The Energy of Money and How It Affects Your Life and Business

[00:00:59] One of the best things you can do to grow your business is to surround yourself with a community of like-minded women who can support you and help you grow. I can't even put into words how valuable it has been to be a part of Like Minded Collective. This is an online community for female entrepreneurs hosted by Inbal Claudio.

[00:01:17] You might remember I interviewed her on the podcast a while back, and she just has this superpower for connecting people. Through Like Minded Collective, I've met people who have come on my podcast or they interviewed me on their podcast. I've also met people who I've worked with directly, or who have referred me clients.

[00:01:35] Just last month, when I was putting together my Fiverr masterclass, I reached out to the group to connect with other business owners who had freelancers in their audience. They were all so excited to help me promote my masterclass. And I had people from each of their audiences sign up for the masterclass, every single person who I had connected with. 

[00:01:54] The value that I have gotten from being a part of this group of women is incredible. Even if I was paying a hundred dollars a month to be in this group, I would be making my money back plus some, but the crazy thing is that it is free to join Like Minded Collective.

[00:02:10] So if you want to grow your network and connect with other female entrepreneurs who can offer you support, advice, or even collaboration opportunities. Go to lindsayhanson.com/likemindedcollective right now and join the community for free. And if you want to check out the silver or gold tiers, which will give you access to monthly networking sessions and weekly live workshops, use code 'Quit' to get 50% off your first month when you upgrade to a paid tier. 

[00:02:39] Come join this community of like-minded women. I promise you it will be one of the most valuable things you can do to grow your business. Again, go to lindsayhanson.com/likemindedcollective, or click that link in the show notes to join for free or use code Quit Q-u-i-t to get 50% off your first month of a paid subscription.

[00:03:03] Hi, my loves. Today, I wanna talk about money. And this came up because I got a comment on TikTok from someone asking me, 'do I think it's a good idea for this person to quit their job when they don't have a significant other who can help to support them financially' and honestly, this comment made me laugh because I was like: I did not have a significant other when I quit my job. And to be honest, that thought did not even cross my mind. Not even remotely at any point when I was thinking about quitting my job did I have the thought, 'maybe I should wait until I have a significant other who can help to support me financially?'

[00:03:46] Number one, because even if I had a significant other, I would never really expect them to support me financially, like unless we were married. But that's just like who I am. I'm not saying anything against this person, but I just don't; I don't think I would have ever relied on somebody else to support me financially.

[00:04:06] But it also was funny to me because I'm like, isn't it interesting how, no matter what our situations are, our brain is always gonna try to find some reason and excuse why we can't do the thing we wanna do. No matter what it is. I can't quit my job because I don't have X amount of money in my savings account yet.

[00:04:21] I can't quit my job because I don't have a significant other to support me financially. I can imagine there are. There are also some people who have significant others and have families, and that is the reason in their mind why they can't quit their job. Cuz that's part of why I quit my job before I was married before I had a house, and before I had all these bigger financial responsibilities.

[00:04:45] Because if I was married, then I would feel like that's something that I would have to consider within my relationship, and that might actually make it harder for me to quit my job. And I'm not necessarily saying that's true. Maybe you have a really supportive significant other who wants to support you financially so that you can quit your job and build your business.

[00:05:03] But my point is no matter what our situation is, our brain is gonna look to whatever reason it can find, to latch onto and convince us that's why we can't or shouldn't do the thing that we wanna do. It's just different manifestations of our fear and our doubts, and our worries. So the comment gave me a chuckle, but then it also had me thinking about the energetics of money.

[00:05:29] And something that I didn't realize I was getting myself into when I quit my job and jumped headfirst into entrepreneurship was that I was setting myself on a journey of healing my money mindset. And this is an ongoing journey. It is years in the making. It's something that I still work on every single day of my life.

[00:05:49] Money is just something that is so charged for a lot of us because we need it to survive, right? We need money to survive, live our lives, and do what we want to do. And so we have a lot of emotion tied to it. A lot of us have some sort of money trauma going on, and this doesn't necessarily mean something majorly traumatic happened to you in relation to money, it might have, but what that means is that we learn about money and pick up stories about money and how it works from watching our parents interact with money and watching the people around us interact with money as we're growing up. So if we are constantly surrounded by stories of there's never enough money, rich people are greedy, like I was always surrounded by this idea that spending is bad and saving is good. And so I always felt guilty for spending my money, which is why, to be honest, I had 12 months' worth of expenses in my savings account when I quit my job because I spent five years ever since I was working part-time jobs in high school, saving the vast majority of all of the money that I made because I was afraid to fucking spend it.

[00:07:03] This is not a healthy mindset to have around money. But I also noticed as I started my business that earning money through my business felt very different to me. It was a different energy to me than receiving money from a job. I never had any sense of guilt or that I'm not worthy of this when it came to an employer giving me money, but I did feel that when it shifted to me receiving money from individual clients, right? And so there was a lot there that I had to work on that I didn't realize. And now that I have learned more about money and the energy of money and how all of this shit works from, oh, gosh, investing in courses.

[00:07:48] I follow Amanda Frances. She's primarily who I follow when it comes to money mindset stuff, but also the hypnotherapist who I worked with for a few months. If you listen to my 2022 recap episode, I talked a little bit about that. We worked a lot on money stuff as well. So again, it's been years in the making of me understanding money and healing my money mindset.

[00:08:11] Now that I'm looking back on my journey of building my business, I'm noticing these patterns that now make a lot of sense. And so, I want to share my financial journey with you guys to help you better understand how this works, the financial situation you're in now, and some patterns that you will start to notice in your life and your business.

[00:08:38] So, as I said, and as you probably know, if you've been listening to the podcast for a while. I had 12 months' worth of expenses in my savings account when I quit my job, which I used to support myself while building my business. I then drained that entire savings account in that first year, so by the end of year one, I no longer had that money in my savings account.

[00:09:03] I wasn't making enough money to pay my bills, so I could have quit my job and then made the choice to move back home so that I wouldn't have rent payments and my expenses would be lower. I built my business, but I didn't want to do that. I did do it for about a month because I had ended my lease at my apartment that I was living in Massachusetts, and then I was planning to move to North Carolina.

[00:09:31] So, in the meantime, until I found an apartment there, I moved back in with my dad for a month, but pretty much the whole time that I've had my business, I was living on my own, and I was supporting myself. Like I had bills to pay. I wasn't relying on anybody else to support me financially. So I had to figure out how to make money, and I had drained my savings account by the end of year one of my business, and I was at a point where honestly, I did not know how I was going to pay my bills. 

[00:10:03] I didn't know how I was gonna make my rent payment for multiple months in a row. But what kept happening is that even though I had no idea how, I didn't have enough clients for me to be able to cover my rent every single month; the money came in before my rent was due and before any of my bills were due, the money came in order for me to be able to pay them.

[00:10:24] I never was late on a rent payment. I never was late on any bill payment. I always paid them on time and in full, and it would always be like these, just like weird and unexpected ways that the money would flow in. Like I would just have these random opportunities pop up. I had my financial advisor at the time, he had a family-owned tax and accounting practice, and he knew that I used to be an accountant, so he asked me.

[00:10:50] They just needed some help with some bookkeeping work for a couple of their clients. And he was like, 'Hey, would you wanna help us out part-time?' And so that helped me for a little while. He also offered to pay me like upfront for a couple of months worth of work. I didn't ask him to do that. I didn't tell him my financial situation at the time, but like he just offered to do that.

[00:11:11] And For a month or two was how I was able to pay my bills. And then there was one day I've told this story before, but there was one day where I truly had reached okay; it must have been like the week that rent was due, like a few days before rent was due. I did not have any money in my bank accounts.

[00:11:28] And I literally put on my Google calendar at 7:00 PM one night I put in my calendar to call my dad because I had reached a point where I was like, I have to ask him to help me. Like I don't know how I'm gonna pay my bills. But that day, like an hour or two before, I was planning to call my dad to ask him for money.

[00:11:49] I had a call with one of my previous fitness coaching clients, so if you don't know, I started my fitness coaching business and transitioned to life coaching. So I had a call with one of my previous fitness coaching clients, and we were just catching up. And then, long story short, she ended up signing up for three months of life coaching and paying in full.

[00:12:10] And so I was able to pay my rent that month, and I never had to make that call to my dad. And after that, it was about a month or so after that was actually when I started on Fiverr. That led me to Fiverr because I was in a place where I needed to make some more money here.

[00:12:30] And I was just willing to try anything. Which is funny looking back cuz I'm like, thank God that happened. Or who knows if I ever would've gotten started on Fiverr, and now it's such a consistent, steady revenue stream for me. And so also, this is what I mean when I say that everything is always working out for you.
[00:12:47] Everything is adding up in your favor. And even though it can feel shitty at the moment and like everything is working against us, it's just always adding up in your favor, and you never know how it's going to play out to your benefit in the long run. Okay. But so that was one financial pattern that I noticed is that even when I was literally down to my last dollar in my bank account, I never was unable to pay my bills.
The money always came in sometime before the bills were due. And what I know now is that I had, and I still have, and I always have had this energetic standard that I'm just not available to not pay my bills. I cannot even imagine paying a bill late. I can't imagine missing a rent payment. I can't imagine my account going negative.

[00:13:34] And that's just an energetic standard that I've always had. I don't necessarily know where it came from, but that's just me. We all have a different... You could think of it as your energetic minimum. How low are you willing to go before you're just like, I'm willing to do whatever it takes to not get to this point or not get past it?

[00:13:56] So, at that point in my business, I was willing to get down to $0 in my bank account, but I was not willing to go negative. I was willing to get down to $0 in my bank account, but I was not willing to not pay my rent on time. And it's just, it's hard to explain because I didn't know how I was gonna pay my rent for many months, but because I had this energetic set point of I'm not available for going below this.

[00:14:21] At some point before not being able to pay my rent, I'm gonna be willing to do whatever it takes, right? I'm going to start a Fiverr account; I'm going to pick up these odd jobs. I actually started applying for part-time jobs at one point. I'm gonna call my dad and ask him for money if I have to. Somewhere before that is the point where I'm just not fucking available to not pay my bills.

[00:14:42] And so the universe would show up every month, even though I had no idea how I was gonna pay my bills, the money would always be there, it would always appear. And so we all have a different standard, and it's not necessarily bad; it's just like where we're all at. Like now, I can't imagine my bank account going to zero.

[00:15:02] It hasn't been there since early 2020, so my energetic standards around money have increased over time. But for some people, they're willing to go negative in their bank account before they start scrambling, or they're willing to miss a rent payment or two or three months of rent or a different type of payment.

[00:15:21] Some people are willing to have credit card debt, and other people are not. We all have these different ideas about what is okay and what we are available for when it comes to money. And so anyway, that was my, that was one of the patterns that I noticed was my energetic minimum was that I was always gonna be able to pay my bills, and so I always was able to pay my bills.

[00:15:46] It also works the other way, by the way, where we all have an energetic maximum that we feel safe making up to this amount of money in a month or in a year or whatever. But we, a lot of us, have this plateau, which I definitely experience; cuz for multiple years in my business, I kept making the same amount of money every year.

[00:16:08] I was like, what the fuck is going on? And that's one of the things I worked on in hypnotherapy. I actually realized it when I was in hypnotherapy, and she was like, that's your financial plateau. That's the amount of money you feel comfortable earning in a year. But then you always cap yourself like you self-sabotage because you don't feel safe earning more than that.

[00:16:27] So it works both ways. But another pattern that I noticed, and this goes along with my energetic minimum around money, is that almost every time that I up-leveled my business to a new income level was when my expenses in my life increased. And it was like no matter what my expenses were, I was always able to pay my bills every month.

[00:16:54] And so whenever my expenses increase, for example, when I moved back from North Carolina to Massachusetts, if you don't know, it's a lot more expensive to live in Massachusetts than it is to live in North Carolina. Currently, what I'm paying to contribute to the mortgage for our house is double, probably more than double, what my entire rent was for my apartment in North Carolina.

[00:17:19] When I first moved back, I was gonna be moving into an apartment with Brendan, and I knew that my rent was gonna go up by a few hundred dollars a month for us to split this apartment. And so I didn't, I again, I didn't know how I was going to make more money in my business, but about a month before we moved into our apartment, I started making more money in my business.

[00:17:43] And that was the point when my social media management kind of picked up, and even though I wasn't doing a whole lot to promote my services, I got all of these clients out of nowhere to the point where I was overwhelmed, and I had to hire people to help me with this workload. And that was like right before we moved into our new apartment.

[00:18:03] And again, I've never missed a rent payment. At this point, I've raised my financial minimum. And so I never even really got to a point where I didn't have money in my bank account, but like I was making more money incrementally as my expenses increased. Because energetically I had to, I wasn't available for not paying my rent on this apartment, and so getting an apartment that was a little bit out of my budget, like on paper it was, it didn't make sense for me to get this apartment, but I got it anyway.

[00:18:38] And then it elevated my income because my energetic standard around money is that I'm not available to not pay my bills. So I would notice this pattern where if I spent more money on something, I would make more money. And for me, it was always after the fact; it was like I would try to make the money.

[00:18:59] It wasn't always after the fact cuz when it came to my apartment, I started making more money before we moved in. But most of the time, it would be cutting it close, or it would be like after the fact. So it happened again when we got to our house. This house, on paper, makes no sense that I live here. Now it makes more sense, but when we got this house, I was in no way making enough money to live here. But I knew because I had seen this pattern play out in my life over and over again for the past, like, almost four years at that point.

[00:19:33] I knew I would make more money after moving into this house. I didn't know how I didn't have a plan for how I was gonna make more money. Obviously, I'm always thinking about how to make more money in my business, but I didn't, I didn't know. I didn't know how it was going to come in, but I knew that once we moved into this house, I would be making enough money to pay all the bills.

[00:19:56] Pay my part of all the bills. And so that's what happened. We moved into this house in August; August was my biggest month in 2022. Revenue-wise, it was my biggest month, and ever since then, I mentioned this in my 2022 recap. From August to November of 2022, I made double what I made in the year's first six months.

[00:20:21] And it was because I had to because my expenses increased, like my expenses didn't double, but they increased. Then on top of that, we were buying furniture and all of these things; we had a lot going on that we were spending money on, and on paper, I couldn't afford any of that, but then the money would always flow in for me to be able to pay it.

[00:20:42] And that's definitely a pattern that I've noticed as well for me, and again, this is just dependent on your energetic standards around money. So think about some patterns that you like. Maybe you can relate to this. Maybe you have that same standard of I'm always gonna be able to pay my bills. If you make a big purchase on something and put it on a credit card, then you'll randomly make the money to pay it off the next month or whatever.

[00:21:05] But we all have these standards, and they manifest in these financial patterns. If you're paying attention, you'll get a good sense of what your energetic minimum is around money and your energetic maximum around money. And so knowing this now, one of the things that I truly believe, and I think I knew this intuitively at the time also, is that even if I did not have 12 months' worth of expenses in my savings account when I quit my job, I still would have been able to build my business because the thing is I started making more money in my business after my bank account ran out, and that was because my energetic standard was that I wasn't willing, I wasn't available for not paying my bills and paying them on time, right? 

[00:21:54] And so my business started making money when it had to because otherwise I wasn't gonna be able to pay my bills. And so I 100% believe that even if I only had six months' worth of expenses in my savings account, then my business would have started making more money at that six-month mark; I would've found a way some opportunity would've come up.

[00:22:14] I would have made it work sooner. And so, it actually did me a disservice that I had so much money in my savings account because it just prolonged the time it took me to build my business. And sometimes we view money a little bit back because we're protecting ourselves by having this big safety net.

[00:22:40] But for me, I think it actually might have served me better if I didn't have as big of a cushion because then I would have had to get resourceful and figure my business out sooner because the other part of it is, this is all just about the energy you guys, and again, this is just me. I'm not telling you to quit your job without anything in savings because it'll help you to build your business faster.

[00:23:04] That's not the takeaway here. That might be something that resonates with you, but we all have different energetic standards, right? The only reason why that was true for me is that I have this standard of I'm not willing to not pay my bills. And I also energetically was not available to go back and get another job, so the only option for the universe energetically was for me to make money either through my business or through these weird side opportunities that kept coming up, but most of them flow through my business somehow.

[00:23:35] Even that bookkeeping gig I was doing for a little while, I had it flow through my business. So anyway, that is not the point. The point is I had an energetic standard that I wasn't willing to pay my bills. I also had an energetic standard that I wasn't willing to go back and get a job. Technically, that was an option.

[00:23:52] It's always an option, and I always tell people this because it's true. Going back and getting another job is always gonna be an option, but for me personally, I wasn't available for that. And yes, I reached a point where I was applying to jobs, I was applying to part-time jobs, but I never even heard back from anywhere that I applied to.

[00:24:10] And it's cuz like the universe is, yeah, this is not your path. This is not how this is gonna go. So like, energetically, I'm not available for not paying my bills. Also, energetically I'm not available to go back to another job. And so the only option was for my business to work. In my mind, in my energy, that was the only option.

[00:24:30] And so it didn't matter whether I had money in my savings account; it didn't matter whether I had somebody else to support me financially. The money was always gonna flow in somehow. And for me, I think it would have done me a disservice if I had made the decision to go move back home with my parents, which is something that is an option to keep your expenses down, but I fully believe that if I had done that, I wouldn't have made as much money in my business because it's almost like I wouldn't have been motivated to, I wouldn't have needed to because I didn't have any bills to pay. And so, I was okay with my business taking a little bit longer to grow.

[00:25:08] Same thing if I had a significant other at the time who was like, 'Hey, quit your job, and I'll pay the bills for a few months.' I actually don't think that would have served me, and at least for me personally, I think the fact that I was living on my own, the fact that I had to support myself and pay my own bills energetically helped me to grow my business faster than it otherwise would have.

[00:25:36] And so honestly, sometimes we look at money in our financial situation a little bit backward. Because for me, what has always helped me to grow my business is like increasing my expenses, even though I couldn't technically afford to do that. And again, this is not financial advice. I'm not telling you to go get a more expensive apartment to help you grow your business if that doesn't feel good for you.

[00:26:02] But the pattern that I have seen play out in my life personally over and over again is that if I increase my expenses, my income will increase accordingly. And now I'm just at this point where I can trust and rely on that. And like I'm working to get to a point where I can manifest the money first and then buy the thing.

[00:26:28] But sometimes, what's given me like the biggest up levels and the biggest shifts in my income was getting a more expensive apartment that I couldn't afford on paper, right? Getting a house that on paper I couldn't afford, investing in a coach, or courses that on paper I could not afford and I had to put them on my credit card.

[00:26:51] So again, this is not financial advice by any means, and I want you to take what resonates with you from this episode. But if you only take away one thing, I want you to start looking at the financial patterns that are playing out in your life, especially if you're an entrepreneur. Look at what's happening with your income.

[00:27:10] Look at what's happening in your business. Notice if you cap yourself at a certain income level every month or every year. Notice what your energetic minimum is around money. Cuz the first step to really like working on your money mindset is understanding where you're at right now and what these patterns are that are playing out.

[00:27:31] Usually, you can trace that back to what you saw around money growing up and the stories you picked up around money growing up. This energetic minimum that I have is because I would constantly hear my mom worrying about money growing up, but we were always able to pay our bills.

[00:27:50] I never felt like we were at risk of our water getting shut off or something like that. But if that was your situation, then your energetic standard might be different, or it could go the opposite way. You grew up in a very wealthy household, and you were never worried about money, and your parents never talked about money in a negative way, then you might have a very positive view of money, and you might be able to earn money and spend the money really easily.

[00:28:18] So we're all at a different starting point when it comes to money, and knowing what your starting point is the first step to reaching your financial goals and working on your money mindset and getting to wherever it is that you wanna be breaking through your plateaus, building your business, whatever that looks like for.

[00:28:36] I hope you were able to take something away from this episode. I love, love, love talking about money, and I'm sure I'm gonna be talking about it much more as I continue on my journey of healing my money mindset and stepping into new levels of earning money in my business. But for now, thank you for listening.

[00:29:00] I love you. I appreciate you. I am here for you always, and I will talk to you in the next episode.