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Heal, Reframe, and Finally Feel Calm About Money · Business for Humans

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I'm Jamie Gennaro, business coach, consultant, and founder of Practica Consulting.
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On today's episode of the podcast, I talk about our complicated relationship
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with money, how our past stories shape the way we earn, spend, and feel about it.
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We'll explore how to heal old money wounds, create a calmer mindset,
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and take real action toward financial confidence.
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Enjoy welcome again
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i'm back i took a little hiatus from
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the podcast maybe you noticed maybe you didn't
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either way is fine but this is season three welcome to season three launching
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fall of 2025 so if you're listening to this at any other time that's fine there's
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no time stamp on these podcast episodes.
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But for those of you who sort of follow me consistently, I did take a little break.
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Why? For all the business reasons.
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The podcast is an investment of time. It's an investment of resources.
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And sometimes you have to evaluate that against other things.
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And my heart is in this podcast.
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My heart is in supporting people in this way. I love podcasts.
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I listen to them every day.
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And so I think it's a really phenomenal platform.
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I was sad to walk away from it, but sometimes we have to just shift our priorities
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and we have to be okay with that.
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And we have to align with our decisions for all the reasons.
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But I'm back. And what I want to talk about today is something I've talked about
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many times in the past, and I will continue to talk about it,
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because it's fundamental to your business well-being,
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to your personal well-being, to your mindset,
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and everything in between.
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So let's talk about money. Money, money, money.
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Money is this very interesting thing.
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It's fake, right? How many people tangibly use money in transactions day to day.
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You don't go to the phone company anymore and hand them a bunch of cash,
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right? It's all digital.
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It's this whole digital ecosystem.
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So it's kind of this made up barter.
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We exchange money for things, for services, for all of everything that we interact with.
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There was some exchange of money in some way, shape, or form at some point.
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Even to the point of like having kids, you birth the kid in a hospital,
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there are people there working, getting paid a salary, that money is coming from somewhere.
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Like there's always some financial exchange at some point along the way.
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Now, is that inherently good or bad? No. Can we be neutral about that? Yes, but we're not.
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Because there are people who feel like, well, capitalism is fundamentally wrong.
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So if I'm being a part of that system, somehow there's something wrong with that.
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Or capitalism is fundamentally right.
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People should work hard and get ahead and make more money, and there should
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be financial reward on the back of that, and that's good.
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So we associate ourselves with some kind of political slant around money,
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and we also associate ourselves with some kind of our personal worth being tied up in money.
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We look at people around us.
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We compare and contrast in relationship to money.
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We use money as a reward. We use money as something that we take away from people.
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Right? So if we're politically not aligned with a country, let's say,
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then the first thing we do is we implement sanctions.
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So there's no more money flowing to that country, right?
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And we might do that in our personal life too. Like, hey kid,
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you're getting money for doing chores.
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You stop doing chores. I stop giving you money. Or your behavior starts to change
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and we need to discipline you.
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Okay, well, the first thing I'm going to do is stop paying your allowance.
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So we use money in all these different ways. We use it as a barter.
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We use it as a reward system. We use it as a disciplinary system.
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It's somehow interlinked with everything. And yet, we don't talk about it.
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It's this really, really strong force that's everywhere around us.
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And still, there's all of this, you know, we're not allowed to talk about it.
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Like, there's a lot of sensibility around this idea that somehow it's bad to talk about it.
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We're not supposed to talk about how much we make. We're not supposed to talk
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about how much we're in debt.
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We're not, You know, there's so much shame tied up in it and so much ideology and politics.
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Everything is tied up in this one simple thing, not simple, that is essentially fake, right?
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It's kind of more a theory and an idea than it is a tangible thing.
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It's very rare, particularly in certain countries, that you really interact
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with this tangible piece of paper or coin that is money.
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So how do we get to the point where we can make all the emotional stuff about money neutral?
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That we can accept the fact that we need it and that we need it to survive.
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And that we can get over the hurdle of maybe we want more than we have. Can we make that okay?
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And also, if we're the kind of people that feel guilty about having money,
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can we get into the mindset of money allows us to help people in a new way?
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So all of that to be said, when you're in business for yourself,
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whether a freelancer, a contractor, selling a product,
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or selling a service, when you're in business and there's a money transaction happening,
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what is a hard hurdle for
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a lot of my clients to get over is setting
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a rate that feels both fair and
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elevated enough where they feel like there's no bitterness or resentment in
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that number and also a number that feels like it's commiserate with their experience
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level their knowledge base, and what they bring to the table.
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It's hard for my clients to find alignment across all of those places,
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and it might be hard for you.
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So it might be hard for you even as an employee to negotiate a salary that really
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feels like it fits the value you're bringing the organization.
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So let's figure out what is holding you back.
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What I want you to do, I'm going to make this an interactive podcast session.
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If you're walking or driving, then you're going to have to come back to this
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part and do it when you're sitting still and can grab a piece of paper.
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But what I want you to do is write three sentences, thoughts,
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stories, connected to your past understanding of money, okay?
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Because we're in the present and you're bringing here the results that you're
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having right now around money are coming from your past.
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So we're going to start in the past.
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Three sentences about money.
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Money past.
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Situations you've gotten yourself in. Situations that might have come from your family members.
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Situations that you've seen in the world. three sentences.
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Now, there are facts. I have X amount of money in the bank.
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There are thoughts. I don't have enough money.
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And there are stories. I'm not good with money.
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The difference here is a fact is indisputable. Somebody opens your bank account.
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They see how much money is there. It's a fact, right
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now that amount of money may not
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reflect the other two thoughts the other
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story i'm not good with money oftentimes people are not honest when they're
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looking at their bank account versus what their story is this is not true for
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everyone if your bank account is a thousand bucks and you have 3,000 worth of bills,
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then this idea of, you know,
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I'm not good with money, there's never enough money, all these ideas,
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they're going to feel more true because you're seeing the result.
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But what I would like to challenge is this idea that if you could re-format
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your old stories from the past that you're bringing forward into your present,
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if we can extinguish them, heal them.
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Shift them in a positive way, then from present to future, we might create a different result.
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I say might. I don't have a crystal ball, but I've seen it work.
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And it's not always about just mindset, right? If anyone knows me and knows
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my coaching style, it's about mindset and action because the action is going
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to bring up the pain points.
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And if you never take action, you're never going to feel uncomfortable.
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You're never going to know the mindset blocks that are in your way.
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So look at these three sentences that you wrote down.
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These are coming from your past. And I want you to write down next to each one
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of these thoughts. Is it something to heal?
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Is it something just to reconfigure, like there's a new thought you might want to try on? Or is it a fact?
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This is the only three options you get.
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So just make note next to each one of these sentences that you wrote out now
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if it's something to heal,
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then there are lots of ways to go about healing these old money wounds.
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I'm not a healer, okay?
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I will give you or invite you to try one thing.
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If it doesn't work for you, you can Google how to heal money blocks and you
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will get an array of YouTube videos. I also know amazing people who can help in that space.
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You can always reach out to me. I can make a recommendation.
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But one of the things I will offer you is keep that sentence running,
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whatever it is that's coming from your past that you feel like you need to heal.
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So my family was never good with money.
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My dad overspent. And I learned how to manage money by watching this constant
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fluctuation of scarcity and abundance. That's okay.
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Some of it may be factual, but it's really inside of a bigger story that needs
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to get healed because we can look at that as a fact,
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but the longer we think it's a fact,
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the more we're going to cut ourselves off from changing the results in our lives,
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changing the way we look got money.
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So one of the things you can do is just like spin out that story,
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like all the extensions of that story, all the things you really believe and
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all the things that feel true.
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Just spin them all out. You can download them all on a piece of paper.
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You can just spin them out in your brain and then really focus on what is the sensation in your body?
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What is the feeling that's coming up? is it sadness
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disappointment frustration rebellion what what do you feel what is the strongest
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sensation in your body and then just like feel it feel it feel it as much as
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you can like go deep like let it come maybe tears come up maybe you start shaking like just be in it,
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deeply. Not for that long, right?
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Emotional waves are typically like the maximum amount of time is like 90 seconds.
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When you're really sobbing uncontrollably about something, you might have this
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peak of like a 90 second peak and then it starts to drop off.
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So just let yourself feel it deeply.
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Spin the stories. Tell yourself the thing as if it's real.
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90 seconds. And then take a deep breath.
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Let it settle. And then tell yourself, I'm ready. I'm ready to move on from that story.
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It's not going to happen overnight. That story's been in there for a while.
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So then what you want to do going forward is just note when it comes up.
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Be curious about it. This is not about shaming yourself or telling yourself
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you've done anything wrong.
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All of your choices have arrived you here in the present.
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And now as we go into the future, we're going to try to make some new changes
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and some shifts into changing your dynamic with money and the results of how
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money shows up in your life.
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But we can't change the past.
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So once you kind of let all those emotions come up, allow, allow,
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allow, let it pass, let it settle, take a deep breath, and then start to shift
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out of that story into a new story.
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And again, that transition can take a while. You might want help just digging
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into that space in between those two ideas.
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So now we want to try on a new idea. What is the new idea, the new way we want
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to approach money going from here to the future?
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So I want you now to write three sentences that are coming from someone,
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hopefully you, someone who does not have any struggle with money.
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Money is not something that brings up heavy emotions for them.
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It feels clean. It feels clear.
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It feels easy. There's no worry. There's no attachment.
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Everything around money is
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good. Well, I mean, I even hesitate to use the word good, but like clean.
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The word good just keeps coming up. But there are no issues around money. There's plenty of it.
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There's no emotional attachment or detachment from it.
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It's just kind of neutral, but there's enough and everything feels good.
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So what are the three sentences that someone who has no healing to do around
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money coming from that place of like there's plenty i'm not worried about it
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what are three thoughts that they have about money write them down.
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Now go into those thoughts as if they're 100% facts, as if they're 100% true, and spin them out.
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Spin them out. Just tell yourself over and over, and what is the feeling that comes up?
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What sort of momentum, drive, energy, lightness,
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excitement, butterflies in your stomach, like what
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is generated when you're spinning out these new
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stories these new thoughts about money
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what's the what's the feeling that comes up that is
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a feeling whatever it is let's call it calm that feeling of calm is now our
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new focus from here into the future and i know it feels like it's not related
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it's not related it's 100 related
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because when you don't feel calm in your business you create chaos.
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And when you create chaos, you don't create high value.
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And when you don't create high value, guess what happens? You don't create revenue.
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People don't want to pay you because it's just chaotic. The work's not getting
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done. The work's low quality.
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There's not a great result coming from the work you're providing because you're not calm.
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Isn't it funny how that works? It's like, it seems so disconnected from the
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result that you're looking for, but it's not.
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So whatever feeling came up, you don't have to assign a feeling.
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Whatever feeling came up, that's the feeling we want to take forward now.
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And there are lots of ways in.
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So if the feeling was calm, which came up in a client session recently,
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so I think it's a great place to focus.
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If that feeling is calm, what are all the things that you can do to create calm in your life.
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And we need to now focus on that as a priority.
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That sense of calm is what is going to create this result that you're looking
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for, which is, there's plenty of money, I'm not worried about it.
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There are thoughts that cultivate that feeling, and there are actions that cultivate that feeling.
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There are lots of things you can do to create calm.
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Of course, we procrastinate against them. We're like, no, I need to work.
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And the irony is, your work is going to suffer if you're not calm.
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So prioritize calm. Find the calm and then do the work.
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So hard for people to realize that those two things are connected.
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You're not going to do good work unless you're calm. So find a way in. How do you find the calm?
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And whatever that feeling is for you, find the way in.
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So you've written those three thoughts. I want you to now just jot down what
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What are all the ways in to that feeling?
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Not related to your work, not related to those three thoughts you wrote down. What's a way in?
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If relaxed is a feeling, if safe
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is a feeling, what are all the ways that contribute to you feeling safe?
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And it can be things like putting on a weighted blanket makes me feel safe,
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or like cuddling with my pet makes me feel safe, or locking the doors at night
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make me feel safe. There are lots of ways in.
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What really truly brings on that feeling? What we're trying to do is cultivate
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that feeling as much as we can.
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That's part of this healing process. And you're like, how is that related to money?
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It is because that's the feeling that you have when you're like, money is not a concern.
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It brought up that feeling for you. It's very personal.
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Find all the ways to cultivate that feeling. And when you're fighting against
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that feeling, when you're like, oh no, I, you know, I know I need to feel calm,
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but really what I need to do is get through this priority list.
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I need to do my to-dos. All my to-dos before I can feel calm,
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like, no, that's not how we're doing this.
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We're not going to do that anymore. That's an old pattern that hasn't worked,
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right? That's tied to your past.
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That's a past behavior that has not gotten you the result.
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So we're going to stop doing the things you used to do, which is let me just
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work, work, work, work, work.
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And then when I get done with all the big projects and all the assignments and
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all the deadlines, then I'll feel calm.
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We all know life moves fast. And as soon as you're done with that project,
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a tree is going to fall down in your backyard and you're going to have to figure it out.
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That's what happened to me. Life will not stop so that you can feel calm.
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So you need to feel calm inside of the chaos of life so that you can take that calm forward.
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And I know I'm using that word a lot, but I know that's a word that people associate with.
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If I didn't have to worry about money, I would feel more calm.
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If I didn't have to worry about my work, I'd feel more calm.
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So let's feel more calm without changing anything, without changing your circumstances.
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Find all the ways into that feeling that came up for you. Okay, mindset work.
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Action. From that feeling of calm, what is one step you can do to change your dynamic with money?
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Okay, so there's mindset. I want to feel calm. And then there's an action.
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And the action is related to disrupting those old three thoughts.
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So if the old thought is, I'm not good with money, and we want to go to the
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opposite of that, which is, I am good with money, and we're coming from this
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sensation of calm, what can you do to learn about money?
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Let's call it learning about investing from a place of calm,
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not from a place of, it's just another thing to add to my to-do list.
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I got to get in the webinar. I got to do the blah.
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From a place of calm that feels very personal to you, what is something you
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want to learn that's going to bolster your knowledge and understanding of how to manage money?
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It's personal to you. It should come from that place of whatever that emotion
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was. If it was excitement, what kind of things get you excited in the process
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of learning how to manage money?
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I was investigating like an MBA program for a while that focused on managing people's finances.
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And I used to be afraid of money and I used to feel like I was bad at it.
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And then I started managing other people's finances in their business,
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not managing, but working through business finance with people.
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And I was like, shit, I'm really good at this. I'm really good at this.
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And so from that place of excitement and wanting to dig in and learning more,
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I started exploring these programs of like, what if I could become like a CFO?
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That would be cool. Let me do an MBA to get me there. Okay. I didn't do it because
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I started thinking about other things I wanted to do.
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I did sign up for a different program, totally unrelated, but it's more focused
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on the feeling that I'm trying to generate right now.
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Anyway, just long-winded way of saying there's a way into that feeling that
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also starts to shift those original three thoughts to these second three thoughts.
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So look for what's the opposite of that first thought.
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And then what's something that feels like it's coming from that emotion that
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I can do to take an action.
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The action part is really critical. If we get stuck in the mindset work,
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that's a form of procrastination.
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If we're just like, hey, mindset, mindset, mindset, personal growth,
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personal growth, personal growth, it gets stunted because the thing that actually
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makes you grow is the thing that makes you uncomfortable.
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You got to step out of the personal growth. Let me just read more.
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Let me just take another class and into the action.
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And the action may be signing up for a class, but it needs to be something related
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to money if that's the place where you feel like there's a block.
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Does that make sense? So don't make it about like, let me go try on this other thing.
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Unless you feel like I really need to work through how to cultivate this emotion.
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And so therefore I'm going to do this other thing.
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Fine. But if what we're doing is really trying to change your relationship to
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money, we need to take some finite action.
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Another example, you overspend, you get yourself into debt.
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So the thought is, I don't know how to manage money. I'm always in debt.
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And of course, that's the result that you're also generating in your life.
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We want to change that into, I don't have any debt.
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I'm comfortable with money. I'm good at managing money. Well,
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an action on the way to that is you need to stop spending more than you are making.
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And that's really freaking uncomfortable because we see people around us having
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all these luxuries and having all these things that we want.
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And so we buy them before we can afford them.
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So that's an example of you're going to have to get uncomfortable and you're
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gonna have to make that budget very strict.
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On the way to you learning how to better manage your money you this is a complete vulnerable.
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Needing to be honest moment in your life but
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the thing that doesn't belong here is guilt or
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shame money is just a fake
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thing don't allow it
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to control your self-worth
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it's not connected to your self-worth we've
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gotten into believing that to be true
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but if you disconnect people from money
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if you say okay i have this friend they
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make shitloads of money if you
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really look in there if you really pull back the curtain is everything just
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perfect in their life no money solves a lot of things but it doesn't solve everything
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and who you are as a human being and the way you show up in the world really
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doesn't have anything to do with anything, anything external.
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It's just about you and who you are and your personality and how you show up
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and the way you help people and your whole mode of operation, right?
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It's not tied to anything else. So money's not going to solve all the problems,
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but we want to repair the relationship Yeah.
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So that you can feel into a feeling that you've been keeping yourself from,
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thinking that you don't deserve it or it's not allowed.
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So heal the past stories, bring yourself to the present without any guilt or shame.
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Shift those old stories, find that feeling to embrace and to cultivate,
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and then take a viable action towards changing the way you've done it in the past.
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We have a tendency, even if we know the answer, even if we know what to change,
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even if we know we should be taking fish oil every day, we don't.
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And then we're like, well, how come my skin's so dry? Or how come I don't have this or that?
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I don't know why I'm using fish oil as an example, but there are so many things.
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I'm not drinking enough water. I'm not taking enough, I don't know,
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creatine, all the trendy things that we're supposed to be doing.
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You can shame yourself about it.
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You can tell yourself, I know I should be doing it and I'm not doing it.
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You're not going to get a new result if you just keep going back.
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So if you know the ingredients to
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something that could shift and could be better for you and you're
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not following that path then you know why you're not getting new results but
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we don't like change and we think it's easier to just go back to the way we
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were doing it it's a safety zone it's comfortable i see when i'm doing change
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management with companies as soon as it gets busy they revert back to the old way.
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As soon as life gets busy and hectic and overwhelming, you don't want to do
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things the new way. You don't want to cultivate calm.
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You're just like, oh shit, I've got so much to do. I just got to sit down and
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get it done. And you go back to that old mentality.
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This is part of the long-term growth trajectory for you.
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You want to change your relationship to money forever, not tomorrow, not today.
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You want to change it forever, and you're not going to be able to do that between today and tomorrow.
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It's going to be something that you have to look at and be curious about and
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keep taking action on, and I'm sorry to tell you that.
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You can't just take a pill and then it's like, ooh, money's coming in.
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Look at that. I took the Ozempic and now it's just like money's flowing through
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the door. It's not that simple.
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If you want to make a long-term change, there's never going to be a pill that
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gets you there. I'm sorry.
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Even creatine, you got to do the workout to get the muscles.
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You can't just take the pill and think the water is going to like pump up your muscles.
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It's just not going to work that way. So you need to do this work to change the result.
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If you don't want to change the result, if you want to stay in debt and you
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want to stay in this space of I'm not good with money, stay there.
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Nobody's forcing you out of it. If you want to make the change, you have to heal.
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You have to start being curious about where all the places are it's coming up
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for you you have to cultivate that new feeling those new ideas those new thoughts
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and then you have to take action.
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And then you learn from every action. It's not just immediately going to change.
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Every action is going to teach you new things. And I know we're all like fatigued by learning.
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Like, do we really have to learn anything else? Like, why do we have to always
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be on this like learning trajectory?
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We chose this.
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Like, we are human beings. We are always in a state of learning and evolving.
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Thus, our cells are constantly turning over. Like, this is the human journey.
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So just have fun with it. Have fun with it. Like, don't make it a burden.
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Whatever that feeling was, I'm hoping it feels good, right?
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Like, we don't want to go from feeling bad about money to feeling worse about
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money. We want to just turn it into some kind of fun game.
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Make it exciting. Make it calm. Make it relaxing. Make it safe.
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Cultivating those feelings is never going to be a bad thing.
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You're gonna feel better no matter
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what even if you don't have more money you're gonna be calm yay
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that's a win win total
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win so that is
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my spiel about money for today i hope it was helpful i hope there are some things
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that you can kind of pull forward and and take on and try on you can always
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reach out to me for support i'm always here i love working through money issues
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with people i think It's fun. I like to change the game.
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And I love to reach. I love to reach into big numbers just because.
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Why not? It's all fake anyway.
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It's all fake anyway. So let's have fun. Let's have fun with it.
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All right. I'm going to leave it at that. And I will talk to you next week.