Energetic CFO

8. The Most Important Person for Your Success

• Eric Vogel

Share episode

In this episode of the Energetic CFO Podcast, Tiffany Vogel dives into the most important investment you can make—yourself. Through heartfelt storytelling, personal anecdotes, and valuable insights, Tiffany illustrates how prioritizing your personal growth can lead to transformative results in your business, relationships, and overall life.

From navigating the challenges of being a mom and business owner to sharing lessons learned from investing in masterminds and personal growth programs, Tiffany shows how empowering yourself can create a ripple effect of success. If you're ready to take ownership of your life and business, this episode is a must-listen!

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

  • Why investing in yourself is the highest ROI decision you can make.
  • The importance of balancing life, business, and personal growth.
  • Lessons learned from masterminds, retreats, and coaching programs.
  • How to spot the right investments and avoid the wrong ones.
  • Practical ideas for small, meaningful investments in self-care and mindset.
  • The difference between investing in frameworks and empowering yourself to make decisions.

Take Action:

  1. Identify one small way to invest in yourself this week (e.g., a massage, personal development book, or journaling session).
  2. Reflect on your long-term goals and consider how personal growth aligns with your vision.
  3. Join Tiffany’s waitlist for her upcoming in-person retreat in April at the Helen, GA Airbnb by reaching out to her at Tiffany@EnergeticCFO.com.
  4. Connect with Tiffany to discuss how she can help you make empowered financial decisions.

Connect with Tiffany:

If this episode resonated with you, please share it with a friend who might benefit. Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a rating, and let Tiffany know how she can support you on your financial and personal growth journey. Stay tuned for next week’s episode!

Welcome to the Energetic CFO Podcast, where we empower you to take control of your financial future. I'm your host, Tiffany, an advocate for financial literacy and business success. In this podcast, we'll explore a wide range of financial topics from money mindset and budgeting to building wealth and achieving financial freedom. We'll break down complex financial concepts into simple, actionable steps so you can apply them in your own life. Whether you're a new entrepreneur or a seasoned business owner, this podcast is for you. Join me as we dive into the world of finance and discover the tools and strategies to help you achieve your financial goals. Let's get started. Welcome back to the energetic CFO podcast. I'm your host, Tiffany Vogel, and I am usually so excited to be here to chat about money, mindset, business, finance, all the fun things. Well, fun to me, maybe not so fun to you, but my hope is to make it fun and something that's approachable for most business owners, because I know this isn't something that is always taught in school for sure, and when you become a business owner, you don't always know these things, and it's just like assume that you know, and especially for women, like I think there's so much shame in not having all the answers. So that is why I'm here, and I'm so excited to chat with you more today. I, gosh, I am so ready for some spring weather. I'm tired of being cold, and I have a heated jacket. A good friend of mine bought a heated vest and a few years ago we were chatting about it and I was like, what, why do you have a like light up button on your jacket or your vest? And she told me about it and I was like, this is genius. Like I love the heated blankets. Why do I not have a heated jacket? So I invested in one, I think it was last Christmas and it is like the best couple hundred dollars I've ever spent. My big problem is I keep forgetting to charge the battery. So it's charging now. So we'll have juice for tomorrow. But it has been so cold, and I just, I don't want to go outside when it's this cold. And this morning, we're on our way to get the boys ready for school. We decided Eric was taking them, and I was gonna stay home and have like my morning routine time to meditate and do all the things I do. And Otto tells me, my four year old, that he wants me to go with them to school. And I told him, well, my dad's taking you, and I normally take them. But today Eric was doing it. And he was very distraught because he wanted a girl to drop him off. And I don't know what makes me so special compared to that. But you know, when the kid asks, I try to deliver. So I told him, okay, we're running late. I have to go get dressed and you have to get your jacket on. And it was a whole thing. Like he did not want to put his jacket on. So I get one sleeve on, run back, get dressed, grab my heated jacket, throw it on, get it turned on. Because normally I like to preheat the thing. So when I go outside, it's like nice and toasty. And he. Like comes up to me with no jacket on. I'm like, grab your jacket kid. Like if you're a parent, you know this struggle and it's every day. And having snow days did not help the situation because we got so far out of our routine. So I get, I'm getting my coffee ready to take with me and getting him in his jacket, and he starts to have a meltdown. And I'm like, great, this is what we need. Like we're already. Running late, and then me having to get dressed last minute was like, not planned. And, he's melting down now. Dad's already getting the car loaded up with the other kid. Like, 15 degrees outside. And, in Georgia, mind you, like, what is this? I'm not okay with this. And I, I look at him like, what's wrong, buddy? And he's like, I want a jacket like yours. And like, I am not dropping whatever it was. It was at least 100. on a jacket for a four year old to have a heated jacket for one, and then for two, for him to grow out of it in a year or less. Because you know, like, if I gave him this heated jacket, he would just be messing with it to the point of probably breaking it. So, it was just funny. So, I'm like, yeah, let me talk to dad, which is always my answer, because He usually forgets. So this is such a long story that is not remotely related to what we're talking about, so I'll make it short. He decides maybe we can make a pretend jacket that has a button like mom's out of rubber bands. So I'm hoping he forgets by the time he gets home from school, but I might be making like a heated jacket pretend button on his coat out of rubber bands. So if you have any thoughts or ideas on how to make that happen, shoot me an email. Hopefully we can figure it out together. But, it's, you know, I've realized I'm so thankful for being in the position where I can start my workday later so that I can take him to school and be the girl to drop him off. Yeah, I'm his girl and it's just such a fun place to be and I know I won't be his girl forever. So I'm soaking up while I can and fortunately he let me take him to his class and dad took brother to his class So we were able to do drop off a lot faster than normal and get back home but it's just such sweet moments and I just have so much appreciation for the position i'm in to be able to Take him to school and you know, have those moments and deal with him yelling at me because he's cold, even though he won't put his jacket on all the things. So today, I want to chat about the most important person for your success. And we talked last week about the most important document in your business and really your life. I mean, we talked about the P and L and if you didn't listen, I would definitely check it out. It's, it's important to know it, even if you're not in business, because knowing your personal financials. Can help you make strategic decisions and know that you're buying the right things and spending money where it really moves the needle for you. Like for me, buying a coffee out every day is not important to me. So if I was doing that, it would be out of alignment with my goals and intention. And when Eric and I first got together, he was buying a coffee and a bagel at Dunkin Donuts every morning, thinking it was saving him time. And we did the analysis and it just did not make sense. financially or time wise because he spent more time in the drive thru line than he would have if he just made it at home or at work. So it's just interesting when you have that clear picture and I want to help you find that clear picture today not from a financial perspective, but from I mean, I guess it is financial but from an intentionality really and start thinking about this. I view the most important person in your life, business, every aspect to your success is yourself and the highest return on investment thing you can do is investing in yourself. Personally, this year, financially, we were not in a place for me to really spend a lot of extra cash. We, I mean, we're in startup on these businesses, the real estate's holding firm, but we have this Airbnb that has a stupid large mortgage payment each month. And with seasonality and Airbnb, we're in the middle of winter and people don't really want to go sit in the mountains in the cold. So we're breaking even in essence right now. So you know, income is, lighter than we'd like it to be at the current moment. And over the past year, you know, we were building this Airbnb and putting every extra penny into that. So investing in myself was big. Seemed off the table, but after a lot of reflection and conversations with Eric, we realized for me to grow into the person that I want to be for my family, for my business, for myself, for my marriage, for everything, I had to make some big investments and on the P and L, it didn't make sense. And I would just want to say, like, sometimes it doesn't make sense from a financial perspective. And that's where I think most financial coaches can miss it is there's a human factor in finance. That has such a key part that can be overlooked. And if you're not taking that human part into it, you're missing everything. I mean, it's like, if you want to lose weight, we all know exactly what we have to do to lose weight. I mean, it's calories in, calories out. But to do that, there's a human behavior part. You have to say no to the cookies, and Pregnant woman over here. That's a really hard thing to do. So having the discipline is more important. So when you're doing a weight loss program, it's not as much about the education of the program. It's the mindset behind it. And for me growing in the business and growing as a person, I knew I had to invest in my mindset. So. In 2024, I don't want to total up the amount that I spent on personal growth, but it was, it was a lot. And it was worth every single penny. I joined a mastermind that was a very, very hefty price tag much more than I've ever spent on a mastermind. And it was for a group of women who are business owners and moms. And the majority of us have very young kiddos. And the season of life is just so different. I, you know, realized a lot of our businesses stagnated when we had our first son because our attention has shifted. And we can't put as much time and energy into the business as we could before because we have, you know, little humans running around that need a lot of things. And I never wanted to take my eye off the business, and I did. And I realized that investing in myself is the way to find that whole picture of Tiffany, so that I can show up as the mom and the business owner and the wife that I want to be. So, this group of women, it's so great because we were all in a very similar stage of life. We all have big businesses and big aspirations and financial goals. And we get to come together a few times a year and just sit down and dig into our businesses and take care of ourselves because self care is so hard in this season of life. and work on our mindset. And I just got back from the retreat with them a couple of weeks ago. And it was just so good. It was just so good to be around women who are in a similar boat as I am. So that investment was a hundred percent worth it and led me to meeting my coach, who is absolutely fantastic and has transformed my life. She has hosted a couple of retreats. One of which was the Costa Rica trip I just got back from. And, Eric joined me for a call with her, and just looked at her and said, Thank you for whatever happened in Costa Rica. Like, Tiffany's not the same person. And, he just had so much gratitude for her. And I realized, when I signed up for that mastermind initially, it was such a stretch. And, to ask Eric to, you know, make this investment and then to make the subsequent investments in the coaching and all these retreats and I mean traveling internationally is not cheap. You know, I'm just so thankful, one, that he's so supportive and two, that I was willing to see myself as this most important person to invest in. So yeah, I mean, it's, it's been life changing and had I not made that decision to put myself first. and invest in myself, I wouldn't be sitting here recording this podcast or growing the business that I'm growing. I'd probably be sitting in the corner defeated because things in life were not working out the way I wanted them to. And investing in my mindset and my self care, mental health, like pretty much all the things you can think of has completely transformed the person sitting here talking into this mic for you to listen to. So thank you for being here. But I just want people to know. That sometimes it might not make sense to make the investment and to join the group, join the mastermind, go on the retreat, invest in the coach. But at the end of the day, if you are investing in yourself and doing the work, not just spending the money, you have to do the work as well. You will get a tenfold return on that investment of time and energy and money. And I've seen so many people join coaching programs in particular and not do what the coach says or push back and have resistance and, you know, buttheads every step of the way and then wonder why they're not reaching the success that they want. And it's really, you have to show up and be all in when you make that kind of decision. Over the past, I would say four or five years, we've invested in a lot of coaching programs, maybe not coaching programs. I would say like online courses. And The ones that have been business focused, not personal growth, some of them, I have gotten a return, like a higher return than the investment. Some of them have been sunk cost investment where we haven't, you know, covered the cost of it through what we learned in that program. And it's not the coach's fault. It's us. We just weren't in a place to make that investment. So I just want to say like be strategic in the investments you're making, but, Those investments were for the business. They were not for our personal growth. And I thought that if I spent the money and took the time to do the things that it would lead to success. And I mean, that's what they promise. And that's, you know, they're salespeople at the end of the day and doing what they needed to do. But I wish I invested more in myself. And not in frameworks and programs and, you know, coaches like that, because the investments that I have made for my mental health and my growth and my development, the return has been exponential, but the investments that we've made in methodologies and frameworks has not paid off. I realized I have been trying to build my businesses as if I am all these coaches. And I got lost in the sauce. And part of the realization I had, I've had really over the past couple months, but really got cemented in Costa Rica, and at the Mastermind, was that I have to show up authentically as me. And if that doesn't fit into a framework, that's okay. You may have noticed, and you'll see the next couple episodes, I follow a framework. I recorded them before I left for Costa Rica and Austin, and I was hesitant to release them, but I think there's some really good content in there. So I want to get it out there, but I, I've just decided I am going to do these podcasts in a way that feels authentic to me and it's free flowy. and might not be what the experts and the gurus say I'm supposed to do, but it feels right for me. And that's because I have invested so much in myself and I'm willing to take this risk and show up authentically as me. Because that's more important to me at the end of the day than following a framework and getting more clients. I just want, I mean, at the end of the day, this podcast is really an outlet for me to express myself and to help people. And I just was not feeling like the frameworks I was following were helping me accomplish that goal. So I'm kind of beating to my own drum at this point, but would not do that if I hadn't have invested in myself. And I mean, there's been some investments in ourselves that didn't pan out. We joined a mastermind, a co ed mastermind, Eric and I joined together and it was, it was terrible. The wives that were in the room that were decision makers and really showing up and power houses were not treated equally as the men, even though some of us were doing more than our husbands in the business. And. Almost treated like we were the admins, which did not feel good. And then I had someone make really inappropriate comments to me that were quite upsetting. And when confronted, it was unaddressed and just did not feel good. It was not a safe place to go. So we wound up dropping out of the group early, but I will say having that experience taught me what to look for in coaching and masterminds in any kind of container that I'm going into. And I have realized how to spot a safe place to the point where when I got to Costa Rica, I met this woman in the car with our driver, never met her before. Oh, we met on zoom once. And then I watched a recording of a zoom call with her. So I don't know this lady and we get in the car and just start chatting. And I'm sitting over here, spilling my life story and stuff that only a handful of people know, but I knew my coach hosting this retreat. That she would only bring people who were safe and who were, I don't know, like a match to me energetically. And I knew I could trust her. So I, you know, I'm spilling my life story to this lady and she's sharing a lot of her stuff. And it was just really interesting the difference between those two groups. So even if you kiss a lot of frogs to find your place, that's okay. It's still worth the investment because you're figuring out what works for you and what's best for you. So I just really want to challenge people, challenge you to think about when you're investing in your business, is it investing in yourself or is it investing in somebody else? Is it investing in a framework? Is it investing in the business? Like where is that investment really going at the end of the day? And I mean, for me, I worked really hard over the last year to build a fractional CFO firm by following a roadmap that someone laid out exactly what you need to do to get clients to deliver, copy all of these things, and you will have a successful business. And I did that for a year, and it was not successful. And what I have realized for myself is I don't want to be the service provider for a business and their finances. I don't want to tell them what to do month after month. My purpose on this earth is to teach people how to do it for themselves. So, and they might not want to do it for themselves forever, and that's okay, but I want to empower and educate people so that they know When their CFO or accountant says something to them, they know what it means. And they don't just get the glazed over look and trust that professional. It's like in healthcare. our dog got really sick. Over the summer and into the fall. And he was scratching non stop. And he's had allergies his whole life, so like it's not out of the norm for him to be itchy. But it just got progressively worse and worse to the point where he was bleeding from scratching himself so much and crying because he's scratching and it hurts and it was gut wrenching and I took him to his dermatologist because the dog has a dermatologist because of the allergies and Said you know his shots that he gets are not working anymore And it was just met with well keep doing it because There's no reason it should stop working. Maybe reduce the amount you're giving him. Which made no sense, but we tried it. It didn't work. And I continued reaching out to them, and I felt just kind of dismissed. And we took him to his local, well we took him a couple times to the emergency vet. Because he had an ear hematoma. So his ear filled up with fluid. And had to get a drain put in, twice. One on each ear. And now he's got cauliflower ears, so he looks like a boxer. But we went through, it was six months of trying to figure out how to help this poor dog while also having young kids and businesses and all the things. And finally I looked at Eric and I was like, I am exhausted of dealing with this. Like, I don't feel heard. I don't know what to do. I did some Googling and came to the conclusion that I think he has a yeast infection. So Eric took him to the vet and was like, I need you to test them for yeast. And they're like, Oh, we don't think it's that. And he's like, no, you're going to test him. And they did. And they found out he had a terrible yeast infection and put him on, I think it was like a month of antibiotics and antifungals, and we finally have his stuff under control, his allergy medicine still was not working. So we got him on a different plan for that. And it's, it's frustrating that it took Eric going in there and demanding that they test him for this. And he wouldn't have known to do that if I hadn't have done the research on Google to figure out that we think it's a yeast infection. And fun fact, if your dog smells like Fritos or corn chips, they probably have a yeast infection. So who would have known? But there were signs on his skin that the dermatologist and the regular vet should have caught. So all of that to say, when it comes to your business, your finances in particular, because that's, you know, what we talk about here, but anything in your business or your life, You want to make that final decision and not trust a quote unquote expert because you don't know just because they have a couple letters after their name or a certificate on the wall does not mean that they were the A student or that they're, the best person for you and you won't know if that's the right person unless you really dig into it and know the facts behind the numbers, if you will, for this example. it took me hours of research to figure out what was going on with him and I should have been able to trust these experts. And when it comes to your business and finances in particular, you want to know enough to be able to question if something seems off and not have to have a suffering animal for six months before you finally get to a breaking point that you spend the time figuring it out. And I think in business, like you don't want to go years down the road. And look up and say, Oh, I need to know like what happened years ago that led me to this point. Like, let's learn about it now so we can make those empowered decisions as we're growing. And that is my mission here, is to help business owners, not as a CFO, to tell you, Hey, here's what's going on in your business in perpetuity forever. My goal is to teach you the fundamentals of finance in a way that's easy to understand. And yes, we use spreadsheets because That's how I live and breathe, but it's teaching you how to take your data and make it into something powerful and impactful in your business. And just having a different pair of glasses to put on as you're looking at your business and giving you the questions to ask your CPA to start thinking about this a different way. Because my intention is to empower not to do and let you make the decisions because as the business owner or running your own personal finances. You know way more than a CFO or a coach or anyone will ever know. And you know, your motivations and your goals and what risk level you're willing to take. And I mean, it's easy for me to look at a spreadsheet and tell you exactly what you need to do, but I'm not in your shoes and I don't have to deal with the consequences of it. So my intention is to teach you, here's how I would look at this. and weigh these options and assess this and give you that information so that you can make the decision and teach you how I'm approaching it and my mindset so that you are the one making the decision in the future and not relying on another expert. I see so many women come to me who their dad or their uncle or some man in their life and not that that's a bad thing but some man in their life has been managing their finances and then they get in a serious relationship or get married and then their husband takes over and they don't know what to do with that information and they're just trusting these people in their life which is a fine thing like there's nothing wrong with trusting people but I want to be able to make the financial decisions for myself or at least be a part of the conversation. So that if heaven forbid something happens to the man that's in your life that's doing the finances for you, that you're not left scrambling trying to figure it out. I think back to I don't know where I heard this, so bear with me, but there was a story about a woman passed away and she had been married to her husband for 60 years and they were, they were very old. And he was so lost because he didn't know where the checkbook was or the coupon drawer. Like, there were all these things that she did that she never conveyed to him. And what I would hate is for a person to have that go to person in their life that's doing all the finance and accounting and managing all the money, and for something to happen to them and they're left lost of where the checkbook is. and how to manage the finances. So that is my heart and my intention here is to help empower people in a way that is not painful because I know most people don't enjoy finance. I love it, but I get it. It's not always fun. And I think my husband's been like the biggest lesson for me of not everyone enjoys this or looks at the numbers the way I do. So I'm bringing it down to a level that's understandable and fun as much as we can make it fun. Thank God I don't do accounting because that would be much harder to make fun. Tax law is not, it's not entertaining. It's a good bedtime reading material so you can fall asleep, but finance can be fun. And that is my goal is to make it fun and help you to see. Where's the best place to make these investments in your life are, but hands down, I can tell you if you're making an investment in your own personal growth, that is going to be the highest ROI investment you can make, because then you can show up more effective. In all areas of your life. And I need to total up how much I've spent on personal growth over the last year. It's a lot. I, if I had to guess, I would say probably in the 70 range. I should totally look, but it's been worth every penny because my nervous system is more regulated than it's ever been. I'm less stressed. I was on a path of thyroid issues. And was fortunately able to get that under control before it became a real issue. But my health is better. My marriage is much, much, much, much better. Our finances are better. I mean, you think about the wheel of life exercise. And looking at that, I looked at mine from the beginning of last year to this year, and I've improved in every area. And some of it, nothing has changed. Like for example, we want to make some changes to our house and some renovations just to take it to the next level. And we've talked about just moving instead of trying to fix this one up, but I have realized this house has everything I need and it's not aesthetically where I'd like it, but functionally it is. And we have a great pool. That we swim in all summer long and we have so much space for the kids to run around outside And I would hate to give that up because of a desire for a more aesthetically pleasing house But in working on my mindset over the last year I'm realizing the aesthetic desire for me was more for other people than for myself and in Taking ownership of who I am and what I want in life. I realized that is not a priority for me What's a priority for me is being able to take my son to school and be the girl to walk him in. And when the time comes that I have to build a rubber band button for a jacket for him so he can be like me. That's the time investment I want to make. And I would rather work fewer hours to have that time with him and my other son. He's great too. The four year old is just like connected to me in a deeper way right now. The two year old just screams, I want daddy and daddy is tired of it. But that's the investment I want to make now, not in my house. And I would not have that clarity if I didn't make the investments in my own personal growth this year. So yeah, it's, it's life changing and cannot express enough gratitude to the women in my life that have helped me get to this point because it probably saved my marriage saved my business, my finances, like everything. So if you are interested in taking a step and investing in yourself from a financial perspective, I'd love to chat and see how I can help you with that. Take that step for yourself this year. I'm also going to be building out a wait list for our in person retreat that will be in late April at our Airbnb up in Helen, Georgia. And if you're interested in that, let me know. And I can get you the link to the wait list, but just want to leave you with like, what is one investment in yourself that you can make this week? And it does not have to be something grand. It could be going to get a massage because you just are overwhelmed and want the rest or. Having someone come clean the house. I know that's not technically a, you know, investment in yourself, but if it gives you some time to be able to go do something for you, that is a worthy investment. And maybe think about this year and what investments you want to make into yourself through business mental health, whatever it is that's the area you really want to focus on this year, what are a couple investments you can make to really push that to the next level. That is all I have for you today. Thank you so much for joining me. And if you like this episode, please share it with anyone you think might also benefit from it. Leave us a rating, a review, all the things that all the people say on all the YouTubes and podcasts and all the things, you know, I probably don't need to repeat it, but thank you for your support and I will catch you next time. Thanks for joining me on this episode of the Energetic CFO Podcast. Remember, small steps can lead to massive rewards. By taking action, staying disciplined, and seeking knowledge, you can achieve your financial dreams. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to share, like, and subscribe. And don't forget to leave a comment with your thoughts and questions. Until next time, keep learning, keep growing, and keep thriving.