#7 - Money Emotions

In the podcast Always and Never About the Money, host Chelsea Williams discusses the complex relationship between money and our daily lives. Through personal anecdotes and expert insights, she aims to inspire and educate listeners to change their money stories and find a new perspective on how money can enhance their lives. The episode also emphasizes the importance of addressing both the money going out and the money coming in. Williams encourages listeners to enforce clear expectations and track their emotions and facts about money for 30 days to gain awareness and make positive changes.

Episode highlights:
1. Explores how our habits, beliefs, and emotions shape our financial situations.
2. Discussion about the emotions and beliefs tied into our money stories.
3. Importance of reevaluating priorities when rebalancing the money equation.

Are you ready to rewrite your money story? Tune in now and unlock the potential for a richer, more fulfilling life. 

Always and Never About Money Episode Links:
Video Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@MoneyMasteryWithChelsea
Socials: https://linktr.ee/the_money_whisper
Money Mastery Website: www.moneymastery.work
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/AlwaysandNeverMoney/

Transcript

Welcome to Always and Never About the Money. Are you ready to embark on a journey that will forever change the way you perceive money? We'll get ready because we're about to dive deep into the fascinating world of finances and human behavior. I'm your host, Chelsea Williams and Money Whisperer. I'm here to help you realize what your money story is telling you and how you can change it. But hold on tight because this is not the dull black and white talk about money. We're gonna splash all the color into this typical nap inducing conversation on Always and Never About the Money. We're gonna explore the intricate relationship between money and our daily lives from the impact history has left on us and how we still manage it.

How your habits shape your money, and what beliefs are driving your habits, choices, and relationships to the deeper values and emotions we've come to attach to it. We are going to unravel it all through insightful conversation and personal anecdotes. We'll bring you the expert insights, real life stories and meaningful thought provoking ideas that will inspire you, educate you, and initiate some serious perspective change when it comes to your money. Remember, money is just a tool. Together we'll untangle the web of emotions, beliefs, and values. We've come to attach to it and find a new perspective on how it can enhance our lives. So whether you're looking for motivation, practical advice, or a good laugh always and never about, the money's got you covered.

Thank you for joining us in this transformative journey. Get ready to challenge your beliefs and embark on a financial exploration like no other. Without further ado, let's kick off the episode of Always and Never about the money.

And these changes in the brain put you in that mental state of emotion. So it doesn't start with the state, it starts with thoughts, feelings and habits create a chemical change in the brain. Now we are in a mental state, and I just wanna take it one step further so that we understand that your mental state also has an effect on your physical state, your physical responses. So I had a prospect call earlier this week that brought up so many things for me, and so I just had to do an episode on this. So this prospect where they were just is like my heart is is for the this person and it combines with my zone of strength.  And so when I talk to people that are in this type of position, I get so excited because our services and what we do are built exactly for these people. These are my people. And so this individual had followed my stuff for a while, attending a couple workshops and reading my content that we're putting out there to the world. And it took them a while to approach me. Their business had been operating for 30 years, right? There was less than you would expect in revenue from a business that was 30 years old. Like we, you think about a business in your mind that's been around for 30 years and you're like, man, you've probably figured a lot of stuff out and you're making bank like 30 years. That says something, right? But that is just not the case sometimes. And they had not embraced technology yet. They didn't have a cloud-based document system. They were still having paper in their, in their office. There was just no evolution in utilizing technology in the business. And they had no team that there was a full workload. They also owed for multiple years tax returns. It was just it. It was a situation where the numbers and the filings and the technical parts of accounting had been neglected for multiple years.

And so this person came to me feeling things like how irresponsible of me to have let this gone so far and ashamed when stepping forward to ask for help because of what they were stepping forward myth, the with the financial mess that came with stepping forward and showing somebody like lifting back the curtain to this is what I have been neglecting for years, right? They had a feeling of my life should be fuller. Like my friends are going on vacations and I can't go 'cause I can't afford it. Like I'm missing out on life having invested 30 of my years into this business that is not producing the lifestyle I'm looking for, right?

So just this overall feeling of lost and being embarrassed. But what they were also feeling was that they were uncomfortable enough at this point that they were willing to take action. They were willing to step forward and say, here is my financial baggage and I need help. And the reason why these, I know this is not an exciting meeting, it doesn't sound like it, but the reason why I get excited on my end is because I know that my team and my company has everything they need to eliminate the problems and blind spots in their situation. This is where my heart and my zone of strength come together. And it makes me excited because there's so much potential.

There is nowhere to go but up and we have all of the steps that they need to take. But let's talk about that feeling part, what they were feeling, because it's those feelings that kept them in this residual state of financial mess for so many years. Money carries with it so much emotion. And we have come to understand that money, it's just a tool. It is very objective. It is just numbers, very black and white. It doesn't have a mind of its own. It doesn't have feelings and emotions. It is directed by its user. You are in the front seat. You are the steering wheel of that tool we call money.

And you, you carry a lot of emotion when it comes to your money. And so let's talk about emotion. What what does emotion mean? And I found a a, a description of what is emotion that I really like? And it says that emotions are mental states brought on by neuropsychological changes, changes in thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or discipline. So now, because I'm a numbers person and I can I, I have this ability to see things in black and white, what I'm getting from that is that your thoughts, your feelings, and your habits, because that's what a behavioral response is, right?

It's your habits. Habits control about 60% of our life, of our day, they're held in the subconscious mind and part of the brain. So your thoughts, your feelings, and your habits create the chemical change in the brain. And we can measure these chemical changes. Science has been doing it for a long time. These are very measurable. And these changes in the brain put you in that mental state of emotion. So it doesn't start with the state, it starts with thoughts, feelings and habits create a chemical change in the brain. Now we are in a mental state, and I just wanna take it one step further so that we understand that your mental state also has an effect on your physical state, your physical responses.

When you get nervous or excited, like we tend to sweat, right? When we get embarrassed, our face turns red. You know, our heart rate goes up in certain situations, our palms are sweat, each person reacts a little bit differently. But our thoughts, feelings, and habits can actually show up in our physi physical responses. And we can test this with numbers very easily. So if you think about what is that number that you want to make every month, every quarter, every year, whatever timeframe, what is that number that that, that you wanna make? And that number's gonna be different for every person, but just keep bumping it up. And when you start to get a little nervous, for example, let's just double that number. If you make, if somebody told you that you could make double the number that you're thinking in your head right now, would that make you nervous? If not, how about four times, five times?

Like at what point does a number seem big to you? When do you start feeling that? You get that mental state of emotion, right? Maybe even a physical response. So it's very different from person to person, but what remains the same and why I appreciate money for the tool that it is, is that we all are living under the same very simple equation. We're all under this very simple equation. However much money you're bringing in is the amount of money that you have going out, right? And it should equal zero. If it doesn't equal zero, if you have more money going out than you have coming in, you probably owe somebody. That's just how simple this equation is, right?

And when we start to talk about changing our money situations, now we're looking at rebalancing the equation, right? Money in, money out. So most people look at money out first, right? We have to look at the data, where is it going? Where has it gone, right? And we cut what's easy, and sometimes we have to cut a little bit more into what's hard that really challenges us, that really puts us in a state of emotion, a mental state sometimes. And sometimes making the adjustments to your equation means a complete lifestyle change, which comes with so many of those feelings and emotions, right? And in order to successfully create a lifestyle change, you have to modify your habits and your beliefs around whatever it is that you're changing.

Because what you're doing when you have to look at the money going out and and organize it and rearrange it and make changes, is that you are reevaluating your priorities, right? Show me what you spend your money on and I will get a really good idea of what your priorities are. And sometimes that's what we have to do when we rebalance the equation. That's what we are doing. We are reevaluating our priorities and making the hard decisions.

But what a lot of people miss in this equation sometimes is focus on the money in this is a two-sided equation and we can address both. Not only do we need to adjust what money's going out, we can look at how to bring more money in. This comes with a lot of emotions and feelings, right? This is really tied to our worth. What, what do we expect and how much money we make is how valuable are we? How valuable is our hour or our service, our time? How valuable is the time that you are paying for? And that is where a lot of people tend to feel imposter syndrome or like they're not worthy to charge this much. So a lot of feelings and emotions on how much money do we wanna make?

How much money do we deserve to make? How much money can we make, right? Because the equation part of it is pretty simple. You create another stream, you bring more money in looking for the path of least resistance. Where is it the easiest to make money in business? We use the upsell. What can we upsell to people that are already paying for our services? That's the easiest thing. What can we add to without learning something completely new? There are always opportunities to diversify your money in always. And so whenever we make a change in the money that we expect and tend to bring in, we're still looking at that mental state of emotion observing what's happening because it's a reflection of our beliefs.

So some of us are living in a foggy equation, right? You're in a foggy financial equation, you're gonna have a lot more emotion around that because things are happening that are stressing you out and you probably don't understand why. And some of us are living in a negative equation that brings in way more emotion, right? Having to borrow money from a bank, having to see that credit card bill shoot way up, having to ask for money from friends and family. That brings with it a whole new level of self-worth and emotions around living in a negative money equation. And so you have to decide to change and that's going to look different from person to person. But any change in your equation, the map is pretty black and white. Like the equation is very simple, but your emotions are colorful.

So if you study the emotions that are the strongest, that's when you can start to untether your emotions from this tool. We call money because our thoughts, feelings and habits are what dictate those emotions. And this is why the coaching industry is a $15 billion industry and not just specifically money mindset. You will see people out there who market themselves as money mindset specialists, and that is a thing. You'll see other coaches that are business specialists, spiritual coaches, there's a ton of different coaches, but most of them, what they are really trying to get at and to change and adjust are your root beliefs. And the root beliefs that you can observe and learn about yourself through money are some of the same root beliefs that you're gonna find in any coaching setting when you look to hire some type of a mentor to help you get through something you're trying to achieve. And these coaches are not cheap, right? They can cost tens of thousands of dollars, even hundreds of thousands of dollars depending on the type of coach and how long they've been doing it, what they have to offer.

And so this isn't realistic for everybody, right? And maybe you'll get to a point to where you are able to hire a coach, a high level mindset coach. But if that's not realistic for you, I wanna give you a little bit of a few steps that you can start taking that I know are going to help you. So here's the challenge.

I want you to enforce an expectation of your money in out or both. Doesn't matter. If the expectation is to make more money, make it clear how much money, if the expectation involves cutting expenses or controlling expenses or tracking them, if you're not even tracking them, then make that the expectation. But make your expectation of your money clear and measurable, and then I want you to force yourself to follow it for 30 days. And during that 30 days, you're going to come to these emotions, these mental states of emotions around that thing that you enforced an expectation out of on your money, and you're gonna have emotions around it.

I want you to keep what I call a T chart on these emotions that come up during your 30 days. Now, a t chart is actually an accounting term. So it's funny that this works for a kind of journaling practice as well. But a T chart is exactly what it sounds like. Make a T on the page and on the left you're going to put feelings. And on the right, you're going to put facts. When something comes up, write down all the feelings that you have around it. And then on the right hand column under facts, I want you to write the facts of the situation, whatever it is. So things that don't include emotions, meaning, doubts, or hopes or none of that, just facts.

So one of the biggest parts of coaching and why people really hire coaches aside from knowledge and expertise is the accountability factor, right? Are you really willing to do this for 30 days, right? If you are, I guarantee you that at the very least, you will have a new awareness around some of the feelings that you have around money and whether or not those feelings are actually warranted. Because look, 30 days is nothing.

Money is a part of every single, single stage of life. This is a lifestyle change, not a temporary diet. Okay, listeners, here's the deal. We are on a mission with this podcast and I need your help. It kills me inside that people are not being taught about money and they are suffering because of it, especially our younger generations who are in school and not learning about it.

My big, hairy, audacious goal is that I wanna be something like the female Dave Ramsey and spread financial literacy like wildfire so we can change the course of history together. So now I'm recruiting you to help me in this vision and I'm incentivizing you to spread the word with some pretty cool giveaways.

Once we reach 50 subscribers, we are chucking out some goodies to the world. So here's what you need to do.

Subscribe to our podcast and turn on those notifications, repost or share wherever you're hearing or seeing this and submit the form for our giveaway. That form will be either in the show notes, if you're hearing us on the podcast social posts, we'll have 'em in the comments. And we also have it in our link tree, the literal day that we reach our first goal of 50 subscribers. We've got three chances for you to win. Our first giveaway is gonna be your choice of AirPod Pros or Samsung Buds, a t-shirt and a free money strategy session with yours truly. The second giveaway is an Amazon gift card, that same t-shirt and the free session.

And the third giveaway is the t-shirt and the free session. I am so grateful to have all the listeners of Always and Never About the Money, and I think that together we can change the world's money story.

If you liked this episode, be. Sure to show us some love by subscribing and turning on those notifications. You can find me on Instagram under the Money Whisper, and also where we encourage you to contribute to join the conversation, ask questions, and share your thoughts so we can create more episodes tailored exactly to what you wanna know about Money. I'm your host and your personal Money whisperer. Until next time, remember, it is always and never about the money.