The Motherhood Mentor

Money Matters:Talking all things money and finances as an entrepreneur with financial literacy experts from Gutsy Money

Rebecca Dollard: Somatic Mind-Body Life Coach, Enneagram Coach, Speaker, Boundaries Coach, Mindset Season 1 Episode 42

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Welcome to an empowering episode that dives deep into the intricate relationship women have with money. Join me as I welcome Jenna Lee and Terra Rose, the dynamic duo behind Gutsy Money. In this episode, we explore how money conversations often feel shrouded in stigma, especially for women. Jenna and Terra shed light on the critical importance of financial literacy for women entrepreneurs, emphasizing the need for a solid financial foundation in personal and business finances.

We discuss the transformative power of money mindset, with insights into how our emotions can dictate our financial behaviors. Jenna and Terra share their personal stories and actionable strategies to help overcome money anxiety, guiding listeners on how to develop a healthier relationship with their finances. If you struggle with finances, with pretending they don't exist, shame about making too much or making too little, about not understanding what a P+ L is, this episode is for you. 

Discover why clarity is crucial in maintaining financial health and learn how it paves the way for making gutsy choices in business and life. This episode not only offers practical advice but encourages listeners to embrace authentic conversations about money without shame. Are you ready to take your financial narrative into your own hands? Tune in and join our community of empowered women navigating the complex world of money.

Don’t forget to subscribe, share, and leave a review to help us support even more women on their financial journeys!

Find Gutsy Money:

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Money Mindset Toolkit - Gutsy Money
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About: 

Meet Terra Rose and Jenna Lee. With over four decades of combined entrepreneurial experience, they founded Gutsy Money to bridge the financial literacy gap for women entrepreneurs and business owners. 

Gutsy Money uniquely blends professional services with community support. Terra Rose and Jenna Lee's approach goes beyond traditional bookkeeping, creating a space for women to build confidence, tackle financial challenges and become masters of their financials. 



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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Motherhood Mentor Podcast. I'm Becca, a somatic healing practitioner and a holistic life coach for moms, and this podcast is for you. You can expect honest conversations and incredible guests that speak to health, healing and growth in every area of our lives. This isn't just strategy for what we do. It's support for who we are. I believe we can be wildly ambitious while still holding all of our soft and hard humanity as holy. I love combining deep inner healing with strategic systems and no-nonsense talk about what this season is really like. So grab whatever weird health beverage you're currently into and let's get into it.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Motherhood Mentor Podcast. Today I have two guests with me, which is super exciting. I have the owners and founders of Gutsy Money, and I am so excited for this conversation because Jenna Lee is just one of my favorite people in the world and so anyone she likes, I usually like them as well, and one of the topics that I know she has talked about a ton in like our mastermind and other things like that is just teaching women about money, especially in their businesses, and if there is anyone in this world when I think of like if I was struggling with money while really struggling with anything. If I think of someone who I would want to ask, it'd be her, because she shoots it straight, but it's from love, like she has, that she will tell me the truth about it, but she will do it in a way that, like I know she cares about me, but she can help me with it, and especially with money.

Speaker 1:

I'm so weird about money. I'm sure I'm going to get my ass handed to me in the best way in this podcast. So I'm super excited. And, Tara Rose, I cannot wait to get to know you. So will you two both introduce yourselves? Let's start with Tara Rose, because I want to get to know you and just introduce yourselves and Gutsy Money.

Speaker 2:

Awesome. Okay, so do you do Rebecca or Becca, or either one. Becca is great.

Speaker 1:

Becca Okay.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much for having us today, and I could not echo more loudly what you have to say about Jenna Lee. She really is the best ever, and so we can just start with the Jenna Lee party here Agreed, the party you want to be at for sure. So I have founded several different nonprofit organizations and for-profit companies in a variety of different industries over my career, and I've also taught entrepreneurship at a community college and mentored several venture startups, and the conversation for me just became very clear as, especially, I spoke to more and more women around how one of their greatest fears, especially as they grow in their success, is not having a financial partner that they can trust. Who do I turn to when I have some of these questions about money and finances and growth, and how do I know I can trust them? Because I want to know they're not just trying to sell me on something else or this or that. So that's really how Gutsy Money was born this idea that we want to go and scoop up the women who are the most powerful and passionate about making change in the world, building solid companies, providing for their families and be that money partner for them so they know that they have a place to land and people that they can trust, and so gutsy.

Speaker 2:

The reason we're called gutsy money is the idea that when you have this solid foundation right, you think of like a volleyball player going to run and jump off a sand. Right, you have to like sometimes your feet sink in the sand or you're like, oh my gosh, you're melting. But if they're on a court and sand, volleyball is rad generally and I both play, but it's a different game. Your feet are sinking, it's different. But if you have a court which is equivalent to, like, your financial foundation and you go and you jump off of that and it's rock solid, you can make gutsy moves.

Speaker 2:

That's the whole thing. Oh my gosh, I know exactly how much profit I have, I know exactly where my revenue is, I know exactly what my expenses are doing, and that means you can make those really cool moves in your business. So, or in your life, you want to take your kids on around the world trip. You want to add this next service while you have the finances to do it, you know where your money's at. You get to be gutsy because your nervous system is so fundamentally nourished by knowing your money, and so that's where gutsy money came in. And that's just a little bit about where I come from.

Speaker 1:

Already obsessed Generally, how would you introduce yourself?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so I have known Tara since she was 18 years old. We don't need to count the decades that it's been since then, but it is plural and she has been just an extraordinary, just wise, beyond her years human from the moment I met her, and I have waited the aforementioned decades for an opportunity to be actively involved in business with her. We've always supported each other in our businesses with marketing and advice and content and strategy, but this is the first time that I have an opportunity to do business with her, and she came to me with the idea for Gutsy Money and I don't even think I let her finish her sentence before I said yes. I was like, well, it's you. So yes, it's money, one of my favorite topics. So yes, so double yes, and I have.

Speaker 3:

Also, I do not come from the nonprofit world, but I have founded and co-founded numerous businesses and helped grow about a dozen other organizations over my career and time and time again I have had the opportunity to work with people who are so skilled at their craft, who have an amazing idea for a product or service, who are legends at what they do, and then the backend business stuff is really hard for them, because being amazing at your craft does not, does not necessarily equivalent to being great at business.

Speaker 3:

And so these people are building organizations, just like I've built my organizations, and at the same time that you're building your organizations and trying to attract leads and trying to close those leads oh and then provide the services for the people that you close You're also trying to figure out all the backend business stuff and, unfortunately, bookkeeping and tax preparation and analyzing, like, the finances of a business.

Speaker 3:

None of that is stuff that we're taught in high school and many of us aren't taught it in college either. And so when we embark on this journey of entrepreneurship, there are just fundamental things that we can't like, like good, good attitude our way through there, like we actually have to know the nuts and bolts of them to be effective, and the result of not knowing those is decreased profits, it's unnecessary overhead and, like Tara Rose said, it's missed opportunities when we have a chance to maybe add a service, a line of service, to our agency, or when we have a chance to like grow and bring on more contractors or more employees or partner with another organization If we don't know where we stand financially and we can't make like an informed decision about whether that's right for our business and that can be really detrimental, not to mention just missing out on tax write offs, because I am a firm believer in giving only the exact amount of money to the government that they are owed, and not one penny more.

Speaker 1:

This is the perfect season of taxes. Like I was, I keep. We were watching a show and every single ad was like a tax thing. And my kids were like why is this? And I was like, are people not at least basic keeping track of their money? Which also, to be fair, I'm probably like when you were describing people, I was like you can just say it's me Like just say you're talking about me, it's fine. No, but I think money is such a big foundation and it's one of the core facets of like capacity in this generation Because, if you think of in the past it was food, but in our culture, money equals everything we need to live. So it's foundational for us and, I think, for many women. I'll speak for myself.

Speaker 1:

I'm very uncomfortable talking about money. I remember I was working with one of one of my first business coaches and on the questionnaire she was like how do you remember women talking about money? And I and I sat there and I was like I don't, I don't, I, I. I remember like my family situation and like my parents fighting about money.

Speaker 1:

I remember like the fights about spending versus saving and how much was too much, and the like budgeter versus the spender, which I think is such a fascinating thing, and like if we're talking about relational finances, but even in like business finances, in any realm of finances, all of a sudden I was like I had no idea how much money, drama and money I wouldn't call, I don't, I wouldn't say I have money, trauma, but like I would say that like there was a lot of emotional baggage that came with even just talking about money, thinking about money, spending money, saving money, how much money I'm charging for things.

Speaker 1:

Can you just talk about like the energetics or like the mental side about money. That like because we were talking before we started recording of, like because it's so uncomfortable for so many women, we just don't think about it, we don't talk about it, we don't want to, we don't want to look at it, which you know from my perspective and anything. As soon as you were saying that about money, I was like oh shit, I know this with other areas where I'm like let's not shove down the emotions, let's not pretend it's not there, cause that won't help anyone, but talk to me about that with money.

Speaker 2:

Oh help anyone. But talk to me about that with money. Oh my gosh, so good. And thank you for acknowledging it and just for your honesty around your own journey with money, because I think that opens up the conversation even more for all of us to be so authentic with it.

Speaker 2:

I was on a hike gosh a couple of years ago with a client of mine and she is also a very successful therapist and she's like I just have to say something and I was like do it. And she says I am going to celebrate how much money I made this month. And she had been through a huge move and she had gone through all of these really challenging moments in time. And she's like I finally got back to my $10,000 a month in my therapy practice and I feel good about it. And like we looked at each other and she burst into tears and I burst into laughter and we high-fived on this hike and it starts raining and it was like this I have like full body goosebumps just talking about it. It was like this moment in time of complete release, of like, okay, okay, like we can just say it and that's a success story, right, but it's also just that like I can't even celebrate it, and I think that is actually part of a huge part of the conversation that we're also missing. Oh my gosh, like I made a little extra this month. I'm starting to succeed.

Speaker 2:

But if I say that, someone else might feel bad or we might get into this idea of like, oh, I'm bragging, I'm showing off, and, like you said, you don't have memories of women talking about money, because it has sort of been one of those voodoo topics. And so another instance that I remember was when Jenna Lee and I came together and I was like, well, I finally had to come to grips with all of the debt that I'm in. And I shared, like, well, I finally had to come to grips with all of the debt that I'm in, and I shared that with her and I was like, I have so much debt from this venture that I had done, and I finally calculated it and even though this number is six figures of debt, it's okay. It's okay because now I'm clear and now I can take the action to get out of that debt. And so when we start to say, hey, I just want to have a conversation with you you being whoever that is let's pick a woman in our lives who feels like they are a safe container, they can hold this space with us, just like you are, becca, for so many of your incredible clients.

Speaker 2:

Let's pick somebody and say I'm going to sit down and I'm going to tell you everything about my finances and I want you to tell me how does that feel? I'm going to just say, hey, okay, here's how much debt I used to have or I do have now. Here's what I'm scared about, here's what I'm thrilled about. Here's my biggest damn dream. Like my dream is to build a company to this right. And okay, so say they're, they're in the beauty industry and they're like I'm going to build this company to $10 million and then I'm going to have an exit.

Speaker 2:

Okay, like, let's talk about those dreams, let's go there.

Speaker 2:

So let's go all the things that are scary and where we're at and where we're going and what we're calling in for ourselves, and let's just have those money conversations and open them up, because what that does releases that heart energy. It releases the mental energy. I had a really good friend say to me several months ago she's like we're only as sick as our secrets and I liked that. It's like gosh, we really are. We're only trapped by the things we're unwilling to shine the light on, and so that's how I would say let's just start there with opening the conversation, opening the energy and I do want to emphasize with somebody who has the capacity and the container to hold that, and then have them share too, because never, ever is it the case that anyone's perfect Spoiler alert and so what you just said of I mean cause, I mean one of the first things I learned in the healing world, if you want to call it that, was anything in the dark, anything in the closet feels and looks so much scarier.

Speaker 1:

But I think many of us have also faced where we brought something out of the closet to someone who couldn't contain it, to someone who responded in a way that actually made it worse. And I work with a lot of women who are in that position where they're like I don't talk about this because my life is so good and grateful, so I'm not going to talk about the skeletons in my closet of my marriage because I don't want people to get so-and-so perception of him, so I'm just going to not talk about it. And I think money is that skeleton in the closet. I mean. I even think of my own journey in business and especially in the beginning of business I was embarrassed about how little money I was making, because it felt insignificant, like it felt too small to celebrate and yet to me it was like that was the first, like real big girl money I made and like that was. It was huge for me.

Speaker 1:

And then it's interesting. I can remember certain times in my business where, like, I reached a marker that I told myself would be like the marker, like I just want to make X amount of dollars per month. And it wasn't until the end of that year that all of a sudden, I was like I did that all year and I didn't even notice it. I wasn't even celebrating it. I was just constantly focused on how I wasn't making my six figures in my business. Like every can we just I just want to.

Speaker 1:

I love that people are telling entrepreneurs that they can make so much money, but the amount of shame that I've had, that like not now and I know it's illogical Like my brain knows there's nothing wrong with your business, that you haven't made six figures a year yet by year five, and yet so many people talk about how much you make. And it's crazy how there's this shame about making too much or making too little, but just bringing it into the light and being able to talk about it with someone who will not shame you but will have that accountability. I mean, one of the things that we talk about all the time generally, like in groups of women, is, like I want to talk about this in a room that can hold responsibility, not victimhood, but also not the toxic positivity shit, like there's no room for that. I'm curious generally like what do you what? Generally, what is your viewpoint on money mindset and the way we feel about money?

Speaker 3:

Well, what I think is really interesting about money mindset is that it very rarely has anything to do with how much money we made or how much money we netted. And I have worked with people in business who have hit all of their financial goals, who have blown the lid off those financial goals in terms of income, who have, at the end of the year, had almost nothing to show for it. And it wasn't because they, it wasn't because they had to have that level of expenses. It was because their mindset about their about themselves regarding money was they weren't worthy of it. It was going. Their mindset about themselves regarding money was they weren't worthy of it. It was going to be hard, they were never going to have enough, and oftentimes this type of thing starts in our childhood with how the money thermostat was set in our childhood in our family home. If we haven't worked on that and they took actions that ensured that at the end of the year, despite how much they made, year over year I watched them double their business, and year over year I watched their profits, what they had left after their expenses, be about the same, and so I think it's critical that we really excavate our money mindset, how finances were talked about and expressed in our childhood and how we have approached money ever since then. Because we're going to return to, we're going to land on like where we expect to be, and I think that that. Likewise, I think we all know those people who just I have this friend in Arizona who she just can't not make money. Like it's just amazing, like she just everything she touches and she's smart and capable and amazing. But she's not more smart and capable and amazing than me or than that other friend I had who just ended every year barely scraping by. She just has an abundance mindset and she does the work. I'm putting that in quotes because I get tired of hearing it sometimes. But there's a reality that our mindset and our beliefs about money dictate our results, just like how we actually execute and earn money and how we manage our expenses also generates our results. So I think it's twofold and putting all of our like eggs, all of our eggs in one basket called I'm just going to have an abundant mindset and you know, like put pictures of rich people all over my office and it's going to come to me, is dangerous. Likewise, saying look, I'm just going to make a bunch of money and perfectly manage my finances and expect that I'm going to have a different result when I really don't believe I'm worthy of being wealthy or comfortable or at ease with money. That's not going to work either. So I think they're both critical.

Speaker 3:

What we help people with at Gutsy Money is more the fundamentals, the nuts and bolts of let's get a very clear picture of your finances. But once you have a clear picture of your finances, if they're not where you want them to be, that gives you a really clear path forward. Then, to analyze your money mindset Okay, I've got this great product or service offering. People want to pay me for it. My expenses are fairly low, but I keep finding excuses to blow money on a new wardrobe when I don't need it, or to throw money into, you know, a bunch of advertising that doesn't really have a high ROI and, lo and behold, my profitability is really low. All right. Well then, something's happening between those good numbers and your end results, and that's something that's happening in between those is you.

Speaker 1:

And I'm curious too, especially with like money anxiety, like that anxiousness and even I think that avoidance of money. You know, when I think of anxious about money, it's not just I'm feeling anxious when I'm thinking about money, it's I'm going to avoid thinking about it altogether. Talk to me about that money anxiety, that people yeah.

Speaker 3:

So I have actually been there. I um, I sold an agency a few years ago and I had a lot of money in the bank, and so I didn't have this, like you know. Compared to when I lived in college and I was living paycheck to paycheck and I had to perfectly manage my finances in order to pay all my bills and have the spending money I desired, I was in a different position, where the money was there.

Speaker 3:

I didn't know how much money was there, I didn't know how quickly I was spending it. I didn't notice. This is embarrassing. I didn't notice that I had like $3,000 in recurring subscriptions for the business that I had sold. That didn't get canceled by my ex-business partner and just ran through on my account like that I had. I was. I was in total avoidance on my finances in a positive way, Cause I was like there's plenty of money, I just won't look. And then by the time I looked, abundance, abundance, right.

Speaker 2:

It's all there, but like.

Speaker 3:

No, I don't think. I hope I'm never a level of rich that I don't mourn $3,000 being wasted on software that I didn't use Like that was a total waste of resources. I could do Even if I gave that $3,000 to charity. Obviously I could do so much good in the world with $3,000 that flew out the window to these unneeded subscriptions. And so while I was in avoidance, despite having more than enough resources to cover my lifestyle, I had more anxiety than when I lived in. I was in college and I was living paycheck to paycheck, but I accounted for every.

Speaker 3:

I was in college and I was living paycheck to paycheck, but I accounted for every penny, which is fascinating, right to have a shitload of money in the bank and be more anxious about your finances than when you were making $7.30 an hour at a tanning salon in college. So and so what I ultimately had to do was I had to take action on that. So I'm a big believer that the only antidote to anxiety is action, because anxiety is future-based, it's uncertainty-based. When we're anxious, we're not anxious about the problem directly in front of us that we can do something about. We're anxious about the unexpected. We're anxious about the potential future scenario that may or may not happen. We're anxious about the things, that scenario that may or may not happen. We're anxious about the things that are cloudy or obscured from us, that we're not, that we don't quite have a handle on right. That's what gives us anxiety, and so what we can do by taking action in the moment is it gives us a sense of control over those uncertain, unexpected, unpredictable future outcomes. It gives us in our body. It shows us maybe I can't predict everything that will happen, maybe I can't engineer my perfect long-term outcome, but I can do something right now, and for me it was signing up for Monarch, a financial monitoring software, pulling all of my accounts into one place and spending hours and hours and hours looking at every transaction that had come through my accounts in the last two years and categorizing them, and I had to face not only the three plus thousand dollars of unnecessary software I'd accidentally stayed subscribed to, but a lot of wasteful spending I had to confront.

Speaker 3:

You know, here's what the average family of four spends to eat out at restaurants, and I'm a single mom with one six-year-old daughter and somehow we're spending that same amount. That's perplexing. So I had to confront a lot of things, and some things were worse than I expected. But you know what, as this is, we find this often for our clients some things were so much better than I expected. Often, for our clients, some things were so much better than I expected, but my whole feelings about my finances were holistically better because I had clarity, because I took the appropriate action in order to get clarity about. Here's actually where I am right now.

Speaker 1:

Yeah Well, and you took responsibility, which is just the ability to respond, which you can't do if you're ignoring what's going on. And I think to speaking to the money anxiety part. Money is still cloudy for me and I'm still figuring it out and it's getting more and more comfortable because you know it's a process. Sometimes it's like little by little I'm growing and getting better and I'm phenomenally better than I was five years ago, for sure, especially on the entrepreneur side of financials, because of course, I had no idea what I was doing right and I was learning how to be a coach and a business owner, which are two very different roles and they both had to support each other. But like the coach part, I could. I could do that all day, every day. Like the entrepreneur side is actually the side that has been so much harder for me.

Speaker 1:

But what I wanted to say with the anxiety piece you know I talk about this in coaching all of the time, but it's like anxiety is you can't think your way out of anxiety. You can't think your way out of it because, yes, it's mental but it's also emotional in that your body is trying to avoid something bad happening in the future. But the problem with anxiety is it can't actually respond to the future. Your body can't act on something that's not actively happening and it doesn't matter how anxious you get, it won't help that thing get better. And so, with anxiety, so many people are trying to calm themselves down and it's like, well, I don't know when I'm super, super stressed and someone looks at me and they're like calm down, I've never felt better. I just feel now I'm anxious and pissed off, right Versus if someone were to say okay, but what are you doing right now and can you trust yourself?

Speaker 1:

And how you learn to trust yourself is by taking action according to your values, even if it's small and insignificant is by taking action according to your values, even if it's small and insignificant. When you take some small action, it provides this reminder to your body that I will act. I will respond If and when something bad does happen, which it will. This is life. Your body is very wise. It knows shitty things are going to happen, and then your brain is like but we can prevent it. And it's like sometimes, but also sometimes not, and so I love that approach. I'm curious, tara Rose, what you would add to that or what you would say.

Speaker 2:

Sure, it really struck me before when you had mentioned about, you know, all of the shame that you had experienced, which I would. Would you agree that shame can also lead to anxiety and be mixed up together?

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, because it, because it's I need to avoid this part of myself. It's what do I need to put in the shadows? What do I need to make sure? What do I need to repress?

Speaker 2:

Right, yeah, absolutely. And that and that really struck me because we do live in a culture of just high cognitive dissonance. You know people are saying, hey, here, create this immediate six figure business and you have people spouting it off. And so also earlier, when I was mentioning owning your big dreams, I hope it was clear that I didn't mean like you have to have a dream of a certain you know money amount. But I also feel like sometimes we try to some of the most authentic among us try to ignore those big dreams because it's like, oh well, I don't really want to get classified or put into this container or this box with these things that maybe feel a little bit untrue.

Speaker 2:

And so, just what you were mentioning about seeing all those things and feeling all those things, I think it's so important for us to also take such clear stock which I'm sure you do very well in your business and for all of us to like who are we listening to and are they telling the truth and what are like when they're saying something? Are they telling the truth and what are like when they're saying something? How aligned is it to both my own values and to their own? And sometimes we have to decipher that because, like you were mentioning, like these things are out there and yet they're not always true. They're just not like there's so much out there. But then we internalize it and think, oh my gosh, as these people, as these go-getters, as these women, that should be immediately true for me too. And then, oh, something's wrong with me because it isn't.

Speaker 2:

And so, coming just back around to the action Jenna's talk generally is talking about with you know, taking the action for the anxiety, starting with having that conversation like we kind of mentioned, and hey, who are we listening to and looking at? And, if there's any, anything we need to trim off from our awareness and our senses to support ourselves so that we're not being bombarded by things that are creating that cognitive dissonance, with or without our immediate knowledge, but maybe even in our subconscious. And then, from there, what moves can I make to create that foundation and then begin to grow it incrementally and that's the other thing too that I have seen cause so much anxiety is like it's almost like business growth and making money becomes a mystery. Sometimes it's like huh, this seems kind of mysterious. I know I need paying clients and I know I need these pieces, but how do I put them all together?

Speaker 1:

It's not a mystery. You're telling me that it's not a mystery.

Speaker 2:

It feels like one, though right, it's like 100%.

Speaker 1:

I'm sitting here like no, but I like it does feel like a mystery to me and I do think I mean part of that I I'm aware of, like part of that is because I still have a a lack of awareness and it's kind of one of those I'm aware that I'm not aware and you know I don't have a lot of the capacity to get there. But I'm curious where would you start someone with the foundation? So like, let's say, someone comes to you and they're just like I don't know what I'm doing with money. I'm confused, I'm overwhelmed, I feel embarrassed, I don't know what I'm doing. What, like, are some of those foundations of financial health, whether that's like personal business? Do you feel like personal and business need to always mix? I'm curious, like, what are some of those foundations of, like, healthy finances?

Speaker 3:

Well, so with Through Gutsy Money, we only work with women business owners currently, so we don't address people's personal finances. But as an entrepreneur, you know the line between business and personal finances when you own your own business is a lot fuzzier than I go to work. I get a W-2 paycheck and all the business finances have really nothing to do with me. My money's in my account every two weeks and so there's always conversations about personal finances with our clients. But they do have to be business owners, and we feel the best place to start is first understanding people's. We actually always start with their mindset. So, like, what are your pain points? What feels scary? What are like? What are your concerns? What are some of the things maybe that you haven't said to anybody else? Say them to us first, because we've got to sort of. It's sort of like sweeping the room of the dust bunnies before you put a new coat of paint up. Right, you got to get like clean the whole area and then we can paint it.

Speaker 3:

But if we paint it with all the dust bunnies, we're going to get those stuck in the paint. It's not going to look good, it's going to be a mess. And so we start there. We sort of clear out the cobwebs of shame, of guilt, of misunderstanding.

Speaker 3:

One thing I think you were talking about earlier with the mystery of business, it's I don't think it's that business is so mysterious. I think we have a misconception and an incorrect expectation that business growth is like this, like if this is our, this is our graph, the business growth is like this and a reality business growth. I love how Terry Rose used the word incremental. It's more like a hockey stick. That's my favorite thing that I picture.

Speaker 3:

And a hockey stick, if you, if you set it on the ground, it's flat, it's flat, it's flat, it's flat, it's flat for freaking ever. And then, when you don't want it to be flat anymore, it's still flat. And then, finally, after all this consistent effort and building and growing and not giving up and, by the way, most people give up up near the handle, mid stick, some people give up right right at the bottom, right before it climbs. But that that's the expectation for business growth and it's not what we're going to be sold in an Instagram reel when somebody wants us to buy their totally unoriginal but they put a spin on it. Marketing package right, just do these 10 things and you know you'll have six figures in two months. That's total crap.

Speaker 1:

But then you go why isn't it working? Cause I'm doing things and I've been doing them consistently for how long now? And you're looking, going. How long is this going to take? I don't know if you guys are Madagascar fans, but I can't say that without, how long is this going to take? Like King Julian, I always think that in my head, like when it when we're talking about, like business success, and I feel like that is such a good analogy. I love that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So the hockey shirt that says don't stop mid stick.

Speaker 3:

Yes, oh my gosh, so many different meetings for that shirt too, and I will wear it proudly.

Speaker 1:

I love that, I love that so much and also I'm yes, yes, please.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so so we start by cleaning out the, the emotional cobwebs, the, the mindsets, the limiting beliefs, all of that and that, and not necessarily clearing those out like they go away, but just making sure that everybody who's involved is aware of them. And then it's the setup. So you need a structure in which to contain everything, and so we set up, we help them set up a chart of accounts. We talk about these are your different kinds of expenses, and this is the difference between a cost of good and an expense, and this is why that matters. And, by the way, it really matters.

Speaker 3:

One of those should fluctuate according to how many services or products you sell, and one of those shouldn't. And here's why that matters. And so we were always seeking to not only do for our clients, but to educate them on the why. Because some people go on to DIY and they stay in the gutsy money crew for accountability and support, and then some people stay with us for full service bookkeeping and we handle it all. But even when we handle it all, we never want one of our clients to be able to say to anyone in their life yeah, I don't know, I just here's the net number, and they tell me every month that it's good or bad.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. As an example, the person who does my taxes for my business they're connected to my husband's business, which is much, much more substantial and long, long, they're in the high of the the hockey stick Right and my process for my taxes is here is my PNL and I don't. I don't know. Not maybe that feels embarrassing to say, but to say like I don't know, like I don't know any things, and I feel so silly. And here's the thing I think of myself as someone who's like pretty good at like awkward, difficult conversations, but I feel like the biggest ass hat in the world to go in and talk to. I can't think of his actual name. We'll call him Kyle Chad. Yeah, we'll call him Chad. That's good and he's not.

Speaker 1:

I'm sure he's perfectly nice, but I feel so silly to go in and be like can you explain all of this? Because I don't like can you talk to me about my business finances? Like I feel so weird talking to him because, again, I don't know if he's going to even handle that. Versus here's the actual numbers, versus like here's. Like he wouldn't hold my hand like you would. So it feels like intimidating to go to someone who feels like they only deal in the structure who won't talk to me about like what this actually means when, like I'm, my business is a baby. You know it's, it's a child, it's one one. It's obviously not as equal to my children, but it is. It is this baby that I've built.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and what if someone came in and told you these are all the things you need to do for parenting, but I'm not going to tell you why right and yeah, and defining right and being able to define all of those things.

Speaker 2:

It's money, is a language, right, it's an, it's energy and it's a language. And most of us aren't, like generally mentioned. We're not taught this in high school. We're never taught this language. You know we go to class to learn Spanish or German or French or whatever. Our you know first language is not, but we don't go. You know people are throwing around EBITDA and you know like like generally has a really fun reel on Instagram about PNLs and you know like like generally has a really fun reel on Instagram about PNLs and you know she thought it was PNL, not profit and loss. But how would we know that? And we can't grow if our nervous systems are in the freeze or the fight or flight state, like you're saying, if you're feeling like a massive dum-dum because this guy is just going to like rattle a bunch of stuff off, you have no idea about how are you going to learn?

Speaker 1:

And here's the wild part I don't even want to ask that's right, like that's how weird money is for people and I'm sharing that, so hopefully someone else out there doesn't feel alone or like their failure.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, Jenna Lee and I. Can I share the story about being naked or talking about money? So I call Jenna Lee. After I talked to um, one of our prospective clients and I was like generally it just dawned on me that talking about money is as hard or harder for somebody as, like the first time of getting naked in a room with lights, and generally says to me she says, oh no, no, talking about money is way harder than getting naked in front of somebody for the first time with lights on. I can do that, that, that I can do money. Nope, and it was just in, it was just a and we were, it was tongue in cheek and we were joking, right, but it's. It's one of those things where it really truly is one of the toughest conversations for so many of us to have.

Speaker 1:

And it feels so exposing of things that I feel like I should know, Like I feel like it's like putting on display, like how bad I'm adulting or like that I don't care about my business which, by the way, neither are true Like it's just this one facet. This is so random and possibly off topic, but for me money felt so hard until I started realizing that there's other concepts that I know how to take care of and I just started applying it to money. For example, I'll remember I was at a women's business conference and someone was sharing something about pricing your offers. She didn't say it, but she was describing pricing your offers in this one way and all of a sudden my brain and my body went my pricing is my boundary, I don't I.

Speaker 1:

And back then I used to have so much drama around how, how I was pricing my offers and what I charged women. I was so dramatic about it. But ever since that came to me this like oh, but boundaries, because oh, if I'm under charging and they're crossing my boundary on accident, I will resent them and I will not be able to show up to the relationship cleanly. And so like I have to have what I'm charging be over my level of resentment and I can't ever be charging under that or it will. It doesn't. Yes, it impacts me deeply, but you know, I'm I'm a recovering Enneagram too, so sometimes I have to remember, like, oh, that it doesn't just impact me, it impacts them as well, and I think money is something that probably is influencing our businesses and even our lives in a really big way, but, again, people don't really talk about that, even in, like the business courses.

Speaker 3:

Right, they're very. They're either very they're usually very vague or they're telling part of the story, and that's the part that really gets my goat right. They don't describe the whole hockey stick. They describe the 10 minutes before the hockey stick shot up, and that's really damaging. And so to Tara Rose's earlier point, like, um, guarding against who we allow to influence us is really damaging. And so to Tara Rose's earlier point, like, guarding against who we allow to influence us is really important.

Speaker 3:

And I also think that's why the value of there's such a strong value for in-person, or at least live, one-on-one mentorship. And so I think the best advice that I would give, like an up-and-coming young woman, high school college graduate, is find someone who's where you want to be and get in close relationship with them. Because when you're in close relationship with them and you ask them for that mentorship and they agree to it, you're going to see the stuff that is never going to make it in an Instagram reel, right, you're going to see the struggles that they continue to have. They're just different as you get more successful. It doesn't ever get easy. It just gets different things and more expensive. Get more successful.

Speaker 1:

It doesn't ever get easy it just gets different things and more expensive and more expensive, as it turns out, the more money you're making, the more money you're handling and the more money you're losing, sometimes right Like, and you know, more money, more problems, or what is the More money, more problems. That's not what I was trying to say. I was trying to say, like there's a really good quote about, like the bigger, the responsibility.

Speaker 3:

Oh, just given much as expected yeah, that one.

Speaker 1:

And instead I said more money, more problems. I actually sneaky beliefs are coming out right like oh hey, hey, you and they are from a rap song, so that that kind of works, that works perfectly.

Speaker 3:

Oh, my goodness, Maybe mo money different problems, which? Because, right, if we see money is like our savior and it's going to solve all the problems. That's another mindset that you know we have to overcome because, yeah, yeah, and I am.

Speaker 1:

I'm grateful in that like I've gotten to work with women who are way further along in their businesses. I've worked with some women who, like they, were making the kind of money I wanted to make in like similar industries, and I realized like, oh, they've made it to where they said they always wanted to be and it still doesn't feel like enough. It still doesn't, it still isn't creating that safety that they thought it would. And so I really do think that mindset is such a big thing because it is. It is just numbers and thankfully, like there is some structure to it of like it's not that mysterious, like I, like I'm, that's my new. Okay, I'm going to stop making it mysterious, it's not that mysterious, it's actually really tangible.

Speaker 1:

See, I think okay, I'm going off on a tangent from what I was originally talking about I think one of the beliefs for me I was not very good at math and I still am not Numbers confound me, like I just even, like they don't. My brain doesn't retain them, and that's not me being self-defeating, that's like a legitimate, like people's emotions. I got you numbers Like my brain and my body just like feel very confused and weird and like part of that, yeah, I'm sure, is belief, but like part of it is just like it's not. It's not my gifting. So I'm curious for those people who feel like numbers just are really hard for them. What would you say for, like, is there any special, I don't know, not approach, but what would you say to them?

Speaker 3:

I would say thank goodness we're not still doing business finances on abacuses, because that would be. I'll let Tara Rose answer this. But the but, the like, the net, net. The punchline is it's not hard anymore, the software does it for you. I mean, once you have an experienced bookkeeper set everything up for you, it becomes much easier with the use of software like QuickBooks to do the actual math. You're not going to be doing any adding or subtracting or multiplying. All of those type of things will be handled by the software. And so you just need a crystal clear, accurate chart of accounts and you know map to for how you categorize your transactions, and the system does all of the. Any actual mapping is run in a report by your accounting software, which is awesome.

Speaker 1:

So all the people panicking right now for taxes, who are like I'm not going to do this again next year, how do they make sure they don't panic again this time next year with taxes, like have someone help set up an automated system?

Speaker 2:

Definitely, and that's what gutsy money can do. Right then, when you do approach numbers, you say you know, what kind of new relationship can I have with you? Because I feel like we have different relationships with everything in our lives. Like you are so good at relating to people's emotions, like that's your jam, you can sit there, you can dive in, you could do that probably all day, every day, forever. And so with numbers, it's like, okay, you're just a little relationship and we're different, you know, like, okay, I'm going to relate to you differently. I'm going to name you maybe my finances, or like, can we personify it?

Speaker 2:

Because I think, when we were really empathic and you're able to connect in, like let's personify that money. Like you have a little money, honey, or like, so he could be like super hot, like so sexy, like, oh, these, like so he could be like super hot, like so sexy, like, oh, these curves. Like you could talk to him like, hey, like Bruce, my money, honey, okay, with your six pack abs, I love it, why not, you know? And like, hey, I'm going to personify it and I'm going to say, bruce, I need you to go to gutsy money today and I need you to. You know, get your, get your numbers all done right, but we can have fun with it, we can have a new relationship with it and we can own that. This relationship is just has to be different than other ones, because it's it's we function differently within.

Speaker 1:

I love that so much, and while you, while you were sharing that, what came up for me too is like that's co-regulation, and I think I'm I tend to be this, and so many of my clients do too of I'll do it myself, I'll figure it out myself, or at least I'll get the majority of the work done first, and then I'll bring you my more cleaned up version. I'm not a mess, anybody. I'll do the high functioning and then, once I have it figured out, once I have a problem that I can like bring to you really simply, once I have like, oh, I know my solution, then I'll bring my vulnerability, but, like I won't bring it when it's all raw, I won't bring it when it's all like just everywhere, I'm just flopping around, and it's like when we get together with other humans in that place, it rewires us, it changes us, especially when you're in a room of people who can hold it, for people who have capacity and compassion to not just be like oh, you're fine, just stay messy. Because actually, like I avoid those conversations, like don't get me wrong, I want people to be compassionate and I want them to honor where I'm at, but I want to be with people who also say here's where you're at, here's how we make it better. That's just. It's just what's innate in me, like I just I want to make everything better. And so I'm sitting here now thinking like why can't I just apply that to money, of course. Of course it can get better.

Speaker 1:

And I think too, the idea of being in a room of of people talking about this and sharing and doing it together, it's so much easier because so many of us don't, especially when you're an entrepreneur, it can be really easy, even when you have community, to not be utilizing that community, to have a community that's only connecting on the surface level, versus like linking arms and like doing their books together, like that's powerful.

Speaker 1:

And I think that breaks so much of the shame and the mindset because you start being in a room with people you look up to who are going through the same things as you and it kills imposter syndrome and it kills all of that shame of I'm making too much or I'm making too little.

Speaker 1:

Because as soon as you're sitting across from Jenna Lee and she says how much she's making and you feel elation over it, your body literally says, well, if it's okay for her, it's okay for me, there is built in permission and I think how cool that you're doing that with money for entrepreneurs, because I don't, I don't know if that's something that really exists out there. I think most of the things that I see, at least and maybe I'm not following the right things, but it's like so much of the business is how to make money, how to make money. How to make money and, by the way, almost all of those sound exactly the same and, by the way, I've been doing that for five years. So it's like how, how do I get deeper and how do I build this financial health? I, you know, I've never really thought of like the financial health of my business, of what's coming in and what's going out and that energetic flow of things Talk to me a little bit about, like the energy of money and like the exchange of money.

Speaker 2:

One of the things that. So you talked about boundaries earlier and charging that and that was like for you and the one for me. So how many times have we heard charge what you're worth Charge?

Speaker 1:

what you're worth. Oh my gosh, Just all the time and I'm like that's not All the time. Okay, tell an insecure codependent to what I'm worth it's not going to be a high number.

Speaker 2:

The worst, the worst, it's the worst. And so somebody said charge based on the results you get for people. You're not charging what you're worth. Your, your worth is just beyond the beyond, right? We can't put a number on your worth. What's the result you're getting? And we can then say, okay, I'm getting a result for somebody faster and more clearly, and I am taking all this time away from them having to learn it clearly and I am taking all this time away from them having to learn it. All the headache, all the pain, that's what we're charging for. Oh, okay.

Speaker 2:

And so energy is emotion, right? Or emotion is energy in motion. So we have that emotion around money. When we have that energy, it's a flow, it's an exchange, okay, so, and it's an exchange for a result. It's not an exchange for our value, that so and so. When we separate those things and we say, okay, here we are with money and this energy is coming from them to me or from me to them, and then it has this, these pathways, right.

Speaker 2:

So if you walk into a house and your foundation is set, which is that money foundation, it's set and you've decorated it beautifully with this money mindset, and then you can walk through the halls and you're like I love these pictures on the walls of these things I've done and these services I offer and the people I love around me, and it's beautiful.

Speaker 2:

And you go out into the backyard and you see something. Well, it's great because you could go in the front door and walk through the house and come out the back door and enjoy it, because it's clear, the pathways are clear, and that's also why we clarify our finances. That's the energy, so that things can flow, just like we walk into a beautiful house. And now, if we don't have things clear and we haven't had the conversations or set up the foundations, it's like walking into a house with boxes and garbage everywhere and it smells kind of funny and we can't. We can't get to the back door and even if we do, the yards overgrown, and so that's what that energy around money is.

Speaker 2:

It's the clarification, it's the free flow. Now the money can flow because it has its spaces to go, and then we say here's what it's for, and more money knows what it's for. So now our money, more money, wants to be with us. Money's like I can't wait to be with that person, that woman, because she knows what she's doing, because you're taking care of it, you're taking care of it, and it grows and grows.

Speaker 1:

Okay, when you were talking, though, about pricing things based off of the results that people get, I think of the work that I do and I'm like what's the monetary value? Value Like it doesn't. That doesn't feel obvious to me at all. That feels very mysterious.

Speaker 3:

What would you guys say to that? I would say that's a. It's a great. It's why we do market research, because we let our clients tell us the value it provides to them. So I also have been in coaching roles and there's I've been in a.

Speaker 3:

Most of the services I've offered in my career have not had a direct ROI. It's not like saying I come into your business and I increase your leads by 10%, which we can do the math for how much that'll increase your sales, and so thus your revenue is going to go up X, y, z by working with me. And I even remember when I was writing copy, like when I was writing when I started my copywriting career and I was like well, I would pay 35 bucks an hour for somebody to write this copy for me. So I priced my services at 35 bucks an hour. And then, about a year into my business, I realized everybody who wanted to work with me is not a writer, so their value of my copy is much higher than my value. I'm a freaking writer.

Speaker 3:

Of course, I'm not going to pay someone very much money to do what I could do for myself, but I'm definitely people are going to pay me two, three times that much and now pay me much more than that to to write the copy for them. Because the value, because they have determined the value. And I got to that by literally asking, by talking to business owners and finding out like what is it worth to you to know that the copy on your website is going to, perfectly, you know, represent your brand and tell your story and make it and allow people to get a sense for you before they've actually interacted with you? What is that worth to you? And sometimes you have to play around with it. Sometimes you increase too much and you hit a ceiling and you find out it's not working and you bring it back down. But most times I would say nine times out of 10, people are undercharging in all the industries I've worked in.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, and I think that's a. I would like at some point love to dive into that with you. I think it's a pretty long conversation and I have lots of questions and things.

Speaker 1:

I know he loves that conversation with me, yeah.

Speaker 3:

Just always like whatever you're charging, charge more, cause I would pay it. I mean I pay Becca or to be part of mastermind with her and to work with her, and I love what I'm paying her. It works for me, but I would pay her more.

Speaker 2:

Yep, yeah, and, and. So there there's that component. And then also digging into all of the knowns and the unknowns of the results. Meaning, like one of my favorite things Steve Jobs said was like if I would have asked the market about having a tiny computer in your hand and I get their feedback, how do you think that would have gone? Terribly, terribly. Not a single person could have imagined the iPhone, except for him, right?

Speaker 2:

And so that's the other piece of it is saying like, yes, question those people like generally saying who are in your world and what they like see as the value and all that, and then articulate to and pull in those other pieces that maybe aren't as noticeable but very, very, very much part of that value that you give, all of the things you know and the ways you just intricately show up with people and and you know how that result then you know 10 times is their life, because now they can, they know what co-regulation is and how to co-regulate and how to do it on the spot, whereas before they couldn't. So it's taking hours or days of their life away. Well, how do you place a value on that? Well, that's priceless. So we got to at least put that into what's charged, because that's a result.

Speaker 1:

That's so good, okay. What have we not talked about or named about money in this podcast that you would want to add or share? What have we not said? What have we not asked?

Speaker 3:

I think what's really interesting and I don't know that I've actually ever put words to this before, but it's come to me as we've been on this call today what's really interesting is we live in a time where it is easier than ever to be financially irresponsible and unhealthy. If you think about the duration, the majority of humanity you had the coins you had in your coin purse and when they were gone you starved. Or you went out and got more coins right, like that was kind of that. For most of humanity it's been here's what you have and here's what you can get for it for most people. And now we live in a time where it's not just kings and queens who can buy things on reputation or credit. Anybody can. Anybody can live well beyond their means and can run their business well beyond their means. And we are constantly bombarded. It's not just a few vendors at the town market. We are bombarded on every device, on every social media platform with how we should be giving our money to someone else in order for them to help us have more money. And so I think I have so much empathy for people who are in the stage you described earlier, because I've lived it where you're really great at what you do and the hardest part of building your business has been the business part. And yeah, what, what, the, the, the best antidote to all of that?

Speaker 3:

I think the best, the best way to navigate all of that is to be very, very clear about your finances so that when the emotional play is happening and somebody is like, just give me $10,000 and I'll be your coach and I'll give you this whole platform this year and by next year you'll be making a million dollars, you can feel the emotional draw of yearning, of like I want that, I want that so badly and it would be easy. I could put it on a credit card. I could put it on three credit cards maybe, but I could have it. No one's like there's no natural stopping me. I could have it in a way that would not contribute to my financial health, but having that clarity and being able to go back to the business and say you know what, the business actually just can't afford that. Or when it's a, sometimes you know you do stretch yourself and you say the business can't afford that because here's how we can pay it off in an amount of time that works for my nervous system and also works for my business goals.

Speaker 3:

But without clarity and business finances we're just grasping at straws and we're much more likely to grab the shiny thing that sounds really good, that makes our heartbeat faster, that makes us excited, or somebody saying I've got you, just give me an unreasonable amount of money and I've got you. We're much more likely to pursue those things versus making an informed decision. So I just think that, having a little grace for ourselves that it's really easy to be financially unhealthy in this, it's the easiest it's ever been to be living beyond our means and be financially unhealthy, and that's not an excuse, that's just an acknowledgement of a reality. What are we going to do about it? We've got to get financial clarity so we can make informed decisions.

Speaker 1:

I mean it's countercultural, like the people don't even really talk about money unless it's how much money they make, or they're literally like it's a normal thing in our culture for celebrities to be or influencers to be showing these halls and it's like you have no idea if they're actually making money or how much they're spending.

Speaker 1:

And like let's not even go to like the consumerism and like the like how many objects we have and how overwhelming it is, but like the self-control, like there's just there's so many things vying for our attention and truly like our money and our energy. And I'm I like the way you were talking about that Cause it's making me me think, like if money is an energy, like I don't want that energy to be going out of me faster than it's coming in, like that's not good. Nor is it good to have tons of money coming in and then to like be terrified to let any come out, to not be like circulating back into the world either. I'm curious, tara Rose, what would you say? What have we missed? What else would you add about money and finances?

Speaker 2:

Um, I, I love what you're both talking about. I love the idea of of making sure that you have, you know, more coming in than than going out, and also that clarity, so that we're not it and yeah, not scattering the mind in all of these different directions. I think that is a really, really potent thing. And to talk about money in the sense of health, I like how Jenna Lee did that yeah, I don't know that I'd add anything else other than starting to really think about how we can all relate to money in a way where it feels more like a relationship than such a burden.

Speaker 1:

I love that a relationship and not a burden. You guys, this has been such a fun podcast. I've loved this so much. I don't know about you. Thank you so so much for being here. For those of you who are listening, please, please, share this on. Share this on Instagram. Tag us tag gutsy money. Send us your questions, send us your aha moments, like what stood out to you, what resonated. Take the time, leave a review and follow. Make sure you get future episodes. Definitely, go check out the other episode with Jenna Lee.

Speaker 1:

We talked about screen freed revolution and it was one of the first episodes, but it was such a good one where we were talking very like, very similar, but like totally different topic at the same time. And, tara Rose, it was so great to meet you, the two of you together. I just I knew this about Jenna Lee, but I can see it in you too. You are women who love other women. Like there is not an ounce of competition or comparison or like who's better than who. It's like how do we help each other, how do we truly genuinely pour into each other, and I think it's just so. It gives me so much like my heart is so full, in the best way of just like. It's just so refreshing when you get to have conversations where we're not we're not skirting around the issue, we're telling the truth about hard shit, but we're talking about it in a way that makes it not feel so hard, it makes it not feel so complex, it's not so heavy Like.

Speaker 1:

This is a topic that for me, like even in the beginning of the podcast, I was like I could feel my emotional like oh, this is vulnerable. Or like when I've shared a couple of things about myself, I was like this is a little vulnerable, this is a little spiky, this is a little bit like oh, I feel a little insecure right now. And yet there was this like but this is a space where you can talk about it, this is we can actually talk about it and make it better for all of us. So thank you both. Is there anything else you would say before we go?

Speaker 2:

You're amazing. Thank you so much for having us. It's been really, really great.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for joining me on today's episode of the Motherhood Mentor Podcast. Make sure you have subscribed below so that you see all of the upcoming podcasts that are coming soon. I hope you take today's episode and you take one aha moment, one small, tangible piece of work that you can bring into your life, to get your hands a little dirty, to get your skin in the game. Don't forget to take up audacious space in your life. If this podcast moved you, if it inspired you, if it encouraged you, please do me a favor and leave a review, send an episode to a friend. This helps the show gain more traction. It helps us to support more moms, more women, and that's what we're doing here. So I hope you have an awesome day, take really good care of yourself and I'll see you next time.

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