Welcome to The Rachel Kurzyp Show
You’re listening to episode 20.
Let’s chat about limiting money mindsets.
I’ve been having so many great DM convos about this topic lately so I wanted to share a bit about my money mindset and some recent things changes I’ve had to make in order to begin scaling my business.
I want to premise this conversation by saying I’m not a qualified therapist so what I’m sharing today is based on my own experience and what I’ve found has worked for me. I’m also not a qualified accountant so again what I’m sharing is based on my personal situation and I recommend seeking advice before making any financial decisions in your business.
I’ve always found money to be an interesting topic because outside of the online space, it’s rude to ask people how much they earn and talk about how much you take home each week. But this is the exact opposite online.
Nearly every Instagram bio starts with I made $XX dollar a month in 4, 6 or 8 months. And business owners are constantly screenshotting conversations about how much money their clients made in a day so they can share it on their sales pages.
I think it’s great that women especially are starting to have conversations about personal wealth and their finances. Often we’ve given our financial power over to others in our lives. But I do think the constant talk of income without context is having an affect on our mindset whether we want to admit it or not.
I know it’s affected me. I’ve always been great with money. I had to be because money was very tight in my family. My mum was single and worked as much as she could but we were still in the lowest income bracket. I never went without food or any of the essentials but I do remember collecting money I found in the street to pay for my school excursions so I didn’t have to ask my mum for $2. I started work as soon as I could and I’ve worked multiple jobs my whole life. I’ve always been able to take care of myself and have simple pleasures but I often had to prioritise work above everything else even my mental and physical health. Over the years, thanks to my privilege, the generosity of others and hardwork, I’ve created a great life for myself and have moved into a different income bracket to which I was born in – which is rare, I might add.
And the reason why I’m sharing this part of my story is because these childhood experiences have shaped my money mindset in ways I wasn’t aware of. I know from speaking with some of you that your story is similar to mine. For others, your story may be totally different.
How much money we have or don’t have doesn’t necessarily determine our money mindset. I know many people who grew up in a well off home and are terrible with money. For me, I learnt that how much I had or didn’t have in my wallet had no bearing on my self-worth. This meant I wasn’t afraid to ask for a pay rise. I have asked for a higher salary for every job I have ever gone for since my first job at Domino’s pizza and I have successfully been given an increase. And I have always asked for a pay rise every year when I was employed in my 9-5.
I’ve also always had a significant sum in my savings account which meant I’ve never shied away from investing in myself or my business – be it personal development or buying a new microphone for recording podcasts. I do my research and if it feels like a sound investment then I make it and back my decision.
So obviously, I thought I was doing pretty good, I laugh because just like everyone, my business over the last few years has started to shine a light on what I needed to work on. My limiting money mindsets started to show up when I began to scale.
The first mindset I Identified was how hard I worked should directly correlate to how much money I made.
This started coming up for me when I started filling my programs from a few emails. I felt guilt and wanted to compensate by overworking myself – giving away extra tips, letting calls go over and so on – so I could justify my income. And the opposite was true too. I’d give a launch my all and when it didn’t go as planned I felt like I should be financially rewarded for my work and was left deflated wondering why I didn’t get a big payout. I know we have all heard that our income isn’t and shouldn’t be tied to how much we work but it’s a huge mindset shift to make when we’ve been rewarded for hard work our whole lives. Many of the clients I work with have a similar limiting mindset too.
They want to add more and more bonuses and go above and beyond for clients. And they tell themselves they have to show up daily on socials, write 2,000 word sales pages or build their website from scratch to justify the income they make from their businesses. This obviously can affect your profit margin and sustainability of your business. If this is you, know that you’re not alone.
The ways I’ve started to address this limiting money mindset is by acknowledging and celebrating the work I’ve done and not the result. This is why you often see me celebrating the start of a launch not the end of it. Because I can’t always control the outcome of my efforts but I can control how I feel about using and focusing my energy. This has helped me to shift how I look at my income. I now see it as a resource that I can reinvest back into my life and business and less of a reward for time + energy spent.
The second limiting money mindset I wanted to share is around believing we have to create financial wealth on our own.
This mindset started showing up when I began thinking about hiring a team. I’d been outsourcing projects + tasks for years but I felt resistance to sign monthly contracts for my FB manager and OBM. I felt like I had to be making a certain amount of money before I could justify hiring help.
This meant I became the bottleneck in my business so a lot of important things weren’t being done which was actually costing me money. Things like, setting up my Pinterest account and putting this podcast episodes on my blog so I could increase traffic to my website and into my email funnels.
I kept seeing online business owners talk about consistent $30, 50k and so on months and they were always creating new products and doing FB lives and I didn’t know how they were managing to do it all themselves – it’s because they weren’t. Some of the people I’m following have 10 employees. It finally all clicked. I don’t know any successful business owner that is making 200-500k a year who doesn’t have a team.
I know many of you are looking to outsource or hire a team in your business too but afraid it’s going to cost you money, that you have reach a certain financial goal before you can ask for support or that you can’t rely on others to care about the success of your business as much as you do – I know we have some perfectionists in the house.
The way I keep this mindset in check is by reminding myself that I can’t do it alone. I can’t be everywhere and do everything in my business. My business is now greater than me and if I want it to succeed I have to accept the support of other experts. And yes, they might not do things how I would but if they get the job done, does it really matter? Inviting others to support my business as I scale as meant I have been able to achieve more while doing less and increase my profit.
Limiting money mindset beliefs can show up in so many ways. So if you feel resistant or emotions bubbling up next time you want to raise your rates, reduce 1:1 access to you or upgrade your computer, ask yourself:
When was the first time you felt this way? Understanding and processing the root cause can help you to rewrite the belief.
What can I do right now to honour these feelings but also set myself up for success. If saying no to a well paid project feels too big could you reduce the scope of work instead?
How will you know when this limiting belief comes up again? Do you feel it in a particular part of your body? Make a note of this so when face it again (which you will) you can continue working through it.
I hope by sharing more of my story and my limiting money beliefs, it’s inspired you to dig a little deeper into your own and not believe all the money talk you read on the interwebs.
If you’re wanting to work on your mindset in a safe and inclusive space, my 6-month mastermind Freedom to Scale may be the perfect program for you. I’ve created a mastermind where female leaders can scale their profitable and sustainable business their way on their terms.
If you’re ready to scale your done-for-you signature services and launch buy-me-now courses and digital products so you can make bank, hire help and get visible then, I’d love to chat with you. Enrolment is currently open.
Head to rachelkurzyp.com.au/FTS to learn more.
Thanks so much for tuning into today’s episode.
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P.S. you may also like episode 4 on how to show up before you feel ready.