don't, I don't have any religion. I don't buy any, but I believe in science and the things that people say. Of course I believe in science. But it wasn't until I started to connect to whatever you want to call it— higher self, universe, God, spirit— I don't care what you call it. Doesn't— to me, it doesn't matter what you call it. It wasn't until I could start to connect to that, to where I could kind of see beyond myself, where I really started to see success. Yeah, coincidence, I don't know, maybe, but it worked for me. Yeah. And, you know, I think it— I think there's something to it.

Yeah, I think that's amazing because when I was— I think it was my— I could probably look it up. It was a Sunday. It was my birthday. My parents came into my room, said, oh, it's time to go to church. And I said, you know, I don't believe in this. I don't want to go. And they said, okay, and went to church. I had no idea that was going to be the response. They weren't angry people that I was in fear of telling them, but it was just like, I realized now I can stand up for myself and just say, you know, I don't feel this. So I very much went on an atheist path for many years, probably up until about 2007, 2008. I was, yeah, show me with science and I'll believe it. Very much, very much logical, you know, black and white kind of thing. And when I was, when I was in 2008, I met a couple of people, Susan and, um, Graham, and we did some energy work. And I didn't really separate the energy work from religion or, you know, universe, all that kind of stuff. But it was, I'd always being aware from that point that I could separate spirituality from religion. I realized that there was a difference between the dogma of, you know, historical religion, how many millions of lives have been lost in the name of a god, which is always the right god, not the wrong one. Do you know what I mean? And it's the same on the other side. And all that happened in the name of, rather than just saying, hey, everything's energy. And I've really dove much further into that the last 3 years of Matthew. Is, yeah, we don't need to give it a name necessarily. Like you said, it could be related to as a, as, as God even, or universe, or energy, however we want to put that. But just letting go of labels is so powerful. Not having to compartmentalize and categorize something into something which has dogma behind it. We can just relate it to it freely in the way that we want to, and that can evolve day by day, minute by minute, year by year, and it doesn't have to be a, a fixed thing. And that relates back to attitudes towards friendships, money, people. Everything in life is so flexible and, and it, we can choose anything in life to be important or a priority. And we can also let go of what other people think is a priority and realize that just because, and the logical rule of something says we should, subscribe to a particular perspective, we can let go of that and say, take my perspective away, I want to give it away, help me change my mind, and be so open that we can allow our position to be shifted. But it doesn't have to change. And it's not that we're trying to have them persuade us, but it's just that openness to be accepting of whatever is. Doesn't mean you're condoning or condemning it. But it can just be that free-flowing experience of life and just understand that if we look for that most cherished experience we have, we want in life, we can kind of experience most of that right now if we just take that essence. I'd love to own an Aston Martin. I think you'd love to own an Aston Martin too, but you could go and rent one for the day and we get that feeling of the power, the smell of the leather, the, you know, the British engineering, whatever it is that's that's relatable to that. And, and that can lead into building that manifestation, that energy that drives us towards, hey, through my love of, of life and people and, and bringing value to myself and exchanging energy with others, this is now a little bit closer to maybe happening, or better. You know, I think it's so valuable to just be so vulnerable with, with these things and Coming back to the money thing, I was talking to somebody last year and they were talking about they, they had gone through the Dave Ramsey course with money that they would be debt-free. And you know, I've got different opinions on Dave Ramsey's program. I think it, it's definitely a great fit for a lot of people in certain perspectives, but obviously it's, it's very restrictive if you take that in the long term. Yet the irony of Dave Ramsey offering a payment plan for his courses is the deepest irony. But the fact that, you know, you can look at these things and just know that where you sit now can completely change in a short period of time with intention. The perspective that you can be debt-free within a period of time. And be intentional about doing that, but then use that as a springboard to move forward from a fresh restart. And we can have a restart every moment of the day with something, whether it's a mindset, whether it's something. But yeah, it's just amazing to think from, tell me about your first property that you bought, Bethany.

Well, so I started off as a passive investor. Well, I mean, I bought a condo, right? A live-in, which of course you look back to the Purple Book and that was not an asset, that was liability because it was not making me money. I was just living in it.

So, but the accomplishment of doing that, saving up the down payment or however you came up with the down payment, that mindset of, wow, $20,000 or $40,000 or $80,000 for the down payment, how much of an accomplishment was that for you?

It was huge because I, not a lot of, again, not a lot of money in my family. And so the sentiment, I came from Ohio and the sentiment when I first moved here was, I'm sorry, your rent is how much? When I first moved and I was in law school and at the time it was $525 was my first place. I split it with, I mean, $525 was my half. Yeah. Right, of a two-bedroom apartment. And that could have been a mortgage on a pretty decent house. Right. But it's funny how our perception of money and what's enough shifts as we do. So I come out here and I'm like, well, it's— it costs $520,000, so I can afford $520,000 because that's where I'm going to live. Yeah, right. Whereas had I stayed in Ohio like everybody else who stayed in Ohio, it was like $525,000. I could never afford that. I'd make $400,000 and I own this, this little tiny house. Right. So it shifts, I think, as you do that. So I, you kind of ratchet up a little. And so I did it very slowly. I'll admit it was a long process for me. I was slow to get there, mostly 'cause of mindset, right? And that, but it was a huge accomplishment to buy a condo. I didn't think, you know, of course back then it was what, 2002, maybe 2001, 2002. We thought, ugh, we're buying at the top of the market. Ugh. Right? So like now you look and you're like, wow, it would, it's like tripled already. Yeah. For a condo in Southern California. But it was a huge, it was a huge accomplishment, but it still took me some time even after reading the Purple Book and even after being a high-income earner, it took me some time to still figure out the whole passive income game, right? I was toiling away. It was my badge of honor to work harder than anybody. Like that made me somehow a better person. I am better because I'm the first one in and the last one out. I build the most hours and look how hard I work, and I, I never do anything, and I have no days off, and I'm tired all the time, and I drink a lot of coffee, and I don't eat, and all the things. Like, by the way, that sounds miserable, doesn't it? Why would anybody choose to have that be their existence? And yet I did.

Tell me about that self-love thing at that point.

Yeah, there was— it wasn't there. It was a thing. And then it became like, I almost felt guilty for taking more than half a day off, 'cause then I couldn't say those things. Right. I'm gonna take a vacation, because then I'll have had a vacation, and then I wouldn't have been the hardest worker. So it was a big mindset shift to get to the point where what I wanted was for people to go, "Gosh, she's so successful, and she makes it look so easy. She's so happy." Yeah. That's who I wanna be. Not, oh my God, I don't even want that. Whatever level of wealth she has, she can keep because she's tired all the freaking time. You know, she's a grouch. Yeah. I don't like that. And I didn't wanna, I didn't wanna teach that to my daughter. I mean, yeah, I think everything shifts and, and everyone has their own shift. For me, it was my kid. I'm not saying you have to have a kid in order to have the shift. That's not what I'm suggesting. For me though, that was my shift. Yeah. Because wow, someone's watching me. Right? And she's looking to me and it's my job to make sure that she thrives, right? Not just survives. And she's looking at me where all I do is work and work and work and I'm not even particularly that happy and I don't really frankly have enough money to justify how hard I work. Can't teach that to her. Yeah. You know? And so that really was a big wake-up call for me and it took me a while. I mean, she was, you know, she was still already here for a while when I finally figured it out. And so I really started doing some work on myself. And I will tell you, I joined a mastermind. Susan, you've met Susan. Yeah. Um, I did not start off in Ascension because I was not ready for Ascension. Ascension, you have to like grow to. So I started off with, um, it was, uh, the one below Mindset Mastery. It was like basically the one where I get you, get your shit together, get out of your own way. And then come talk to me, right? So I did that first one where it was just like, maybe don't just show up to the Zoom, slide in sideways, like, do you know how important I am? I can't believe I'm here kind of thing. 'Cause that's what I did. Yeah. I would leave the Zoom to take an important phone call at 7:30 at night. 7:30 at night West Coast when it was 10:30 wherever they were calling me from. Like, it was not that important. And I would show up to that like almost a little self-important, honestly. Like, who the hell did I think I was, right? And it wasn't until I got through that and finally I was like, this is my time, this is my me time. You know, I paid a lot of money for it. It was the most money I'd ever paid on something for myself ever. Yeah. And you know, I, I started to really treat that as like, it was like going to the gym, you know, I, I need to do it and you need to do it consistently. And now I finally kind of elevated or ascended to go to Ascension and now it really, Ascension, that mastermind is really about, it is about wealth consciousness. It is about creating, creating wealth through embracing your consciousness and or your spirituality or whatever it is you wanna call it because of the pillars, right? Because you can't just chase money. So it's not a coaching program. It's not, there are plenty of really awesome, amazing coaching programs to learn how to do certain things. Real estate's one of them. It's not that. It's about my relationship with money for me and my relationship with myself and my relationship with whatever there is besides myself that connects me to everybody else. And I think that's really what was attractive to me is it's not about, oh, I'm connecting to God or I found religion or, you know, it wasn't that. It was, I want to connect to something that connects me to you.

Yeah.

I want to connect to something that connects me to other people. Right. And I mean, probably no, uh, no shock that a lot of my big revelations came during COVID Absolutely. When I couldn't be around people. Yeah. And I was missing it so, you know. So I, you know, it's kind of all, it's been a weird journey kind of all over the place, but the, the relationship to money is a tough one. To, it's almost like an abusive relationship if you, yeah, you know, if you look at it that way. And so it takes a lot of work to overcome the trauma of that, I think.

Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's interesting because back in 2008, 2009, I sort of became energy aware. I felt energy moving around me and, you know, I did some past life regression. I did, um, some, some sort of deep altered states and stuff as well. And then moved back to the UK. But I kind of almost— I felt there was some sort of relationship with universe in some way at that point. But then went through a divorce and, and that kind of stuff, and that kind of separated. It wasn't that it wasn't important. I still work with Susan, um, and have done, you know, not terribly much the last few years. She's— her health is, is ailing a little bit, but it's, you know, I've been more aware in the last couple of years or last 18 months really that I did lose that kind of connection or whatever it was that I felt at the time. And it's, it's really regaining it with yourself, which is that connection like Susan created in that diagram, that, that session that we had with her. It all leads up to the connection to the universe and, and you are that connection to the universe between your purpose and the goals and those actions to get there. And, and I, I just love these conversations. I love being in the communities and love being around people where it's just different perspectives on similar things. And it's not that somebody else's experience is going to enlighten you, but it's, it's a maybe a hint towards something that you may have touched on or may touch on in the future that you remember later on down the road. That's just a gift that you'd look back on Same way somebody may have, you know, had a negative experience with money, but later in life they realize, wow, I look back now and I think what that meant to me at the time, now I get it and now I can apply it in this, this new situation, you know.

Yeah, I, I, the reason why I like group masterminds, I, it's so I don't, I do the one-on-one work, um, because there's some really good insights one-on-one, but the reason that I really love groups is you do get the benefit of other people's wisdom. You know, if you've ever heard me, you hear me say other people is everything, right? You get the benefit of other people's wisdom and mistakes, right? We try not to dwell on the negative stuff and the mistakes in that particular mastermind, but you, it's in my mind, I'm still that science girl, right? I'm still the science background. It's evidence. I see someone else who's achieved something that maybe I haven't yet, or something different than I've achieved. And I just am like, it's evidence. And once you start to see evidence in the world of the thing that you want, your brain will find it for you. Yeah. Right. And so I love it. I love it with other people because it's, it's a shortcut almost. Yeah. I see something you've achieved and now my brain just goes, well, he's already done it, so I don't have to figure that part out. I know it's there. Yeah, now I can find it. If you want one analogy that Susan always gives is if I tell you next week to go out and look for blue cars, you're going to see a shit ton more blue cars than you ever even thought existed because you're looking for them.

Confirmation bias, isn't it?

Right, exactly. Exactly. And I think that's, that's why I just, I love surrounding myself with other people who have, have done the things that, that I really respect or I want to do or Um, you know, or even that I don't want to do but need done.

Yeah. And I think that there's something very true with confirmation bias, and we can look into manifestation with that. We're always manifesting everything, and we're getting everything that— the essence of everything we're manifesting, but we don't realize we're manifesting it because it's thoughts, it's mindset, it's, uh, it's perspectives. And when we're more intentional about looking for the gift in a, you said you don't dwell on the negative situations, but there's always a gift in there. And that's what the essence of their sharing of that negative experience is. What was the gift inside? I give the analogy of taking like a Milky Way bar. You pick it up off the shelf and you just go to eat it, but there's a wrapper around it and that tastes like crap. That's the, that's the negative experience. But once you peel back the wrapper, then you can find the gift inside. That's when you look for the gift in the situation that was the negative. That is now, you know, you got destruction is the first, you know, the flip side of creation. You know, a breakdown is the beginning of a breakthrough. If we look at life like that and all of our situations, we share it in that kind of way. That's where, that's where the thriving comes in, the abundance, you know.

I love it. And I love having these conversations with you too. It's, you know, usually when I come on these things, it's like, tell me about Securities Line.

Oh, well, let's ask you about that.

I'm kidding. Well, is this talking about relationships with money, right? Yeah. I know, I love it because people look at me and like, wait, you're a lawyer and you're talking about conscious wealth or you're talking about spirituality or you're talking about anything besides the law. And the truth is that The law has been a great tool. It's been a great tool for me to create, you know, and start to build the empire that I want. I'm still building it. But it wasn't until I embraced all the rest of this stuff, woo-woo or whatever you wanna call it, doesn't matter to me. It wasn't until I embraced all that that I was able to actually really use this tool for what it is. And all the value that it can provide. Because again, I guess, what did I think the best thing I could ever get was a nice salary and then, You know, everyone thinks that lawyers are rich and not necessarily, because again, I could, even if I, if I brought home $5 million a year in a salary, if, if I don't keep any of that or I blow it on something else or I'm miserable, who cares?

Yeah. Yeah. So the reason I reached back to your condo, you've recently bought a hotel. What was your, what was your experience? Did your parents own a house, for example? Were you the, Did you buy a house before them or was, you know, their experience of buying a house is different from yours. What I'm leading to is now your daughter just saw you buy a hotel in Belize in a different country. Yeah. And raise quite, quite a substantial fund of money, but also collaborating with people.

Yeah.

And that's the whole different thing where we grow up thinking we're on our own. School teaches us don't read the other person's thing, don't ask for their help. We never work together because we're divided at that point. But if we were to collaborate on those things and know that, oh, Bob's great at maths and I'm great at physics or whatever it is, or the different tools that we can collaborate on, how different would we be as human beings? So when we grow up and we find that cheat code of the, you know, the raising consciousness community, the energy and collaborating and bringing things together and bringing people and souls together, Your daughter's now seen you buy a hotel with 3, 4, 5 other friends. How do you think that's impacting her aspirations of what's possible? Not to say she needs to do that, but now she's got a different vision of that, that those lenses that you grow up with have disappeared for her. Now she's got a, a mom that's a super mom and doing incredible things.

Which is meaningful to me only if she sees me happy as well. But I'll tell you, I was talking to somebody about this recently and, you know, my parents, they did buy a house, although it's the relationship with money has just been tenuous at best with my original family. But what I'm most excited about is, yes, my daughter's set point is gonna be different than my set point. And it's evidence. That's all it is, is evidence. I actually, what I had said to my friend is I, When she looks at me, I do these things because I know she's watching, but not so she'll go, "Oh my God, my mom's such a badass," right? I actually don't want that. I want her to look at me and go, "Well, that's what women do. It's what they do. They meet the people around them and they figure out really cool things that they wanna do." I didn't go buy the hotel because I wanted to own a hotel. I bought the hotel because I wanted to own a place where I could have awesome retreats. Yeah. And I found other people were like, me too. So we did it together. That's really how that came about. It wasn't like, oh, I need to own a hotel. I mean, the place is amazing and I'm really excited, but I wanna have retreats there is what I, yeah, what I really want. So, you know, I mean, there's other people think I, I'm, I've written an entire book called The Power of Other People's Everything. Come out next year. And it was, that was the revelation of I don't have to do it. Myself. As I grew up, same thing. It's actually, there was a line in the book, there is a line in the book that was like, eyes on your own paper. You know, growing up, eyes on your own paper. You don't copy off people, you don't, you get, you do it yourself. And I remember at a very young age, my dad, I had asked him for help with homework and I was, I don't know, maybe 4th grade, something, 3rd grade, I don't know, 8 or 9, something like that. And I asked him for help with my homework and he said to me, you're a smart girl, figure it out. And at the time, I remember thinking, he thinks that's a compliment. He did. He thought it was a compliment. It was part of what's crazy. He didn't know the answer, right? I mean, at the time, he was a teenager himself. Yeah. So, but in my mind, I thought, all right, I just have to figure stuff out myself. 'Cause the one guy that's supposed to be the guy taking care of me, he just told me I have to figure it out myself. He's not gonna help. Yeah. Well-meaning, you know, well-meaning. But what I took from that is I have to do everything myself. And so I did. I didn't— I never asked for help with my homework again, ever, from anyone.

Yeah. Isn't it amazing, these decisive moments in life? I did Landmark a few years ago, and they say there's like 2 or 3 events in life that define how your beingness is for the rest of your life and how you respond to situations. And clearly, I'm feeling as well as hearing that was one of those decisive moments for you.

Yeah, it was. And there were a few of them. They're in the book, and that one is too. And And it does really frame how you approach all of your tasks, right? If you think that you have to do everything yourself, then you're gonna approach things differently than you think, oh, I have all these resources around me, money being one, people being another, two of the biggest resources, you know, that you could possibly have. And if you don't think that those are there for you, life is a lot harder than it needs to be. Really. And you don't get as far, I think. Um, I think that's not true. You can get as far, it just will take you a lot longer.

Longer.

Yeah, right. It'll be a lot. Yeah.

To do it.

So I— this whole idea of that you get to use money as a resource, and even— I don't want to say use people, but yes, use people as a resource, as though— as same as they can use me as a resource.

It's, it's a, it's a leveraging. I mean, some relationships are transformational, some are transactional. I live in the world of finding is mainly transformational, but there is a need for transactional relationships too.

Yeah. And I'm happy to be that tool for somebody else in their game. Yeah. You know? So that's what I wanna teach my daughter. Yeah. What I want her to take out of this is it's not money for money's sake. I'm definitely not at that status phase, right? Where I need people to see that I've made money or even look at me, I own a hotel. It's not that. It's I want her to know that whatever it is she decides to create, she has everything she needs within her or around her to create whatever it is she wants. Yeah. Maybe it's not a hotel. It wasn't even a hotel for me either. You know, I don't know what it is for her yet. She's 15. She probably doesn't know either.

Yeah. And at the end of the day, I mean, Monopoly's a game, but life's a game as well. And it's, you know, again, coming back to experiences and having fun, enjoying what we're doing with other people. And yeah, we can build hotels, we can convert some houses to hotels or multifamily, whatever it is that we're doing, but it's just moving pieces around and just changing the perspective and the mindset where you are on the board in life and just, just enjoying that with other people playing games in different places at the same time. It's like the chess player that can play 12 games of chess at the same time. It's not to beat somebody else, but it's the experience of interacting and staying on the ball with those different things and Maybe it is somebody moving the piece for you, you know, Knight 3 to whatever it is, and they move it for you. And it's just moving pieces around and having people in the right place where we're all benefiting each other.

Yeah, yeah. And I love that analogy of a game because I— it should be play, you know. I mean, again, what are we doing if it's just miserable? I cannot believe that whatever put us here, whatever you believe put us here, that it put us here to just struggle and strife and then die. That cannot be why. Yeah. You know, and yet our brains though, down to their very core, operate for survival. Our brains aren't wired for happy. That's not what they're there for. From dying. You, you, you run if you're being chased, you eat if you're going to starve. It's for survival. So we have to actually work and train it to learn how to be happy.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's a choice, meaning, right? I think that's the meaning of life, is that you get to, you get to do that though. You get all of this, it's ours to, to train however we want it.

Yeah, yeah. So, um, as, as you, as you move through life, you've made some investments. Obviously you bought into a hotel. You're pretty passive in the, in the investments that you have. Where do you see yourself, or where are you now in the investments as far as, you know, maybe a diversification of assets? And where do you see that evolving in the future as far as being more passive or maybe active in a, a smaller area but more meaningful area where you can impact more? And what do you see coming through in, in the next 10, 20, 30 years?

My, um, My favorite investments are real estate investments. So I'm in self-storage.

Yeah.

I'm in mobile home parks. Yeah. And obviously boutique hotels where I'm active. I'm not passive in a boutique hotel. That's my active one. And I'm in mixed-use commercial. So those are my passive asset classes. Believe it or not, I'm actually not yet in multifamily. I will eventually be in multifamily. That's the That's one of my next ones. I just wanted to get this active deal, I built first. However, I'm not done with the active deals. The plan there is actually to sell this hotel to a fund that we launch in about 2 years to buy more like this, to have more properties, to have more events where, and my passion for these events is to help people create conscious wealth through scaling their business. Whether it's passive investors or active investors, I want to help people build up those extra, those pillars, right? So they can create the conscious wealth that they want, that buys them the freedom, that gives them happiness. So that's my goal. So when I do the fund, it's going to be, you know, let's buy a castle in Texas that Britt will live in and let's buy a, you know, a place overlooking the ocean in Malibu that I'll live in and we'll, and we'll host events there and we'll kind of trade. And again, just to research, I wanna treat it like the flow that I think it is, right? The energy that it is. So that's why I don't have a negative relationship to money any longer is that I recognize that money flows to me, it flows away from me, it flows to me, it flows away from me. And the minute that I start to grab or get angsty around that is the minute that it cuts off.

Yeah.

And so I want this fund to be a way for money to, flow, but also for ideas to flow, for relationships to flow, for energy to flow. And so there'll be a lot more active investments for me because I mean, I'll still practice law because I love helping people create, you know, safely build their empire really and create conscious wealth. So I'll stay doing that, but I can do that from anywhere in the world. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

My daughter graduates high school and she's a junior right now. So she'll, next year she'll graduate high school and then I'm like, me and my dog, you know. So we can go anywhere, and we'll go to Belize for a while, and then maybe Malibu for a while, maybe Texas for a while. Who knows? Um, I keep teasing Brittany because she, she had posted something about a, a castle in Texas. I'm like, let's buy you a castle.

Yeah, well, I got— there's some castles in the UK that she could buy in magical areas with lots of energy and great places.

That is a dream. Well, I know, you know, we talked about doing some fun properties together too. Yeah. I, that's what I want. I want to be able to do fun projects with people that I like and want to be around and, and that's it. I just want to share energy like that. Yeah.

Wonderful. Well, is there anything else you'd like to share with the audience before, before we wrap?

Um, I mean, be on the lookout for The Power of OPE, Other People's Everything, next year. The, you know, I plan to be putting a lot more of this kind of content out on my Instagram page. We're going to be doing a really cool series about how to buy a boutique hotel on my YouTube channel. So brilliant. But, but Instagram is the place where I play. So if you want to have more content, that's the place to find me. Fabulous.

We'll put your contact information as far as your Instagram and your socials that you want to share, the website. At the end, but thank you so much for this, this hour. It's been incredible.

So much love. Yes. And hopefully I'll see you very soon.

Yeah. Hopefully in a couple of weeks. Well, a week and a half.

Yeah.

Thank you, Bethany. Have a wonderful day.

You too.

Bye-bye. Check out the links below. Amazing updates on the Belize hotel, the retreats that are going to follow, any SEC related. Matters. Follow the links to Premier Law Group, where she practices as a managing partner, and just see what's out there. The spiritual world is incredible. It definitely overlaps with business, and business wouldn't be the same without it. Look for the peace, the purpose, and the prosperity in your life. Thanks, and see you on the next edition of Birth to Net Worth.