Season 6 Episode 2: Money Mindset Coach Brittany Deer

MONEY, money, money.  What kind of relationship do you have with money?  What kind of relationship would you LIKE to have?  Money Mindset Master Coach Brittany Deer joins this episode of Coaching and a Cup of Tea with Mummabear, to chat with Master Certified Life Coach Melissa Wiggins about how we can accept our old stories about money and move forward.  Grab a cuppa and listen in.  

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Melissa Wiggins:

Hello, last season lads, welcome to Coaching and a Cup of Tea with Mama Bear. I'm very excited to have my friend and fellow master coach on today, Britney Dear, who is the money mindset expert, the person in the industry you want to talk to about anything money mindset related. She has helped me so much and so many people in my program. She coaches in my program and we just love her so much in Empowered Life. So I'm so excited to have you on here, Brittany.

Brittany Deer:

Hello. Thank you for having me, friend.

Melissa:

And she really is the money person. Honestly. My team just absolutely loved her and then everyone on Empowered Life, my six month coaching program was like, "When do we get Brittany back?" So she's going to be back for our next round. But today I thought I would have her on the podcast to just really talk about an issue that I think is really important, we really dig into in my coaching program, women and their mindset around money. Because it truly impacts how successful women are. Now I shared then last week's podcast that only 2% of female entrepreneurs are hitting seven figures. 2%. And I believe, and I know Brittany believes, that your mindset around money is truly a big part of that. Brittany, what is one of the things you hear the most about women and money when you start working with them?

Brittany:

Oh my gosh. The most? There's tons, obviously, because it just depends. I always say that everybody's story is so different and there's so many different factors that go into someone's money story. So one of the most common is how they were raised, their childhood, or their own experience that they have, especially if they're into adulthood. Whatever that experience may be, it contributes to their story. But one of the biggest things that I hear often from women entrepreneurs is more worthiness. Not worthy of it, or even like, "Can I do this? Am I capable of doing this," type of thinking.

Melissa:

I know that you've spoken about this and when you've coached my group about the women having a money temperature. Can you share with us what that means so that people listening can maybe try and take their own temperature? Because I just feel like such a good analogy.

Brittany:

Yeah. It's just a measurement. Most of the time in life, we measure money by dollars or numbers and this is more of an emotional, mental measurement of where am I at in terms of what am I capable of with money. Am I capable of saving $5,000? Am I capable of saving $50,000? 

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Transcript

Melissa Wiggins:

Hello, last season lads, welcome to Coaching and a Cup of Tea with Mama Bear. I'm very excited to have my friend and fellow master coach on today, Britney Dear, who is the money mindset expert, the person in the industry you want to talk to about anything money mindset related. She has helped me so much and so many people in my program. She coaches in my program and we just love her so much in Empowered Life. So I'm so excited to have you on here, Brittany.

Brittany Deer:

Hello. Thank you for having me, friend.

Melissa:

And she really is the money person. Honestly. My team just absolutely loved her and then everyone on Empowered Life, my six month coaching program was like, "When do we get Brittany back?" So she's going to be back for our next round. But today I thought I would have her on the podcast to just really talk about an issue that I think is really important, we really dig into in my coaching program, women and their mindset around money. Because it truly impacts how successful women are. Now I shared then last week's podcast that only 2% of female entrepreneurs are hitting seven figures. 2%. And I believe, and I know Brittany believes, that your mindset around money is truly a big part of that. Brittany, what is one of the things you hear the most about women and money when you start working with them?

Brittany:

Oh my gosh. The most? There's tons, obviously, because it just depends. I always say that everybody's story is so different and there's so many different factors that go into someone's money story. So one of the most common is how they were raised, their childhood, or their own experience that they have, especially if they're into adulthood. Whatever that experience may be, it contributes to their story. But one of the biggest things that I hear often from women entrepreneurs is more worthiness. Not worthy of it, or even like, "Can I do this? Am I capable of doing this," type of thinking.

Melissa:

I know that you've spoken about this and when you've coached my group about the women having a money temperature. Can you share with us what that means so that people listening can maybe try and take their own temperature? Because I just feel like such a good analogy.

Brittany:

Yeah. It's just a measurement. Most of the time in life, we measure money by dollars or numbers and this is more of an emotional, mental measurement of where am I at in terms of what am I capable of with money. Am I capable of saving $5,000? Am I capable of saving $50,000? So it's seeing where your belief system is in terms of what you believe. And everyone is so different in terms of what their temperature is because of their experience.

Melissa:

Actually, when I did this work myself, and you've definitely helped me with it, looked at what some of that for me was, it was this idea of having to give all of your money away. You can't keep it. You're uncomfortable with it. You must give it away. And it's so funny. Yesterday was my son's birthday and we met a mom and she had just finished working at IHOP. And she had her tips in her hand and my son said, "Yeah, it's my birthday today," and she just gave him all of her money, all of her tips, she just handed them over. And it reminded me of how growing up I saw, "Oh, we can't have it. We have to give it all away. We have to span all of it. Whatever we make right now we have to spend." And it's so funny how mid thirties I'm like, "Okay, Melissa, you might want to try and save some of this money and not give all your money away."

Brittany:

Yeah, for sure. Like I said a minute ago, our experience and our experiences that we still experience, so that situation that you had yesterday, brought up things that reminded you of your money experience as a child. And so it's not a thing that we eliminate or erase, it's something that we learn how to manage. So your story that you were talking about growing up, mine was very lack, like not enough-ness. And we will never have enough, but we always had enough, if that makes sense. We never went without food or our actual needs, but the story was we will never have enough.

            And what we did have, we had to work extremely hard for in terms of we had to put a ton of time in in order to have "decent living." And so still sometimes I'm out in the world, experiencing money, because money is the only thing that almost everyone has interaction with day in and day out. And so it still comes up and it's managing it. It's not erasing it, that's my experience that I had as a child, and how can I overcome it in the moment so that it's not my story going forward.

Melissa:

Yeah. I love that so much. I talk a lot about that in my program. Let's use the past as a fact finding. It's fact finding, it's data, it's information. Let's not live there. Let's look at who do we want to be around money. And I remember one of the things being I didn't want to be a spontaneous shopper. I wanted to be more thoughtful and intentional instead of just being like, "Oh that's a cute hat and shoes, let me just buy it," every time I see something cute. So I started putting things in a cart and then only purchasing on one day of the week. Because it like I had to do certain things in order to change it. Right? It's figuring it out.

            But tell me, because the thing I love so much about your message, your Instagram, and by the way, we will link all of our Instagram, all of her stuff. You have to follow her on Instagram. Her money mindset stuff is amazing. The thing I love the most about your work is not only are you talking about money, you really dig into why the mindset piece is so important. Can you speak to that?

Brittany:

Yeah, 100%. So just a little bit about how I started this, was for over a decade I did all of the "by the book stuff" that's taught about money. The debt elimination processes, as soon as you graduate college, you have college debt. And I did all of these so to say check boxes and here I was, 32 ish, and I still felt very disconnected to money. It felt very hard. It was very overwhelming. It was a lot of avoidance in my life. It was a lot of anxiety. I would wake up at night sometimes because the anxiety around money was so intense and it was like, "Okay, there has to be more than just these numbers and just these check boxes." Because at that point, my husband and I had paid off thousands. I'm talking, I don't even remember at this point, but upwards of $50,000 in debt. And I still was carrying all of this emotional piece around day in and day out affecting my life.

            And I was like, "Okay, this really isn't about the number. This really isn't about the actual dollar, the money. This is more of a mental, emotional, and body thing that I'm experiencing." So that's why... I see people doing this, but I'm not into sitting around and manifesting and thinking your way. It's getting really deep into your core, who you want to be when it comes to money, how you want to feel more importantly. It's like, "Okay, do I want to feel overwhelmed, anxious, and all of these things? No, but it's also part of life to feel that way. So how can I manage that? And also still feel the calmness in my body around money?" The abundance, or even just the, what is it, another word I'm trying to think of. A lot of my clients experience lack. And so instead of feeling those heavy, intense emotions, what can we focus on mentally and emotionally so that we can experience money in a totally different way instead of just these money, dollar check box things that we learn in school?

Melissa:

Yeah. I love it. That's what I love so much because whenever we think about money and women, and there are so many studies that are women saying that they think that they're not good with money. Some studies showing that 50% of women ask the male in their relationship to make the big decisions around money. And one of the things I've found for the women doing the work and being able to work with you through the program is shifting some of that. It's okay if you want to be in a relationship where that's not something you want. I don't want to do that. But what about the woman who's like, "You know what? I would like to understand all the finances of our home," or, "I really would like to be able to do these other thing," and sort of shifting your mindset to say, "Oh no, I can be a part of these big decisions with money. I am good with money," instead of just what we've been programmed to believe, which is we're shit with it and we're really bad so we should just not make those decisions.

Brittany:

Yeah, 100%. And it's not something that's talked about. So I remember the first time that I taught in your program, people were like, "I've never even questioned my relationship with money." And I'm like, "Okay, that's totally normal," first off.

Melissa:

[inaudible 00:11:18].

Brittany:

Yeah. And I'm like, we didn't go to school when you start to become a teen or whatever and they do that game of life and you're going around and getting your job and you have this money and all these things. They didn't ask you how you want to feel and think about money and they still don't. And so it's very normal for people to be like, "I never even thought about my relationship with money." And this is the way I compare it is I want you to think about your relationship with money, just like any other relationship in your life. So whether that be your partner or your children or your parents or your friends, whatever that looks like, I want you to think about the type of work that you put into those type of relationships and then ask yourself, why are you not doing this with money. Especially if you want a different relationship with money.

Melissa:

Mic drop. I mean seriously though. And it's so true. And honestly, until I got into the coaching world and started coaching mostly female entrepreneurs who are mama bears, until I got into that world, I didn't realize how much of an impact money had on so many other aspects. You must see so many benefits, and your clients, by working on, and I know money is you live and breathe it, that's what you do, but the ripple effect on every other aspect is just, the ROI on this work is so huge.

Brittany:

Yeah. And my own experience, clearly we all kind of do something that we're super passionate about. And when I first hired my first coach, I knew that was my pain source. That's what hurt so bad every day for me to wake up to and see that I was experiencing this life with money feeling this way. And I started there. And at that time I was actually about to get divorced. And so I saw the ripple effect. It changed not only my life with money, both physically, actual money, that's another byproduct of doing this work is it changes your physical state with money in addition to your emotional and mental. But my marriage was transformed, my relationship with my kids. I can talk to them about money totally different because I'm not anxious about it. I'm not overwhelmed about it for the majority of the time.

            And so then the other thing is my parents, where I learned a lot of my story from, my conversations are very different with my parents now than what they were. So a lot of growth. And like you said, ripple effects, go into so many other areas when you do this work. And then that's just a piece of it. But when you're an entrepreneur, this is the foundation. So I always think of when you're building a house, you don't start with your walls and your roof, you start with a solid foundation. So it's like, if you're building a business, you want your thoughts and all of your money story cleaned up so that it's sturdy for you to build on. Now, if you're like me and it wasn't super solid to begin with, it's not a problem. It's just go back and investigate that relationship and start where you are. And just question all of your thoughts and your beliefs and all of the things that you think around money.

Melissa:

Yeah. I love that. And just listening to you, I'm excited for you to come back again and coach the lassies again. But one of the things I think has been one of the biggest impacts personally, for myself and for the women that were in the program, is their ability to talk to their children about money. That is a game changer. I never ever spoke about money with my parents. And I know that times are changing and that's wonderful and we're in this education era, but my kids and I talk about money all the time. They have their own bank cards, they have their own savings accounts.

            It was hilarious. We were traveling back from Scotland and it just made me laugh so much. They had their little bank cards and we were at the New York airport and we were in Starbucks, and my kids love Starbucks so sometimes with their allowance on the weekend they go to our local Starbucks, but we were in the airport Starbucks and my three boys are looking at the prices and they're like, "Wow, this is the most expensive Starbucks I've ever been in, mom. That is only $4 in Florida. And here it's $7." And internally I was just laughing because I was like, they're understanding not only the value of money, but they're talking about it. It's just general chit chat.

            And I just feel like that's just so freeing. And that's one of the things I've loved about you and I becoming such good friends is being able to chit chat with another female woman talking about sex or food or what you do for work. That's how we talk about money. "Hey, how is your business doing?" And it's so refreshing. But to think about the generational work you and I are doing with our own children and people that do this work, it's just so cool.

Brittany:

Yes. I love it so much. And I always say too, especially when people want my thoughts or coaching on around their kids and money, I always remind them that we're all doing the best that we know how to do. And so I never, ever will shame my family for their money story and how they taught me money because they were doing the best that they knew how to do at that time with the resources that they had.

Melissa:

But you can tell you've done a lot of work to get to that thought, which is so beautiful. Because that's why you and I, when you are a coach and you've been coached, you have extensively invested in your brain for so many years over and over in the program that we met in. It is so clear and obvious because it shows up in how you coach. Because I also believe that, but sometimes it can take our clients a minute to gate to that thought too.

Brittany:

100%. And there's this thing that I call radical responsibility. And it is really hard sometimes when you have a money story for so long to take that radical responsibility of this is just my story and it's okay. And over and over and over taking responsibility for whatever it is. And then, from that place, you can decide, okay, this was my story, whatever, as a child, or even as an early adult, and I'm taking responsibility for what I want the story to be going forward. And so taking radical responsibility for both, not just where you're wanting to go, is super important.

            And so it's just a piece of me doing the work, obviously, before my clients, so that I can show them how to do that. But it is very hard around money because money is a sensitive topic and it sometimes can be painful. And I know that because, like I said, I was up at night a lot of times with anxious money thoughts and freaking out and all of the things. And so I used to actually get chronic UTIs. And for the longest time I thought it was all of these other reasons and then I figured out it was my stress level and it was linked because I was so stressed about money all of the time. And I have not had hardly any in years. And I just did my own work around that.

            And I don't know if you've ever read this book, but it's called The Body Keeps the Score, and then there's another one, Healing Back Pain. And it just talks about how all that mental and emotional stuff builds up and then becomes a physical illness. And that's a lot of what I was experiencing when I was in a constant panic, anxiety state with money. And so taking responsibility for all of the pieces, all of the emotions, when it comes to money, is just a really important piece of the work.

Melissa:

Yeah. I think what is so amazing about you sharing your story so honestly in the way that you do is there's just so much identification with other women. So many women have lived exactly what you just described. And then there's the other women who, if you become an entrepreneur, you will, at some point, have money drama. We call it [inaudible 00:20:51].

Brittany:

100%.

Melissa:

If you've never had it before, we promise you it is available to purchase when you become an entrepreneur. It's just a part of the package. And that's why I love your teachings about no, this is the foundational stuff. Even if you don't think you have a problem with money, you want to figure out what your relationship with it is so that you can work around it and make it work for what you're trying to achieve.

Brittany:

100%. And people can find this either on my website or my profile, my social media, but my story is I didn't grow up with being wealthy. And we got by and I never went without, I had a great childhood for the most part. My mom sacrificed a lot for me to do a lot of things that I wanted to do. And she worked very hard to do that and worked a lot to do that. But I also have a lot of women that come to me that have multimillion dollar businesses. And I love to share this because it really shows that no matter the dollar amount, no matter how much you have, no matter how much you make, no matter all of it, that it's so neutral because I have multimillion dollar business owners that have lots of money, or I have people who have grown up with lots of money and still experience this emotional mental piece around money where they're stuck in the lack loop or they feel like they're not worthy to have it or they hoard it because they're scared of losing it.

Melissa:

You feel guilty for having it.

Brittany:

Yes.

Melissa:

I've had that.

Brittany:

So that dollar is so neutral because we have evidence that it can go either way.

Melissa:

Gosh, I love that so much. And I've experienced that with clients too. Same thing. Some with trust funds who have a really hard time, some who are trying to figure out how they could possibly start a business and are doing it on credit. And I grew up in government housing, my parents didn't graduate high school, they went on and did labor jobs. And so they just instilled in me, "Get an education, get an education, Melissa, get an education. Try to figure out how to move out of it." And I'm completely grateful for how much they pushed me into that. But it's interesting that it doesn't matter if you grew up in government housing or you lived in the richest neighborhood in America with a trust fund, it doesn't matter. Either one is going to give you that stuff because it is part of your story. And I just love how you teach about it being a relationship. That is just so different than anything else I've heard out there. And I'm just ready for you to write a book so that all the women in the world can read it. It would be so good.

Brittany:

I know.

Melissa:

Let's do it.

Brittany:

I know. You and my husband both. It is on the agenda. There's only so much time in the day. And also I'm a mom right now. And I know that you and I love sharing that piece. And when I say right now, they're not little, they're teens, but I'm really savoring that life right now. And so a book will be in time for sure. It's a for sure. But it's going to be when I really feel, I want to feel like this is what I want to do right now. And I just don't feel like that right now. I want to be at all of my kids' stuff. I don't want to have my counter more filled than what it already is. So there's tons of things that I jot down.

Melissa:

You're such an example of that. You're such a beautiful example of being an unbelievably supportive mama whose present, shows up to all the things, and you run a badass company. It's just respect, bow down, you're amazing. And I'm just so grateful that you and I got to meet during a coaching masters with Lindsay. And it's just beautiful.

Brittany:

I know. I was just telling someone yesterday, that's one of my favorite things about coaching. Because I saw two people that I was in a mastermind with before and they're just best friends and they met in there and I was like, "I love that so much." I said, "I love that you found a really good friend and someone to talk about." Because, I'm sure you've talked about this before on the podcast, entrepreneurship can feel lonely at times and it can also feel like, for me anyways, it's like, I talk about money all of the time and it's still a very taboo topic and it's still a very sensitive topic for some people. And that's fine, not everybody wants to sit around and talk and think about money like I do because I love to nerd out about it.

            But I think it's super important that you just find those people. And that's another piece with your money relationship is just looking at who you surround yourself with and what their thoughts are about money, because it's really important on your own relationship. And so of course I always seek out the people that are like, "Yes, let's talk about money. Let's think about money. I want to do all of the things with money and I want to make a big, huge impact in the world of money." So I think that's one of the best gifts.

Melissa:

You are, Lassie. You definitely are. We love you over at Empowered Life and I just really appreciate you coming on here and spending some time with us. I will link up in the show notes your website, your bio. But definitely right now, go follow Britney Dear on social media, Money Mindset, and you'll just really get some good information quickly. She also has an amazing podcast that is so good. So I'm just so grateful. And I think as an end takeaway, I would just ask for everybody to think about what kind of relationship with money would they like to have. I love to have something for the lassies listening to be like, "Let me think about this." And don't think about it in your head. Literally write down the type of relationship you want to have. Not the one you have, but what do you want it to look like. Because I always am such an advocate for spending more of my energy on what I want it to be like than thinking about what it is right now.

Brittany:

100%. Yep. Because a lot of people, especially if you were like myself, I can spin out in that. I can always tell you all of the shit things about all of my thoughts around money. And so yes, when you ask yourself that, focus on what you want it to look like. And if you struggle with that question, like, "Oh my gosh, I've never even asked that before or don't even know what that means," then use the analogy of when you're thinking about your relationship with your partner or your kids, what do you want that to look like? And just replace it with the word money because it's literally no different. It's just working on another relationship in your life.

Melissa:

I love it. Well, thank you so much. We really appreciate you, Brittany.

Brittany:

Thank you.

Melissa:

And I'll talk to you soon.

Brittany:

All right. Thanks.

Melissa:

Bye.