The New Money Mindset Paradigm

I teach my clients to consider that your life is your teacher. Your business is your teacher, and that when you set any kind of intention, everything that happens is actually showing you the way. It’s teaching you. It’s shaping you, or it’s showing you what’s in the way.

Welcome to the Soul-Sourced^TM Podcast, unconventional business advice for the highly creative secretly sensitive, and wildly ambitious entrepreneur. I’m your host, Christine Kane. Let’s do this.

Welcome to the Soul-Sourced^TM Podcast episode number one, and we are talking about the new money mindset paradigm. I’m actually kind of nervous to take on this topic because it’s triggery for a lot of people, but I was just invited to teach at a virtual event for a networking organization of female entrepreneurs. And before I do these things, I do like to meet with the hosts and find out who their members are and what would most serve the situation they’re facing.

And one of the hosts said that in the current economic post-pandemic, scary times, some of their members have gotten fearful about selling, and they’re scared to charge money because so many people are out there with this attitude now that because anyone is experiencing any hardship, that everything should be free. And I’ve heard people say that to some of my own clients have expressed this same kind of fear. And the host said, well, I don’t think that way. I don’t expect services to be free ever. And you know, she was shocked that anyone could feel that way.

And that’s the thing, depending on who you are and how you think, you are always going to have your own internal money conversations and mindsets to explore. And right now that all just might be a teeny bit amplified given the climate that we’re all in as business owners.

So let’s just say there is a money mindset spectrum, and it goes from one to 10. And one is, I hate myself when I sell and I wish money weren’t even a part of business. And 10 is I’ll charge, whatever the hell I want to charge. I love selling. And I’m in this for the money. Most likely you could peg where you land on this particular scale right now. And that is totally fine, wherever you find yourself.

And that’s the thing about mindset. And this is the first point that we want to address mindset is not just this one concrete thing. It’s why as a coach, I never push people to quote unquote, have a positive mindset or play big or go home mindset. Whether we’re talking about money or confidence or relationships or business or whatever, it’s not this one separate element of ourselves that we can surgically extract and put into a Petri dish and work on just that one thing.

Mindset in particular, your mindset around money, has been formulated. It’s been shaped by a whole host of other factors and elements, not the least of which is all the energies and patterns that were constructed and created during an entire lifetime. When you weren’t even conscious or aware of how you were processing the many things happening all around you.

And the minute we become business owners, or artists, or entrepreneurs looking at our mindset around money is the opportunity that gets handed to us right away. Whether or not we are in an economic shit show at that moment.

The moment we start a business, we are forced to step into the ring and examine our relationship to money and our own value. And all of the fear and loathing and patterns and emotions that have generated themselves around this whole idea of money and worth.

Because once you become a business owner and a hundred percent responsible for your income, you can no longer avoid facing that relationship. You’re now responsible for the prices you charge and what you spend your money on. And when to invest in something like a new employee or a website, or even a coach.

For me, I had a really intense time with this. I started off my, business trajectory as a musician, and I didn’t think of it as having a business. I just sort of, I became a musician and I kind of had this, I think this little deep seated belief that the doors would all open to me. Like I would make my first CD, or I would start playing in the angels would sing and everyone would welcome me in, and suddenly the world would be so very thrilled that I decided to write songs and become a performing songwriter.

And that wasn’t the case. And part of what I am now, most grateful that I had to learn was that if I wanted to play music for a living, I had to become a business owner. I had to really take that in and understand that, I had to get my ducks in a row there.

And one of the things with money mindset that I learned, and I didn’t call it that at the time, but I started to learn, this was a big part of it, was that had I not reviewed my own inner conversations around money, I would still be playing in bars right now. And that’s because when you start, no, when I started playing music for me, what there was a lot about was kind of the, “who do you think you are?” voices coming up.

So I started off playing in bars and then eventually I got really tired of playing in bars in the smell of beer and staying up till one in the morning. And I realized, all right, I’m doing enough coffee house shows and enough cool little opening acts that I want to do only that I don’t want to play at bars anymore.

And then there’s that first shift is like, I’m setting new standards and I’m going to the next level. And then of course, every time go to that next level, a new round of mindsets comes up that says, you know, for me, it was like, you’re even lucky to be playing music at all. And how dare you, you know, leave behind these people who like you like to see you at bars and whatever else, you know.

Then, you know, I was nicely ensconced in my coffee house circuit and performing arts circuit. And then I wanted to Uplevel from there. And again, I, you know, whenever I set a baseline price of here’s how much I am to come and perform at your venue, I would go through a new round.

And it wasn’t just one money mindset. It was like a whole committee of things that came up and they it’s almost like every time you Uplevel things sort of clutch at your ankles to say, no, come back to how you’re supposed to think. Come back to these mindsets. Come back to these old patterns because you’re more comfortable here.

And so it’s, it was always a question of value and it was a question of energy. It was a question of mindsets. And then of course, then there was the strategy involved with it. Like really getting strategic about where I was going as a musician, and who I was working with, and what I would do you know, and what my CDs were like.

And you know, I call it strategy and soul, and these are the two tracks of having a business. And so when we’re talking about money mindsets, you’re not just talking about strategy and how you package yourself. It really requires that you bring in what I call the soul track of business, which is the mindset, which is the soft stuff. It’s the stuff that most people roll their eyes at.

But since we are currently in kind of that shit show right now, economically, this is the new paradigm. This is, you know, if you’ve never really inquired into your mindset around money, then here’s your chance. You know, or if you’ve already done that, and a whole bunch of new stuff is coming up, then guess what? It’s a realignment opportunity for you.

So the money thing is up and you get to choose to examine it again and you get to choose how you move forward with it. So at Uplevel, the way I teach this, as I call it the difference between being creative or being reactive. So creative and reactive, they have the same letters. Different spelling, and radically different results from within.

And this brings me to the second point when we come to that, that idea of feeling reactive and feeling like there’s a whole bunch of stuff coming at you. The second point I want to make around money mindsets is that some people are just wired up more sensitively. In particular, I’ve noticed that that would be, healers and artists and some of the coaches I’ve worked with. And honestly, some of the corporate consultants I’ve worked with as well.

And when I say sensitive, I do not mean like you’re special and you should be a diva and you should act very, very dramatically. What it means is that some of us business owners have what we might call a thin veil. A very thin filter, which simply means that you’re more receptive in nature. You’re more sensitive to the collective energies and emotions out there.

So when, for instance, the Corona virus started to get real here in the States. And that was back in the first week of March, 2020. I was leading a retreat for my clients here in Asheville. And at that point there was still that, you know, people were sort of wondering, and then all of a sudden it was like, everything got real. And so we had about 50% of our attendees they canceled that week.

And then in the room, there was such a high level of anxiety among the entrepreneurs there. And one of my clients who is a consultant raised her hand during the morning session, and she said, well, I’m going to need, someone’s help here because if the economy tanks, the first thing that goes is luxury items. And I am a luxury item. And when she said that, you could almost feel like the energy just gets sucked out of the room.

And people just sort of recoiled in terror, like, Oh my God, she’s right. And of course at that moment as a coach, and if you’re a coach, you know, you do this, like I stopped everything. And I raised that little red coaching flag. And really we dove into all the assumptions that were held in that one statement, in that one mindset.

So when that starts to happen, what’s happening there is that the energy of people’s opinions and thoughts, and in some cases, that we discovered in the room, memories that were never dealt with from the 2008 crisis.

Those things, those thoughts, those opinions, those memories, they all feel very dense and they seem to have all the power. And especially if you are quote unquote, you know, sensitive, if you, if you have that thin veil, the key thing to understand is that it’s not the real power because ultimately all of this is just a buffet of unexamined, thoughts, reactions, and habits and patterns.

And so when you take on this idea of mindset, it’s a much more dynamic process than just changing a thought or thinking positive. You’re actually entering into a relationship with a whole force field of energies in some ways.

And more often than not, when we really deeply examine them as we did in the room, they’re not true. They’re just not true. They feel true. And they feel like they have all the power, but they’re not true because directly counter to that one moment at the retreat, one month later in the middle of probably the worst of the pandemic and the worst of the quarantine with the news media pounding us every day with all the bad news, another client of mine, Carla, who is a life coach, which could easily be considered a luxury service.

She got a $22,000 client, and this is somebody who’s in her first year of working with us. She’s been slowly raising her prices from just charging hourly. She’s been starting to create packages. She’s really been looking at those mindset stuffs.

So this was a really big shift for her. And it really showed people that, Oh, this is possible. And you know, another client who is an artist, she just sold a $2,500 painting.

You know, it is possible to keep selling and have strong pricing all the time. So let’s talk about the opportunity. And it’s also a bit of a challenge, but it’s a really big opportunity right? In front of us as business owners with this current situation.

And that opportunity is to go deeper and really look at your own relationship to money and the money conversations in your head. And of course, this is also going to bring up issues of self worth and value. And like I said, all the, who do you think you are kinds of stuff and people’s opinions and everyone’s approval and anything that might be your pattern to look at. Anything you’ve adopted around this often very highly charged topic.

So I’m going to share three ways that you can really shift into a new money mindset paradigm. And by the way, none of them have anything to do with thinking more positive. And if that’s your jam, and if you just want to talk about affirmations, then I’m not your girl.

Because what I’m really proposing here, and what I’ve seen happen with my clients is that when you really step into this more deeply, you actually get more foundational and lasting results because you start to feel more confident and you’re really creating a big shift, not just, Oh, I think differently now. And we always say this at Uplevel, our mantra is go deeper than you’ve ever gone to rise higher than you ever dreamed. And so that’s what we’re going to do here with what I’m about to share with you.

S o the first step that you want to do in this new paradigm is you want to use everything. So use everything instead of looking at negative mindsets or scary thoughts, or even your own sensitivity as bad, and to be gotten rid of or fixed.

I teach my clients to consider that your life is your teacher. Your business is your teacher, and that when you set any kind of intention, everything that happens is actually showing you the way it’s teaching you, it’s shaping you, or it’s showing you what’s in the way.

So an example of this is what I am right now. I’m doing a lot more, we’re calling it extreme client care right now during these scary times. And so I’m doing office hours for my clients and one of my clients called in during office hours. And we talked about this, but she was doing a group Zoom, as many of us are doing right now.

And there was one person on that Zoom, this woman’s an executive coach and she works with high level professionals. And there was one woman who got on her Zoom, who in the midst of all the trauma that everyone else was dealing with with their jobs in their corporations and everything this one woman got on and she was just very, very angry cause she was up for retirement and she had plans to go overseas and her vacation plans got derailed and it was kind of that little, you know, waa sort of thing.

And it’s fine, you know, but my client was saying that she got very triggered by this woman’s attitude and the fact that all these other people were dealing with very real problems and this person was, you know, and when, when I dug in with my client about this, what we discovered was what I call the guilt outrage coin.

And the guilt outrage coin is it’s another whole weird topic, but the way I describe it to my people is that it’s like this coin you’re carrying with you. And it’s a paradigm in and of itself. And that is to say that whenever somebody has money or you see someone with a nice car or you see someone flying private, or you see this person who shows up and is pissed off, that her retirement plans have been derailed, you can really watch your own outrage.

And I’m not saying that my client got outraged, but it’s this fiery energy that comes up and is like, Oh, screw you. You know, let’s talk about some real problems or whatever. And the outrage thing basically says, how dare you have that problem? Or how dare you spend this kind of money or how dare you, you know, buy that car or spend that much on a hotel or whatever it might be.

The thing about outrage is that it is not in and of itself. Just a thing that we feel and then it goes away. We also, if we’re carrying that coin, I call it like have that in our pocket. On the other side, on the flip side of that coin is what is operating often in our business, which is guilt.

So when you have outrage, what will often happen is that if it comes time for you to be clear and for you to have value and for you to charge money and for you to like, from, you know, like with me going and saying, I’m only gonna play in performance centers as a musician or whatever, you will slump into guilt because the model is already set up in your system where you are trained to feel outrage when someone does well, or when someone has a different kind of a problem. Or if it’s not like they’re struggling.

And so the guilt outrage coin is always operating. And so it’s like this flip side back and forth between guilt outrage, guilt outrage, guilt outrage. And when I taught this to my client, she said, Oh my God, that’s totally me because I have been feeling guilty for even getting on sales calls with anybody, if struggling in their business or not in their business, but she she’s working in corporate. If they’re struggling and I’ve been really tempted to just stop charging money because I feel guilty.

And so what we had to do is dive into this pattern inside of her to start to really shift out of it. And this is not something that, you know, happens overnight. Like just, Oh, I’m not going to feel guilty anymore. But what I called her to do is start to use it, use everything around her and obviously, that’s what she was she was looking at and that’s what she brought to the call.

The other thing that we discovered was that she also had some remaining PTSD from having lived through the 2008 recession and crisis. And so she had old resentment around that and some of the stuff that happened to her in her business back then, and she had to look at that as well. So what she realized that it wasn’t just, Oh, I have to shift my mindset, which is what she brought to me. It’s, I’m looking at a big, huge pattern.

And so this is, this really speaks to that first step. And that is to use everything. Everything that happens to you is showing you that you can go deeper. And when we go deeper, by the way, we don’t go deeper with the expectation that we’re going to fix it or that we’re broken, or even that my client was bad for having outrage or for getting triggered by somebody. It’s really that everything is there to look at and explore with an energy of curiosity of what is this showing me? What is this teaching me? How is this expending me?

Our second area of focus for your money mindset. paradigm is really a question for you. And that is, how clear are you? And the reason I ask that is that when times get hard, it’s often an easy excuse you could even like, and I know this sounds a little judgey and it’s not, but you could ask yourself when struggle comes up, it’s so much easier to just collapse or freeze into the struggle and just simply say, we’re all suffering and therefore I’m going to suffer.

But it’s actually right now, it’s a great time to get clear. When it comes to money mindsets I want you to consider that money comes through people and that if you have a service based business, people invest in their results through you. So given that if money comes through people and they’re investing in their results through you, it would serve everyone if you took this time to get very clear in all of your marketing, and I don’t even love the word marketing, it’s really communication.

Get clear in your marketing and communication about the exact results that someone gets when they work with you. If they’re committing to their results, they need to know what those are.

And another thing you get clear on is what the problems that they have. Who are they? You know, who exactly are they? How are you speaking to them about how you can help them? And this is for some of you who are my clients, you know, that I’m speaking to a thing I teach called The Foundation Five, which is the foundation of all your marketing. It’s all these areas that you get clear in. But for now, just consider getting clear about the results that you deliver people. Getting clear about who it is that you serve and getting clear about what their problems are that you help them solve. It’s really this is a powerful part about money, is that money likes clarity. It really does.

So our final little thing is a not to do.Our final call to action, is a not to do. And so a not to do, is really not to enter into the zone of convincing people. When we start to see all the people around us and the fact that maybe some people are angry with us for charging money, or we’re feeling scared that they’re going to be angry. What we tend to do is we start defending ourselves. And then we argue with all the negative thinking. And what you’re doing when you’re doing that is that you’re actually lowering yourself into the cesspool of thoughts and opinions.

And that is not a very elegant place to find yourself because all you’re doing is, it’s just thoughts battling thoughts. And thoughts never actually win. It’s just a big battle of thinking. And what you’re doing when you do that is you that you’re staying at the level of opinion. You’re staying at the level of thoughts. And you’re staying at the level of argument. When we don’t do that, what we’re actually doing is going deeper and we are getting clear and we’re standing in that clarity. And that is the most powerful place to find yourself when it comes to money mindsets. And that’s my call to you.

Okay, I’m going to close out now three things that you can do, should you choose to do them. One is to subscribe to this podcast and that way you will find out whenever I put out a new episode, which is going to happen once every week.

The second thing you could do is give it a five star review if you liked this episode enough to give it a five star review, I think I would like to earn those five stars. So if you want to wait, that’s fine there too.

Third thing is something, if you really want to get jiggy. And that is that my new book, my first book, it is called The Soul-Sourced^TM Entrepreneur. It’s coming out in November of 2020. It is actually up on Amazon now for pre-sale. Had no idea. I just found out. Kind of came out of the blue. You can go pre-purchase my book right now. If you really want to get kicky here.

Thanks for listening and welcome to this new Soul-Sourced^TM Podcast. I’ll see you on the next episode.