Ask An Expert: Chill and Prosper with Denise Duffield-Thomas-Ep:0101

Hey welcome to she coaches, coaches, I'm your host, Kandi motsek. And I'm going to help you find the clarity, confidence and courage to become the coach that you were meant to be. If you're a new coach, or if you've always wanted to be a life coach, then this is the place for you. We're going to talk all about mindset and strategies and how to because step by step only works when you have the clarity, courage and confidence to take action. Let's get started. Hey, everyone, welcome to she coaches, coaches, and I am so glad you're here. I've got a very special guest episode setup for you today. Now, I'm not going to tell you who it is. Although if you've seen the audio clip, or you've seen the screenshot, you'll know. But let me just read part of her bio, and see if you can guess who is she? She says money isn't the only thing in the world. But together, we can use money as a tool for good. She is the money mentor for the new wave on online entrepreneurs who want to make money and change the world. She helps entrepreneurs like you charge premium prices, release the fear of money and create first class lives. And she's a lazy introvert, a Hay House author and an unbusy mom of three. She owns a rose farm and lives by the beach in sunny Australia. She says her role in the world is to help people with their money, fears, sabotages and blocks and she creates a safe place for people to talk money, cash and abundance. She's got three amazing books, they're all on my shelf. And they're all on money mindset for online entrepreneurs and her forth is going to be released shortly. So if you haven't guessed yet, my guest today is Denise Duffield Thomas, welcome, Denise,

I'm so pleased that you're here. That wassuch a fun guessing game. I love it. Too much candy. Like, I've no idea.

I figured the rose farm, the money mindset, all that stuff would be a dead giveaway. And I know that I recommend your books to all my clients as well. And so when this interview was set up, I sent a note to one of them in particular, and she was like, You're kidding, you get, she wanted to sort of listen in on the slide and listen to the conversation. So I know they're gonna really enjoy it as well. So one of the things that I wanted to talk about today was just money mindset, blocks in general, how entrepreneurs sabotage their income, and female entrepreneurs in particular.

I mean, it's a huge topic, right? And the thing that I always tell people is, we all have imposter syndrome, for sure. It's just so common. But most of the people I meet, I think you're smart enough, you've capable, you can follow a checklist of things to do nothing is beyond you. Especially nowadays you can you can learn how to do anything for free on YouTube. So knowledge is not our issue, lack of know how is not our issue. There's just something there that feels so vulnerable to us. When we start our own business. It feels unsafe, it feels icky. And that is our money mindset that we need to work on. And the way that I approach it is from a place of curiosity. I never say I can clear your money blocks. And you know, it feels like you know, there's people who say, You know what, a hypnosis session, you'll never bite your nails again. It actually works for my husband, he needed two sessions, but he's never bitten his nails before, since. But money mindset is not like that there will there will always be new nuances for us to discover around our money. But at the start, especially if you've never done this work before, it feels insurmountable. And all you can feel is this unexplained dread or anxiety or fear. And it's really hard to pinpoint it and it's really hard to figure out what to do about it. And I'm sure you experienced that like I did when you start your business. You just feel like you've gone to school, you know those dreams where you go to school and you've got no clients on, it feels like that.

Yeah, I think we've all experienced it. And it's not just one time either. Every level that I get to in my business, it's again and again and again. So often for my clients because they're new coaches or newer coaches. They're just they undervalue their skills and experience and they have this combination of really wanting to have a solid and packed in the world, but then turning around, and you know, only charging a small amount for the good work that they can do. What do you suggest for somebody like that?

Well, it's such an exploration, you know. And I think what's important is to realize that each of us have our own individual money stories. And it's hard to even know where to start. But what I get people to do is to just write an initial list of the things that you remember from your childhood about money. That's a really good place to start just what do you remember your parents talking about? And then you can kind of dive in? What do you remember about things like birthdays or gift giving holidays like Christmas? What do you remember about? school shoes? This is a question I've been asking people a lot recently. Tell me about your school shoes. Because they they're a little clues like that way you remember hearing fights about money, or you remember the tension about money? And you might think, Okay, well, what do I do with that information, you can draw a through line through most of those very specific memories, to where this could be showing up for you in your business today. And so one could be that you just grew up hearing, it's not polite to talk about money. You know, never ask anyone how much they earn, never, you know, ask someone how much they paid for something, it could have just been a completely taboo topic, you might not have ever been told that explicitly, it might have just been in a million different ways that you're not allowed to talk about money, that it's icky or just inappropriate. And so then you can draw a three line to that, too. I can't put a price on what I do, I can't put my prices on my website, I can't tell people about my prices. I can't pitch myself, I can't put myself forward for things. I can't send out invoices, I can't chase up invoices, I can't have an awkward conversation with someone who asked for a discount. There could be so many ways that your whole being is just going, I'm not allowed to talk about this. I'm not allowed to talk about it. And that is one example. So when I talk about money blocks, I don't say clearing money blocks, because it just makes it sound like oh, yes, by I actually talk more these days about excavating money books. Because we've got these layers and layers and layers. And some of them are so old, they're not even ours, we were born into them. And we're just trying to find those little nuggets. And those little nuggets of gold, which is these little nuggets are your reward. Because sometimes we think I have to let I have to be perfect, I have to let go of all of those things first, then I'm allowed to make money. And the truth is, as you said, you're always going to find a new layer of it. Sometimes you just unpack something and you go, Oh, okay, now I can charge a little bit for that. And then the next time or maybe I can charge a little bit more. So those little nuggets of gold are what we're trying to look for. And then your reward for doing the work excavating.

All your all your stories. So perfect. And you know what's neat is, when you started you were talking about curiosity, and curiosity and coaches, they go to get gather like, you know, peanut butter, jam, right. And so the minute you start feeling curious about something, you reduce some of that resistance, and you reduce that, that tension, that internal tension. So if you can get curious, and then do the excavation, I like to talk about just awareness, like just the fact that you notice it, that you can see it that you have some visibility into why it might be like that. Sometimes just that alone means that oh, okay, well, I'm nervous. But I can handle this because I actually know what I'm nervous about. I actually know where this resistance sets. And the there's a piece here. Sorry, I've got a thread in my head about it. But it's like it's not just from our families, right? Like this may not have been, as you're working through your memories to do with money as a child, whether it's, you know, did you get new shoes for school? Did you have new school supplies every year or not? But sometimes it's the peripheral. You know, like anytime that maybe you went shopping with a friend as a child, and they were experiencing tension, you could have picked this up, just to keep yourself safe, right?

Everything, movies and TV. And I'll give you an example. There's obviously there's, you know, we can be general about things but it's always about what was the flavor of the time and how did you feel like you fit or not fit? And I remember when I grew up, I would watch reruns after school of Bewitched, and I Dream of Jeannie. And that was, you know, what the 60s era that they were created. And it was all about these women who were extraordinary, but they had to pretend that they weren't. Because they, they didn't want to emasculate their husbands basically. So they had to do everything the hard way, the Mughal way, almost, because they couldn't be magical. You know, and I just think there's that lesson there for women who grew up seeing that. And also, then, you know, people in the 80s, who saw the reruns of it, of just you can't be too special. And it's that almost that I call it the Highlander myth, right, there can only be one, and you have to be super special. And we see this played out again and again, that there can only be one character, there can only be one woman, there can only be one black character, there can only be one disabled person. And they have to be super special. And they have to have these special powers. They have to be a princess, you know. And so I just think it's really interesting to look at what what shows Did you grew up watching? What was the flavor of the time? We praise for being a good girl, which most of us well, let's face it, but when you were talking about coaching about how it's still so undercharged for women, I think, because so much of it is putting a value on a skill set that we're expected to have. Right to naturally holding space for people. Listening, being caring, caring people. Yeah, caring. Absolutely. And I see this in so many industries play out. And, you know, this, this month, this last month, I've been talking to people and podcasts galore. Right. And it's been interesting going on industry specific podcasts. So a lady who is a mindset coach for dance teachers. And they feel so much guilt, because they're saying, I shouldn't be doing this for the love of the children and the love of dance. And, you know, then there's photographers, and they were like, but I should be doing this, because I love helping people like pet photographers, and newborn photographers. And then people who are in the health world who are helping people with real health problems that are causing them daily pain and stress. Well, we should be doing this for free if we really cared about it. And when I first became a coach, my little sister is 19 years younger than me. So it's massive age gap. But she was staying with me and I had a client come to the house back when I saw clients face to face. And when she left, she was like, did that lady just pay to like, be your friend. She just didn't get it just like, I don't get what. And a lot of my friends would say, guys to a life coach, like what kind of weirdo goes to a life coach? Are they people with no friends and no, like, you know, just skills in life. And it was so misunderstood. But I realized that so many of us are in professions, where suddenly we have to put a value on something that if we were born 100 years ago, we'd be doing for free. Because it'd be just part of our personality, we would be doing it for our families, we would be doing it for our girlfriends, we would be doing it for our town and our communities. And suddenly, we have to put a value on it. And no wonder that feels awkward.

Of course it does. Yeah. And then. So it's the it's the skill. It's the thing that we're doing, but then it's so tangled into that being a female. And so there's a lot I think there's a lot of unpacking there, you know, there's a lot of, you know, if you look at people who are in corporate, you know, we know that on average, women earn pennies on the dollar. And women of color earn even less than that. And it's not right. But even at that level. So this whole discussion about money as it is, we have so much emotion attached to money, as opposed to learning that and it's not that I'm there yet, but you know, working on it, we all work on our money stuff, right? Getting that money is really a tool, it is just thing that is not good or bad. It's not a reflection on who you are. It is just a thing. And so to extract that, you know, like to take my worth is not contingent on how much money I have my you know, value that I add, I can charge money, but it doesn't make me more or less of a worthy person. So it's a real tight like as a tangled little web. You know? Yeah, just the more I think about it, the more I think of how it's really representative of everything. You know, more representative of everything that we have in our life and how much joy we allow in our life and how much how much just sort of life in our life, right?

It really is. And, and so therefore, you can reverse engineer it a little bit. And so I will say to people, your assignment is to go to a cafe and look at the menu without looking at the price and say, What do I feel like? And also ask for something extra. So, and it's just a little practice that could be, Oh, do you mind if I have a little bit of extra milk because I always with, with my teapot, I always run out of milk. And I remember having to force myself to do that, excuse me that okay, if I have a little bit more milk, because I realized, I just You get what you get, and you don't get upset? And who were you to ask? And so sometimes it's you might not be there yet to double your prices, you know, people, just double your prices charge what you want. But it's like, Honey, I can't even ask for a teaspoon that I've dropped on the ground. Right? I can't even ask for an extra napkin. It's like, okay, well, then you can start working for things like little things like that, and do it incrementally. And that's sometimes what's missing from that charge, what you're worth thing is, it has to come from inside you. And sometimes it was never been able to choose. And we don't know what we like, we don't even know what our preferences would be. But that means though, there's never any perfection there. So you can't, we can't have the excuse of when I feel confident, then I'll do it, you just have to pick a number that you feel okay, with now, it's literally like price for right now. And know that you can change it as many times as you like. And also knowing that that number is never going to be perfect. There's no such thing as a critic proof price. So we can't even look for that. And there's no such thing as a price where you're always just going to be like, Go me, because most of the time you can second guess it. And you have to just pick it up. You just have to start.

Yeah. This was the second part in the conversation that you said something that caught my attention. And it's, and I see this as well in the coaches that I work with, and I experienced this as well for myself is the place where you sit in indecision, and don't realize that the indecision itself is a money block. So if I sit here, and I have to question and question and question and think about it from all these different angles, I'm still holding myself back. Right? And so that's still a place that we can have a challenge.

Well, I think it comes down to perfectionism. And deservingness, I have to be perfect in Word thought and deed, I have to be so perfect to deserve this abundance. And I, when I first learned about law of attraction, I really thought that that's what it was about. I was like, oh, I need to control my thoughts. So much. So I'm just this pure vessel of sunshine, I'm like,

an enlightened being

pretty much, and then I'll be worthy of the money. And I'm a Virgo. So I've got double perfectionism. I've got like five planets in Virgo. But it really is a deservingness thing of thinking, Well, you know, I'll that person that I'll be sometime in the future, when all the stars align, she'll be so perfect, she'll get the perfect way. Her hair will be perfect all the time. She'll be nice all the time, all of those things and not realizing that you are on the journey. And you're gonna be the same with money, literally. So why not just accept yourself who you are now and say why not? Why not me? Why not me? Because you're never going to be perfect. Ever, ever, ever. And life's not going to be perfect, either. You know, I? I talked about this a lot, because it sounds like I'm poor you. But I'm pretty wealthy. It doesn't mean my life is perfect. I still have impostor syndrome all the time. I have anxiety. So it doesn't matter how rich you are. Your puppies and your toddlers will pay on all your stuff. They don't care. I might. Do you know who I am joined pay on my stuff. They don't get life is going to happen. So you may as well receive that now and recognize the fact that you are on the journey, you're not suddenly going to flip and becomes perfect person. And actually that's the secret to all of my work. It's love and acceptance. Because then you can go okay, maybe I can. And that's why I talk about doing that mirror work, where you look in the mirror and you say this is what a wealthy woman looks like. And you don't just say it when you've just come from the hair salon. Unlike me this morning, or when you're dressed up for something, because that's what you think your version of wealth would be, you have to do it when you are just woke up with bad breath with, when you're not feeling great when you've had a bad day when all of those things because the first 100 times you do it, your brain will say, No, I'm not allowed because of XYZ. And you don't push that away, you actually look at it and acknowledge it, like we were talking about before and say, Oh, I have this story that I can't be wealthy because of this. Where did that come from? Oh, okay, I've got compassion for myself, of course, it's come from that, because of this person said this, or I saw I heard this growing up, or I grew up in this way. And then maybe it like the two hundreds time you said, you'll go, oh, maybe I can. But you start to follow more people who look like you, you have that little bit of extra belief. So maybe you feel a bit more courageous to put yourself out there on social media, you feel a little bit more brave to send a follow up to a client who said they were mildly interested with you. And then that's how it that's how it all happens. And not because suddenly, you know, it's happening outside of you.

You're not I Dream of Jeannie, and you wrinkle your nose and all of a sudden, poof, there you are. I wish that would be great. Wouldn't that be an amazing thing? To think that so much of the money? You know, the money journey is so tied to how we feel about ourselves, right? And I know that people say to me, Well, how do I how do I like myself? Like, how do I love myself? And it's the silliest, it's the silliest answer, like they don't quite believe it, you just decide. You just decide, maybe you don't love yourself today and think that you're entirely worthy. And that you could stand in the mirror and say this is what a wealthy woman looks like. What we can say is, I can honor myself, I can learn to respect myself, I can be at hind to me, right. And so those two things, even though they tangled together with our money blocks, they also support each other, even better. As we grow

well, and it's looking for those symbolic actions that you can take to really believe it. Because you can say that affirmation, and you can try and believe it. But you still don't put an extra sweat around when you're cold. Yeah, are you don't give yourself time in between clients to go and have a decent pee and a cup of tea. Or you have a squeaky chair, or you allow other people to in your family to have what they need a new make do. And sometimes money's just not there or whatever. But sometimes you're saving things for best. And you don't believe you're worthy of a fresh cup of tea, a fresh tea bag, putting on an extra jumper because you're cold. And I think sometimes we don't realize how many little things like that that happen in our life that we've had to do, we've had to build resilience. And we haven't allowed ourselves to receive even those tiny little bits of pleasure. So I always say to people just find, find those little symbolic things that you think you either you weren't allowed to have. Or you just, it wouldn't even occur to you to ask that you're allowed to do that. And sometimes for me that's hanging around with people who have really good self esteem. I've noticed this with I've got a friend who just has the most amazing self esteem, and she'll just say, Oh, can I have an extra towel when we're staying in a hotel together? And I just go, who are you? Oh, my God. And she's like, Denise, I want an extra towel. And I go and it rubs off on you. Because then you realize you have permission. But then you might realize you have a story about that, Oh, I'm such a diva, you know, for for asking. And it's a practice. It's a practice every single day.

That's been so great. And it just one of the things that I like about this conversation, especially for the listeners is that this is exactly the voice that you have in your books. And so you might listen to this conversation and go, Oh, she's a real human. She's got real thoughts, real people. But then when you go and you read your books, they don't sound different. They still sound very similar. And that's, you know, that's that piece of being really relatable. And then people like listeners and readers, they go, I can relate to her. That means that it's easier to make it they will apply it to me, right? She's not way up there. She understands that I've got a challenge. She has had challenges herself. So I so appreciate this. And I guess Oh, yeah, we're just about at time. So I know you've

went too fast.

It's been wonderful I so I really appreciate your time and really appreciate the conversation as well. And you know, as I was thinking about this interview, I was rereading parts of your book, and I'm like, Hey, I just wrote that, hey, I just read that. So it's just wonderful. I love that. I know you've got a new book coming out, can you tell us about it and tell our listeners how they can get it?

Oh, I'm so excited about this, because it's actually a new edition of my book, chill printer. And it's such a good lesson. When I wrote it, I started writing it in between babies two, and three. So I just given that, baby number two, when I started it, realizing that a lot of the business books I was trying to read, I was like, oh my god, they don't understand what I'm going through. These guys later, they don't know how hard it is to run a business while you've got kids. And so I started writing that. And then I handed it in 2018. Literally my baby, my baby, that when I was finishing it, she just turned four. And so my publisher last year said, We'd love you to do a new addition, because the world has changed since then, and it really has. But in a way. What's been really interesting about the new additions, is that additions is that people would say to me, Oh, that's great, but it doesn't work for my industry. I'm not allowed to do stuff on Zoom. You know, I'm not allowed to make things easy. My business can't go online, I can't do an online course, all of those things. And so now we know that that's not true. But also I was able to put a lot of case studies in from a lot of different industries. And if you have read the previous book ShopRunner the new book chillin, prosper has a ton of really cool extra bonuses. So anyone who's interested, go to Denise detail.com/prosper. And you can put in where you've bought it. And one of the bonuses which I want to share is a an album of affirmations that you can listen to while you're working or you can use them for meditation, on very specific money mindset things, things like overcoming your fear of marketing, overcoming your six figure or your seven figure income plateaus, forgiving yourself for past money, mistakes, all of those things that are so important. And I really believe sometimes that listening to things like that subliminally subliminally can make a really big difference to sometimes uncovering some of those little things that you didn't even realize was there. So I hope everyone enjoys the new book, it comes out on the 19th of June, but you can pre order it now on 19th of July sorry. And you can pre order it now at that Denise di t.com/prosper.

Wonderful. Well, I've got my pre ordered copy. And so looking forward, looking forward to it for sure. If you're listening to this episode, when it goes live, you can still do the pre order. But if you're listening to it, when this has been around for a little while, I still highly recommend that you go and check out Denise's books. All of them are great. The new one, I'm sure will be wonderful. So how do I wrap this up? I so appreciate the time that you spent. Yeah, any last words? For the listeners? Any kind of last thoughts?

Absolutely. Um, it's just asking yourself, why not me. Because I have never really had anyone come in, tapped me on the shoulder and say, Thank you, you know, and it just doesn't happen. And so sometimes, we don't feel very confident, we just have to have that quiet feeling of going, maybe it's okay that I do this. And your voice is important. Your voice can help somebody, you know. And again, if we go back a couple of 100 years, and you were the healer on the edge of the town, or you started a business in your town in the 80s or 90s. The people you could help it was so small, you know, and now we live in this abundant world where you can help so many people and you only need a tiny fraction of them to have a successful business. And you can write your own books and you can have your own show and you can have your own podcast. Why not? You know what, literally no one can stop you. And you can just ask that to yourself. Why not me? No,

I love that there's no God of the universe or God of the internet that says, not you you don't even get to try, like so if it's on your heart. And it's you've been thinking about it. Why not? You give yourself permission.

You know, I have to share this because every time I feel you know, impostor syndrome, which I always do, I think of my grandma. So my Nan, Judy Thomas, was so talented, you know, she was a seamstress, and she could cook beautifully. And she could paint. And I remember going to her house once. And my granddad had this whole room to himself with his bowling trophies, and his wrestling trophies or whatever. And I noticed in her closet, she had all these canvases. And she was an amazing painter, but she kept everything in a closet, she had a closet for her stuff. And so whenever I think, and I'm scared, I just think of her saying, What what are you doing, you know, and imagine saying to your grandmother, but what if a tick tock teen makes fun of me on the internet? What are some someone's mean to me? And that stuff is scary. But imagine what our grandmothers would have to say about that. And just, they would just want nothing but the best for us. And they would, you know, they would pump us up. And so sometimes we just have to connect to that grandmother energy and just say, Well, I'm taking this opportunity to create good in the world, and why not me again.