Latest / Your Money, Your Rules | Financial Mastery, Wealth Mindset, Leadership Principles, Intuitive Decision-Making, Human Design / 186 | Your Identity Is Your Strategy

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186 | Your Identity Is Your Strategy · Your Money, Your Rules | Financial Mastery, Wealth Mindset, Leadership Principles, Intuitive Decision-Making, Human Design

• 0:00
  Erin Gray: Welcome back to Your Money, Your Rules podcast with me, your host, Erin Gray.
• 0:03
  Erin Gray: Today I'm going to talk a little bit about identity.
• 0:06
  Erin Gray: I always believe I did a workshop on identity before action last week, and several of the ladies made a couple of comments regarding how some of the things that I said or that I brought to their attention really hit home for them.
• 0:20
  Erin Gray: So as always, I am constantly getting my content for you guys through either clients or workshops or people that I'm talking to.
• 0:29
  Erin Gray: So let's dive in.
• 0:30
  Erin Gray: Okay.
• 0:30
  Erin Gray: So when I did the workshop, obviously one of the things that I'm always thinking about is the who over the how, like W H O over how.
• 0:40
  Erin Gray: Like we always want to know how do we get there?
• 0:42
  Erin Gray: How do we do this?
• 0:42
  Erin Gray: Whatever.
• 0:43
  Erin Gray: It's like you got to start with who are you being?
• 0:46
  Erin Gray: And I think that identity is the most important thing, like your self-concept, what you believe about yourself is one of the most important things that you can do as a business owner and just a human, right?
• 0:58
  Erin Gray: It creates everything in our life.
• 1:00
  Erin Gray: Like you have to think about that is basically the hierarchy of where everything else falls from, right?
• 1:05
  Erin Gray: Like how you think and feel about yourself then drives all of your actions.
• 1:09
  Erin Gray: So I talked in my workshop last week about, you know, some of the identities that we or our self-concept that we already have, we like, you know, I think a lot of times in the self-development world, but we always like look at it as like, what do we want to fix?
• 1:22
  Erin Gray: Right.
• 1:22
  Erin Gray: And I don't really like that.
• 1:23
  Erin Gray: I think that there's a lot of things that we're already doing amazingly well.
• 1:27
  Erin Gray: And then there are also things that maybe we would like to modify or improve, but there's nothing wrong with us.
• 1:32
  Erin Gray: We're not broken.
• 1:33
  Erin Gray: There's, and I think that if we look at it from the lens of from a love and compassion place of like, I love this already about myself.
• 1:39
  Erin Gray: I'm already doing this in one area.
• 1:41
  Erin Gray: How can I do this in another area?
• 1:43
  Erin Gray: I think that it one, it feels a lot better in the body.
• 1:46
  Erin Gray: And I think we get a lot farther with that than we do with beating ourselves up.
• 1:51
  Erin Gray: And I know that a lot of us have gotten to where we are in our lives by beating ourselves up.
• 1:56
  Erin Gray: And there's no right or wrong here.
• 1:58
  Erin Gray: And it really feels nice in the body.
• 2:00
  Erin Gray: It really feels loving.
• 2:01
  Erin Gray: It really feels like good in the body when we speak lovingly to ourselves.
• 2:06
  Erin Gray: So I want to talk about just some things that I came up with, identities that I see.
• 2:12
  Erin Gray: Like I'm gonna just leave the part off of like all the identity that you already, like your self-concept that you already love about yourself.
• 2:18
  Erin Gray: Keep doing those things, right?
• 2:19
  Erin Gray: But I do want to talk about here about the identities or self-concepts that we might hold that are kind of what I said in the workshop is a little bit like lurking behind where we may not be as paying a close attention, but it shows up.
• 2:32
  Erin Gray: Like it looks like it's a very helpful self-concept, but it's actually not.
• 2:37
  Erin Gray: So I came up with, let's see here, one, two, three, four, five, six, I think, but there could be more, but these are just things that I've noticed for myself, my clients, other women that I've talked to.
• 2:49
  Erin Gray: So the first one is an avoidant identity.
• 2:52
  Erin Gray: And I think this comes from like the flight response.
• 2:54
  Erin Gray: You know how you have your fight, flight, freeze, fawn response.
• 2:57
  Erin Gray: This is a very flight response mentality, like something like, and I'm just gonna rattle off some maybe thoughts that you might have, like I'm not necessarily a numbers person, or I, you know, don't like dealing with that part of the business.
• 3:10
  Erin Gray: You know, I've had ladies' founders talk to me and tell me, you know, like I don't really enjoy doing that part of the business.
• 3:16
  Erin Gray: I'm just gonna let my CPA and my, you know, bookkeeper deal with that stuff.
• 3:20
  Erin Gray: And although it might seem like, hey, you are taking care of it by having a bookkeeper and a CPA, you're not really owning your responsibility as a CEO.
• 3:30
  Erin Gray: Do you have to be doing the actual numbers?
• 3:32
  Erin Gray: No, but like I do, I believe that it's really helpful for you to actually, you know, be involved and understand and learn 100%.
• 3:40
  Erin Gray: So maybe it's, you know, the thoughts of like, I'm not a numbers person or I'm not so great with money, you know, this might have come up with math, you know, when we were younger, or a lot of like, I'll look at it later.
• 3:49
  Erin Gray: It's like a pushing off for a later time versus valuing this just as much as you value, you know, how you are bringing new clients into your business or how you're managing your team, like your financial house is just as important.
• 4:03
  Erin Gray: Being a good steward of your money and how money flows and how you are a conduit is important.
• 4:08
  Erin Gray: So, and and I do want to say here that you might have several of these types.
• 4:12
  Erin Gray: Like what I recognize in myself is I experienced and I, you know, held these self-concepts of several of these.
• 4:18
  Erin Gray: So I definitely was avoided.
• 4:19
  Erin Gray: Like it was like a put it off, like I'll just do it later kind of mentality, more so for the personal finances versus, you know, like this is important, it is worthy of my time.
• 4:30
  Erin Gray: And I'm gonna sit down and I'm gonna schedule it.
• 4:32
  Erin Gray: I'm gonna put it in my calendar because everything that goes in my calendar, I do because I value it.
• 4:37
  Erin Gray: Okay, so you might be over-responsible, and this also comes from like being hyper-vigilant.
• 4:42
  Erin Gray: So feeling like that, I'm the responsible one, that if I don't do it, it won't get done.
• 4:47
  Erin Gray: And this could be in anything in your business.
• 4:49
  Erin Gray: This could be from, you know, taking over some of the things that your employees actually need to be doing.
• 4:54
  Erin Gray: I always say, like, employees are, and I don't want to say this as a blanket statement, but like employees, some employees are employees for a reason, right?
• 5:04
  Erin Gray: They don't have a desire to go and run their own company.
• 5:07
  Erin Gray: And so it is our job as founders, as business owners, to cultivate them, to help them understand and to be very clear as to what we expect from them and to teach them and to lead them, but also recognize that they may not put in the exact care or, you know, the thought process or the thinking that you would because it's not their company, right?
• 5:30
  Erin Gray: And I'm not saying, okay, just accept, you know, 80% when we're looking for 90 or 100%.
• 5:36
  Erin Gray: And I'm also saying that having that mentality of like, if I don't do it, it's not gonna get done or it's not gonna get done correctly, isn't actually helping you to grow.
• 5:45
  Erin Gray: So maybe you have thoughts about like, you know, I have to know all of the details.
• 5:49
  Erin Gray: Like, I think a lot of times us as business owners are the bottlenecks because we think that we are needed.
• 5:55
  Erin Gray: And this comes from, you know, the identity of like, we want to feel wanted or needed.
• 6:00
  Erin Gray: And so we actually create more work for ourselves because we want to feel like, you know, like if I was having this conversation with a client the other day, she was like, Well, I might be coming, what did she say?
• 6:09
  Erin Gray: Not not she didn't use the word non-existent, but something along those lines.
• 6:12
  Erin Gray: I'm like, perfect.
• 6:13
  Erin Gray: That's actually what we're going for.
• 6:15
  Erin Gray: We want it to run without you.
• 6:16
  Erin Gray: And yes, you need to be involved and look at the higher, you know, the 30,000-foot view, but ideally, you want everyone to be in their places where they are taking care of everything.
• 6:25
  Erin Gray: And it's a well-oiled machine.
• 6:27
  Erin Gray: But a lot of us have, you know, patterns where we want to feel wanted and needed.
• 6:33
  Erin Gray: So you might even think, or along the lines of like, I don't trust anyone else to do this, or, you know, I can't afford to make mistakes.
• 6:41
  Erin Gray: So just think about where is this showing up with your business and your money, business-wise and personally?
• 6:48
  Erin Gray: Like, where are you kind of being over-responsible, hyper-vigilant when, you know, and I always say like the pendulum swing, right?
• 6:57
  Erin Gray: Like, it's not a great thing to be not even care what your numbers are.
• 7:00
  Erin Gray: And it's also not a great thing to be so hyper-vigilant.
• 7:04
  Erin Gray: So, like, where's the middle?
• 7:05
  Erin Gray: That's what we always want to be going back to.
• 7:06
  Erin Gray: Like, where is the middle?
• 7:08
  Erin Gray: Undeserving, or maybe another one is sorry, I should say another one is undeserving, or it comes from like this scarcity.
• 7:16
  Erin Gray: Like, I don't need that much.
• 7:17
  Erin Gray: Like, I don't really need to make that much.
• 7:19
  Erin Gray: Like, what I'm making is fine, or where we're at in revenue is fine.
• 7:22
  Erin Gray: Wanting more might feel greedy, or wanting more could be actually, I was talking to someone just the other day about this.
• 7:29
  Erin Gray: She was like, I want to grow, and I'm just at this number, and I'm recognizing that I'm just continuously continuously at this same number.
• 7:36
  Erin Gray: And I asked her, I said, Well, how did you get there?
• 7:39
  Erin Gray: And she was like, A lot of hustle.
• 7:40
  Erin Gray: And I'm like, Of course.
• 7:41
  Erin Gray: So the body isn't going to want to grow because it associates that number or even anything more than that with pain and hustle and like you burnt yourself out.
• 7:53
  Erin Gray: So of course it's going to protect you.
• 7:54
  Erin Gray: Of course it's not going to want to do anything more than that because that's what it's currently associating.
• 8:00
  Erin Gray: So we have to retrain the body, you know, like if wanting more or having more actually equated or something along the lines of pain or nervous system, you know, like really frazzled your nervous system and burnt you out.
• 8:13
  Erin Gray: We have to retrain the body that it's safe to grow in a calm, easy, flow way.
• 8:20
  Erin Gray: If you ever think that I should feel grateful for what I have, or you know, nobody's gonna pay that, or I can't charge that much.
• 8:27
  Erin Gray: Just think about where is your language in terms of what you are thinking and what you what story are you telling yourself?
• 8:35
  Erin Gray: Another identity could be something along the lines of just like pure survival chaos.
• 8:39
  Erin Gray: Like I say this all the time, and Dr.
• 8:41
  Erin Gray: Joe Dispenza talks about this is our bodies are addicted to certain emotions.
• 8:45
  Erin Gray: So, whatever emotion that you're used to feeling on a consistent basis, which a lot of us are used to feeling those lower vibration emotions, fear, frustration, anger, and I'm just listing these, some of these, right?
• 8:56
  Erin Gray: They're not all in inclusive, but shame, guilt.
• 8:59
  Erin Gray: If you have not felt that in a while, your body will think of a thought or it will serve up that emotion for you to feel that way.
• 9:09
  Erin Gray: And so if you are constantly in a chaotic putting out fires is the word that I like to use, putting out fires mentality, and that is your reality that you are living in, in order to break that cycle, you're gonna have to feel more higher vibration emotions, calm, ease, right?
• 9:30
  Erin Gray: And so if you have been someone who has thrived on stress, and you know, like if you think like, oh, I work best under pressure, or I do things at the last minute.
• 9:42
  Erin Gray: And yes, some of us, it might be like some of us might need a little bit of that pressure, but when you're in that all the time, you really have to start questioning like, why am I like, what am I believing that is having me do things last minute or constantly be on and feel pressure?
• 10:00
  Erin Gray: The next one is self-sacrificing.
• 10:02
  Erin Gray: So this is kind of like what I call is like martyrdom.
• 10:06
  Erin Gray: It's like I take care of everyone else first, like everyone else gets raises before you decide to pay yourself more money.
• 10:13
  Erin Gray: Basically, are putting your needs on the back burner and are putting everyone else's above yours.
• 10:18
  Erin Gray: This could be employees, this could be contractors, this could be in your own personal life.
• 10:23
  Erin Gray: You know, if you don't want to or aren't spending any money on yourself, you're not paying yourself either consistently or what you actually deserve to be paid as a CEO, this is where this identity comes in, right?
• 10:38
  Erin Gray: And so the thing that I want you to think about with all of the identities, the self-concepts that we are embodying, we're always getting something out of it, right?
• 10:47
  Erin Gray: So you have to start asking yourself, what am I getting out of this?
• 10:51
  Erin Gray: Because there is a benefit.
• 10:53
  Erin Gray: We may not, I mean, like when we become aware of it, we may be like, okay, don't really like that benefit, but there is a benefit that we get from it.
• 11:00
  Erin Gray: So really start to think about where am I putting somebody else's needs first before my own?
• 11:07
  Erin Gray: And I always say this is like you cannot pour from an empty cup if you aren't well rested, if you aren't well fed, if every single minute is spoken for, then how are you supposed to show up for your team, for your clients and customers, for your family, for your community, for your friends?
• 11:26
  Erin Gray: Like it doesn't work that way.
• 11:28
  Erin Gray: Like I liken it to like we're constantly driving on empty.
• 11:31
  Erin Gray: So you really have to slow down.
• 11:34
  Erin Gray: You have to start saying no more often, which is going to feel disruptive to your nervous system.
• 11:41
  Erin Gray: It's not gonna feel normal in the beginning.
• 11:44
  Erin Gray: And that's only because it's not that it means that you can't do it or there's something wrong.
• 11:49
  Erin Gray: It just means you're not in the practice of it.
• 11:51
  Erin Gray: I always want you to come back to what am I practiced at?
• 11:54
  Erin Gray: What is familiar to me?
• 11:56
  Erin Gray: It's not that like someone can do it better than you can, right?
• 12:00
  Erin Gray: Like if someone's more calm, oh, well, they have something that you don't know.
• 12:03
  Erin Gray: We all came from the same source.
• 12:05
  Erin Gray: It's just she might be more practice at feeling calm and taking care of herself and honoring her energy flow than what you might be.
• 12:14
  Erin Gray: That's it.
• 12:14
  Erin Gray: And then the last one is more so like a performer proving and earning energy.
• 12:20
  Erin Gray: I am gonna make a podcast on our will center because I I have several clients with a defined will center.
• 12:26
  Erin Gray: And I think, regardless if you have a defined will or undefined, and you're if you're like Aaron, what are you even talking about?
• 12:31
  Erin Gray: I'm talking about human design and your different centers.
• 12:34
  Erin Gray: If you want to learn more information, you can either just go to my website, grab your human design chart, and download your chart.
• 12:40
  Erin Gray: There's also, I don't know how many videos I've created on the different centers and understanding your human design.
• 12:47
  Erin Gray: Just go to, I think it's foundational videos or free resources foundational videos, and then you can just watch all of the videos that I have in each of the centers regarding your human design.
• 12:57
  Erin Gray: So, you know, with a lot of us, and I I've talked about this on numerous occasions, with there was a point in time that a lot of us got a message that it was not okay to rest, that we had to earn our keep, or that we had to work hard for money, or work hard to have what we want, or you had to earn, like there's lots of proving energy in earning.
• 13:21
  Erin Gray: You had to like prove that you deserve something, or you weren't allowed to rest.
• 13:25
  Erin Gray: Like you maybe were called lazy.
• 13:27
  Erin Gray: And so I want to say here that, you know, I always use human design very loosely and as a tool kind of in the background with clients, but I think regardless whether you have a defined or an undefined will center with your human design, I think it's highly important that we allow ourselves enough time for play and rest.
• 13:45
  Erin Gray: And, you know, in order to actually work, it's like the seesaw effect that we need to figure out what works best for us.
• 13:53
  Erin Gray: I mean, I am, you know, probably over the last six to eight months, I've been working with someone for my hormones and I just was recognizing like I was gaining weight and, you know, but I eat well and I exercise and like what is happening?
• 14:07
  Erin Gray: And really, I mean, when I came to her, she didn't say it in these words, but like, you're in complete adrenal fatigue.
• 14:14
  Erin Gray: Like you've just been pushing for so long.
• 14:17
  Erin Gray: And I think that a lot of us feel like we always have to, I have always said this, like I've had to be always on and always connected.
• 14:23
  Erin Gray: And I think that we are in that state.
• 14:26
  Erin Gray: Obviously, some of it came from proving my worth.
• 14:28
  Erin Gray: Some of it also came from that hyper-vigilance, like always feeling like nobody's coming to save me.
• 14:35
  Erin Gray: I had to be over-responsible or I had to be responsible for everyone, not just myself.
• 14:40
  Erin Gray: And so when we are in this heightened state for a lot, a long period of time, we will burn ourselves out.
• 14:46
  Erin Gray: And you have to think about your business and your life as a marathon, not as a sprint.
• 14:51
  Erin Gray: And I think a lot of us are treating it more like a sprint.
• 14:55
  Erin Gray: And so, you know, think about if I were to believe that I was my most valuable asset, what would I be doing differently?
• 15:02
  Erin Gray: What would I be thinking about myself?
• 15:04
  Erin Gray: What kind of identity would I embody?
• 15:06
  Erin Gray: Would I take care of my like self-care is very important?
• 15:10
  Erin Gray: I value my body and my energy, and I value how I steward my money.
• 15:15
  Erin Gray: Like, just think about all of the different things that you would be thinking differently and embody as a self-concept if you believed that you were your number one asset.
• 15:26
  Erin Gray: And then I do want to say for my like little sneaky next level beater uppers, things like, and this this is some of the stuff that has come through for me and other clients is that like there's something fundamentally, like it doesn't show up like in the words of fundamentally wrong, but there's something wrong with me.
• 15:43
  Erin Gray: Like that has been a theme that I have recognized, or like I'm different from everyone else.
• 15:48
  Erin Gray: I've had some clients say that like I should be better at this by now, or I shouldn't need this type of support or help.
• 15:54
  Erin Gray: It's like we are so good at doing so many things that we think like, oh, when we ask for help with our money, or we ask for help, you know, with having some support to sit with, you know, the CPA and the bookkeeper and just have some, you know, an advocate like me in your corner.
• 16:11
  Erin Gray: You play the shame game and like you should be able to do this.
• 16:16
  Erin Gray: And I want to say here that you probably already do know how to do this, right?
• 16:21
  Erin Gray: That's not what we're talking about.
• 16:22
  Erin Gray: It's like loving yourself enough to have the support because it feels nourishing, because that's what you would want to do when you care and love for someone.
• 16:32
  Erin Gray: Like be your best friend and be your best advocate.
• 16:36
  Erin Gray: So I would encourage you to listen to this podcast again.
• 16:40
  Erin Gray: Listen to the different types of identities or self-concepts that I, you know, brought up.
• 16:45
  Erin Gray: I named avoidant, I named over responsible, hyper-vigilant, undeserving, but maybe just like pure survival, self-sacrificing, and then the like the performer approving and earning.
• 16:57
  Erin Gray: So go back, listen to it again, do some journaling and like see where are you having these tendencies?
• 17:04
  Erin Gray: Because if you're having the tendencies, if you're taking action from that place, you are embodying that type of identity, someone of that identity.
• 17:10
  Erin Gray: And then decide what do I want to embody?
• 17:14
  Erin Gray: You know, if you have been embodying someone that is over-responsible, how can you bring it back to the middle and be like, I'm responsible for me?
• 17:21
  Erin Gray: I'm also, you know, responsible in terms of like leading and teaching my team, but I'm not like all the way over to their side of like excusing all of their behavior and not putting up boundaries and things of that sort.
• 17:31
  Erin Gray: So play with this and really let it sink in.
• 17:35
  Erin Gray: And I want you to just like see where you are.
• 17:39
  Erin Gray: And then I want you to think about and really spend time on who do you want to be, right?
• 17:45
  Erin Gray: Someone who has let go of proving and earning and performer energy allows time for rest, values herself enough that when she's tired, she'll take a nap, re calendars or reschedules her week to allow for her energy flow versus what she thinks or what she's been taught growing up of how she should work.
• 18:04
  Erin Gray: So, as always, I'm rooting for you.
• 18:07
  Erin Gray: Play with this, and I will see you in the next episode.