Money Was Never the Point | Ep 25

For years, every decision I made was quietly shaped by money.  What paid more, what looked better on paper, what seemed "smart." 

In this episode, I get honest about realising that money was never actually my driver, and what happens when you finally stop pretending it is. I'm thinking through what it looks like to slowly make sure everything I do actually lines up with what I want. 

No life coach energy, just me thinking out loud.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hello and welcome back. So this week is a bit of a not really sure, we're just gonna see where my brain goes. Um I've kind of got a semi-idea, and you'll know if you've listened to previous episodes that this is pretty much a rambling. Um, it's my thoughts, it's wherever my brain goes, and it links quite nicely with where I'm at currently. So on the recent episode, I shared that business is literally going through a complete phoenix, for want of a better word, um, that I realized I really wasn't loving and wasn't aligned with anything I was doing, and I was trying to do business in the way I thought I should. And what I've also come to realise recently is that all of my changes up to now have been to chase money. I'm not necessarily driven by money, it's not the be all and end all for me. Obviously, I love to make money and have money, but I realized that a lot of my changes or directions or things were because I'd asked people for help, they'd given an idea, and I saw the pound signed potential, so went with it. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that if you are someone that does the same. But I've realized that that's why it was never working because I was chasing something that wasn't me. Like I've just said, I'm not driven by money, it it doesn't kind of yeah, I don't want to be a six-figure business. I'm quite happy with currently my very lovely salary from my day job, and this is extra. This is money for holidays, this is money to treat my other half who has put up with a lot over the last 10 years. Um, repay family that have supported me. This is this is my little thing that I can do what I want with it, and I'm deliberately not using the phrase hobby, um, because that has a whole mindset, and for ages I was like, oh, it's just a hobby. So I wasn't putting the effort in, but I don't want it to be a hobby, I do want it to earn, but it just even if it earns a few hundred pounds a year, I will be happy. Um, and so that has massively helped me with this new change of direction, and it's not a change of direction, it's just a refocusing of I'm not chasing the money, I'm making sure that what I do, both paid and free, because there is going to be a mixture within my offering, and it's something that I'm still working on, seeing how I want it to fit, because I can't commit to a weekly session necessarily, but I can commit to pop-ups. I can really look at residual income, um, which is why I'm building a journal. It sparked from a thing that I had already, so I've I had a kind of a self-care notebook that I was putting into little pamper packs, and I've got kind of dance tutorial things online. You wouldn't know about them because I don't talk about them, they were part of a private thing, and I was like, well, let's combine the two because the whole thing that I'm doing now is sharing about movement and small daily habits. So let's have a journal that prompts you to move. And if you're stuck with how to move, let's give you a guided dance, let's give you a mini yoga session, let's give you a follow-along line dance routine. So it's kind of bringing the two worlds together, and that's quite exciting. I'm quite excited to see because I don't believe there's anything like that out there, but even if there is, this is my version. This is my my thing. Um, and where was I going with that? My brain's already trumbled off and gone, I don't know where that point was going. Oh, that was it. Yes, so there's going to be a mixture of offers, so I'm getting to play with that, and it's helped me to really get focused with my content that I'm sharing online because it is sharing my journey and bringing you along with that, and then going, Oh, actually, I think this thing would help you. It's this figure, and I can't give specifics because I don't know at the minute. Um, and it's nice to be able to really be really in tune with it and going, am I doing that because I want to, or because I feel I should, and I'm gonna with the sh with the should stick there, but everything I've done is because it's what I was told to do. And now I'm going to do things because I want to. Asking the questions of my audience to see are they aligned with where I'm thinking, because that's been the other thing, that I've asked for something that I think they want, they say yeah, and then I put it out they don't want it, and it's probably because actually they didn't really want it, and they didn't want to say that they didn't want it. So I'm playing with that, and in fact, um today's email that's gone out, they're getting to have a say. They're getting to have a say in what they would like to see because they're part of my world and they're kind of on my journey, and there's gonna be a little surprise for someone if I go with some of their ideas. We'll be interesting to see what they come up with, but it helps me to kind of gauge where do people see what it is I'm now doing. Like, are they understanding it? If they're not, then I need to keep tweaking, and I will keep tweaking until I get it right, and then the paid services will come because I have the beauty that my day job covers my bills, so this gets to be fun, and that's the other thing. Everything I've done hasn't really been fun, and I argue with myself, oh, I've been doing it for 10 years, what have I got to show for it? But actually, I've got a heck of a lot of lessons that I have learned that I can improve on moving forward, but I can also guide others on. So I've also been kind of working on the idea of dance graduates helping them navigate the freelance world because I didn't have any guidance, I literally fumbled my way through, and I've still fumbled my way through. I've somehow come into Facebook groups and then ended up with a dance business mentor, and I was building a dance school, and that was great. And it wasn't until that point that I had the guidance, and that was two years in, and I'd already left uni like a good yeah, I'd already left uni like two years. I'd been fumbling, kind of searching the not really sure, and not knowing who I was and what it is that I enjoyed, and looking at my skill set because you do, you come out of uni with all these skills, but you forget about all the skills before you went to uni. And the biggest thing is I've monetized a hobby that was no longer fun. I've danced all my life, literally, from the minute I could walk, I was in a dance class. I did a dance degree, I did a teaching degree, the UK government decided there's no value in art subjects, I had no career. I've had to kind of form my career with little to no guidance, and I lost the love because I was monetizing it and it wasn't working. So that's an idea. Um, so the point of all this rambling is that yeah, I've realized my changes weren't for me, and that money is not the be-all and end all. And I know a couple of other business coaches who also aren't six figures, but are doing very well. And I'm deliberately not using the word success because I know that triggers people because of what we see online, and actually, success for me isn't six figures, success for me is a stable income that you know where the income's coming from, which I've never really known where that's coming from, business-wise. Not having to check which bank the payments need to go from when you're at the till doing the food shop. That's success to me. Going for a coffee with a friend and paying for it for both of us. So I'm playing with that unlearning a lot of things still, and yeah, so like I say, it was a bit of a rambly video. I wanted to explore a bit further with you, kind of where I'm at, where I'm headed. Does it make sense? I would love to know if this makes sense to you. Um, but yeah, that's been my big thing that I've been chasing money and I'm not money oriented. So why was I chasing money? Because in the online world. People that had all the good intentions when trying to help, offering what they thought would be a good idea for me, and it was or could have been, but I didn't have the guidance to be able to sit and go actually changing to become a wedding and event planner, for instance, wasn't going to solve the issue because the issue was I had a good salaried income, so I had limited capacity, that's not gonna work. People aren't gonna buy that. As much as you can relate, it's gonna be hard to build. You're always gonna have this dipping income. The wedding industry is not, for me personally, is not gonna bring me that stability. I'm not just weddings, and I'm really kind of feeling into that and really kind of in a way going back to my pre-COVID life, looking at the things I was doing pre-COVID and going, okay, what did I learn from that? How can I develop that? Go back to it, improve it, you never know. Like, I kind of built an online audience when I was trying to build a local audience and going, hello, it's in your face, build online. So, ramble, ramble, ramble, because my brain is literally going off on tangents and before it becomes a nonsense podcast, um, I'm gonna leave it there. But that is my my tip for you today is when someone gives you an idea, sit with it, and sit with it and sit with it and sit with it so that it is your decision, and if you need to bounce it with AI, putting that out there, bounce it with AI. Because sometimes we need to bounce it with a a non-emotion, and AI can help you ask those questions, or find someone that you really trust to ask you those questions to get you really thinking, or journal it, or whatever, but really sit with your decision because otherwise you're running a life that's not yours, and ten years later you'll be literally where I am, or not. So it's never too late to change, but make sure that the decision is yours and not because of someone's fantasised idea. So I would love to know how you what this makes you think, what you think of everything that I've discussed, and I'll see you on next week's episode.