Money Blocks, Marshmallows and Sexy Wish Lists with Denise Duffield Thomas

• some common blocks around increasing income
• how she approaches saving and investing
• money triggers around sparkling water
• how boundaries and self-care impacts your wealth
• creating a normal money narrative and wealth legacy for our kids
• and the sexiest thing she now has at the top of her birthday wish-list

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Speaker 1:           You're here because you want more out of life, more money, pleasure, flow, freedom, luxury. Here we are all about an unwavering self worth and a net worth. You love to talk about. My name is Simone Mercer-Huggins. I'm your resident unapologetic wealth queen. So far I've built seven figures from the ground up, and this community is now doing the same. The Ms. Wealthy movement is here to help you be more of the bad-ass [00:00:30] queen. You were born to be so tuned in for everything, investing money, energetics, millionaire, mindsets, and everything in between. If you want to be a powerful player in the money game, you are in the right place. So welcome to the kiss, my money podcast. Sure.

Speaker 2:           Welcome Denise Duffield-Thomas. I am so excited about this episode. I've been following you for such a long [00:01:00] time. Reading your books in your program also recommended your books. So welcome to the kiss, my money podcast.

Speaker 3:           Gosh, thank you so much for having me. And it's always nice to talk to a fellow Australian because I probably do about five interviews a week and most of them are American or they really are. That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. My other two interviews today are American. And so, um, every now and again, I'm like, Oh, you're Australian too. I can bring out my accent even more.

Speaker 2:           Yeah. [00:01:30] Well it's interesting. Actually we have really large Australian listenership, but also really huge, um, us listenership. So all it's a global podcast, so love it all around the world. So if people don't know, I'm sure that they do, because like I said, I talk about you a fair bit, but just in terms of what you do, I'll quickly kind of intro it. And then I have a top-line question for you. So you're a money [00:02:00] mentor and really, I guess I consider you as a money mindset expert when it comes to money mindset. If there's someone that's like, I don't really know what that means. Can you kind of just briefly talk to what that is?

Speaker 3:           Absolutely. So, you know, most of us have not been taught anything about money in general, like about how to save or invest or whatever, but where we're really missing, especially in the entrepreneurial world is [00:02:30] examining our underlying beliefs, our experiences, our thoughts, our preconceived notions about money and how that impacts us on a daily basis as entrepreneurs. And so mindset work is something that so many of us are probably familiar with personal development work, but for a long time, I thought they were completely separate things. I can do my personal development work. And then I have to enter this dirty grubby world of asking for money for what I do. [00:03:00] And so my business really took off when I combine those things together for myself and then helping other people to do the same thing of, you know, everything that you've ever learned about personal development. You can apply it to your money and your money mindset is crucial to be successful in business. Otherwise you will sabotage yourself all the time.

Speaker 2:           Yeah. Okay. So what I love, the way that you talk about it is fears around money. And that might seem really strange because most [00:03:30] people that maybe haven't done much money, mindset work might go, well, I'm not scared of money or want more money.

Speaker 3:           Oh yeah. I hear that all the time. And I hear people go, Oh my God, I didn't think I had any money blocks. And then I read your book and turns out I have a ton. And so you're totally on the money here, right? When we go, why would I be scared about receiving money? That's just so weird. Why would I do that? But yet, if you dig deep a little bit into some of your underlying, sometimes hidden beliefs about money [00:04:00] that we all have, and you might realize that it's those little micro things that might stop you from sending that out, that invoice the day you're supposed to, or chasing up the money or that your actual income, or how much you charge is kept by some of your beliefs around maybe what work means or how much you're allowed to receive for doing something that's fun and enjoyable for you. Sometimes people unconsciously hold themselves back before they get to a text threshold. [00:04:30] Or I see this a lot too, where they start to make more money than people in their life, or they get to a symbolic income level and they start to hold themselves back and sabotage themselves. So you really can draw a line between some of these really underlying things and directly to your behavior today in very practical ways.

Speaker 2:           Yes. Okay, perfect. So I want to talk more about that particularly around. So [00:05:00] really the mission from as wealthy is around keeping and growing money. So whilst we don't necessarily focus on the income portion, there is a lot of focus, but you know, essentially to bring that money in now, and then, then we enter into new sabotages or new fears or different mindset stuff around keeping it, holding it, saving it. Yeah.

Speaker 3:           Definitely growing it. I actually even uncovered a new one recently. [00:05:30] So I've been earning tons of money for it, for ages now, but I'm getting to the point where, you know, I'm having lots of conversations with my financial advisors about, um, you know, building for the future. And I realized I had this massive block around generational wealth. I was like, Oh, cause I was thinking my kids are going to be like. Like they're going to be entitled rich people. And I was like, Oh my God, I am a rich person. And like re just so you're always going to find [00:06:00] new little pockets of belief over time as you have different situations or you have different life stages or even just yeah. New information or new nuances. Yeah.

Speaker 2:           Yeah. I love that. Actually. It's so interesting. Recently I had a similar conversation with my husband. So we created a trust fund just to, you know, essentially for asset protection and stuff like that. And I made a joke about when we have kids. Well, it wasn't really a joke that it was actually [00:06:30] serious, but when we have kids, you know, um, Oh, our baby will be the first child in our family to be a trust fund, baby. Um, I had an Emmy, as soon as it came out of my mouth, I had an immediate reaction and my husband was also like, Oh no. And it was that same sort of thing of like, Oh my God, I clearly have, we both clearly have these underlying beliefs that trust fund babies are bad or you didn't do anything for it. Sort of

Speaker 3:           Totally. [00:07:00] It's so fascinating. And then when you have kids, by the way, like you just get a new layer of like, Oh my God, these words that are coming out of my mouth, you forgot that. That's what you heard growing up. And now, so my oldest is seven and then I've got a four and a half year old and then a two and a half year old. And so the seven year old now is having these like money. They talk about money at school and for Valentine's day, Mark bought each of our kids one Disney share, which [00:07:30] was so cool. I was like, that's the most romantic thing I've ever heard. I'm just so excited. And so he's trying to explain to her, so he's like, Oh, I bought you like Disney share. So you were a shareholder of Disney. And she's like, Oh, so I own Disney.

Speaker 3:           And we were like, well, technically you, aren't in a teeny tiny, teeny, tiny piece of it. And she's like, so every time they make a movie, I make money and I'm all like, like, hi. And she was like, well, I hope they make even [00:08:00] more movies. Like they could, they could make a movie every day. What am I going to spend that money on? And so she started getting so excited. She's like, Oh, so when do I get the money? How like, when do they pay me? And we're like, Oh, well, where do we go? Like, where do we go here? But it was just so fascinating that like, for me, it didn't even occur to me to put money into the share market until way into my thirties, because no one had ever had that conversation with me.

Speaker 2:           Yeah. Well, it doesn't [00:08:30] happen. It doesn't happen. Particularly for women. You know, we come from a history like where our mothers or even grandmothers weren't part of the conversation. We had it, literally, we had a different methodology. We had different rules. Like it wasn't until about 50 or so years ago where women could get their own loan from a bank without a co-signature from a man. So these things still happen today.

Speaker 3:           Like when I started my business, I got knocked back for [00:09:00] a credit card several times, even when I was making multiple six figures in my business, I hobby started the business. He got offered a credit card in his first month. This is only in the last couple of years. Also a lot of my friends when they get divorced, they find out that all of their assets, all of their mortgages that often there is a, like a primary person on it and a secondary. And they were as default put as the secondary on credit cards, on mortgage accounts, [00:09:30] on everything. And so we are sorry, disadvantaged in so many ways that, you know, like, I think for myself, I'm like, I just want to add to that one little pace that makes it a bit easier for us to make money. And that is taking away some of our own internal excuses and fears around it because we put a lot of it coming from everywhere else.

Speaker 2:           We do, we do it. We definitely have a history of it. And you know, whether it was grandmothers or mothers, mothers, you know, it's different conversations. And what I love is that [00:10:00] you are having those conversations now with your daughter at seven. And what is so amazing is she is asking the exact same questions that 20, 30, 40 year olds are asking me around. Okay. So how do I make the money? How does it make money? When do I get the money? That is the question that you asked. That is correct. And she's asking it at seven and that's just mind blowing.

Speaker 3:           Cool know, I was trying to explain to her, I was like, you know, [00:10:30] this is something that we're investing in for your feature. So maybe when you're at university, you know, we'll put this, all these shares away for you and you can buy a car or you could go. And she was like, but I want to spend it now. And so even having that conversation around, you know, instant gratification and saving for the future, like again, I never thought about it for such a long time either. So, you know, there's, this it's so complex, but what I find that so cool is podcasts like yours conversations that we can have here [00:11:00] where we don't have to feel stupid for asking questions. It is something that there aren't any gatekeepers for anymore. And we can share that, that knowledge freely. And I am a very open person around my finances. Like, I'll tell people how much I make. I tell them how much I pay in taxes.

Speaker 2:           I do screenshots of my tax

Speaker 3:           Returns because I'm like, why not? You know, why not just say it like just money. I'm not the best money person out there. Like I still [00:11:30] learn stuff all the time about how to grow, manage, you know, all the things about money, but like, I'm happy to talk about it because we have to normalize this.

Speaker 2:           Oh, we do. We do. And I, um, I really love that phrase, normalizing wealth for women and money for women, because we do have different conversations. Men talk about the stock market. There's just a kind of assumption that, you know, they can go and grow wealth. You just mentioned something which [00:12:00] I would love for you to touch on, because this is probably the biggest thing, factor that I see around instant gratification versus growing wealth, because we tend to have a lot of focus on income. Now, what am I making now? How can I increase my income now? What is my spending now? And we all know that investing works, but it only works with time. So where [00:12:30] do you sit? What do you see the sabotages are? Or the reasons that people favor instant gratification over delayed? Well,

Speaker 3:           I think we've all got our own experiences around that, right? And this is the work that I do. I usually throw scenarios in for people. We look for the origin stories, we connect the dots to how we're acting today. And then we find some sort of new behavior or a pattern interrupt, a thought, so we can change that behavior and disrupt that behavior for the future. And [00:13:00] so when we look at things like instant gratification, like everyone's going to have their own story around this. So some of the common things I see is, um, like pendulum swings. So if people had really extremely frugal parents, um, they can often swing the other way and like, you know, just go, well, it. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna budget at all. I'm not gonna do anything. Um, the other thing is like if he grew up with face-to famine [00:13:30] cycles, it's really hard to know anything different to that.

Speaker 3:           And that could be around food insecurity, money insecurity, you know, so many things where you were taught as a kid that, um, you know, you have to have it now because there's nothing else coming in the future. And so I think it's really interesting even to look through the lens of like the marshmallow test, you know, that test that was like, you know, they had all these little kids, they gave him a marshmallow and said, if you don't eat it within a certain amount of time, you can get a second one. And they, the study was [00:14:00] initially shown as like kids, you could wait, would have better outcomes in life, but now there's been so many holes poked in that because it was like, yeah, but did you look at what was their, what was their situation at home around trusting adults? You know, like, were they told often that, Hey, you know, um, trust me, this will happen.

Speaker 3:           And it didn't. And so then the kids will be like, what, why would I even trust an adult to say that there's a second one coming, they're probably just going to take this first one anyway. [00:14:30] And then I think personality stuff comes into that too. So if I look at my three kids, um, my oldest daughter Willow, she loves following rules. So she wouldn't touch the marshmallow just from a rule based point of view and wanting to please people, my son, George, he'd be like, Hmm, there's always good things coming in the future. So why not? You know? And so I think the instant gratification thing is so personality driven and experience driven. [00:15:00] And I can just speak to my own experiences. Like we were in physics, I'm in a lot. So if my mom got a slight windfall, she would go and spend it on like the fancy yogurts or like space, food sticks or something really fancy.

Speaker 3:           And we would just like eat it all in like two days and then we'd be back to just normal food. And so I had to get over that cycle of like, Oh my God, eat it now, consume it. Now, spend it all now because who knows what tomorrow [00:15:30] will bring. So you might as well leave for today. Um, and it took me a long time even just to feel comfortable having excess money in my bank account. So I actually got to, I sabotaged it. I, if I had, you know, $5 left in my bank account and payday was the next day, I'd spend it for no other reason that I felt uncomfortable and unused to having more money than I needed. And so even that we can follow that thread okay. Of having more than you need. How many [00:16:00] of us were told, um, eat everything on your plate, even if you weren't even hungry, because there are starving children in the world.

Speaker 3:           I was told that exact same thing. Yeah. So let's follow that through line. Okay. So a lot of women feel, um, greedy or guilty having more than they need. And so they feel like, well, if I have extra, I should, I should, well, first of all, I should eat it. But then also girls are taught to share at a really young age too. So, so it's, [00:16:30] I think there's something there about having more than you need feels greedy or unsafe. And then if you go again to situations and you know, how you grew up, you know, some of us have experiences where we had, I dunno, pocket money that was stolen by family members or your dad or something like that. And so it's not safe for women often to have more than they need. I grew up seeing my mum have a runaway fund of cash at the bottom of her sewing box.

Speaker 3:           And [00:17:00] so there's just something there of like, Oh, you're allowed to have a little stash of cash to run away from your abusive husband, but developing long-term assets. Like it's just, not only is there the education there that we've probably missed out on and the gatekeeping and, you know, the examples, but it's just, it's like just, we don't know what to do with the extra stuff. It feels good. It feels guilty, guilty and greedy for so many of us. And that's just one, one story of where it could be coming up. Um, you know, so [00:17:30] this is what I love doing because I just love hearing people's secrets and their experiences. And I love just going cool. Cool. Like, how is this impacting you now? Like, do you feel guilty about having an extra savings account? Let's, let's find out why. Um, and even though I'm, you know, I, I don't, I'm not a financial advisor can't advise on anything like that. I just, I love looking at the behavior part of it.

Speaker 2:           Yeah. And you, and you're right. It's so much does come down to our past patterns, our experiences, [00:18:00] our memories. And it's so interesting to think, you know, sometimes you might go, well, that has nothing to do with me investing, like, you know, whether my, whether I had my money stolen or whether I don't trust adults. So, you know, whether we live in face-to five men, but it, it really does impact how you think and relate to money, particularly because I mean, money is just, it's just energy humans made it up. It's just made up concept [00:18:30] that we've all agreed. That is a value,

Speaker 3:           Especially now with like cryptocurrencies even more made up.

Speaker 2:           Yes. It's [inaudible] and it's really interesting. And I'm really glad that you touched on that, because that was actually going to be one of my questions around where you see most of the patterns around having excess money. Because I think it's probably not spoken about we, I see a lot of conversations [00:19:00] around, you know, like I said, making money or saving money, but not a lot of conversations around the mindset around having access, having more than we need just having money, because we want it having luxury like growing, you know, a net asset pool, and then being considered wealthy or, you know, having a million dollars as a retirement fund, which in today's world, a million dollars is actually not a lot of money to have as a retirement [00:19:30] fund and the beliefs around what that means as you, as a person to have more than you actually need.

Speaker 3:           I think there's also something there about making sure everyone else is okay. You know what I see? Yeah. I see this a lot too, is that sometimes people are such over-give is that having extra money? Like they always fear it because then they're like, well, I'm going to have to take care of everyone else first. And [00:20:00] this is why I've always loved Susie almond's work because she's just so strict on that, where it's like, you can't help other people. If you don't have your time at funds sorted, you don't have six months worth of living expenses. Like, because then you're not putting your oxygen mask on first and you for disaster happens, then the whole thing collapses. And, um, but I think we just feel so strongly that we're, we are responsible.

Speaker 2:           Yes. I love that. You know, I think one of the things around boundaries [00:20:30] and what is something I've actually noticed from you, you have amazing boundaries. And I think it's such a beautiful thing. And I've learnt a lot from you around that, around what's. Okay. What's not okay. Like, no one is me first and making that normal and making that okay. Because you're right. Women do tend to be like others. First. I have to be the mother here and it can create this like over-giving exhaust.

Speaker 3:           Uh, absolutely. [00:21:00] And this was so driven home to me. My mother-in-law came over to visit us and she's from England and it was a bit of a hot day for English people, not for Australians, but like she, um, she totally passed out and we're on a little bit of a nature walk. It was me and two of our really little kids at the time. And as I was calling the ambulance, like literally she was on the ground out cold and she's got heart problems and all this stuff, she kind of roused herself to say, I don't want to make a fuss. And I [00:21:30] just thought, Oh my God, does that just sum up what so many of our mothers and grandmothers had to put up with is it, they were told not to make a fast, and this is why then, you know, I think for so many women, they don't have as much pension.

Speaker 3:           You know, they get screwed over in so many ways because they were told not to make a fast. And like, my generation are like, hang on. No, we're not going to have to put up with that. But still we've got that conditioning from those women who came [00:22:00] before us who had to do that. And it's re it's really sad to say. And like, I see my own mom, so my mom's quite young. My mom only just turned 60 and she's just kinda like, Oh yeah, I'll just do what I want. And it's so great. But then like, Mark's mom is 60, 70 ish, but she totally has that. Don't make a fuss thing. I remember my grandmother, she had breast cancer. I remember she fell over one time. We thought she broke her hip and she was like, Oh my God, [00:22:30] let's make a fun.

Speaker 2:           Uh, I'm sorry. Yeah. And it, it really is true. I think we can learn a lot from men in that area. Like, you know, there is a difference between men and women and it's not a bad thing, and it's not about us being worse off for a victim or men being better. But I think we can learn a lot from their patterns and their habits and how they operate around money.

Speaker 3:           Oh, absolutely. Like my hobby listens [00:23:00] to podcasts about investing and stuff all the time. And even sometimes when he'll say something like now, I'm like, what's your source on that? Because they're often just so confident in just state stating and just being like, Oh, this is what it is. And I'm like, Oh, hang on. Let, let me dig into that a little bit. And we actually just walked away from an investment this week because, um, like I was just like, hang on, let's dig into the numbers a little bit more. And does that fit with our values as a family? And, [00:23:30] um, but I think there's that confidence that sometimes the stowed in them of, um, where we've got the opposite often we've got reversing or we've got imposter syndrome and there's sometimes got reverse imposter syndrome.

Speaker 2:           Sorry,

Speaker 3:           But it's true. I've seen that for a hobby. He definitely has some reverse imposter syndrome sometimes.

Speaker 2:           Okay. So this is actually true. Women make better investors. And again, it's not about [00:24:00] women are better or men like men suck, but women actually do make better investors because we are more aware of the risk. And it means that we actually get better returns because men tend to tend to go and cocky and confident, but we have this view that confidence is actually knowledge, but it's not.

Speaker 3:           Yes. Well, I, I got sucked in to that a lot of times in my twenties because I was just like, Oh, they seem really confident. They must know what they're doing. [00:24:30] And, um, and I didn't often ask questions, you know, and even at the start of our marriage, Mark and I have made some bad, bad investments around property just cause I just thought, Oh, the men folk must deal with it. You don't mad.

Speaker 2:           It just, it happens a lot in the financial industry and it can lead to a lot of people handing their money over and just assuming yeah, like that they know what they're doing. And you know that obviously if that's the profession and obviously they're great at it. And [00:25:00] it's unfortunate because the particularly the way that the industry has been built around just investing, it can be really overwhelming and intimidating and complex, and it can feel really scary, sort of what exactly the fear around money, the fear around I'm going to ask a stupid question or I don't know what I'm doing, or they've just explained something to me and I still don't get it. And that [00:25:30] kind of fear that comes in around, Oh my God, I'm meant to know more. I'm meant to be better. You know, I must be good this, like you said, there's so many complex layers that come into fear around money, but also fear around what it means about us. Definitely. So I wanted to ask you around saving income, investing it and what your approach is around balancing this. Right.

Speaker 3:           [00:26:00] So again, I'll only say it from just my point of view, not from like, you know, giving anyone advice or whatever, but even just, I had to do a lot of reflection around my, um, I dunno, maybe ability to do some risks around stuff like that. So I've always said to my accountants, I'm like, I just want to pay off my mortgage. I wanna pay off my mortgage. And, and they were always just like, okay, cool. If that helps you sleep at night, that's cool. And it's only recently that I've, I've [00:26:30] allowed a little bit more risk around that and realizing that, okay, it's okay if I don't pay off my mortgage completely. Um, and I I've actually paid off my mortgage several times, but then there's always a nicer house, closer the beach.

Speaker 3:           And so now I'm pretty twice, like there houses on my street that are closest to the beach and I'm like, no, no, it's okay. Now it's okay for me to like invest in, in, in wealth. Um, and I would even say that share conversation is quite [00:27:00] new to me as well. Where, you know, before now I'm saying to Mark, like, don't buy me anymore, rusted out trucks for our farm because we have a farm as well. I'm like buy me shares for every single like anniversary, you know, don't buy me jewelry, don't buy me bags, buy me, buy me asset. That's that, that is a real turn on for me. So, and I feel like that's a really new thing for me for such a long time, because I had to do all of the mindset work that I work with people on of [00:27:30] really examining your identity, how you grew up.

Speaker 3:           And for me, that was overcoming that thing of like, well, I'm a scrappy kid who lived in housing commission. It's just, it's enough for me just to make some money and buy a house and buy a nice car. And now turning that into, well, shifting my identity into someone who's, who's building long-term generational wealth and being okay with that. And so even still now, like when, um, I mean I pay myself a salary and I, I still [00:28:00] put a little bit into my mortgage. You know, I have my offset of cab. I still get a little bit into the fixed loan because I I'm like I won't even miss that. And it will be really cool to do both invest and, and tie off, um, pay off stuff. So yeah, I, I feel like I'm such a student around it, but I'm just always really aware of like examining my behaviors and seeing if there's a mindset shift I can make around it.

Speaker 2:           Yeah. You know, I love that. You said buying assets is real turn on, like, [00:28:30] and just making that normal. Yeah. It is. It is now

Speaker 3:           It was for a long time. And I think it's a love language thing too, because my husband, he is a gift giving that's his love language. And so he, yeah. And he would buy me, you know, like a diamond bracelet when our kids were born and I'm like, I don't know, don't even wear it. I don't even wear my wedding jewelry. And I wear like flip flops from Billabong Billabong for me is fancy growing up on the central coast. I like housing [00:29:00] commission. I'm like Billabong. So fancy. I still have to remind myself I can go in and buy stuff and belong sometimes. But, um, you know, that was his love language. And now realizing I'm like, Oh no, the acts of service have you bought like buying the assets as well as me doing it for myself. I'm like, Oh man, that's like financial future. That security. I'm like, yes, that feels so much better than just a, you know, a bracelet I'm not going to wear,

Speaker 2:           Oh my God, I love that you brought that in because it's, so it is so true. I am actually, my [00:29:30] top love language is gifts. Um, but I perhaps never really made the connection of buying shares is being a gift. But it actually, it really is. Isn't it? Yeah. It can be. What do you think the shift was for you? You said that it wasn't previously, you know, something that really was a turn on or something that you weren't thinking of. Where do you think the shift happened for you?

Speaker 3:           It's just when we moved into this house. And so this house was a term long time manifesting. [00:30:00] So, um, we, we built, it took about three years to build, but it was really 10 years of us like walking along the beach and like dreaming that it was possible to live by the beach and always kind of stretching our possibility. And so I think when we moved into the house, so I had a massive crisis of just like, Oh my God, I am so fancy. Now what happens when I lose it all? Notice I said, when that was, that's what I was thinking, because I kept on thinking one day, this is all just going to get pulled under the rug. [00:30:30] And I can't use my under-floor heating in my bathroom. What if I get so used to having warm feet, then I won't be able to go back and be a waitress and be a scrappy central coast kid.

Speaker 3:           And so I was like, it just rocked, rocked it for me because I just thought, Oh my God, this is such a visible undeniable sign of me making money. And I can't escape it. And like even I'm sitting in my office, which is separate to the main [00:31:00] house, it's got this incredible view of the ocean. And the first time I sat in here, it took me months to sit in this office. I know it sounds so crazy, but it took me months because I kept on thinking, I need it. Maybe we should Airbnb it. Maybe we should like give it to my brother to live in. And I sat here and my first thought was, Oh my God, all these people are going to think that I'm lording it over them from my, um, you know, big windowed queen space. And so it just, [00:31:30] it just rocked me and, and realizing I had to work through that.

Speaker 3:           What does this mean for me? It means I have to acknowledge the fact that I'm a rich person, but I'm rich not wealthy, you know? And I was like, Oh man, I need to build some, I need to build some assets behind me because I don't want to end up like, um, I don't know if you know, Nathan teen club, but he, um, like he had several houses on this street and he was a self-made billionaire and he just bought toy [00:32:00] after toy. He bought a helicopter, he brought a private jet. He drove around new castle in his Lamborghini, which I was just like, why do I go? Um, and one by one, each one of those assets got taken off him. He bought a race, horse, farm, got taped, got taken off him. He didn't pay his staff. He didn't pay people who were, um, you know, feeding the horses.

Speaker 3:           He didn't pay his hay bill, you know? And so I think there was that fear of like, Oh my God, it's all going to get [00:32:30] taken away from me. And I'm going to be embarrassed and shamed out of town. And so that's the, that was the shift in Maine, just going, Holy. I need to build some assets. And then even, um, like recently we met with our financial advisor just last week and I said to him, I'm really tired. Like, we've got three young kids I'm super tired. Like, um, we, every time we meet with you, you want to talk more about, you know, in the future and stuff like that. And I'm like, I'm ready to like talk about this even quicker now because I'm tired [00:33:00] and I'm, and I don't. And the other thing is, um, I've seen people in my industry, their whole business can get derailed out of a bad black lives matter post or a bad me to take.

Speaker 3:           And even though I'm so conscious about those things, and I want to make sure that my business is inclusive and progressive and growing with the times, there's still is a risk to having everything tied up in your next launch or your next, you know, and, and so that's [00:33:30] just me being super honest. I'm like, Hey, maybe I don't want to run. I'm sure I will. But like, what if I don't have any good ideas or what if I screw something up in my business? And I'm like, well, I need to be really clear and we have assets and all that stuff, but I'm like, no, I need to be serious about this because, you know, I, I just kept on thinking it's okay for my kids to start from zero. I did made me resilient, made me hard working. No, I was just romanticizing them.

Speaker 3:           But, um, [00:34:00] and I think where I want people to understand too, is like having more money can really help you live by your values even more. And so if you're worried about your kids being spoiled, well, if you had $50 million in the bank, would you give your kids everything they asked for anyway, if it's against your values. And so I really try and live by that and going, you know, my kids are definitely growing up privileged, but I also want them to not have to have some of the worries [00:34:30] that I had as a kid. Like I had to really adult worries sometimes as a kid. And I want to see where that will take them because I was such a creative kid. I was such a creative teen or so creative in my twenties, but I had no bandwidth to explore some of that stuff because I was super worried about, you know, my mom not being able to pay our rent. Yeah.

Speaker 2:           You don't want your kids to experience the same thing. What's so interesting is [00:35:00] I think you kind of touched on it before about, we think that there's going to be this ultimate, you know, like you have, this house is beautiful beach house that you've been working on with your husband for 10 years and you get that, get it. And then all of a sudden you have these new mindset blocks.

Speaker 3:           Yeah. No sounds like total lucky problems. Right. But it's to say, like, it's never, it isn't ever going to work on you work on your money mindset now, but it's going [00:35:30] to be ongoing.

Speaker 2:           Yes, absolutely. But I'm really glad that you said that because I think it's, it's important to see that more money doesn't more money can give you opportunities and solve a lot of problems in terms of, it just makes somewhat things easier, but it does not make the mindset stuff go away.

Speaker 3:           You know, I've spoken a little bit about this recently, but I'm happy to elaborate further, but I actually had way more therapy on the other side of [00:36:00] being a millionaire than I did before. And that's not because more money created more problems. I literally did not have the bandwidth to look at some of my issues until after and now I'm so privileged because I can afford therapy. I can afford meds if I need them, I can afford, um, vitamins and, and help at home and, um, support and all of that kind of stuff. But that's nor perfection, like money is not [00:36:30] gonna make any of those things go away. Like I, but I CA I didn't have time to fall apart when I had four jobs.

Speaker 3:           Yeah. At uni I had four jobs. Yeah. Like, you know, I always had side hustles on my side hustle. I worked in an adult chat company because they were open 24 seven, you know, and that was, that was what I was toy is like my mom cleaned houses and my mom had to work always on Christmas day and times like that. Cause that's when she could get good money for working [00:37:00] in hospitals. But, um, like I'm learning that and then just going, Oh my God, I don't have to work all the time. That's when I was that's when all my anxiety hit me and some of my childhood stuff hit me, I was just like, Oh, what I thought I was just going to like, sit on the beach with a margarita. I'm like, now I'm going to look at my, in a Damon's what the heck.

Speaker 2:           Yeah. And I think also too, we get, you know, it's kind of like that thermostat analogy [00:37:30] of we earn more money or, you know, we build more assets and then, you know, our business grows or we increase our income, but then we hit this new level and it's like, Oh, there's a nother level now. And then we normalize to that and the thermostat kind of increases. I'm like, okay. And then there's another level and there's another level and it never really ends. So we're always kind of at this like, Oh, I'll go from, well, I'll go for more. I'll go for more. And that's why [00:38:00] it's so important to make sure that we're really clear about, do we think that we have to work really hard? Do we think we're going to lose at all? Like yeah.

Speaker 3:           Yeah, absolutely. Cause that will stop you from getting that first client, getting that next client, increasing your prices, you know, shifting your business model to work with you, even with things like passive income, you know, so many entrepreneurs I work with, I'm like, you've got great methodology. Let's put this into a course. Let's put this into an ebook. You know, people [00:38:30] can join and you don't have to work as hard and they resist it so much because, um, their lizard brain can't get over the fact, Oh no, no, no. But I have to, I have to do an hour's worth of work for an hour's worth of pay. And that's how we grew up. Um, and, and so, so many of us can just really just shift a few tiny little things and allow ourselves to receive even just a little bit more money for our skills and talents will make a difference. Yeah.

Speaker 2:           And it's, it's so perfect. You know, before you also touched [00:39:00] on that shift between not just having that one thing, just that one business, I see this so much with entrepreneurs of the focus being, building that business, you know, putting every single dollar back into investing in it, obviously it has merits in it to scale and to, um, you know, systemize it and stuff like that. But like you said, there, the reality is there is a chance and it's not necessarily just about being fearful, but it is about [00:39:30] making intelligent financial decisions. What are the assets? Can I build to create passive income? Like, you know, whatever property or stocks, stocks, or another business or whatever it is. Um, rather than just focusing on this one thing, because well, it could shift like economies change, you know, sectors do completely shift overnight sometimes.

Speaker 3:           Oh, absolutely. As we've seen in the last year. [00:40:00] And I know when I did start making some good money in my business, my accountant was like, um, you know, well, let's max out your retirement or let's do this, let's invest in this. And I'd be like, Oh no, I can't, I can't do that. And you go, are, you're spending a hundred grand joining personal development courses. Yeah. And I was like, I need to do that. And it was like, cool. Yes. But they, they can be a balance and make those smart decisions for sure. Um, because you just, you never know, and it is, it is smart to create that buffer, but [00:40:30] even just looking at that mindset piece of what I said before, about what that buffer means to you, if you think that you can only, like, if the creative muse only shows up when you're in real dire straights, um, just to prove that you can pull it out of your butt. Well, it's like, yeah, cool. You can let go of that and, um, create some ease and some like it's okay. Yes.

Speaker 2:           It can be easy. And I think that's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful mantra to kind of go money can be easy. It doesn't [00:41:00] have to be hard.

Speaker 3:           No, exactly it can. But that, that is often what we're going to resist the most. Um, you know, cause again, that might be another layer of you feel guilty that it's easy for you. I feel this all the time I go, who am I to make such abundance? The girl who was told, she talked in class too much, who am I to make money out of talking to people for a living when other people are struggling in the world and it will be the same thing again. And again, it'll come up and like [00:41:30] yet the person who just bought their fifth yard not do not care about that. They're not up at three o'clock in the morning worrying about it. And like, I often have to really work on my sleep because that's when those thoughts start coming in at like 10 o'clock at night, I started to go, um, I'm a greedy.

Speaker 3:           You're a greedy. You know? And that's all the stuff we have to work on. And, but can I just say it's the same thing I was working on in my, the very start of my business. The first time I charged someone $70 for an hour, I was like, you're a greedy [00:42:00] beach. And so I have to work on that same thing of like, people are not going to like me. They're not going to think I'm down to earth. They're going to think I'm a greedy and this will follow. Like that's probably, you know, stopping me from making $10 million a year. Same thing that I felt bad about charging $70 an hour. I was like, Oh my God, my mom has to work, you know, a whole day for this cleaning houses. Who am I agree.

Speaker 2:           I [00:42:30] feel like we could talk for hours, but so much fun

Speaker 3:           In my money boot camp. We just have these conversations all day long. And each month I pluck out a few little things and like, even on our last call, I was like, let's talk about pocket money. Let's talk about allowance. And I was like, this could be a three-day conference. Oh, a hundred.

Speaker 2:           Yeah. Not to open a can of worms. Right?

Speaker 3:           Yeah, it's cool. But I was like, we could just take one little [00:43:00] topic and you could look at it from so many different lenses for days and days and find new ways that you're being and you're holding yourself back. And, um, and this is what I just love my work because I, I mean, God, I don't have no idea about investments and all that kind of stuff, but I'm like, but I love untangling all the stories. It's real gold in there.

Speaker 2:           What I love about your program money bootcamp is it's a really practical look at [00:43:30] implementable stuff around your money mindset. And you know, I'm super spiritual. I'm very worried, but at the end of the day, we actually need the thing that is going to make that shift to uncover that block, that step like, you know, you have things like incremental upgrades and ways to actually move through resistance, which I love. Can you just hope briefly about money bootcamp? Because it is an amazing program. As you know, I'm in it, uh, you have live calls every month [00:44:00] and the practical side is so important because sometimes, and this isn't to put down kind of, you know, deep energy work, but sometimes it's just too vague and we actually need the, what do I do? What do I do? Tell me what to do. Um, and so, yeah,

Speaker 3:           Incremental upgrade, which is very similar to the thermostat analogy you just talked about. But I, I talk about it about a climate sizing yourself to, um, Oh God, to a first class life, but really [00:44:30] to, to, and self-love because I even needed to climatize myself to this neighborhood. You know, I had to visit it every day, walking around feeling like a fraud. And then I had to psych myself up to go to open houses and talk to real estate agents. And for years and years, but there's so many little things you can do in your life to a climatize yourself. And one of the things is to look at what you're putting up with in, in your daily life, like as practical as you [00:45:00] want to get. And sometimes it's like, Oh yeah, my desk wobbles. Every time I sit down to do my work and it's so tiny, you might not even be aware of it, but it's like trying to run a laptop with all of these clunky, old computers, some with viruses, some that are not necessary.

Speaker 3:           Did you just try to run it? And it's not until you do a reset that you go, Oh my God, I've got so much bandwidth. You know, my, Oh my computer's running faster. And so you can take that analogy and to just your whole life. [00:45:30] And I started to go, Oh my God, look what I, what look at what I'm putting up with. Look at this, look at this underwear that I'm wearing every day, you know, like look at my car or look at this, um, this just annoyance that I'm, that I'm putting up with. And so you upgrade as many things as possible to become your new normal. And it could be that you use the good mug every day, or you use your good makeup or you wear your perfume that you're saving for for best. And [00:46:00] you might think, well, how does that impact anything?

Speaker 3:           It compounds over time because it raises your standards. It then might give you a little bit more courage to set a boundary. It might give you that teeny tiny bit of coaches send that invoice a bit quicker. All of those things compound over time, but it starts with what are you putting up with? What's making you feel poor. What makes you feel inconvenient? What can just be your new normal? And then you look at the things, well, what would then make me feel first-class and you always start with maybe economy to [00:46:30] premium economy because you don't often go from the cheapest seat on the plane to, without a care buying a business class ticket. It just, it feels too big a leap. Um, and, and you might have to start with that premium economy stuff. And when you, when you're on a plane, everyone understands those different classes.

Speaker 3:           So well, cause they're so deliberate in how they do it. It's like the soap is just a little bit nicer. Like the cutlery is just a little bit nicer and they it's [00:47:00] so deliberate in the way that they do it, that we can be deliberate and reverse engineer it for ourselves of just like, well, this is my minimum standard. This is what I do. This is what I do. And then, um, and then you can hold onto it, which is where you see the people. They sabotage it. They, you know, um, like Nathan Tinkler, you know, it's just, it grows too big, too fast. And then, then you money, they can't sustain it. And it all just, it all just goes. Um, and [00:47:30] so I feel like I have a climate-wise myself to this house, but as I said, it still was a shock when I moved in.

Speaker 3:           But at least one thing that I didn't have, I didn't, I didn't have so much the fraud feeling. Um, because I was like, I've been walking this neighborhood, I've been breathing this air. I've literally a climatize myself to it. And you can think of Olympic athletes. You don't just get off the plane at the Olympics. You're like, well, what's the altitude in that country. I have to go and train there. Yeah. I have to, my body [00:48:00] has to get used to the oxygen level. And you have to think of it like that too is how can you just acclimatize to yourself just a little bit more to a more easeful life, a more abundant life. And there's so many practical things you can do. There's always something you can upgrade for free. Yes. And I would love to hear something you've upgraded to, from doing that exercise and bootcamp. Yeah.

Speaker 2:           So actually recently this is going to sound okay. It's so tiny. And I actually had to almost [00:48:30] convince myself, so we have soda stream, you know, that the pushy thing, and it gives you sort of water and you have to, it was like the old one. We had it for like, I don't know, maybe two years, but you had to twist the bottle on like push it. But the new models that have come out, you literally just like shove it in. There's no twisting, but the twisting of the bottle, you had to like twist it and like screw it and then make sure it was like, you know, fixed in before you start [00:49:00] pushing in the bubbles, the air and the new ones. You don't have to, you just shove it and that's it. And I was like, are we really going to buy a new soda stream? Because I don't want to twist the bottle on

Speaker 3:           Sorry to get this. But Simone, we could do a whole day conference on sparkling water. And what that means. Yes.

Speaker 2:           I was like, Oh, that's, that's ridiculous. Get over yourself. Like, you're so like lazy or you're slow. Like that's sort

Speaker 3:           Of [00:49:30] diva Deva. Like

Speaker 2:           You're saving yourself literally like 10 seconds every time

Speaker 3:           I love this so much. So honestly we could do a whole day seminar on sparkling water. We really could like, even just what it's bringing up for me. I was like, as a kid, you know, we'd always just have tap water. And then, so when I started making my money, I'd get a bottle of sparkling water and feel so fancy. But then I D I feel like I had to finish it. And so I'd be like, we'd finish the meal. We paid [00:50:00] the bill. And I was just like, wait, I've got to chug this water because I paid for it. And then I would see my kids just like, Oh, it's no big deal. I can have sparkling water. And then, so I did the soda stream thing too, is a massive upgrade. And then, you know, a new house, we have sparkling water on tap.

Speaker 3:           So we just press a button. Fugly when it comes out. And it brought up so much stuff for me when people come over and I'm like, Oh, do you want sparkling water? And then I just go. And they're just like, and so I got over that, but [00:50:30] you don't. My recent one was that it's so similar to that. You might've heard me talk about in bootcamp. Um, I love having really big mugs for my tape. So recently I was like, I'm going to use two teabags for my, for my mugs and Mark. And my mom both were like, Oh my God, you diva. That was the first reaction was like tea bags. And then like since right, like tea, a tea bag, like a couple of cents, really, because we buy them [00:51:00] like a hundred bucks. And so every time I've, I've done that with the two teabags, a part of me is like freaking diva. And it's so weird that sometimes it's not even the cost because the teabags are cheaper than putting sparkling water on tap, which is like a five grand fixture in your kitchen. And so often it's not going to be like that. You upgrade to more and more expensive things. It's finding those little chinks in your defense, around [00:51:30] what you're deserving of a happy. Yeah,

Speaker 2:           No, it really is. It's sometimes it really is the smallest things. Like we I've still been doing it gradually and it might just be like, you know, I replaced bathroom drawers that were open and because they're open, it kind of gathers dust. And I was like, it just looks ugly. So then I just replaced it with just drawers, but I just bought them from Kmart because I genuinely liked the Kmart one. And it actually felt first-class [00:52:00] to me, I didn't need a West Elm bathroom drawer because I kind of didn't really care like it. Um, I'm glad you touched on that because it's not necessarily just about the most expensive thing.

Speaker 3:           No, it's absolutely not. And, but it's, what's that, what does that mean? What's symbolic about that for you. And even if I just said to someone, you know, w w why don't you just get a fresh towel every day instead of how it, and someone might go, Oh my God, what a diva, but it's like, if you really added up what that extra washing powder is going to cost, it's [00:52:30] nothing in the grand scheme of things. But I think it comes down to the women we've been taught that luxury. Um, you know, like really simple self care things is touted as luxury for women and, you know, like luxury, um, chocolate bars. I still let me a couple of dollars and magazine is only a couple of dollars, but it's sold to us as this very indulgent thing that we're stealing time away from our families by like treating ourselves to [00:53:00] a freaking magazine and a $2 chocolate bar, or do you know, that's like, I'm not sure H street itself, um, you know, in L'Oreal you're worth it.

Speaker 3:           It's like, yeah, cool. It's a moisturizer, you know, it's a shampoo, I've got to wash my hair. Um, and so there's so much I'm learning around everything and, Oh my God, I could just come to everyone's house. We could just pick up one object, talk about it for hours about the symbolism of it for ourselves, if we really could. [00:53:30] Um, so I mean, I think that we have to leave it there because otherwise we'll just keep talking three hours. I love it, but I will put the links to money boot camp in the show notes. Um, and that, you know, they'll link to your website, it's Denise D take.com, but also you have three amazing books. I, that I kind of discovered you through your first book, get rich lucky, which is a fantastic book [00:54:00] as well. And again, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

Speaker 3:           I think that, you know, your practical views around money just fits so perfectly with everyone that listened to this podcast around the practical wealth building. And, you know, I just, I love your mission and I love what you're doing in the world. So thank you. Oh, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate the time. And, um, I can't wait to hear from all of your amazing community, [00:54:30] as you said, Denise de tase my website, but my social handles are at Denise T too. And I just love hearing Lilla has, or just, you know, even if you just send us a photo, send me and Simone a photo of something you're upgrading because it will get it or just be like, Oh yes. And I'm always looking for ideas of either things to upgrade or things to talk about with my community, because we're just all normalizing it. We're sharing and we're taking away the secrecy of money for all of us. That's [00:55:00] so perfect. I love that line. Well, thank you again. That was super fun. Thank you.

Speaker 1:           If you are not part of the Ms. Wealthy movement yet, make sure you head over to Instagram and hang out with me. There I am at Ms. Wealthy official. And if you need anything else, head to Ms. wellthy.com and you can get all the info that you need. Find us on Facebook as well. And I'd also love if you can drop a review [00:55:30] on iTunes, it supports us massively, and it means the freaking world.