What's more valuable than money with spiritual guide and life coach, Amanda Grace

In today's episode, I am interviewing Amanda Grace. Not only is she a former client, but what truly captivates me about Amanda is her remarkable intellect. We will delve into a topic we touch on in every episode: money. However, today we're going beyond the surface and exploring Amanda's personal relationship with money. Together, we'll venture into the profound aspects of money often overlooked in conventional personal finance podcasts. We aim to delve beneath the surface and examine the thoughts, feelings, and emotions surrounding money. We'll also explore the social constructs associated with money, empowering you to connect deeply with your financial journey. So, without further ado, let's dive right in.

Key Highlights

[00:00:00] Introduction to today’s guest and topic: Amanda Grace talking about her relationship with money

[00:01:53] Why Amanda decided to start working on her money

[00:03:27] Financial education is not a part of the school curriculum

[00:06:27] What money represents to Amanda beyond the practical uses

[00:08:32] How growing up without money has impacted Amanda’s life today

[00:11:17] Strategies that have helped Amanda improve her relationship with money

[00:14:34] Amanda’s advice to emotional people that don’t identify as logical

[00:19:33] Trying to make money with an emotional background relationship with money

[00:28:32] What is most valuable to Amanda?

[00:29:47] Example of Amanda’s client who wanted to declutter

[00:35:37] Can money buy happiness?

[00:44:13] Amanda’s advice to anyone with a scarcity mindset when dealing with money

[00:46:26] How to connect with Amanda


Notable Quotes

●I bought things to feel good about myself and like I was good enough. I had never felt truly worthy of money, so I used money as a tool to get there, and what I found was, ultimately, it only perpetuated my sense of worthlessness when I tried to use the money to fill that hole.

●Keeping in check with money facts has given me a structure that makes it feel safe for me as an emotional person to make money decisions based on facts.

●I have a beautifully rich emotional life, but without solid ground, at some point, you're going to get tired out there in the ocean, and you're going to drown. So having that life raft of a system, a procedure, facts, because one thing is, the great thing is that the figures never lie.

●Having a read on the numbers every week gives me some time to experience other emotions like contentment and peace and not just the urgency and panic that is necessary for me to make money.

●It's up to me how much I make, but there will always be a cost. And so that helps me stay in line with my values, and I am not willing to pay certain costs. I'm not willing to pay the cost, for example, of integrity.

●Money is not the most valuable thing, and it's up to me what I spend, and it's up to me what I make, but at what cost? So that's where I'm at with money right now, and it’s also allowing money to provide for me in a very basic and functional way and honor the emotional way I meet life.

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Transcript

0:01

Hello and welcome to the Holistic Money Podcast. I'm your host, certified financial planner and money mindset coach Whitney Morrison. Over the past seven years, I've taken myself from credit card debt and no savings to a seven figure net worth. I did this without a budget or a restrictive money plan, but instead, smart, sustainable wealth building strategies combined with changing my relationship with money. In this podcast, you'll learn the ins and outs of my no budget philosophy, practical wealth building strategies and key mindset shifts to make it happen. There is no shortage of information out there to tell you what to do with money, but teaching you how to think and feel about money. That's my secret sauce. If you've been waiting for a podcast that gives you actionable strategies to not only build wealth, but also feel really good while you're doing it, then you're in the right place. Let's get started. hello and welcome back to the Holistic Money Podcast. In today's episode, I have someone so incredibly special that I cannot wait to share with you. Her name is Amanda Grace. She is a former client, but more importantly, what I love about Amanda is her brain. you guys, you're going to be blown away at this conversation with Amanda. We're gonna talk about. Money, and I know we talk about money every single episode, but today we're actually gonna dive into Amanda's personal relationship with money. But also I'm just going to pick her brain about money because I want you all to experience. Amanda's depth, her creativity, her spirituality. I am just so honored to have her on today because I think we're gonna explore a lot of the deeper aspects of money that maybe you wouldn't hear in a personal finance podcast. Generally we're gonna go under the surface. We're gonna explore thoughts, feelings, emotions about money. We're gonna explore social constructs with money so that you can start to experience money at a deeper level in your own life. So without further ado, let's get started. Amanda, how are you? Hi. I'm so good Whitney, and I'm so much better after that introduction. Thank you very much. And the admiration is mutual. So I wanna start by you just telling us a little bit about why did you decide that it was the time to start working on your money I was very clear why I needed and wanted to work on money and it was one of the first things I said to you, and I think I said to you write this down. Why I'm here is because I'm the kind of person who could make a million dollars and still be broke. And so what I learned the hard way, and I've learned it in other areas in my life too, I thought the problem was that I wasn't making enough money. And I thought that if I made, six figures, you know, that I'd be on the pigs back, and then I would have no more anxiety about money. And then I made six figures and I was in the exact same position that I was when I was making three figures. So, It was just learning that, the answer wasn't the answer. That it's not just a case of raising the ceiling. Cuz every time I raised the ceiling, I raised the floor along with it and never actually gave myself any more space just because there was more money. Yeah. And why do you think that you did that? More even than why I think I did that. I know I did, that because I always believed that money was something you just didn't have to think about or work on or pay attention to that you just had to make it and spend it and that was it. And so like money it was just like never had any, I. Idea that there was planning involved and minding and watching and paying attention. And I think that that's so common because it's not like we receive any real financial education. I don't know what it's like in Ireland, but I'll tell you what it's like here. The curriculum and the United States, there is no formal financial education in. Any of your primaries. So no middle school, high school, and even in college, it's not like personal finance is a required course that you have to take. And so I think so many of us learn a lot of our financial acumen through primarily our family and the culture and the media and society. We're not really shown what actually goes into. Building wealth and having sovereignty with money and feeling free with money. We often think it is the exact opposite of what that path actually is to get to where you wanna go. Yeah. Like I remember being in school, and this is no exaggeration, but there was, you got to pick your subjects. Let's say this is in our equivalent of high school, so it would've been secondary school here. And I remember picking my subjects and one of those subjects would've been commerce, and I was afraid of that word and I was also afraid of the classroom that that. Was taught in, I would walk past that classroom and I would walk past it like almost with fear in my body. I always had a fear of getting involved, like it wasn't my place. You know, that like money was something that happened and had nothing to do with me. You know, so there was a lot there. It's programmed into us from a very young age, this denial of education around it. Turning it into this mysterious thing that, only boys study. Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking. Even being able to use a credit card here in the US for women is a relatively new. I don't even wanna call it a privilege because it's a basic human right to have financial freedom, but for women, we didn't get access to credit without a man to be present to actually, approve the credit. That's a relatively new thing, and it's crazy to actually think about I think it's like within the past, like 60 or 70 years, something like that. Oh yeah, absolutely. So I wanna ask you then, because I think so often there is the surface level. Idea of money, right? We use money to pay a rent and buy things, and we make money. But then there's the deeper level of what money actually represents and how money actually relates to our values and our sense of self-worth we're Starting to think deeper about money and what it actually represents in our life and our worthiness with money. Can you tell me a little bit more about what money represents to you beyond the practical uses? Growing up, money was always something that I feared and it was something as well that set me apart from my peers in a way, because my father was a, working class person, came up from poverty and grew up not knowing, like for real, where the next meal was coming from. Left school at 12, became the family provider at 16 kind of a thing. And thought he could fix all problems with money. He would often do the swooping in and he kind of like very much did the, make the money, make the money, make the money. He was very successful in life. He was an entertainer, so he was very good at making money. And because of that, we were never short on money. And one of the reasons we were never short on money is because the minute he made it, he spent it. So it wasn't necessarily that we ever had money, but we always had money to spend.So this was kind of like a working class parents, with money and all our peers and our friends were working class parents without money kind of a thing. So this privilege of cash flow essentially in my life, set me apart from my peers in ways, made me very ashamed. I had gotten More than my share and what I had wasn't fair. And the fact that I got to go to Disneyland and all these places. So I grew up with a real chip on my shoulder about money, and I kind of started to pay some kind of an emotional tax for it. So myself and my sister talk about this all the time. Like we used to, pay for everybody, you know, that kind of way. And we used to, um, like we would try and fix other people's problems then with money because we thought. That, you know, we didn't have problems because of money, but it was so much more than that. And how do you think that that impacted your relationship with money today? So my relationship with money Today is, constantly this idea of not being worthy of it because I've been lucky enough. So it's almost like I've gotten my share. Who am I to want more of it or to have more of it. And anything more than the essential is too much. So a lot of drama around charging and pricing and a lot of drama around having money. Yes. My relationship with money was one where I was always afraid that it was gonna go away. And so when money came in, the first thing that I wanted to do was I wanted to spend it, and I wanted to make sure that I got everything that I needed and not just needed everything that I wanted to. I really wanted to fill my sense of self worth with money. Mm-hmm. I bought things in order to feel good about myself in order to feel like I was good enough. I had never felt truly worthy of money. And so I used money as a tool to really get there. And what I found was ultimately it only perpetuated my sense of worthlessness when I tried to use money to fill that hole. I think it's just spiritually out of alignment, I really think that the healing that I was really seeking was like that was the antithesis, that was the addiction, that was the drug that kept the, addiction of my desire to feel worthy alive. You know, was using my money that way. And I think so many people, when they actually start to open up this box and start to explore their relationship with money, they start to find these kinds of things. You know you could be listening to this episode and this could sound really conceptual. Maybe it's not the way that you've actually thought about money in your life. But when you really start to explore how your stories about money, your experiences with money, how you really use money, there's so much richness and depth. Mm-hmm. And likely a lot of pain and fear. There as well. And I know that that's what I loved about working together with you was we went to all of those places together. Yeah. And now I wanna ask you what strategies or practices have really helped you start to improve your relationship with money? So I'll get to the strategies and practices in a second, but one of the things that you really helped me with is that I've been running a narrative my entire life that if it wasn't for my father, I'd be homeless and then I transferred that onto my husband. If it wasn't for him, I'd be homeless, acting like as if I'm a deadweight. I'm just this deadweight. Other people are making the kind of money that is like, you know, functional at keeping us going and things like that. And one of the things you helped me see, which goes onto the strategies and it also kind of goes back to the beginning question, why I believed money wasn't for me is because I'm an emotional person, right? And. I think it's like as if money is only for logical people. You know, or people who are sensible with it. And so people who are emotional. I did not know how to be an emotional person who had money. And because I'm an emotional person I had a very emotional relationship with money. So working with you and you giving me the map and the spreadsheets and the process of like checking your balances like I did it. Yesterday, today is Tuesday. Yeah, I did it yesterday. So on Monday I have my money date where I just check in on all my accounts, like as if they're, you know, puppies. Everybody fed, everybody water. What's going on in here? I looked at what my spending was this month. I can see that I overspent my intention, and I was just able to write it all and, deal with the facts. So in the absence of facts, what I have is unknown and uncertainty, and a story that I'm shit with money, or that I shouldn't have money or that, I am a dead weight so you've given me a process to absolutely keep in. Check with the facts of money. And the facts of money are wildly different to my stories about money, which are driven by my emotional relationship with money, which is shame, fear, also happiness, like cuz sometimes money, you know, the way you just be like that new thing. You know, so like all of those things, it has given me that structure that makes it feel safe for me as an emotional person to make decisions about money that are based. In fact, I love what you're touching on here because I think a lot of, people feel this way, especially those people that identify as. Not good with money, or not a numbers person, or I've just never been a money person. I hear a lot of my clients tell me those kinds of things, and I really like the way that you described it, saying it's because that you're an emotional person and you don't necessarily relate to yourself as a logical person. So for people that identify and they're like, yeah, I'm an emotional person and I don't identify as a logical person. What advice would you give them? Um, like figure out what the facts are like That is literally the advice because as long as we are leaving it up to the emotions, it can depend on. Anything like what I was saying to you before was like I had this hourglass relationship with my bank account, so my nervous system was reacting. Like, if there's money in my bank account, I'm okay. It's like, oh, and then I kinda like take the foot off the pedal for a minute and it's like, oh, thank God I can breathe for a minute. And then it's like watching quicksand where it's just I'm just slowly watching it disappear, but I am not motivated to act until it becomes urgent and a panic situation. So there was this constant roller coaster of money and a false sense of safety. And you remember we did that whole thing where you were like, you are safe. So when we look at the facts, we can see that my necessities, we'll always, always be covered, you know? And anything beyond that is me just reacting. To either what's in my account, what's not in my account, what's on my books, what's not on my books, what she's earning, what he's earning, what I should be earning what age I am, I might have realized that, oh, I'd love to get my teeth done and realize. Oh, I can't get my teeth done at this rate, and then all of a suddenly I'm depressed. I have a beautifully rich emotional life, but without. Solid ground. At some point you're gonna get tired out there in the ocean, you're gonna drown. So having that life raft of a system, a procedure, um, facts, because the great thing is that the figures never lie. So when I'm going back and forward on a decision that is emotionally based, either I'm chasing something or I'm running away from something, I can convince myself emotionally what to do and then fuck the consequences. I'll deal with it later. But when I'm referring to the facts and also my intention, cuz my intention coming to you as well, there was the awareness that. Money doesn't solve the problem of me never feeling safe. And then there was the intention that I just don't wanna live this way. So when I look at the numbers now and I see that I can have that thing, I can spend that money. But if I do, I'm knocking one month of runway off my breathing space. And that means stress and that means cortisol, and that means sleepless nights and that means emotional eating like that means I should storm down the road for tomorrow me. So it just gives me a whole other way of discerning and making that decision in a way that is factual. And logical and rational for someone who finds it very difficult to access, fact and rationality.. Yeah. And as an emotional person, that's gotta feel really good. I know for me that feels really good. Yes. Because the extreme of anything is no good. Yes. And I wanna actually talk about how this emotional relationship with money, actually impacted your process of earning money. This idea of striving for more, more, more, and working for more, more, more. Yeah. With money versus. Really just deciding, yes, I make enough money. Yes, I'm content with my life. Mm-hmm. I don't want to keep working and striving and pushing for more. Yeah. And I wanna talk about that balance because I really believe that what's actually more important is the way that we use money to help inform that. Mm-hmm. But I just wanna talk with you about this. Okay, so I'll say a couple of statements. I'll try and organize my thoughts around this, right? So here's one of my statements. Money is not the most valuable thing and like I've learned that now it's, it's like, I know this to be true, um, and how we know this is that when something you really value is at risk, you will throw all the money in the world at it to protect that thing. So money is not the most valuable thing. It's subjective. And then there's this kind of like making more and more and more this chasing of a number, which is very like dieting. It's like at what cost? Like some kind of an ideal, but at what cost? So really knowing what's important to you and what you want to experience in life and, the timeframe, you know, the reality of life. what it was like for me, making money. I got involved, of course, in the whole like business coaching where it's all about the figures and I got carried away in that for a while, thinking that the goal was to make as much money as possible. And then I realized once again, my nervous system. so I'm grateful to my body and my nervous system that always is like, I literally cannot cope with this. So I've once again evaluated and I'm like, hold on for a second rather than me. Aspiring to, or striving for or drinking the Kool-Aid, that tells me that the kind of money I need to make is the kind of money that allows me to fly private. Like where, would I be going anyway, and I'm not even making a full wage right now, so why have I got my site set on something? So I kind of have pulled it back and, and just like really given myself the time and the space. And the goal to pay myself a livable wage in a way that allows me to actually have a life outside work and not just collapse into a dorsal state of activation after a day's work. And I'm still getting that balance right. Like I'm still not done with the drama around pricing because I don't want to be extortionate in my pricing. And also I have energetic limits and I am making choices for my life based on my, physical makeup, the amount of spoons I have in a day, my neurodiversity, everything else that comes with my history, my age, menopause, all of that. Like again, it's all the facts. There's so much discernment here that I'm like, the balance needs to be, how do I show up and give the kind of value that feels like a fair exchange. To my clients and that allows me to sleep at night. Cuz I certainly wouldn't be able to sleep at night if I was, just picking a number outta the sky and being like, well, that's my price. I'm not gonna pretend like as if I've got it figured out, but the facts help. And you helped me do this. I had no idea what my expenses were. Now I have a fixed expense. And I have a variable that I get to either fuck myself over with or not. Like it's up to me how much I spend, but there will always be a cost. Yes it's up to me how much I make, but there will always be a cost. And so that helps me stay in line with my values. Like I am not willing to pay certain cost. I'm not willing to pay the cost, for example, of integrity. If making millions means being unethical, I don't want it. Yeah. Or if it means losing my sobriety, I don't want it, so money's not the most valuable thing. And it's up to me what I spend, and it's up to me what I make, but at what cost. So that's where I'm at with money right now is kind of like while also allowing for money to not just provide for me in a very basic, functional way, but to actually honor the emotional way I meet life. As I started to challenge some of the assumptions that I had around money, one of which was this idea that, trade offs don't necessarily exist with money. You can have it all. But now that I'm further into my business, and in my own depth and relationship with money, I have a, much different, relationship to this because I actually, appreciate the trade off more. Where it's like, sure. I could make a lot of money by working 18 hours a day and. Really going for it. But at what cost? And I think that that is such a valuable question to consider because just like you said, money is not what is most valuable. What is most valuable to you? Cause I think that's a personal question, right? Yeah. What I value most of all is freedom. Right. And what freedom means to me is just not being anxious. That's basically what it means, you know, just that's it. But when you ask like, what is the most valuable thing, ask any parent or loved one. Of a child who has just been diagnosed with something and who has been told, you know that it's gonna cost 300 grand to send them to wherever the clinic is for one round of chemotherapy. Right now, you watch those parents either like instantly pay the money if they have it or if they don't have it, up goes a GoFund. We pay and it is, procured. Right now, that is a prime example of where money is not the most important thing. It's not the most valuable thing. It instantly, becomes a tool, right? It's the emotional piece comes out and it's not even an option to not raise this money, right? Because what's more valuable in that moment? Is getting the treatment that might save this child's life. Or here's something I say to my clients sometimes. Especially if they're like, oh, that's a lot of money, like five grand, it's a lot of money for coaching and blah, blah, blah. I actually did this with somebody over 200 quit. It was a group coaching session and she wanted to coach with me on the idea of she was like, I can't get my shit together to declutter my house. And I said, well, that's a big job. Like why would you want to declutter your, like why do you think you should get your shit together to decl? Like nobody wakes up in the morning and is excited about that. I said, what about hiring somebody to help you just get someone in for a couple of days? Cuz we had done that here. We just hired someone to come in and help us. And the energy she brought and the lack of emotion around it allowed us to do in three days what we probably couldn't have done in 10 years. So I explained this to her. I said, would you not bring somebody in? She was like, nah, it's probably cost too much. I said, realistically, how much would it cost? And I think she had inquired and she said it was 200. Dollars. Right? And she was like, I can't bring myself to pay that. So I could have tried to argue the logic there with her. But instead I said, look, let's do a little exercise. Close your eyes. And I brought her into this nice camp space. And then I was like, okay, now Dingdong, go to your front door and answer your door. And she answered her door. And I said, and it's me, right? So I'm here now and I want you to go and have a day out at the zoo or wherever you wanna go, go to a garden center, enjoy yourself, go away. And when you come back, I'm gonna have done what you want in your house. I'm gonna restore your house to an organized camp state. And when you get back, there will be no clutter and nothing for you to do. And so she went out on her day and then I asked her to imagine coming back and I walked her through her house. In its done state. And I said, we're okay, so I'm gonna leave now. I said, so, but before I leave, I said, I wanna offer you something. I said, I'm gonna make you an offer, said I'm going to give you your money back, but only if you let me reutter your house. So I'm gonna give you$200 to let me reload your house. She was like, no way. I said 300, Nope. 400, nope, five nope. I went all the way up to two and a half grand. Wow. And when I got up there, I said, okay, I'll give you two grand. And she was like, Hmm, maybe. And I said, why? And she's like, well, I could always, you know, just hire somebody else with that kind of money. So now she was making a profit. But what I was illustrating to her that the value of having her house the way she wants it is actually two grand. Yeah. Wow. Like if you got what you want, could I buy it back to you for the price that you're being challenged to pay for it right now before you get the result? Like if you, gave me the result of no more emotional eating, if you charge me 10 grand upfront, I'd be like, God, that's a lot of money. But if you waved a magic wand and took that out of my life, liberated me from the scourge of emotional eating. And then try to pay me 10 grand to undo the spell. I'd be like, bye. I would not take the 10 grand. I wouldn't even take a hundred grand. Yeah, I would just tell you to fuck off because it would not be worth the money. The healing is worth more to me than the money. Yeah. And that's the a concept that I, forget who, originally I heard this from, but emotional wealth versus material wealth and what is actually most important to you in your life. And would you pay for your emotional wealth? And I think the answer for a lot of us is yes, but there's so much fear I see a lot of my clients who have fear actually spending money. And actually investing in the things that are most important to them. And I love the exercise that you just, offered to really go through and ask someone. How much is this result really worth to you? Yeah. And if you had it, could I buy it off you for that price? But it goes back again to the shame of being an emotional person. It's like, how dare I, prioritize my happiness? I think we have to be very careful with our definitions of what success is. You know, and I experienced my father dying from cancer three weeks after he was diagnosed, and I know that the definition of a successful life is being able to die happy. yes. And that's exactly what we were exploring, right? This idea of being content in the present moment versus striving for more. And that question of at what cost. So I wanna ask you, do you think that money can buy happiness? Can money by happiness? So we have to define what happiness is because I think. I think we make the mistake sometimes of defining things in terms of what it's not. So I think sometimes people think that happiness is the absence of misery or the absence of suffering. So if that is your definition of happiness, will then know money can't buy happiness because happiness is not the absence of human suffering, but, Just in the same token, if happiness is defined as living somewhere where there's not much traffic and there isn't much inconvenience and you have a nice community and you have access to blue space and green space you just don't have to battle or fight so much to survive. Like if that's your version of happiness, well then money definitely is playing a part in it, but it's not what's going to buy the happiness. The happiness is something I have set my sights on. So, for example, right now, my goal right now is to create a living wage for myself, and it's an average wave in Ireland. It's not even an above average wage. It's an average wage. And that's my goal and I'm very excited about that. Because it's twice what I'm paying myself right now for a start, I'm gonna feel like a millionaire. With, the flow of money through my life because it's not that millions solved the problem, it's a much more sustainable solution to a problem that if I was to not pay attention. I would be led to believe is only solved by money. Right. I totally agree. I do think it is, it's a matter of attention. For me. There's the, dopamine hit. The experience of getting the thing that I want in the moment, or taking that trip or eating that. Really great food or whatever I experience in that moment, that gives me that dopamine hint. But then there's the underlying current my real experience of myself and my life, and those two things aren't always the same. Right. And I think that when we really look for true happiness, I think it comes from that underlying current. Cuz I'll tell you what, I've been on some of the most beautiful vacations. I remember I spent a month in Thailand and spent so much time looking forward to that trip only to get to Thailand and be absolutely miserable for 30 days because of my own dissatisfaction and hate for myself and my weight. The whole time I was really struggling with my body image. And I just remember that being the consuming narrative in my mind, even when I was on the most beautiful beaches in Thailand. Yeah. So that's where it's really, exploring what happiness is like you said when you said freedom for me is just not feeling anxiety, I think that may actually be happiness for me too. You know, it's just not feeling anxiety and just feeling present. And content. With myself in my life. Yeah. It's literally like not feeling like something is going to collapse if you're not there or with your finger on the pulses, like being able to actually have some time to yourself. You know, money has been a much less emotional experience for me to resolve and, kind of like take back power within. I've also been on a lifelong body image, food shame, body distress, eating distress journey and all of that. And interestingly, I am a person who has, not once but twice in my life, but I'll talk about the first time I did it, lost a hundred pounds and just surprised myself, shocked myself and got got a high of it because, I thought that I would be invincible if I lost a hundred pounds. That would solve all my problems. And then I did lose it, only to realize at the end of that rope I also hated myself. And I was also terrified, and I also was insecure. And now I feel in a way, like now I have to keep it up kind of a thing because my self-esteem was so precariously balanced on it. Like if I gained five pounds, my entire ego collapsed, and that actually did happen. I could not cope with gaining five pounds one time. What I did to myself was horrific. So I've also had to learn the very painful journey of learning to love myself where I'm at, and as I am. And when I say love myself, I just mean accept myself and it's like your body's an instrument, not an ornament kind of a thing. And so not objectifying my body. I think as well that as an emotional person, Who's online running a business and all of that, and all the marketing and all. I've just done a guru cleanse I'm like, get out of my inbox, get out of my social media feed, because I am the kind of person announced to myself who will actually drink the Kool-Aid. I think I won't, and we all do. Until somebody waves the carrot in front of you. And the carrot for me is freedom being, oh, you won't be anxious anymore. My emotions can be very easily hijacked. And if I lose sight, Of the question at what costs and what isn't enough I mean, I'm paying myself the most I've ever paid myself right now, I'm still only halfway there. So I know I'm gonna feel like a millionaire when I'm earning an average wage that I fucking create it. Yes. That's gonna feel badass. That's good. Cause I have to make three times the revenue of the wage I wanna pay myself. Yeah. And that's pretty badass. That is very badass. And then to have enough time in my life to actually look after myself just that, whole balance piece. Cause I think work can be a little bit like an addiction and making money can be a little bit like an addiction and it can feel very much like gambling. Yes. You know, because it's constantly, and it's the same with dieting. The constant carrot is you can win. It's like a lottery. It's like, you know, it's no different from a scratch card. So, I want you to give someone advice. I want you to speak to that person that's listening to this podcast Episode. That. Is really working on their relationship with money. Maybe they're struggling with the scarcity mindset or they have some financial challenges in front of them. What advice would you give them? I keep wanting to address something about the shame, you know? Like it is not our fault that we don't know how to, organize money or allocate it or, it's not the most valuable thing. It's, it's a thing. Money is a thing. Um, and, all I know is that it will never, ever, ever change unless it is addressed and looked at. Do you remember you did the exercise with me, Whitney, when I was in the hotel and we were doing a session from the hotel and you were like, imagine your money was in that room, the furthest room away from where you're sitting right now. How does it feel? And I was like, it feels, like that joke Ted Bird tells about infomercials that sell these watering cans for hard to reach plants. And then he is like, who would make their plants hard to reach? So, It was like that my money was hard to reach cuz it was like locked away in the attic. And that gives me anxiety because it's like the junk room and everybody's house, it's like that one room we don't go into cuz it's just too overwhelming. But when you said, let's move your money closer to where you're sitting and you thought that would feel worse for me and it felt better for me. So actually the closer in relationship I am with my money, the more calm I feel. And the further away I am in relationship with my money, the more distressed I feel. Hmm, yes. I think that that is a wonderful way to wrap up this episode because I totally agree. I say, I always like to say, when you take care of your money, when you love on your money, your money takes care of you and your money loves on you. So having that intimate, warm relationship with your money is truly the solution, regardless of your starting point financially. Yes. Amanda, thank you so much for joining us today. I love this conversation. I know that those of you that have been listening, you also love this conversation. You undoubtedly love Amanda as well. So, Amanda, tell us really quick how we can find you. Well, the really, the only place that I hang out is, uh, on Instagram. So I'm Journal for your life. On Instagram. I do have a website, but it's an absolute mess at the moment. But it is Amanda grace.ie. And you can get on my email list there. Um, and there's some goodies that you can have, but, uh, mostly just connect with me on Instagram Journal for your life. Awesome. All right, Amanda. Have a great day. Thank you so much for joining us. We'll see you soon. Thank you so much, Whitney have you ever built a budget but within weeks felt exhausted by the spreadsheets, the upkeep, or the restrictive spending categories? If so, you are not alone. Budgeting has never worked for me, so I created a new way, money mapping. 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