What to Do When Your Financial World is Crumbling with Brandi Mowles

Overcoming financial struggles and building a profitable business is not only possible but well within your grasp.

Sure, It's gonna be a bit tough, but trust me, with some solid planning, a touch of creativity, and a whole lot of determination, you'll crush those challenges and come out on top!

Speaking of triumphing over financial hardships, we have a special guest joining us today, Brandi Mowles, founder of Serve Scale Soar. 

Brandy shares her personal journey, from struggling with debt to building a thriving business. She takes us through the steps she took to turn her financial situation around and provides valuable insights that will inspire and guide you.

So get ready for an episode that'll leave you feeling empowered, inspired, and armed with the tools to conquer any financial hurdle that comes your way.

IN TODAY’S EPISODE, I DISCUSS: 

• Brandi's journey towards financial success
• Treating budgeting as effective money management
• Strategies for maximizing profitability and setting financial goals

CONNECT WITH BRANDI:
Know more about Brandi: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandi-mowles
Visit Brandi’s website: https://brandimowles.com
Follow Brandi on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brandimowles/

RECOMMENDED EPISODES FOR YOU 
If you liked this episode, you'll love these ones:

• Build Wealth & Live a Rich Life at Any Age (My son's journey)
• Create a Money Machine for Financial Freedom
• Generate & Scale Your Income to Build Wealth Faster
• How the Top 1% Earners Accelerate Their Wealth (It's Not By Getting a Raise)

RECOMMENDED VIDEOS FOR YOU
If you liked this video, you'll love these ones:

• Build Wealth & Live a Rich Life at Any Age (My son's journey)
  https://youtu.be/5p7OVp2pAbM
• Create a Money Machine for Financial Freedom
  https://youtu.be/ZXK7bnqrqcw
• Generate & Scale Your Income to Build Wealth Faster
  https://youtu.be/WQamRbChFBk
• How the Top 1% Earners Accelerate Their Wealth (It's Not By Getting a Raise)
  https://youtu.be/xWorpSnrAYI

TAKE THE FINANCIAL FREEDOM QUIZ:
Take this free quiz to see where you are on the path to financial freedom and what your next steps are to move you to a new financial destiny at http://www.YourFinancialFreedomQuiz.com  

OTHER RESOURCES:
7-Day Money Plan Workshop: https://www.TheMoneyPlanWorkshop.com
Affluent Entrepreneurs Private Facebook Group https://www.melabraham.com/group/

CONNECT WITH ME:
Website: MelAbraham.com
YouTube: MelAbraham.com/tube
Instagram (@melabraham9): MelAbraham.com/ig
Facebook Group: MelAbraham.com/group/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@melhabraham

GET MY BOOK:
“The Entrepreneur's Solution The Modern Millionaire's Path to More Profit, Fans, & Freedom” –&

Transcript

Mel Abraham [00:00:06]:

This is the Affluent Entrepreneur Show for entrepreneurs that want to operate at a high level and achieve financial liberation. I'm your host, Mel Abraham, and I'll be sharing with you what it takes to create success beyond wealth so you can have a richer, more fulfilling lifestyle. In this show, you'll learn how business and money intersect so you can scale your business, scale your money, and scale your life while creating a deeper impact and living with complete freedom, because that's what it really means to be an athlete, entrepreneur. What do you do when you have a brand new baby, a husband, and a financial world that is caving in? Well, in this episode, I'm talking to Brandy Males, and that's exactly what was going on. She was she was an entrepreneur. She was an accidental entrepreneur, but she found herself in a situation where the business was crumbling, her financial world was crumbling. Her husband wasn't aware of it, and she's trying to figure out how to take care of her family, and she pulled herself through it. And it's an incredible, amazing story, not only inspirational, but instructional about the things that she did to deal with it, the things that the steps she took, the tactics she used. So whether you're struggling financially or you're on a financial journey and you're not where you're at, or maybe you are where you're at, this one is pure gold. You need to listen to it. You need to understand some of the tactics that she's using, and no matter where you're at, to realize that you, too, can come through it the way Brandy has. So I'll see you in the episode. Hey, Brandy. So good to have you on the show. I mean, this is going to be a cool conversation. We met, like I said in the intro, we met a couple of years back, and you've been on quite a journey, and part of the journey I didn't know about, and we're going to talk about it here. So welcome. Welcome to the show.

Brandi Mowles  [00:02:05]:

Oh, my goodness. Mel, I'm super excited. I feel like that I just connected with you from the moment I met you, and I felt like we both met at a really interesting time in our life. You were just diagnosed. I was just starting a new business. And so I'm so glad to be sitting here now as friends and having this conversation.

Mel Abraham [00:02:25]:

Oh, my gosh. Thank you. Yes. Lots of transitions, lots of growth in the time that we've known each other. And so do me a favor. Well, just just to start out for people that don't know you, and they should know you, but they will after this. Who is Brandy Mouse?

Brandi Mowles  [00:02:46]:

Oh, my goodness. I am a wife and mom, first and foremost, in that order. I'm a taco snob. I'm a podcast host, and they say I'm a digital marketing guru, but I just like to nerd out over marketing and offer creation and I'm your best digital marketing friend.

Mel Abraham [00:03:07]:

And it's true. It's true. And for those of you just listening, randy and I happen to be in actually two Masterminds together. And so I hear the things, the stuff that goes on in her brain is incredible. But it wasn't always this way. Listen, if you're listening to this, we've come through the pandemic. We're kind of going through uncertainty in the markets. We've gone through a lot of different things. And I'm hoping that you'll hear this from the perspective of if you're dealing with that, you're not alone. And just because Brandy and I are having this conversation, you're going to find out that we're right there with you. We've been right there with you and Brandy. When we met, I was speaking at an event that she was at, and we had a conversation, and at that time, she had student loans in excess of $100,000. And we had a conversation at that event. And then what happened with those? Because I want to start where we started, but then we'll give them the backstory that I was completely unaware of.

Brandi Mowles  [00:04:18]:

So you came and you were talking about wealth, and this is something that was definitely and it wasn't even the wealth part of it. Just how to manage money correctly was definitely on my mind in that moment for a bunch of back reasons. But I come from a very low middle class family. Blue collar workers worked so hard their entire life, and I just knew paycheck to paycheck. That's all I knew. And so coming in when I met you, I was making really great money at that point as a one on one service provider, just transitioning into digital products. And I wanted to know, what the heck do we do with this money that we're making? And I wanted to make sure it was the right thing. And we talked about I wanted to buy a house eventually, but that felt really out of range. We had 100,000 plus. It was actually 130,000 between my husband and I, student loans from law school and undergrad and stuff like that. And I was like, what do I start with? Do I invest? What does that mean? Do we buy a house? Do we pay off student loans? And I remember we talking about this, and at that moment, the best thing for us to do is pay off the student loans. And so I think eight months after we had that discussion, we paid off over all of the student loans. I think we have, like, $5,000 left that will pay off this year. And so that was so big to have that massive debt just gone through my business.

Mel Abraham [00:05:46]:

Yeah. And the interesting thing is, in that conversation, I had that conversation in isolation. I had no idea the journey that you were on. I now understand even more so, why money management was at top of mind, because we were just talking before we started recording is that three years prior to that or three years ago, you had to actually file bankruptcy, you had a business that put you in debt and you had to file bankruptcy. Tell me as we walk through this, what got you there? What got you to the point where thinking bankruptcy is the solution, all the things that came out of it? Because I think that the rebirth is an amazing thing. Yeah, for sure.

Brandi Mowles  [00:06:44]:

And we don't know it in that moment. It feels really horrible in that moment. And so I was the first generation in my family to go to college. Like I said, very blue collar family went to college. And I actually started college at 17 just because I held my birthday falls. And so I signed some big loans when I was 17, thinking that that was the only way. And so undergrad racked up about $35,000 in undergrad. And then I had a double major in international relations and history with a minor in African studies, like, what the heck are you going to do with that? And so my options were go be a teacher or go to law school. And so law school sounded like a really great option to me. So I went to law school at the age of 20, signing massive loans, like nothing on undergrad loans, and went to law school and then found myself in a really dark place. I was doing super well in school, top 10% of my class, but law school is like, mentally really difficult. You're reading horrible things that happen to children and people. And my whole viewpoint on the world started to change. And then it got to the point where we had to do summer interns and I needed a job, like a paying job, because that's always been my since I was 14, I've worked and because I went to Alabama, very much still is the boys playground there. And so I was told that there was no way I was going to get a paid internship. She was very honest with me, and I couldn't afford to work for free. And so I went to an event and it was like a direct sales network marketing event. And there was this woman sitting up there and she was telling me about all this money she was making and how she didn't even have a high school education. And I was like, oh, my God, if she can do this, you better believe I can figure out how to do this. And I had always been a bartender or server. I knew people, I knew how to sell. And so I was like, I'm going to do this. And very quickly I was able to earn a free car. And all these, they give you diamond rings and stuff. And this was so out of my life, like what I was used to. And for the first time, I was making amazing money. And so then I ended up leaving law school and took a lot of debt with me and pursued this for eight years. And I moved very quickly to the top. And through that I learned how not to manage a business very quickly. I'm not bashing network marketing or MLM, but there is a culture in a lot of them of not really discussing how to manage money or that there will be times where you're not making as much, and also how this one was set up. As I actually moved up the company, which was encouraged, my paychecks kept on getting smaller. And then also I had partnered with David's Bridal and so lead generation and stuff like that. So I had so many expenses. I had a brick and mortar studio, and at this point, I was 22, 23 years old, all of a sudden had $10,000 a month, but also really heavy expenses. And not knowing how to manage a business, not knowing how to manage personal finance, and there wasn't a culture of communication on how to do anything like that. It was just make money, make money, move up. Like, this is what you do. And I lost myself in that. And I took really bad business advice, and through that, racked up quite a bit of debt to maintain my status in a company. And I think that's a really dangerous place. And it doesn't matter if you're in network marketing or anything, but when we tie our self worth to our title, our status, it can be a really dangerous place. And so when I was eight months pregnant with my daughter, I told my husband, I was like, I'm done. This is not what I'm going to do anymore. I didn't feel right about having other people do the same thing. I was it was so out of alignment with who I was. The purses, the statuses, the cars. That wasn't me. And I didn't want my daughter to also have those things. And so he said, what are you doing? We're bringing in money. At the time, he had no idea how much debt we had racked up. And I just said, we'll figure it out. And so when my daughter was five months old, we had to figure it out. Like, it got bad. And so we contacted I had to sit down and have a really tough conversation with my husband. We never were late on any payments. It just got to the point where it wasn't going to be maintainable. And so I had to have a really hard conversation with my husband, tell him where we were. We went and talked to an attorney. After looking at our student loans, our credit card stuff, he was like, the best thing you can do right now is file bankruptcy. That was his advice. We went to another attorney. They gave us the exact same advice. And the crazy thing is that when you're struggling so bad. You also have to pay these attorneys a lot of money. A lot of money to get a lot. And so I remember after I had so much shame around this and we didn't tell anyone, we kept it to ourself. Only, like, two people knew. And I reached out to a best friend, and she was like, this is the biggest mistake you'll ever make in your life. And at that point, I literally shut down and was like, we cannot tell anyone we're going to do this. It's the best thing for our family, but we're not telling anyone. And so I remember hustling I went into pawn shops to get rid of rings. I held a yard sale where I was literally taking credit cards on the square reader and selling all my designer purses just to pay for the attorney. And we paid for the attorney. And then it was like, okay, this is going to be taken care of, but we still have $130,000 in student loans. We still have to live. It wasn't like we were living a fancy lifestyle by any means. We have a five month old that has to be fed. And I couldn't go back to work because she was like she was just a very needed baby. And so that's when I started Googling, and I was like, what can I do online? How do I work at home? And I came up with a virtual assistant.

Mel Abraham [00:12:56]:

So I want to take you back because I want to keep this going, because here's the thing. I think there's a couple of things you said that I want to just dig a little deeper in, because I think this is really important in our world today. You were spending money to keep status. Yeah, I just actually did an episode called and I'll hook it up here too, at the end of this. But social media stealing your financial future, and even if you're not in a company, social media is creating an environment where we start to spend money to create status, let's put it this way, a facade of status. And that's a slippery slope. That's the thing that really kind of got you, is that the emotions of that kept you in the game. Yeah.

Brandi Mowles  [00:13:54]:

And it wasn't even social media. It was inside the company. Speaking on stages in front of 10,000 people as an extrovert that's like, oh, my God, this is like, my dreams are made of this. And I was driving a car, and I was recognized by the car I drove because it was a symbol of success. And we had jackets. Like, everything in the company was tied to your success. Like the jacket you wore, how many diamond rings you had, because these showed that you were successful in the company. And these are things that I had never cared for in my whole life. Like, I never wanted a designer handbag. I never wanted rings. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. It's just not me. But I was so worried about losing my status in the company that I took bad business advice and did what other people in the company were doing to keep their status.

Mel Abraham [00:14:47]:

So in the process of being afraid to lose your status, you lost yourself. Yeah, absolutely. And it's a tough place to be now. The AHA came, the realization came, and good on you to be able to say, wait a second, this is a problem. And I got a family and I've got a newborn, and I have a husband, and I'm extracting it out. So if I misstate, correct me. And I haven't been totally honest with my husband about where we're at. So you're going to sit down and have this conversation. Now, those of you that are listening, you might be in a similar situation for different reasons. And so as we walk through this, understand the courage that it takes, because I want you to hear the outcome and what it makes when you have the courage to take the steps. So you're going to sit down with your husband. I don't want to bring up the emotions, but how did the conversation go?

Brandi Mowles  [00:15:59]:

I first and foremost want to say that I have the most incredible husband in the world. And when I sat down with him, I explained our situation. He did not once blame me. He took full responsibility because he said he's also a partner in this. I shouldn't have been the one that had to manage all of our finances on my own. There should have been a conversation and that he also took responsibility for it. And I'm so lucky. But I did hold on to a lot of that blame for a long time. It's taken me four years to actually get through that blame and know that at the time, I thought I was doing what was best for our family. Ultimately, it wasn't. But I don't think I've ever felt so ashamed, so embarrassed. I cried a lot, showing all the numbers where we were. But it was the best thing I could have done because I knew if I kept on trying to do what I was doing, which was, okay, here's the money, let's pay the minimum. But then we need to turn around and use those credit cards just to buy groceries or formula or diaper. It wasn't sustainable. And I recognized that, and I was like, we have to get ahead of this, because it was just draining on me and it was draining on our family. And so it was the hardest conversation, but it was the most important conversation I've ever had.

Mel Abraham [00:17:20]:

So tell me, first off, he sounds like a good dude. Keep him incredible. Because here's the thing. It's been stated that finances is one of the biggest stressors in relationship. And part of it is because we don't talk. We don't talk about money and everything but I look at it differently. I believe that when you talk about money, you're talking about something bigger than money. You're talking about your vision, your family's vision, your your life together. So having gone through that, how has it changed your relationship?

Brandi Mowles  [00:18:06]:

Yeah, now, Austin is very aware of any money we spend. He's very aware of he's not going to come and ask. We don't really ask before we buy. We don't have one of those rules. But we are respectful of each other. And so we'll come and be like, hey, this is where we're at financially, this is what I would like. What are your thoughts on it? And so we'll talk that through. We do have credit cards now, they're paid off every other week, but we do have those to build our credit and everything. And so both of us are fully aware of what's on there, what was put on there when it's paid off. So there's an open communication. He knows how much our expenses are a month, which also helps because I think I still manage our money, but he knows what's coming out, what our expenses are and what came in, which makes it really helpful because he's not asking for stuff, because he doesn't know anymore. And I don't have to say no to something. It creates a really weird dynamic when you're saying, no, you can't get that. Well, I'm not saying no, you can't get it just because I don't want you to get it. It's because we don't have the money. He would know that. So I think it's opened up our relationship. Now, is there still work to do? Yes, I still manage 99.9% of it and he could definitely be more involved. But it's a work in progress and I think just where I am in our business and stuff, I'm managing money every single month. It falls onto me because that's what I do.

Mel Abraham [00:19:38]:

Do you find that it brought you closer?

Brandi Mowles  [00:19:41]:

Yeah, I think it taught us that communication is super important, where, I mean, we got married when I was 23, I met him when I was 17. And so we had all high school sweethearts. Well, he's in college, I just graduated high school when we started dating, so we were college sweethearts. But we've been together for a long time and we had to grow up together. And so both of us come from very Southern roots where you don't talk about money and it's one person manages it and that's how it is. So we've had to learn a lot along the way. So it's definitely made us stronger in that sense. And it's creating a different dynamic for our daughter. She now grows up in a home where we talk about money openly, we discuss finances openly, even with her. And so hopefully we're changing generational expectations and communication about finances and money as well.

Mel Abraham [00:20:37]:

I can't tell you how much I love hearing this because I'm an absolute believer that we need to have these conversations as a family. It doesn't mean that you say to the kids, here's the bank accounts, but when we give our children some skills, communication, financial skills, they're going to serve them the rest of their life. And yet we demonize money. And it's not the money that's the challenge. It's how we view it. It's how we use it. It's the tool. But yet we won't have the conversations around it. So you have the conversation, you decide, look, I get it. I'm not a proponent that says bankruptcy is the way to go, because I think sometimes we can use it when we don't need to because it seems easier in the moment. Bankruptcy comes with a whole lot of burden. It comes with a whole lot of as much as you felt shame and guilt and all that before it, there was a whole new level with this. And so how did you navigate that to make sure that it didn't just spiral you down?

Brandi Mowles  [00:21:59]:

Yeah, so I don't know, I just got in this mindset that I had to change our dynamic. My husband had when we had our daughter, he took a pay cut for better benefits and so he was doing the best he can. And so I was like, how can I contribute to our family? That was definitely like first and foremost, I think sometimes when your backs up against the wall, you just make stuff happen. And so I found this course on how to be a virtual assistant. And I had hired virtual assistants before and they sent out birthday postcards to my customers and I was like, I do not want to do that. But one thing that I learned a lot from my business that was so incredible is I got so good at marketing. I was so good at sales, I was so good at text marketing. Now text is popular. I was doing text ten years ago and helping companies fly me out to Utah to learn how to text market. And so email marketing, I had social media. I knew how to do all of that. And so I came online and I started doing it for clients. And then I got into Facebook ads, found out I was really good at that, and ran with that and very quickly was able to scale my business to six figures and then added a digital program and did a million. Then the very next year and through all this, my number one focus the entire time was, how do we stay as profitable as possible? That was always in my mind, we're doing this different. If it means that we have to slow down, that's fine. If it means I say no to some things, I was totally fine with that. How can we be profitable and then how can we not go out and just spend all that money? Like I didn't want to live paycheck to paycheck. I wanted this money to make a difference in some way. And we've been able to donate to a lot of money, to charities that we would have never even been able to think about donating before, and we've been able to buy our dream home and all these different things that came with that. But I'm so grateful for going through that experience. Now I can look back and be like, okay, I'm grateful for going through bankruptcy because it taught me how to run a business correctly. But I wish I would have learned it a different way because it was definitely hard, and I've struggled for four years. I'm so grateful for the Mastermind that we were in together, because that Mastermind was supposed to be for marketing, but for me, it was for healing. And I met incredible people that helped me heal through this, that I've never thought that I experienced trauma in my life. And there's different forms of trauma. And I was able to heal from this and forgive myself and know that this is just a part of my story and it shouldn't be hidden because as long as I'm hiding it, I'm holding on to that shame. And so how can I turn this around to help other people?

Mel Abraham [00:24:50]:

So this is beautiful because and I get where you're where you're coming from, where you're feeling. I mean, I felt the same thing with the Ponzi scheme, this guilt. Here's the thing, and maybe it helps those listening, but even you at some level, with all the interviews that I've done, billionaires, millionaires, hundred millionaires, people starting out, every single one of them, without question, has some level of guilt or shame around money. Some because they have it, some because they had it and lost it, some because they don't have it, some because they did something wrong with it, all kinds of reasons for it. But it exists. I still deal with it at times. But now you're aware of it, you're more equipped. Right. And you've given it we talked about a couple of things, and I think that I want to hit on a few. You mentioned it. So you went into a new business out of necessity because you needed formula, you needed to take care of the little one, and you need to take care of the family. And out of necessity, you decide to get in business. And this business turned into, like you said, it's a seven figure business today. You actually did this in a very short duration. Yeah, the recovery time wasn't too long. But the thing that I want people to make sure they understand is you said you have a huge focus now on being as profitable as possible. Yeah, there's a couple of questions that come up for me. One is because I want people to hear it. What's your margins now? Margins? Your profitability. Because it's insanely good. Yeah.

Brandi Mowles  [00:26:55]:

So it was at 87% and then to hit million. I have a life coach as my bookkeeper and accountant, so it really worked. She was like, okay, Brady, if you want to hit that next level, you have to also be okay with still being profitable, but not at 80 some percent. That's not going to maintain. And so my goal is always to stay above 50%. So we're running at a 57% profit margin. And that feels so good to me.

Mel Abraham [00:27:23]:

There's a whole lot of room for error there, especially if you're in the digital space, bricks and mortar. There's going to be some differences there because you have a different level of overhead. But what I'm hoping that they all take away is that when you were at the other company and what I hear a lot of people get focused on is sales. Sales, revenue, revenue, revenue, revenue. And I've always said revenue is a vanity metric. It doesn't matter how much you are selling if it doesn't end up in the bottom line. And now your profit focus first versus sales focus.

Brandi Mowles  [00:28:14]:

Absolutely. And one of those things, we've made decisions, like my bookkeeper said, what's your goal for this year? And I was like, let's just do 2 million and run at a 50% profit margin. I think it helped me also learn that I don't want a $10 million business that doesn't hit my financial goals, because I know that that's going to be more team. I'm not saying that at that level you're not running at 50%, but to get there, probably not. And so for me, it was like, what's going to sustain? What lifestyle do I want to live? How much money do we want to give to charity? And what does that look like in revenue? But more importantly, what's that profit margin? Because to me, I much rather have a $2 million business running at 50% profit than $10 million business running at 10% profit, even if I had to take home more, the stress, the lifestyle, all that, it's not what I want. And I think that when you focus on profit, you can get really clear on what do you actually want in life? What do you want your lifestyle to look like? What do you want to have money to give back? What does that look like? And since focusing on profit, I don't say no to things like people think. I'm always like, I don't go and travel and all that kind of stuff. And my two biggest expenses in my business are education and travel. Those are my two biggest ones, where most people it's team. That's not the case for me. We run a small, mighty team. But those are the two areas that light me up the most. I love being a mastermind. I love travel, I love education. And when I invest in those, my business grows. And so I don't say no to stuff. I just know if I invest in the. Right things. My business is going to grow because of it, and my profitability will stay the same.

Mel Abraham [00:29:58]:

So it's really about being intentional. What's beautiful about what you just said, it fits really well with the Affluence blueprint, because when we walk through people the Affluence blueprint, through the Affluence blueprint, the first thing we do is define lifestyle. Too often we're chasing income, but if the income sacrifices our lifestyle because of the pace we're going at, our health, our relationships, or it doesn't get us the lifestyle, then we're on the wrong path. I love hearing that you've come to this organic. I'm going to say organically, but it was with stress. Yeah, because I wasn't openly teaching this when you were going through this. But I think that the important thing is then profits. Now, one of the elements that we talk about is you want to move profits to portfolio. We want to shift. And you made a comment before we started about one of the mistakes that you're seeing and one of the mistakes that came out. I don't want to say bad. It is bad. It's bad business advice if you're not getting it, and that is the duty to keep the money. Talk to me about that realization and how that came about, because this is the core premise of pretty much everything that we do, is that if we're not building a money machine outside of what we drive, it's a challenge. It's going to be a problem.

Brandi Mowles  [00:31:46]:

Yeah. So one of the things that I was really frustrated with in direct sales and I actually went to the company and expressed my frustration, was like, no one's teaching us how to manage the money. What is good business sense? They would just say, you pay 50% for it, you sell it for 100%, but that doesn't include your expenses and all that kind of stuff. And so I was really frustrated that that wasn't provided. And that frustration also led up to when I left. And so when I came into the online space, I guess I didn't know what to expect, honestly. But I saw a lot of people throwing out revenue numbers. And when I would ask questions like, oh, but what was your profitability? Or how much did you spend on ads? Those numbers were hush hush. No one wants to talk about that. And I was starting to be like, okay, also, is this cash collected? I was asking all these questions because I was curious.

Mel Abraham [00:32:40]:

Just so you know, that warms an accountant's heart.

Brandi Mowles  [00:32:44]:

People are very kind of sketchy about giving me these numbers and so on our road to a million and before we hit a million, I had done 250,000 the year before, and that was when we were running at over 80% profitability because it was mostly one on one services, no crazy overhead, ad spend, stuff like that. Then I came out January of 2020 and said, I'm going to have a million dollar year, and I'm going to take you all with me behind the scenes. So on the podcast, we literally have a whole year of me going through my income reports, where I talk about the difference between revenue generated and cash collected and my profitability and where that was going and how much I was paying myself. And I was very transparent through that whole year of just showing that, because one of the things that I believe is educators online that teach people how to make money, we also have a duty to teach them how to keep the money. Now, I'm not an expert at money management, so I make sure that we have podcast episodes. We have resources, we give bookkeeping and accounting references and all of those to our students. Like, Mel, you've been on the podcast. We also have other Amber Duggar and other professionals that are in this industry that that's their specialty. And we're always highlighting their episodes. And I'm always super transparent about my numbers because I think that that helps other people know what's realistic for them. It knows what's possible. It also shows them, like, this is what it looks like to run a business. If I'm bringing in $80,000 a month and my expenses are 40,000, that's common to have $40,000. And if you're not willing to spend even 5000 on expenses, then how do you expect to get to 83,000 a month? And so I think that sharing those numbers more openly helps. And one thing I will say, though, is I had to take a step back from the income reports because as I was healing from this, I realized it wasn't always good for me to be sharing these numbers when we were also buying a house. And it just created a lot of anxiety and like, what if we have one lower month? And so I always told my listeners, like, when it stopped serving them and it stopped serving me in a healthy way, we wouldn't. So for 13 months, it served so many people. People love those. But now it doesn't really help me mentally to be sharing all of those numbers every single month. Now, if people ask, I'm so open about it. But I think that also knowing when you've been through something like this, or there's sometimes like, I don't have to share my numbers if I don't want to. That's up to me as a business owner. And so how can we be transparent but also know there's boundaries? Like, I'm still working through money management and shame and things like that, and being giving people grace for when they do share numbers, also giving them grace when they just don't want to and.

Mel Abraham [00:35:37]:

They don't have to. Yeah. So let me get this straight. If I heard you right, you did $250,000. You have never done a million dollars before, and you declared openly, I'm doing a million bucks and I'm taking you for that ride? Yes. I love it.

Brandi Mowles  [00:36:01]:

And people are like, Wait, what? I even remember my coach at that time was like, brandy, now we can shoot for a million. But what's like, your realistic goal? And I was like, million. That's the realistic goal. And I didn't know how it was going to happen, but it did, and we actually did 1.2 million, which was and 1.2 million was generated. 1 million was actually cash collected. So it was super fun. And we documented the whole thing.

Mel Abraham [00:36:28]:

So good. I had no idea that you did that. Yeah. Oh, man. Because it gives a whole new light to it. One. The fact that you made a declaration and you put it out there to me in the context of what you just came out of, makes it even more powerful to sit back and go, I was down, but I'm back and I'm coming back strong. Because you could have laid down the fetal position and wallowed in the guilt and the shame and all that and just said, I don't know what I'm going to do. And I think that there may be some people that are listening that are struggling in that, and they're uncertain, so they don't make a decision and they don't make a declaration, they don't move forward. And when speaking to them, what was the catalyst for you to turn around and say, I'm going to drive this stake in the ground and I'm going to let the world know? Yeah.

Brandi Mowles  [00:37:33]:

I think it's because I've always had to be a fighter, in a sense. My parents did the best they could, but when it came to school, I had to pay. When it came for wanting to get a car, I had to pay for it. Everything's always been whereas fighter. And I was like, you know what? I was just down and out big time, and I was able to bring my husband home and everything before hitting million. So I think I was kind of, like in a momentum. Like, it was just adrenaline. And I was like, you know what? If we don't hit a million, who cares? We'll get so stinking close, and then all, wow, they went on a journey. I didn't hit it. Most people don't hit their goals, and then it will just show people, like, I'm a normal person. And so I think it was just a way for me to stay accountable to myself. And then those episodes turned into something so much bigger. I mean, it grew our podcast tremendously, and it gave people a super transparent look. Like, there was a month where I was like, oh, we just had an 80. Like, I think it was $120,000 cash collected month. And then the next month it was like 25,000. And I remember having to record that episode, and I was like, you know what? This is online business. This is what it looks like in this type of launch model. That I have, but I didn't go spend all 125,000 last month. It's already been divided out through the next ten months or whatever. So our business is good, but this is what it looks like. And that's why you can't just go out and spend every single thing that you've got, because not every month is going to look the same, especially in the online world, especially when if you're on launch cycles and stuff like that.

Mel Abraham [00:39:20]:

This is big because a lot of people that I talk to, they say, what do I do? Because my money is up and down. This is big. I just got a question about do I average it for the year? The problem with averaging it for the year is you don't think about the peaks and values. And there may be a month, like you said, from 120 to 25. And if we are looking at averages and we're not putting money aside, this is why a lot of people demonize the whole idea of budgeting. I don't call it budgeting, I call it cash resource planning, in the sense that when we decide to give each dollar a job, it will then do the work that it was meant to do for us. Just the same as we hire an employee, we wouldn't hire an employee, not give them a job description, not give them goals, not give them tasks and tools and everything. We got to do the same thing with our money. And by virtue of looking at the actual flows in and out, one, we understand profitability. Two, you understand that, hey, this 120 is going to have to last a little longer. I was just having a conversation with someone earlier today. We were doing an interview and he's talking about the money coming in. I said, Are you carving a slice of that out for taxes? And I could just see on his face, no. I said, yeah, so let's carve a piece out for taxes, put it aside, because it's not all yours to spend, right? And it's not all yours to spend today. I mean, it is. You can do it, but it's going to create a problem later on.

Brandi Mowles  [00:41:07]:

And I think this is one of the areas where you also have to know what you need help with. I know that budgeting and putting things in a sheet and stuff, that's not my sweet spot. And if I had to do it each month, I wouldn't do it. I show up for an hour long call where we go over everything. And my bookkeeper uses this service called YNAB. I think it's for personal finances, but she's kind of like jerry rigged it where it's for business and all the money that comes in has a job. And so I like to pay for things for the year, but what most people do is they pay for it for a year, but they're not budgeting for when that year comes back. Around. We already have that set aside. We're already setting aside each month for taxes. So when your estimated taxes come, it's already in there. I'm not worried about it. The money's there. And so all of the dollars, they get an assignment like you were talking about. And if there's excess, then it's like, okay, great. We have a folder for what we call the profit folder that is just like my little nest egg that I take whenever I want to take it because it's there for me. Or we also plan out, like, if you know you're going to join a $30,000 Mastermind. I knew that January 2020. As soon as 2021 came, I knew what Mastermind I wanted to be part of. I knew how much it cost, and we saved that whole year for it. So when it came, I could just pay the 30,000 in full. And it was like, great, here you go. That money's already been set aside for it. So with using that, every dollar has an assignment, and if it doesn't, it goes into my little nest egg that I get.

Mel Abraham [00:42:43]:

Oh, man. The level of peace that comes from.

Brandi Mowles  [00:42:46]:

That yeah, like, knowing that my business. If we don't bring in a dollar for the next eight months, my business still runs. Everyone gets paid. I still get my salary. Everything's taken care of is like, oh, my gosh. The amount of stress that removes, especially this past year when we were buying a house, it was just like, everything's taken care of. The chances of nothing happening for eight months is so rare. But if it did, we're good.

Mel Abraham [00:43:18]:

Just contrast that with the emotions, the stress and the feelings you had back when, three, four years ago.

Brandi Mowles  [00:43:25]:

Oh, my gosh. In that business, it was always an up and down roller coaster because December came and you would think that that would be a big month, but it's not. It's like you would go from a $15,000 month to $100 month, and that's when your family needs more money for Christmas and stuff. And so I wish someone would have said, like, when we're having these $15,000 months, this is what's going to get us through. There was none of that. And it was always like, am I going to make production? Am I going to have money to put on the table? Am I going to have money to pay for these credit cards? What is that looking like? Am I going to have to make a car payment because I didn't make production? Those kind of things. And now with the business, I don't stress about business at all. I just know that what will come will come, and we're taken care of.

Mel Abraham [00:44:10]:

Man, I love this. This is such a good topic and conversation that people aren't and we need. It may open up some emotions for people, but at the same time, I think it's going to open up the possibility of what's important and to realize, like, you're saying you still I'm still dealing with different elements of hinges of guilt or shame and working through it all.

Brandi Mowles  [00:44:46]:

And I'll say it was super hard last year as we were preparing, we were building a house. And for anyone who's never built, you actually go through the approval process twice and you have people in your bank account for twelve months as the build. And so I knew there was moments when I couldn't make business decisions that I wanted to because I knew where we had to fall to keep the banks happy and stuff like that. And I was also like that moment, like, signing the contract for us to start building the house is when all these emotions flooded in because it's the biggest investment you'll make in your life. I felt like all the pressure was on me because I am our husband's, a full time stay at home dad. And so going through that, I think, accelerated my healing process because I had to heal in order. And there was moments in my business where I was like, I just want to throw it all out. But it wasn't because of my business, it was because of the stress of like, this is a lot of money and what does that look like? But also it set us up. One thing is we went and when we talked to the lenders and stuff like that, it's a whole different ballgame when you've filed bankruptcy, especially before the four year window. So we had to go through an FHA loan, which you're only allotted X amount, so we put down a ton. But it was so crazy because our lender told us if we hadn't had bankruptcy, we would have been approved for a $2.5 million home. And I looked at my husband, I was like, thank God for the bankruptcy. Because it would have been really hard. We live in Florida, 2.5 would have got us on the water, like open water, and we would have had a massive mortgage and we would have been house poor. Like just honest, like we would have been house poor. And I looked at my husband, I was like, oh my God, thank God for the bankruptcy. There's a gift in it after all, it's keeping us in check. But also what's so amazing about it is because we were only allotted X amount from the federal government for funding, we put down a massive chunk. I think it's like 40% down. So our mortgage payment is so low, which gives us so much freedom to experience life, travel, all that kind of stuff. And still it's lower than what we were paying in rent. And as soon as we moved in, we have $250,000 in equity in our house just because of how the mortgage went and everything, and how crazy Florida is right now. But I was just like there's moments where I had to heal. But then there's moments where I'm like thank God for bankruptcy just because it.

Mel Abraham [00:47:22]:

Keeps you in check So Cool. So if we bring this to where you are today no more student loan debt. No paid off. Credit cards paid every month. Yes, cash in the bank to take care of things. If, God forbid, something happens for eight months or so.

Brandi Mowles  [00:47:42]:

And that's for the business. That's just the business. That's just the business. And then we have quite a healthy nest egg I've got in this. I'm still working on stuff. Like now. I hoard money.

Mel Abraham [00:47:55]:

Which you went the other way.

Brandi Mowles  [00:47:58]:

Yeah. My accountant was like, Brandy, you cannot keep all this money in your bank account. She's actually the one that's, like, you need to just take this and pay off your student loans. I was like, okay. I was saving it for it, but I didn't know. And she was like, no, take it. Pay it off right now. And that's when we did it. But now I'm working through, like you don't need to hoard money, Brandy. Here's how much we set aside for emergencies and all that kind of stuff. And then also the business has its own where we're good for eight months with the business. And then my family, we're good for a year. And so it's so much peace of mind with that.

Mel Abraham [00:48:32]:

And that's exactly that's why I call it a peace of mind fund. And it's exactly what I tell people. You're going to want to have something in the business for Contingency. You're going to have something personal. And then they turn around and say, well, what happens when I start buying properties? You want that for that, too? It's a separate entity in itself, in the sense of what happens if it goes vacant or it gets like I had a rental property where holy moly. I had no idea people live this way. Like, when we went in, it was so trash that it was so bad that we were able to declare that it was damaged as vandalism.

Brandi Mowles  [00:49:14]:

Oh, wow.

Mel Abraham [00:49:15]:

It was that bad? It wasn't like wear and tear. I mean, it was vandalized.

Brandi Mowles  [00:49:20]:

We see this when we watch those shows on HTTV and they flip the houses in California, and we're like, oh, my gosh. How would something get this bad?

Mel Abraham [00:49:28]:

It was that bad? Here's this house that had to get redone, but the mortgage still had to get paid. We weren't getting rent. And so if you don't have those peace of mind funds and I know, especially today, as we're in an inflationary time, people say, oh, cash is trash. You shouldn't be doing it. You're Right. Excess cash is a challenge. But we need liquidity in these times. We need liquidity. If we happen to go into a recession, we need liquidity to take advantage of opportunities. We need liquidity for the peace of mind in our health. And I'm willing to give up the possible loss of purchasing power. So I don't take an actual loss if things hit right. And I think that's you're you're doing it. You're doing it right. I mean, I'm loving everything that I hear, Brandy. I mean, this is this is incredible. So as as we start to close out, you're an entrepreneur, as you said, you're you're a wife and a mom first. You're an entrepreneur. You're balancing those roles. You're balancing the financial roles. You're balancing taking care of team. And there's probably other people listening that have similar roles. They may not be in the same financial position. They might be struggling. They might be back to where you were three years ago and everything. What would you tell them?

Brandi Mowles  [00:51:05]:

Yeah, I would just say whatever your situation now doesn't mean that's the situation you're going to be in six months from now, twelve months from now, three years from now. And it's so hard to see that when you're in it and you're in that moment and it feels like you've hit rock bottom or like you're just not going to be able to climb out of it. And I would just say you will. There's going to be changes that you have to make. You have to ask for help. I think that's one of the biggest things, especially as women, we are so bad at asking for help because we take on this nurturing role that we have to be the ones that take care of everyone. And sometimes you just need someone to take care of you. And so through this whole process, I think one of the things I've got really good at is asking for help when I need it, especially when it comes to finances, money, all of that. So if you're in that spot, start asking for help and take little steps at improving. But just because you're in a certain situation right now does not mean that's your future by any means so good.

Mel Abraham [00:52:11]:

Brandy. How name of the podcast for everyone?

Brandi Mowles  [00:52:15]:

Serves scale sore. So serve scale sore. We drop episodes every Tuesday. This is for service providers and course creators. I nerd out over marketing and just how to run your business.

Mel Abraham [00:52:27]:

It's an amazing show. I've been on it.

Brandi Mowles  [00:52:31]:

This is the number one podcast episode on it.

Mel Abraham [00:52:34]:

Oh, mine is? Yeah. Oh, man. So good. And where can they find you? Yeah.

Brandi Mowles  [00:52:41]:

So probably on Instagram. If you want to chat with me, it's at Brandy Mouse. It's just my name. I don't post a ton, but I am always in the DMs. You will get me, not my team or anything. I love connecting with people. I'm a connector. I'm an extrovert. I'm super friendly. So message me on there. That is the best way. And then, of course, our website is Brandymaus.com, and we have some cool trainings over there for you as well.

Mel Abraham [00:53:07]:

Cool. I'll make sure that we hook all of it up perfect in the show notes and in the description and all that stuff. Brandy I learned more. I had no idea when we had those conversations, where you were at, where you were coming from and even the whole thing with the house. You talked to me about the house and everything, had no idea that that was going on.

Brandi Mowles  [00:53:32]:

No one did. So I wasn't just hiding it from you. Like, five people knew.

Mel Abraham [00:53:36]:

Oh, my God. So good. So proud of you. So excited for what this means, not just for you and your husband, but for your little girl. It's going to be a totally different life because of how you chose to step up, show up and take the battle on and say, I've got this and I'm going to conquer it. And you did. You have. You are. And you continue. Will you know, if there's anything I can do for you, man, hit me up. I'm here.

Brandi Mowles  [00:54:17]:

Thank you so much. And thank you, everyone, for listening.

Mel Abraham [00:54:20]:

Thank you for listening to the affluent entrepreneurship. With me. Your host, Mel Abraham. If you want to achieve financial liberation to create an affluent lifestyle, join me in the Affluent entrepreneur Facebook group now by going to Melabraham.com slash group and I'll see you there.