Cash & Sass™

Why Making More Money Isn't Fixing the Problem You Think It Is with Natalie Bullen

• Lisa Marie Robinson • Episode 131

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0:00 | 43:34

Sometimes the more money you make, the louder the problem gets.

Lisa Marie sits down with her dear friend Natalie Bullen, Revenue and Wealth Coach and CEO of Unapologetic Wealth, for one of the most honest conversations about money, identity, and what actually happens when entrepreneurs start to scale. This is the episode that tells you what the income screenshots don't.

Natalie breaks down where entrepreneurs mishandle money most, and it's not the obvious stuff. From overspending on coaching before you have a team, to running a business that relies on chaos instead of cash flow, to not having a repeatable sales system that makes forecasting possible, the patterns are more common than anyone wants to admit.

And underneath all of it? Identity. The identity you've been assigned, the one you've unconsciously built, and the one you actually need if wealth is going to stay.

What You'll Learn

  • Why money is everywhere, and what's actually keeping you from accessing it
  • The specific mismanagement patterns Natalie sees most often as entrepreneurs scale
  • Why paying yourself little to nothing while overspending on coaching is more common than you think
  • How to run a business that doesn't run out of money, and why that starts as a decision
  • Why your subconscious is listening to everything you say about money and what to do about it
  • The casual covenants with lack that feel cute but mean something very different
  • Why overnight success is not as attractive as it sounds, and what gradual identity change actually looks like
  • The rubbernecking principle: why focusing on what you don't want is driving you straight toward it
  • How to architect the life you want instead of running from what you don't

Guest Information

Natalie Bullen is a Revenue and Wealth Coach, and owner of Unapologetic Wealth. As a powerhouse coach and consultant, she positions her clients for wealth by accelerating their revenue with high ticket sales.

Connect with Natalie

Resources

Follow Lisa Marie on your favorite social platform:

Transcendent Wealth Co. LLC
https://www.transcendentwealthco.com   

SPEAKER_00

Welcome back to Cash and Sass, the podcast where we ditch the shame, talk real numbers, and build bold, bankable wealth without sacrificing who we are. I'm your host, Lisa Marie, fractional CFO, wealth mentor, and the sassy wealth queen behind Transcendent Wealth Co. If you're ready to scale with strategy, own your power, and finally feel wealthy in every sense of the word, then you're in the right place. Today's episode is one that people need to hear more of and from because everybody wants to make more money. And this is a very, very good dear friend of mine. And I'm going to tell you, not enough people are talking about what happens when you actually do make more money, y'all. Okay. My guest, Natalie Bullen, is the CEO of Upologetic Wealth, and we're diving into rapid growth, mismanagement, and why making more money isn't fixing the problem you think it is. Because sometimes the more money you make, the louder the problem gets. So as we know, what always happens is I dive right in. So that's what we're gonna do. And Natalie, first though, thank you very much for being here. You are like someone I've looked up to, I follow, you're become a dear friend. And y'all, everybody needs to be listening to this episode or watching it on YouTube. Like, I don't know. Y'all share it whatever you need to do, because this woman's like full of gold nuggets. Okay. You've said money is everywhere. And I want to know what that means in real life for so many, especially when it comes to entrepreneurs and why so many of them feel like they're constantly chasing it.

SPEAKER_01

That's a great question. You know, money really is everywhere, especially if you are in the United States where it's getting printed every day. And I think often we let the way that our lived experience has been help us decide what our future will be. And so if money has been scarce in the past, we decide that money is scarce for everyone. But money is not scarce for everyone. If you go to any nice mall, I'm near Nashville, if I go to Green Hills mall, if you're in New York and you go on Saks Fifth, there are people standing outside of the line for Gucci. There are people in Tiffany, there are people who are still buying $100,000, $500,000 cars. And I'm not saying overconsume to prove you have money. I'm saying there are still pockets of the economy that are spending right now. There will always be people willing to spend money to solve their problem. So if you can solve a problem, which every entrepreneur can solve a problem, that's why you're in business. We can all solve problems. So if you can solve a problem, you can print money. There's always someone who is willing. Right now, with the partial government shutdown and TSA being closed, there are people who are charging to wait in line at the airport. So if you do not need to be airport, you can pay.

SPEAKER_02

Wait in the line until the point of TS. That's like a whole nother conversation because I'm like, but then how do you get up there?

SPEAKER_01

You don't want to talk. I guess you just be on standby 30 minutes away, but at least you're waiting at home on your couch instead of waiting in the line at the airport. But there will always be someone willing to.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, basically, like when they get to a certain point. Okay, because at first I was like, wait a minute. Oh no, it's to get you too. You have to be a good idea. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And people are paying it. And so I think we have to be really careful with speaking negatively over our own lives and saying things like, I'm broke or I'm struggling, or this isn't gonna happen for me. Nobody has any money. You know, everybody's run out of money. That may be true in a limited scenario in your life experience, but that doesn't mean that it will always be true for you. And it doesn't mean it's true for everyone else.

SPEAKER_00

I think that's right. And I think that's a big thing too, though, because we're gonna let's touch on that. And and y'all, I'm warning you, we're listen. Let's touch on that because what does it do when we talk negatively? You would have had this conversation because you've actually caught me like conversation. Listen, I'm guilty, okay? I I We all have been at some point.

SPEAKER_01

We all have been a world mentor and I'm guilty. We are trained to complain and we are trained to feel sorry for ourselves and elicit sympathy from others as a point of connection.

SPEAKER_00

Well, and and society has trained us, especially as women, yeah, to play small not that we're supposed to right to play small and that we are we will always be broken. We won't mount up to the rest of society. And so I want us to talk about that because I think it's really important, especially for women and minorities, that we understand that the way we talk about ourselves, especially about money, matters and it affects how we're going to make money, right? I mean, it's going to affect it. It and I've had to catch myself again with that negative thinking and go, okay, or saying the negative things, it's going to, it's going to affect that. Haven't you noticed those things with the clients you work with, right?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, all the time. I mean, it's we don't understand how powerful our subconscious minds are. We do not understand that they are listening all the time. And so if you start to create a an environment where your brain believes you don't know how to sell, you don't know how to hold money, you don't know how to manage money, you don't know how to attract money, you don't like money, you don't trust money, money doesn't like you, money doesn't trust you, then that will be your reality. And I think as part of the powerlessness that is taught to women, that it's easy for us to think, well, you know, I don't have that kind of power over my subconscious. My words don't matter that much. As we say these things, I get on to people who call their children their broke best friends. I think that is outrageous. Why would you grow a child in your uterus for nine months, risk your life in labor just to start insulting it off top, just soon as this baby comes out?

SPEAKER_00

I have never, I have never common.

SPEAKER_01

They'll say, prepare to be sick of me. And it's like, why would I be sick of seeing your face more? Why would I be sick of you promoting your business? Why would that be something negative? So, like these casual covenants that we make with Let, it's not intentional. It just is so easy to slide into these euphemisms that literally mean something in my life.

SPEAKER_00

They're supposed to be cute, and I'm gonna be showing up all the time, so you're gonna get sick of me. But what you're doing is you're talking negatively about yourself. I've never called my children my best friends. I'm guilty of some other things, but I've never called them that. I think it's important because of the way we phrase things. Not only is that gonna affect the people we're around, but it's gonna affect us, right? Especially us. And so one of the things that I'm curious, and I want my my listeners to understand, is what shifted for you when you stopped seeing money as scarce and start and stopped talking about money as scarce because if we see money as scarce, we're gonna talk about it as scarce. That's true. I never saw money as scarce.

SPEAKER_01

My man believes in prosperity gospel. I grew up watching Krepno Dollar. Kreplodollar is this real prominent black pastor in the 90s. He had his own private jet, he had cufflinks. And my mom did not think it was a sin for the pastor to be rich. She thought, why not? Why would God's people be poor and secular people be rich? If we serve a God that owns everything, that made sense to me. We serve a God that owns everything, then why should we be poor? I that didn't make sense to me. So, lucky for me, I never saw that. My mom asked, it was like, look, different occupations pay different amounts of money. So, yeah, I don't have a ton of money because I'm a school teacher, but that doesn't mean nobody has money. So I had a good understanding that there's always been some people rich, some people poor, and some people in the middle. I've always known it. I knew that when I was a child.

SPEAKER_00

But that means your that means your mom has been living a true, a true wealthy life. Absolutely. Because I believe wealth is more than money. 100%. Right. And your mom is was teaching you, which not a lot of parents did or do, that there's different forms of occupation and different forms of of wealth. Meaning some are gonna have a lot of extra money, maybe doing what they love or maybe not doing what they love. And there's gonna be some people who are gonna be in the middle who are gonna be doing what they love and they're gonna be feel wealthy and they're not making a lot of money. So I love that. Tell us some of the things though, like where do you see entrepreneurs mishandling money the most once they start scaling? Because I've like, I'll be honest, I scaled really fast. Okay, and then there were some things that weren't in place that I now you know saw that should have been. Yeah. Right. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs don't realize that there are just some things that need to be done or or have, like whether it's a coach, or I mean, because you're an identity coach, right? So whether it's a coach or whether it's having systems in place, what are some of the or spending more as they're making more, you know, and not really truly looking at the cost, but what are some of the things that you've noticed?

SPEAKER_01

Well, I'll tell you, most of it happens way before people get to scale is while they're still in growth. And usually it is paying themselves little to nothing over investing in what I consider coaching consulting. So, of course, there is a use case for coaching. I have a coach, it's beneficial, but spending 20, 30, 40% of your revenue on coaching every year when you have no team, no staff, no systems, no automations, you're not running ads, it's not balanced. So I will see people kind of cook the books where they'll pay themselves basically nothing because they have a partner that pays the bills so they can, or they have a job so they can artificially lower their owner's compensation to basically zero to be able to afford to overspend on coaching, consulting, travel is somewhere I see where there's usually a huge, huge spend. You know, if you look at large companies, if you look at like not even large, if you look at a mid-sized company, 100, 200 people, you're not going to see 30% of the revenue going towards events and conferences and retreats. This is not where the money goes, right? Like once you get 100 people in your company, your biggest expense is gonna be payroll. It's payroll and staff. It's gonna be payroll.

SPEAKER_00

Once you get 50 people on your team.

SPEAKER_01

It's gonna be really so I think it's what most people do as solopreneurs prevents them from ever being able to hire a team. Because instead of hiring staff, they're hiring people who tell them what to do, like advisors or people who are helping them grow their inner their inner selves, like coaching, at the extent that they can't invest in anything else. So meet people and go, hey, like I'm I'm running a sales challenge. Every quarter we run one. So many people I love your sales challenges. I love your sales challenges. Every single day, and we're doing something great this time. Um, alumni get a preferred rate, which we've never done before, and people who have revenue under 100K get a reduced rate, which I think is a really great thing that we're able to do.

SPEAKER_00

So I feel like well, a lot, especially since a lot of people got hit last year. They got hit. Last year has been really I got hit. See, I got hit, yeah. And so 500k. And I'm and I'm gonna be honest, I'm normally a six-figure revenue person. I got hit. We all I got hit hard.

SPEAKER_01

And and so you know, even the people who were making 500k are making 250 now. So it's still six figure, but it's way, way.

SPEAKER_00

And the people who were in the 250, 300, 300 barely barely at that. They, yep, they were barely at that.

SPEAKER_01

And so I've been really looking at how can I continue to give value to people while they're in this season instead of just, oh, you don't have any money. Oh, well, that's on you. When a lot of the things, at least in my experience that I have seen, are not founder dependent. It's not something you did wrong. It was a combination of um people realizing that they have not spent their money wisely and run out of money. It's a combination of how things have gone with the job market, because a lot of entrepreneurs have a spouse who works. So if your spouse who works gets laid on, that affects every investment you plan on making, your business, you know. And if it comes down to it, I'm gonna pay my mortgage and my utilities first. Always. I'm gonna make sure you have food to eat. Like, I'm never going to spend money in my business that is going to cripple me on the personal side. And I think a lot of people did that, and now they're like, okay, I finally got back on my feet. I'm gonna wait. So people are still spending, but I believe they are way more prudent. I'm also finding that most people are only in one program right now, not four or five, or six or seven like in previous years. So it used to be people would hire me. They already had a business coach, they were already in a mastermind, they were already going to two or three conferences this year. Now, when I get clients, I'm the only voice that they have. They are not hiring all these other people. So I think it's made marketing more challenging, which means, aka more money, right? You've either got to figure it out on your own, which costs you your time, which is money, you gotta hire somebody that's a pro, which costs you money, or you gotta get paid traffic going, which costs money. And so I think that have been coming out of the shift, people who have gotten their messaging together, people who finally got a break on their calendar. I can tell you when we were doing tons and tons of money, I had tons and tons of clients. My calendar was crazy. If I woke up sick one day, I was screwed because I had nowhere to move people to because I was booked back to back five days a week. But it does make your placement where you put this money even more important. And so that's what I see. I see people paying themselves, nothing. How you are allocating and planning. They're not allocating, they don't have a forecast, a budget, you know, deciding what they're gonna spend and when. I see very, very little financial planning on the business side. People just get the money and they spend it. And that works to a degree when money, when cash flow is strong. But when your cash flow is not strong, you have to have this laid out. And, you know, hopefully it's something that people will now start paying attention to that that's a good thing. I have to do that.

SPEAKER_00

That's one of the things that I mean, that's one of the things that I've talked to people about. And that's one of the things I do. And when people come to me and they're like, Oh, I'm great, I've got it on. I'm like, okay, awesome. Have you planned what's gonna happen when your cash flow is lower in certain months? Well, I don't know when it'll be lower. Right. And you haven't forecasted, you haven't looked at the trends, you haven't, and they're like, why would I do that?

SPEAKER_01

And I'm I'll be honest, for most because for most businesses, for most of the small businesses, I know forecasting wouldn't help them. Because they don't have any kind of sales system or process that is repeatable. So they don't the historical data doesn't tell the truth, it just tells you what happened every month last year. You get what I'm saying? So, like if I say, okay, let me pull your last three years of PL so I can look at the trends, and I look in all three years, their sales are low in October. I can ask you, what goes on in October? Seems like you have a dip every year in October. Most people can't tell you what activity they did. What was your sales activity in August or September? Most of them can't tell you what it was. And so you can forecast for them to have another low October, but if they can't tell you why October was low, there's no, you see what I'm saying? Like I find that forecasting is difficult for companies that don't have any kind of recurring revenue. They don't have a locked-in sales system, they don't run any kind of campaigns. We have campaigns that are scheduled on a certain cadence. We have a quarterly sales challenge. We've only missed one quarter, so we've run it five times, right? So, like, we know we're gonna have a pop at the end of March for the one that starts in April, at the end of June for the one that starts in July, at the end of September for the one that starts in October, and the entire month of December because people are like on that new year, new me to start in January. So we know at minimum when our pops are going to be.

SPEAKER_00

But a lot of them just pops actually will lead to other things.

SPEAKER_01

They will lead to other things. But if you don't have the thing, right? Right. But if you don't, if it's milch and you don't know what you're gonna sell the rest of the year or when, how could you forecast? So you run into that issue with people. It's not that they're not willing, it's that their their marketing and sales system are so chaotic that frankly it's a guess every month how much money they're going to make. For people like that, actually tend to just go with historically and reduce it by 20%.

SPEAKER_00

Because they don't know that I don't and and then and then help them build a system in place so that, like you said, you know, have a cadence and build a system in place so that you can forecast here. Y'all, this is important because the fact that if you if you're able to have a cadence, get a cadence in place, and then you're able to forecast, you're gonna be able to pay yourself and take care of your team if there is a slow month or a slow quarter or whatever, because you're going to have money allocated in these places for it and you're planning accordingly. I had a client, they were y'all, they were launching every as an old client, but they were launching every single month, like literally spending thousands and thousands of dollars on Facebook ads and launching because they had to turn around and pay their team, but they could with the money that they brought in thousands and thousands of dollars too, but they had to offset the ads they ran, pay their team so they had turn around and launch again. It was like a never ending cycle. It's a never ending cycle.

SPEAKER_01

It's a never-ending cycle. Well, and this is an unpopular opinion, but in the beginning, you can't afford to pay these huge retainers for someone to run your ads. And I know it's hard, trust me. I struggle with attaching a document to an email. I sold my iMac because I couldn't find where any of my shit was. So don't, don't I can't. I look, I'm gonna be I can't do Canva to save my life, okay?

SPEAKER_00

You would never try that. Either. Yeah. I can, but it'll pay either. I'm glad you can.

SPEAKER_02

I can't.

SPEAKER_00

Like I can't. I I try and it look I can't. I have someone who does it for me, and I will gladly pay her. But I'm saying that's what it's keeping doing for me.

SPEAKER_01

And I think in the beginning, it's wise for people to figure out what ads look like for them and try to run them themselves, get them a local incubator, because if you're trying to pay an agency five or six thousand a month plus a thousand or two or three in ad spend, the ROI would have to be huge just for you to break even by the time you pay that fee. Not to mention, in the early stages, most people don't have a funnel that makes sense for ads. Like for years, I sold everything myself. I sold it on sales calls, I sold it on in Facebook posts, right? I didn't really need people to download a lead magnet or take a quiz. I didn't really need to email them 20 or 30 times before they they sold or bought something. Now the marketplace has changed. It takes more touches. So I would never want to start with a ton of paid touches, not knowing if the free stuff works. So then you got to rule out what's this phone look like free? Like, can I get these people? Can I get people to take the quiz for free? Can I get people to do the lead magnet for free? Can I get people to come to my event for free? And if those things work, then you can start running ads. So I I'll see very lopsided spending. And then people go, ads don't work. And so, well, they do, but they do take testing for sure.

SPEAKER_00

And you're gonna have to like take time.

SPEAKER_01

It takes time and it takes testing. And if you don't have the money, it's like gambling, not the end that you lose money, but in that a lot of people quit before they get their money back, right? So you gotta be able to stay in it long enough to get an ROI, and that could be weeks, that could be months. And in the meantime, do you have enough cash flow to stay afloat, which is always a sales function? That's why I don't call myself a sales coach anymore. It's really about identity. Are you willing to step into the identity of the type of person who's not gonna run a business that runs out of money? And that's a decision. Oh, I love that decision. Are you gonna run a business that runs out of money or yeah?

SPEAKER_00

That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_01

So if you decide I'm not running a business that runs out of money, okay. Well, then you're gonna have to make different decisions than people who eight. You see this, you're a money person. At least 80% of businesses that go out of business ran out of money. That is what that is.

SPEAKER_00

They were spending more money than faster than they were getting it in.

SPEAKER_01

But that's well, and to their credit, that's what in the online coaching industry and all adjacent industries, people are being taught to spend money before they make it, do a rebrand, buy a website, run ads, and go to conferences and go to retreats.

SPEAKER_00

And I mean, most of these retreats are just thousand dollars to work with me, and then you'll make as much money as I did.

SPEAKER_01

And it doesn't happen. So if you put people in this habit of spending before they earn, they don't realize that there's another option. I'm basically at this point only funding through cash flow. So if we don't have cash flow, we're not paid. You. We have leverage and we have liquidity, meaning we have a credit card and we have a cash reserve. You can't have either of them. If we do not have the cash flow in the month that you are requesting payment, the answer is no. Because you can deceive yourself by running up credit and you can run your cash reserve down if your cash flow is not able to support. So somebody want $5,000. Great. If there's an extra $5,000 in the cash flow and it's in the forecast, it will happen. And that's actually a really powerful place to be. It takes the emotion out of buying. It's not, oh, but I like this person. Oh, but I think it'll work. It stops all of that. Now it's very much, hey, on every $100,000 we make, $40, $40,000 goes to Natalie and pay, you know, $20,000 of it goes to team, $10,000 of it goes to marketing, $6,000 of it. Like we have a list. And so every $100,000, this is where that money gets deployed. Period.

SPEAKER_00

I love that.

SPEAKER_01

And so I don't have to, I don't, I don't get compelled to buy stuff I don't need. If I go online and I see where someone's selling something, I'm like, okay, what category does this go in? Is this a marketing offer? Is this a team person? Is this personal development? Is it professional development? Is it financial management? Is it legal and risk? What bucket is it in? Great. Let's pull up our forecast. Is there money in the forecast left for the year? For me, there is because we're really early in the year. I look at the price of the offer. I look at the amount in the bucket. If there's less in the bucket than the price of the offer, it's a no. Maybe it's a next time. And that's why I tell people stop launching offers one time. Because there's people like me who probably are going to buy it, but I might buy it two or three rounds from now. There's a risk coach I've been wanting to work with, and she runs a program that's around $12,000. And I consider that to be personal development. But I didn't have $12K in my personal development budget at the time she was running this program. The old Natalie would have said, I'll go sell something. I'll go make $12,000 and give it to her. But that's kind of cheating the forecast, right? Just because I went out and made an extra $12,000 doesn't mean all of it should have gone in the personal development bucket. Exactly. It should have gotten spread out with all the rest of the money. And so, like, I've been gotten more disciplined myself to say, you know what? How about? And if my budget, let's say my budget's $6,000 and it's never going to be enough for this program that's $12,000, right? I can say, okay, Natalie, for the next year, I'm willing to put an extra $500 a month into my personal development budget. So next year it is $12,000 and I can buy what I want. But I think between not being taught these things, I think between that and the fear that most people have around money and perceiving themselves to be bad at managing money, that's why people overspend. Having that much money makes them nervous. People have $100,000 launches and they spend it all in two weeks because they think no matter what I do with that money, it's better than sitting in my account. It's better than me trusting myself with it. So I think between those things and the deep, deep revenue dip that most people are in, this is why we're seeing these kind of outsource behaviors. People want a win so badly that they will buy things that maybe don't create an ROI for their company, but make them feel better in the moment. That's what you got to be careful about.

SPEAKER_00

Well, and and you know, I've been honest with everybody about like she and I'm and I hope I'm saying this. I'm I agree with making sure that you're not overspending and having the buckets. Like I talk buckets like all the time, and I love the way you have that. I also know that sometimes we have as businesses, we may have to touch a line of credit or we may have to touch the credit card. And I know Natalie understands this, and that is y'all, I've never I've never shied away from this. I maybe a lot of uh money mentors, wealth mentors, and many people may say, Why are you saying that? Because people need to understand I'm human and no offense, but shit happens. Yeah, and in 2024, how my business stayed in business, the end of 2024 and sum of 2025 was my line of credit. That is how it stayed in business when I got hit. It was choosing to stay in business that way or go to corporate. And I have said I am not going back to corporate, and I mean it.

SPEAKER_01

It's not for everybody.

SPEAKER_00

So you have to you have you have to well, and and it's not for everybody, and there's nothing against anyone who's decided to go back and run the business. That is not where I'm going. For me, I have two neurodivergent kids, one is special needs with mental health disorder. She's got autistic. I need to be here. Yeah. So going and working on the street. You've got other stuff going on. That it it it won't work.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And I also did it diligently. Now, do I want to invest now? Absolutely. There's a coach that I want to work with like so bad right now that it's not funny. Okay. Um, not funny. She's gonna help with the membership thing. Am I investing right now? No. And I actually very conversation.

SPEAKER_02

If you've running around, I had a conversation with her about it.

SPEAKER_01

And I think that's where people made their mistake. People spent their lines of credit and credit cards on wants. So now they have needs and their stuff is maxed out.

SPEAKER_00

Right. And I spend it on needs and and I want to work for this coach. And and I know they'll be an RLI. Now, what we've done is we've made a plan, okay? Because I'm also in the middle of buying a house. So capacity-wise and credit-wise, and all, you know, and all the cash flow. If I don't have it in cash flow, I'm not doing it because I'm not gonna do anything to jeopardize the deal in the house. And I'm still trying to pay down that business line of credit, okay? Not trying, I'm paying down that business line of credit. So I don't want to do anything to jeopardize any of that. So what we're doing is she was said that she was pretty sure she was gonna do it in the fall. So what she's done is she's locked me in for the fall. So we have this agreement, and I put a very small amount down, and I'm able to make this little payment. I what I did is she says, I'm gonna make it to where you can make multiple payments just across the case.

SPEAKER_01

As Medicanian, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

As my cash flow because I'm serious. She knows I'm serious.

SPEAKER_01

Yep.

SPEAKER_00

And I'm not gonna give you a thousand dollars to hold a spot when if I need that cash flow right now because I need to make sure everything else is taken care of, and I'm not going to put it on a credit card, even if it's a business credit card, when I am in the middle of buying a house. Yeah. Right? There's things that you have to look at. And and I agree with you, Natalie, that people don't take the time to have a money date with themselves and look at it and just be honest with yourself about what's going on with your money and business and personal.

SPEAKER_01

But they haven't been taught to. You know, most people were raised by parents who never talked about money. And that's because they were raised by parents who never talked about money. Exactly. And so, like, I feel like people just fall into their habit. If you're gonna stay in business, you will have to change your habit. You cannot make a decision to decide right.

SPEAKER_00

It goes back, it goes back to your identity.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, you'll have to. You have to. You will not be able to identify as bad.

SPEAKER_00

Now you and I've got to have another conversation later.

SPEAKER_01

You will not be able to identify as bad with money if you're going to stay in business. That's not an idea like it might be true for you right now, but you cannot maintain that identity and also run a successful business. It is now impossible. You cannot do it.

SPEAKER_00

You have you have to make a decision.

SPEAKER_01

You have to make a decision that you can look at your stuff and be honest about what it can do for you and what you how you can improve. And you know, a lot of us are emotional spenders, right? So, like, I don't allow myself to drink. Especially women. Yeah, I don't allow myself to drink alcohol when I am sad or angry or tired. That's my parameter. Pretty much the same with spending now, right? Um, I also don't allow myself to buy anything between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. because I'm supposed to be sleep.

SPEAKER_00

So while I'm uh buying, see, I don't allow myself to buy, I'm the same way between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. And if I really want something and I and I'm looking at it, it has to stay there for 24 hours. And if I'm thinking, if I still want it in 24 hours, like it's I wish my brain, then I will go and do it.

SPEAKER_01

And I'll be honest with you. There is a purse that I saw, it's a Fendi bag, it's $12,100. It is cream, it is ostrich. Um, they only made about $300 in the entire U.S. And I have been thinking about that purse every single day since my husband and I were in New York. I had an event in New York and it was hot. July, August. I've been thinking about that purse every single day since. So unfortunately, the if you're still thinking about it.

SPEAKER_00

No brain is it a majority of the time something else has come up and I haven't thought about it or didn't remember that it was in my cart. Okay, so it does.

SPEAKER_01

See, I don't have ADHD. Maybe this is one of the few times. I don't either. I don't either. It's my car decided out of mind. I forget about it and think of something else. And I'm like, I wish I could forget about all the stuff that I really want to buy. But for me, it's like weight and it has to be in the budget. And so, like, could I buy the purse? Yes. Would it be responsible to buy the purse? No. And so I'm and you're disciplined enough.

SPEAKER_00

You are disciplined enough. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01

Then that's what's stressful because a lot of people, especially folks who had lump sum savings, like I do, please. They would have bought that bag in New York. It would already be home with them.

SPEAKER_00

But see, and I'm like you, I had I have the discipline. Even if I wanted it, even if I had it in the savings, I'd be like, yeah, can I buy it? Yes. Is it a responsible thing to do? No. Okay, well, then I'm not buying it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, at all. Like, it's just not in your best interest. And I I won't say I'm paranoid, but I like to have a buffer. I like to have something set aside. I like to live below my means because life happens. Your partner could get sick.

SPEAKER_00

COVID has taught, if COVID's taught us anything, it's that anything can happen. And we need to, and that's the reason why I talk about these buckets. We need to have rainy day savings. We need to have, if you own a house, you need to have, I don't like calling it emergency fund. I think I tell people you need to have, I well, I have several. I have a repair fund. There, that means there's gonna be money in that in that account for repairs for things that are gonna go. Like that.

SPEAKER_01

I have a maintenance fund too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Right. And then there's gonna be a maintenance fund. That's gonna be your water, that's gonna be your um heating and air, that's gonna be the things that are gonna have to be maintained, right? I don't put them all together because our brains, if we see the word majority of the time, our brains, if we see the word emergency, then you could decipher anything being an emergency. True. So what I say is have separate accounts. I don't like the word emergency.

SPEAKER_01

The word emergency because you've never had a positive emergency, right? Thanks for the emergency is always negative, ever. And so I would rather just call it what it is. This is our home maintenance fund. Just call it what it is. That's what I said.

SPEAKER_00

I have a home I have a home repair fund, a home maintenance fund, I have a car for a car maintenance fund, which is car, that's car repair size, car maintenance, and that's the sales tax. Then I have a uh fur baby fund, and that's for the fur babies. And now, does that mean if I have to take them to that the emergency vet? Yes, that includes emergency vet, that includes yearly visits, but it's not called that. Do you say and it's really important to have these separate accounts because our brains go, oh, that's what that money's for, and we're less likely to touch it. What's one of the things that we can do to step into that new identity?

SPEAKER_01

Um, I think for most people, it's really deciding the life that they want. I think a lot of people run from what they don't want. You, you know, they don't want to go back to corporate. Um, they don't want to be dependent on a partner or spouse. They, you know, they know what they don't want. But what do you want? How are you architecting the life you actually desire? Like not what you're trying to escape, not the best that you hate.

SPEAKER_00

So there's a difference in looking at not like for me, when I said I don't want to go back to corporate, there's a difference in looking at not wanting to go back to corporate versus the idea of the corporate. What you actually do want. Right.

SPEAKER_01

It's not that you just don't want to go to corporate. You actually want to be well funded in a business that lights you up, that lets you serve people and pays you really well. You want to be well compensated like that. Right? It's not that you just don't want to go to corporate because you're not in corporate now, but that doesn't mean you have what you want, right? And so I think sometimes we're focused on what we don't want, and our subconscious minds don't understand, don't and not, and won't. None of those words mean anything to your subconscious. So when you say, you know, like you'll you'll meet people who will say, you know, anything but but surgery. I want anything but bankruptcy, anything but foreclosure. And when you say these words, you bring that stuff into your life because your brain is not hearing the but and the not, it's just hearing the noun that you focus on. I remember when my stepdad was an EMT and I was young. I had just learned how to drive. And he asked me, what is the most dangerous place? What did I think was the most dangerous place at the site of a wreck? And I told him, obviously, the cars that were in the wreck, right? The car that got hit is the most, that's the danger, the impact. The point of impact is the most dangerous point. He said, No, it's the people driving past the wreck. I said, How could the people driving past the wreck be in a worse position than the people in the wreck? He said, because of bottle, he said, because of rubber necking. People who are passing the neck take their iron roll and look at the wreck. So they're looking at the wreck in the ditch. He said, but if you're looking in the ditch, you're driving in the ditch. And then he told me that the people driving past the wreck are twice as likely to die than the people in the wreck. It is more fatal to drive past an automobile wreck than to be. Because you're not paying attention. Because you're not driving towards what you want. You're looking at the wreck, not you're.

SPEAKER_00

I don't want this, I don't want that. And instead of paying attention to where you're going, you end up exactly with that.

SPEAKER_01

You end up exactly with that because that's what you fixated yourself on. So instead of fixating on not being broke, fixate on being rich.

SPEAKER_02

Damn, I've been doing the exact same thing.

SPEAKER_00

Y'all, I'm calling myself out.

SPEAKER_02

Look at you, you're so cute.

SPEAKER_01

But I'm saying it's calling myself out because I've been doing it. It's how you're raised. We're trained to do these things. Like instead of not wanting to be sick, you should want to be well and decide what well means. Most of my life have been overweight because I've seen myself as a fat person on a diet. Well, if you see yourself as a fat person on a diet, you're always going to be a fat personal diet. Well, you really ought to instead, how can I be a healthy person? How can I be an athlete? How can I be a person who enjoys exercise? How can I be a person who enjoys healthy food? Not just how do I stop being fat and how do I stop being sick and how do I stop feeling like crap?

SPEAKER_00

Well, and that works too because of the fact that when I was overweight, obesity runs in my family, and I always saw, well, everybody is obese in my family. I'm always gonna be obese in my family. I'm gonna be obese too. I'm never gonna have the energy to do this.

SPEAKER_01

We make all these decisions and we go, this is just how it is. Everyone in my family is big, and I'm gonna be big, and that's just okay.

SPEAKER_00

Yep. Even if it's in 2017, right, and then in 2017, I said, enough. And I hired my trainer, and I'm not perfect, but I've not looked back. I lost the weight. Now, I did not lose it overnight. Fair we we did this the right way, okay? We did this the right way. Not all the ways that I've done it before. We did this time the right way.

SPEAKER_01

We're talking about that. I don't know why overnight success is so popular. I don't understand why it's a good thing.

SPEAKER_00

Well, because of the same thing about people all of a sudden watching a program and now they've got 500k. People think they make money overnight too. Yeah, but why but why would you even want that?

SPEAKER_01

Like, let's let's think about humans, right? Humans do not adapt to rapid change very well. In generally, right? When you look at societies that made it, ancient societies and ancient societies that didn't make it, the ones that had rapid change, new diseases they didn't understand, new crops, a meteor, right? Anytime there was a big, striking overnight check, it killed everybody. Like we have never, as a human species, done well with rapid change. So I've never figured out why it is so enticing for people to get rich. I don't know, get skinny quick. Why is there why is that even enticing? Frankly, to me, change is scary. I would rather gradually change. I would rather change that my brain can catch up to, that my body can catch up to, that my eyes can catch up to, that my skin can catch up to, than to say I had this overnight change, this overnight success. Most people, if you gave them a billion dollars right now, would be back blank in a year or two. It's the lottery winner. Well, and that's a good all the time.

SPEAKER_02

And it's because their identity couldn't catch up to that money. Their financial couldn't catch up to that money.

SPEAKER_01

So they need all that money, they win that money, and they lose it because it's too drastic of a change too fast. They would have been much better off earning a little bit more every year, becoming a little bit more financially literate, having a greater understanding, reading a few books every year, putting money in savings, investing in the stock market, getting over that fear. Most people have a fear of the stock market. If you put $1,000 and you let it sit there for five years and now it's worth thousands of dollars, now you're not afraid of the stock market. So now when you win the lottery, you could probably actually keep it. But it's it's interesting that people desire this rapid change. They're like, oh, I can't wait to get this plastic surge. I'm at a brand new body tomorrow. Why is that appealing? Why would you want a brand new body tomorrow? And people wonder why they have body dysmorphia is because your brain is confused. It can't figure out. Well, it was 200 pounds yesterday and now it's 150. You you used to look like Lizzo and now you look like Corda B. That's probably confusing for anybody's brain. Like, why is that attractive? And so I think one thing we really need to look at behaviorally, how much change can I tolerate? And how can I make sure that I keep my nervous system regulated as I move into this new identity? I grew up lower middle class. My mom was a school teacher, and my dad was not in the picture for most of my life. And my stepfather was a firefighter in an EMT, and they don't pay those very well either.

SPEAKER_00

You you you were in the lower middle class. I was in the lower middle class. Most of my life. I was low, I was lower middle class, middle class, slash lower, lower middle class.

SPEAKER_01

Just enough to not be able to qualify for food stamps and stuff. Like just enough for them to say y'all aren't poor. Right. Like 10,000 above that. And so, like, it's always been interesting to me when people are like, Yeah, I can't wait to be rich. And it's like, have you built any kind of rich habits? Have you built any kind of nervous system like security? Or are you just gonna go out and try to make a whole bunch of money and hope that your brain and your body can handle it? So I think there's a lot of things, and hopefully having these types of conversations will normalize what it looks like to step into a wealth identity and step out of your middle class identity and your middle class habits that will absolutely keep you from the success that you want.

SPEAKER_00

I hope so. I we're gonna have to stop because y'all, she and I could go on because I have like all kinds of things I want to talk to her about. So I'm gonna beg her to come back on. I will beg her to come back. Um, I'm sure I don't have to beg her because, like I said, she's she's a really good friend of mine. Y'all, if today's conversation hit a nerve for you, and if you've been making more money, but you're still feeling like something isn't adding up, then I'm inviting you to go and sign up for my free seven money pitfalls email series, okay? Because entrepreneurs don't have a revenue problem, they have a clarity, strategy, and management problem, like we were talking about today. And then that identity and making sure this aligned with your values and what your nervous system can handle is really, really important. So I'm hoping y'all have that, you're getting that takeaway. So go sign up using the link that's in the show notes. And until next time, remember, as I always say, confidence and cash are the ultimate power duo. Go check in with your money, and as always, have a fantastic and wealthy day.