In this episode, we tackle the often-taboo topic of…money, money, money…mo-ney! 💰 Specifically, money blocks – those pesky limiting beliefs that can hold us back in business. We share our personal experiences with money narratives that shaped our views on wealth and success. From feeling guilty about charging for work we love, to the fear of being perceived as "slimy" when selling, we get real about how these beliefs can impact our businesses.
You’ll hear us discuss the importance of recognizing these narratives and how they can affect your mindset and performance. If you've ever felt stuck in your relationship with money or unsure about how to confidently ask for what you deserve, this episode is for you! Join us as we unpack these themes and encourage you to check in on your own money mindset. Let’s break those blocks together!
🌟
-
Understanding Money Blocks: Money blocks are limiting beliefs and behaviors that can hinder your ability to earn and ask for money. Recognizing these blocks is the first step toward overcoming them.
Personal Narratives Matter: Money narratives shaped by our upbringing can influence adult perceptions of wealth and success.
Selling is Helping: Selling doesn’t have to be a slimy or uncomfortable act. Instead, when you focus on providing solutions and helping others, you can shift your mindset around sales.
The Importance of Mindset: Mindset plays a crucial role in your business success. Feeling confident and positive about what you offer can significantly impact how others perceive you and your services.
Undercharging: Many people assume they need to charge lower rates until they gain more experience. However, it’s essential to recognize your worth and not undervalue your skills, as there are always clients willing to pay for quality services.
-
Identify Your Money Blocks: Reflect on your personal beliefs and narratives around money. Consider how these beliefs may be affecting your business decisions and overall mindset. Write down any limiting beliefs you recognize.
Challenge Undercharging: If you find yourself undercharging for your services, evaluate your qualifications and experience. Research market rates for your industry and consider adjusting your pricing to reflect your true value.
Reframe Selling: Shift your perspective on selling from being a slimy or uncomfortable experience to viewing it as an opportunity to help others. Practice articulating how your services provide solutions and benefits to potential clients.
Invest in Yourself: Assess your willingness to invest in your personal and professional development. Identify areas where you can seek coaching or training to enhance your skills and confidence in selling.
Join a Supportive Community: Engage with others who are also working through their money narratives. Consider joining Lisa’s “Tools for Coaches” or Brea’s podcast listener meetups to share experiences and strategies for overcoming money blocks.
-
Lisa: I'm Lisa.
Brea: I'm Brea.
Lisa: And today, oh, we're talking about money, money, money, money.
null: Money.
Brea: I was like, oh, this is so high.
Lisa: I got my silly voice on. I can hit the high notes with my silly voice. Money.
Brea: I love it.
Lisa: Money blocks.
Brea: Oh, money blocks. Okay, I am here for this. Yes. This is real, folks.
Lisa: This is real. It's getting real. What are money blocks? I mean, let's say I would define this as limiting beliefs around money. I would define it as behaviors you make in your business that are driven from a money narrative that may not be serving you or your business? Yeah, that's good. How would you define these?
Brea: I mean, maybe what blocks me from making money? Hey, yeah. Yeah. What blocks me from making money, from asking for money, from selling? Yeah. What are those blocks?
Lisa: Well, you said it's about to get real. So if we're going to talk business owner money blocks, why don't we just get open and share the ones we've dealt with personally so that people can see we're humans who deal with stuff too. And then we can happily share, since we've both worked with many coaches, some of the trends in the narratives that we hear from our clients.
Brea: Yeah. I mean, gosh, already I'm feeling it, you know? Like money touches everything. Money makes the world go round, right? I mean, love makes the world go round, but really money makes the world go round, you know? And if you have it, it affects your mindset. And if you don't have it, it affects your mindset. And if you need it, it affects your mindset, which mindset affects performance. Like there's just, so much where the money block, it's not the money. Money is not the thing. The selling, not the thing. It's something underneath that that blocks us from asking for it or from believing that we deserve it. That's what comes to my mind first, is that it's not about the money. There's something else underneath that is the block.
Lisa: Yeah. Oh, yeah. As you said that, I was thinking of acceptance, and I know that has been a thing in my career with the family that I grew up in. Now, my parents were luckily not wealth haters or anything like that, so I didn't get those money block narratives where I would think I'm an evil person if I made money. But I did grow up in a pretty poor area and it was not going to be celebrated if somebody was successful. And I do, I live a charmed life right now. I have a couple of houses. I live in Texas part-time. I live in Colorado part-time. I live in the RV when the weather isn't great in either of those. I mean, I live an amazing life. And I really, as I was coming into that and coming into success, I did a lot of things to minimize it and I would always be the one, like if I went back to visit my family in the Midwest, they would be like, did you fly or drive? And I knew the correct answer was drive because flying was something people did when they had money. And so if I flew, I would say, oh, I have points because work paid for so many trips. So, I would minimize to be accepted. I didn't really realize, of course, at the time I was trying to be accepted, but I was trying to give the acceptable answer. And what I realize now on the other side of it is that the narrative that was the money block for me is probably some version of toil is respectful, but eating bonbons by the pool is not. So, any version of like, oh, must be nice, you can just go hang out over there without the hard work. So, this thing of toil and hard work, it's been really difficult to shake because it's always felt good to work hard, work long. And there's been a resistance over the years to figure out like, what would the easy button be? What would it look like to not have to work so hard for money? I didn't really even want to explore that for a long time. And I think that's why, that acceptance. So that's been my money block, probably the biggest one over my lifetime.
Brea: Oh, there's so much there. There's so much there. I relate with that so much. Also from the Midwest. Hey, Kansas City. Hey. Also from a hardworking family. I'm the oldest of eight kids. Everybody that listens to the podcast knows that I have an enormous Catholic family. My dad worked and my mom stayed home. So one income for all of those mouths and five boys, four of them were teenagers at the same time. So, I mean, I'm painting the picture, right? Okay. I mean, I don't remember a time when we felt that we didn't have enough, right? But I knew that we didn't have a lot, you know, and I knew that we had to be careful. And my mom is amazing. at what she was able to do with so little. I've learned so many hacks from her as far as how to save and how to ration and how to just like get the most out of everything. And also that kind of messes with your psyche a little bit, you know, when now as an adult, I really want to have this abundance mindset. And I can tell sometimes that that scarcity mindset that I grew up with and just because money was scarce, you know, still like creeps in as an adult. So it's interesting. Yeah.
Lisa: How do you see it creep into things you say in your business, ways you act in your business? How do you see it really showing up? Things you say?
Brea: Well, you know, the thing that's coming to mind is actually before I started my business, when I was a missionary for four years, I fundraised my entire income. And that was so crazy, going to people and asking them to give me their paycheck, basically, right? A part of their paycheck to pay me to do my work. Such a, such a strange, thing. And I remember it bothered me so much, hello communication, where words really matter, when people would say, oh, we just can't, or we don't have it, we don't have the money. And I just remember thinking, yes, you do. Everyone does. You just are choosing to spend it somewhere else, you know, and not in a not in a judgment way. Like, sorry if it came out that way, because that's not the intention of like, you should give it to me. Just didn't like. Yeah. Like we all have money. So. I think hearing other people tell me that every day for four years really made me aware of when I used those words, where I found myself making excuses and not really taking agency in my own choices. So, in a lot of ways, but especially around money.
Lisa: Tell me about, in the clients you've worked with, what is, let's say, the number one money block you hear when they're experiencing their own narratives about money?
Brea: Well, the same thing. We don't have the budget. Yes, you do. You just chose to use it somewhere else.
Lisa: Yeah, exactly. I'd say my number one from the coach, trainer, speaker, business owner perspective is some version of the stereotypical slimy salesperson. where they're like, I'm totally comfortable with delivering the service that I sell. But offering the service in a sales capacity feels completely uncomfortable. And I worry about being judged. And that whole process feels totally off. That is a, in my opinion, it's a money block because it's when the money conversation comes up that everything changes in their mind and suddenly they're uncomfortable with the service they offer.
Brea: Yeah. Why do you think that is? Like what's the thing under the thing?
Lisa: There has to be something about being perceived and judged and maybe they have listened to sales stereotypes, like maybe they've experienced the, you know, I don't want to pick on the used car salesman, but everyone knows that metaphor where it's pushy and it's inauthentic and it's one-sided and selfish because they're just trying to line their pocket. I think there's something about that judgment, but I don't think I mean, the vast majority of coaches and trainers and speakers, we get into this work because we have some beautiful message or some beautiful mindset shift or some beautiful thing we have to offer the world and it comes from a genuine place. So then there has to be a narrative under that about how they fear being judged because I don't think they're icky. My clients aren't slimy. My clients aren't one-sided. My clients aren't all out for the money, but not out for the service. They're out to serve. Sometimes I'll ask people, they're like, I don't want to feel pushy and slimy. And I'll be like, are you a slimy person? And they're like, well, no.
Brea: It's such an interesting conversation because we know that's true. I mean, anyone listening is like, yeah, duh, of course. But we don't feel that. It's a battle in our brains to believe that. And I wonder if part of it comes from when you are the product, as a service provider, it's me that people are buying. Perception matters because it's not just how they perceive you as a salesperson. You want them to perceive you as someone they can trust, someone that they can partner with and work with for a long time, someone that they can refer to their friends. I mean, there's so much wrapped up in how they perceive you. And it's just too easy to wrap that up with our own identity.
Lisa: Yeah. Oh, I think the audience will really resonate with that. I just delivered a training yesterday where someone brought up exactly that point where you said, it's me. She raised that idea like, so when a no is a rejection of me, it feels like It feels that way. Right. Versus is it a fit or not? It's just a rejection that it's not a fit right now for whatever various reasons. And I think I would lead into another money block and it is this thing I hear from coaches and trainers and speakers when they're newer in the business. And it's, I'm not going to charge market rates until I'm more experienced. So there's this thing, there's this waiting, I'm not ready yet, I'm not good enough yet, some of that underlying stuff. And on one hand, I can totally appreciate it. Like, okay, if you feel like you're in the apprentice phase, charge apprentice rates, it's all great. But for a lot of people, like we're talking about someone who already spent 15 years being in talent development, they've been delivering and these amazing corporate audiences, they have a PhD in industrial organizational psychology, they're ready. They're ready. They're hedging and that thing feels comfortable to be like, I'm going to discount, I'm going to charge less, I'm going to get in. So it's always relative. Number one, if you think, oh my gosh, who am I to charge $300 for a coaching session? It's one hour of my time. When I was in corporate, if you translated my salary, it would come down to this, it would be less. You can come up with these rationalizations. And meanwhile, there's a person next door to you who is charging $3,000 for a one hour virtual training. And there's someone next door to them charging $30,000 for their program. And I bring up that relative thing. I'm always talking about adding zeros, dropping zeros. And if you really search around, I mean, there are plenty of speakers. I am not exaggerating. There are plenty of speakers who charge $30,000 for a speech. It's for 45 minutes or an hour. And people gladly exchange the money for that. So Then saying how could I charge $300 for an hour sounds absurd related to $30,000. So there's always someone relative who will be willing to charge less, who will be willing to charge more, who is presumably like more able to command those rates because of experience, exposure, whatever they've done to build their business, market their business, et cetera. So it's not a, logical thing that I'm not going to charge rates until I'm more experienced for most people. The beginner rate kind of thing. I think it's a fallacy. I think most people we work with are ready and they've been ready a long time and it's just a way to feel comfortable. And then of course you anchor your clients in those low rates forever and it's kind of brings its own things to, to, um, overcome later, which can be a pricing episode conversation.
Brea: Yeah, undercharging is such a, that's such a big money block. And there are so many reasons why people undercharge. You know, I don't feel good enough. That sounds to me like a shadow side of responsibility or learner or, you know, some of these themes that really value excellence. And they see that there's so much more that they can learn, so many more certifications that they could have. So to you, it might seem like you're not ready, right? My experience in nonprofit spaces There's a lot of money blocks that I see from coaches who just expect, they just assume that the nonprofit can't pay or the church can't pay. Let me tell you. I've worked with some nonprofits that have more expendable income than a lot of for-profit organizations, businesses, companies, because they have to spend it every year. There's a deadline, you know? Yeah, it's interesting the blocks that we put in, whether it's because of my upbringing thinking like, oh, because we were poor, everybody's poor, right? I never had money, so I don't know that other people have money, right? If $100 feels like a lot to me, because I never saw a $100 bill until, I don't know when, but I mean,
Lisa: But that's that relative thing. Yeah. That's right. For one person, a hundred dollar bill is a ton of money. For the next person, their parents had a hundred dollar bill dispenser. Anytime they needed it, it was just a little bit. So it depends.
Brea: I love how you're bringing this up. You can't expect or assume because you just don't know and you don't know until you ask. And what do you say, Lisa, about asking?
Lisa: What do I say? Do I have a saying about asking that I've forgotten? You don't ask, the answer is no. Yeah, the answer is no. Yes, I do have a saying, I forgot.
Brea: Yeah, if you don't ask, the answer is no.
Lisa: That's right. Oh, I love how you've twisted this into like a full continuum because I was thinking very much about that person who has that underlying I'm not worthy element, but you know, you don't realize that, but that's a lot of times that's what's underneath. this thing about not charging market rates. And you have this full continuum you've revealed all the way over to just simple assumptions. And funny enough, this came up in the same workshop I was talking about that I delivered yesterday. Somebody mentioned that very thing about nonprofits. If you've grown up in that world, you might assume no one has money. But I know personally from my business, although I didn't specialize in nonprofits, I have a lot of them on my client roster. And some of them came across as like really struggling for funds and others came across as absolutely flush with funds and would say as much and what I expressed to this person yesterday was the thing about nonprofits that's so cool is they're so used to fundraising. They're so open about saying, I don't have money for that, that if you offer your actual market rate and they don't have money for that, that's what they're going to say. They're not going to run away and say, oh, I'm going to ghost this person and never respond if you've built some rapport and they like you. They're going to say, Oh my gosh, we don't have that budget at all. We were expecting them to spend X. They tell you they're one of the most upfront markets I've ever been around. So why offer something tiny, making an assumption upfront.
Brea: Yes. And also what I'm, in my experience, they are very upfront. They'll say, we don't have the money and I can come back and say, okay, great. Where can you get it? Because they are very comfortable with fundraising. They, that's how they get all of their money. So if they don't have it now, they have a list of, you know, thousands of donors that It's got to be one person on that list that is passionate about you know, supporting whatever it is You know talent development for for the team so it's almost easier for them to add things into the budget that aren't already there because Because they can you know, it's very different that way then different than a corporate budget. That's like locked in, you know So far in advance and there's just no No to little wiggle room, you know Yes, yeah, I think this is a fun tour.
Lisa: I like the idea that we all Experience money we all exchange money We all have a narrative on money whether it's absolute abundance or absolute scarcity and all the things in between and they're not static. Sometimes they change depending on where we are in our lives and different phases. And it's a great one to check in on and just ask yourself, do you have any money narratives going on right now that you think are getting in the way of your life goals, your business goals, and what could it look like to work on that block?
Brea: Yeah. So I'll summarize by, Just kind of summarizing the blocks that I think we identified, undercharging for whatever reason, a fear of selling, maybe because of rejection or even I don't know how to do it. We didn't talk about that, but I think a lot of people, they've seen it done poorly and they don't know how to do it well. So there's a fear there of selling. I would call my early comments about having a resistance to investing in yourself, investing in your business, you know, that feels luxurious when we need to just kind of cover our survival first. And then I wish we could do, maybe we'll do a whole nother episode on this idea that work has to be hard. Right, and there's so much guilt that people carry. We're making money doing something that you love and this is the core of strengths is that you can and you you should if I may should on our listeners we We should be able to do what we love every day and sometimes we feel guilty getting paid for that.
Lisa: So Right a lot of money blocks that I heard Yeah, I would add I'm not ready. That one is kind of the undertone on the, I'm not going to charge market rate yet, but I will maybe someday in the future later.
Brea: Yes.
Lisa: And those who decided that selling is slimy and therefore they get a money block around it because they won't open their mind to the opposite that selling is helping.
Brea: Yeah. So find someone else to sell for you. If really you can't get around it, then don't try. Because here's the thing is that when you show up and you aren't confident in yourself or in your business, nobody is going to buy from you. Nobody wants that, right? You are the one person that should be most confident about what you're selling. And so if you're not feeling confident for whatever reason, there are other things in your personal life that are affecting how you're feeling that day. It's important to make sure that you've slept and that you've drank water and you've moved your body and you've gotten some sunshine, like all of those things affect your energy and and how you feel and how you're thinking about yourself and your business. And that all comes into your sales calls. So mindset is a huge part of it, but make sure that you're being a good boss to yourself and you are setting yourself up for success so that you are not the money block. Get yourself out of the way.
Lisa: Yes. And you know, I'll just, add on to your closing thought by affirming that and saying, I worked on sales teams, I worked in sales, and then later served sales teams internally in multiple ways. And look, this is a thing for sellers. It is known on all these teams. People get on a roll. They will be on fire, unstoppable. And then they'll get in a rut, and they cannot get out of the rut. And so much of it is the mindset, and it's the literal state. They're allowing themselves to stay in, whether it's a high or whether it's a low. And we can change our state in the moment. We can change the energy we bring to a room. And if you have one of these blocks about selling and you've decided it's a bad, icky thing, then every time you decide, oh, I'm flipping into sales mode. Oops, I guess I'm icky. Now your whole energy changes, your dynamic, the way you feel, the way you come across, the way they receive you, your confidence, all of that changes. Your speech patterns, they feel it. I can't hide it. Yes. This is why it's so important to get your mind right around it because if you bring that energy where it's like, you gotta buy this, it's so incredible, everyone needs this, it's amazing. That is a totally different place from like, okay, now we gotta pause and talk about the icky stuff. That totally changes the momentum and they pick up on that and their momentum changes as well. So I totally agree with that. 100%.
Brea: This is not the place to fake it until you make it here. People see right through it, just like you have seen right through the slimy salesperson. So just be confident in what you're bringing and who you are. And if you can see sales, like Lisa said, if you can see it as an opportunity to to help to fix a problem. You're giving them a solution. You're making their life better. You're giving them the tools that they need to improve their life or their business. I mean, come at it from a strengths lens and you'll win every time.
Lisa: You will win. Yes. Come on. Let's go. All right, if you need work on this, if you're like, I'm hearing you, but I am not there, leadthroughstrengths.com slash getcoached. I would be happy to coach you on the mindset side of it. Or tools for coaches is the other link from the main menu where you can be around other people who are constantly working on business acumen, mindset, et cetera. How about if they want to work with you, Brea?
Brea: Yeah. Well, we've got some listeners who have been coming to these little meetups to discuss the podcast episodes. So if you'd like to talk to me and other listeners about the money blocks that you're experiencing and how to get over it, just go to the website, brea roper.com and you can sign up for the invite to those zoom meetups. Zoom, zoom,
Lisa: zoom, zoom, zoom on over there.
Brea: All right. Money, money,
Lisa: money.
“Remember, hard work doesn’t have to feel hard. Aligned with your strengths, it actually feels easy, energizing, and fun!”
MEET YOUR CO-HOSTS
BREA ROPER
Communication | Woo | Activator | Futuristic | Connectedness
If you need a Strengths Hype Girl, for yourself or your team, connect with Brea at brearoper.com. She’s ready to deliver an inspirational keynote, empowering training, or transformational workshop. If you’re looking for an expert guide to support your internal Strengths efforts, reach out today!
LISA CUMMINGS
Strategic | Maximizer | Positivity | Individualization | Woo
To work with Lisa, check out her resources for independent coaches, trainers, and speakers. Get business tools and strategy support with her Tools for Coaches membership.
The Fine Print: This podcast is not sanctioned or endorsed by Gallup in any way. Opinions, views and interpretations of CliftonStrengths© are solely the beliefs of Lisa Cummings and Brea Roper.