Dear Goal-Hungry Entrepreneurs:
If I were to ask you why you’re not making $1,000 more dollars per month than what you’re making right now, I am aware that for most of you, this question would stir up emotion.
I have entrepreneur clients who come to me stressed about growing their income all the time, but when I ask them this question, I get to hear a lot of their mind drama out loud.
Some may say something along the lines of, “If I could make an extra 1,000 dollars per month, don’t you think I would be doing it already?” or “I don’t have the energy or time to make an extra 1,000 dollars per month, I am spread thin as it is.” or “My job is salary, so this is all I am capable of making.” And with that, my friend, I would like to politely and lovingly call…Baloney.
Why can I spot these Baloney stories a mile away? Because I used to be the Queen of Baloney Stories.
Until I decided not to be.
Before I show you a quick exercise of how to get out of your own head to move mountains in your financial world, I would like to first take a second to show you the journey of my own mind and how it has evolved over the last few years and what my mind growth did to my bank account.
Just 6 years ago, I was full of excuses as to why my life didn’t allow me to make as much money as I wanted. “I grew up poor. Didn’t luck into wealth. Too tired. Had to pay my way through college. blah blah blah” I had all the excuses.
I was a server at a cocktail bar for close to ten years. In college, waitressing was accepted and fun but as I got older and all my college co-workers began to graduate from college, grow up,get married and leave the food service world for a more professional life, I found myself still slinging drinks as one of the older cocktail waitresses. (I even ran away from this problem, moved to Bali for a period of time, but ultimately found myself back to waitressing in the same restaurant a year later. Talk about depressing.)
To make a super long story short, one day I decided I had enough. I was becoming frustrated and crazy from the realization that I had so much potential and intelligence that I felt was being wasted. I knew I could do more. I knew I had more to offer. I began diving head first into the business owning world and went full throttle on tearing down all of my own excuses.
6 years ago as a waitress I brought home about $2,000 per month.
Within a year I had doubled it to $4,000 per month.
Within 2 years I had doubled that to $8,000 per month.
Within 3 years I had doubled that to $16,000 per month.
I find myself now pulling in between $16,000 and $27,000 per month.
I plan to create about $40 k /month by the end of 2020.
This doesn’t happen with luck my friends. These numbers represent some serious mind-work. These numbers represent a girl who decided to look inside her head, find all her money programming, excuses, mind drama, and mind buffering and creatively and meticulously decided to break down each one and rebuilt it. It took a lot of vulnerability and coaching.
I tell you these numbers to show you what is possible in such a short amount of time. I also do this to inspire change. People believe that changing your life takes decades, but changing your life only takes one thought and one decision. A massive change can happen in the snap of your fingers.
I am still and always will be tearing down walls in my mind between me and money. I am still finding self-limiting beliefs hiding in the corner of my mind, and facing those beasts. And every time I tear down a wall, an income spike follows right behind.
We humans tend to have hella-emotion built up around the amount of money we make, the amount of money we want to make (shame), and the amount of money we feel we are capable of making. There is a lot of stories and excuses as to why we bring in the exact number we do and why wealthy people are ‘lucky’ or have something we don’t have or blah, blah, blah. But what if we cut the shit and just pulled all the excuses and stories off the table and stripped down the stories we are telling ourselves? What if we took every bit of emotion out of it and just looked at this 100 percent unbiased? Are you capable of this exercise?
A great way to pull the emotion and the excuses out of a situation is to remove yourself from it. That’s right, take ‘you’ in any scenario and subtract ‘you,’ then add a different person. This helps you see past the stories you have built about yourself.
So, instead of asking YOU how YOU can make an extra grand each month, I am going to ask you how (Tina) can make an extra grand each month. Let’s assume Tina is *NOT*…I repeat, *NOT* you.
Tina looks nothing like you, she sounds nothing like you, she dresses nothing like you, but she has the same career, lifestyle, habits and hobbies as you. When she gets home from work, she has the same evening routine as you. She has the same morning routine, the same excuses, the same breakfast as you. She has the same connections and resources as you. She spends her days exactly the same as you. First of all, what would you think of Tina’s life choices?
If Tina, upon absolute necessity, needed to make an extra 1,000 dollars per month starting NOW or else she was going to lose her home, what would you tell Tina to do? Now remember, for the sake of this game, you’re not allowed to project your own mental-baggage onto Tina. This is just you purely brainstorming for her.
We have all been in the scenario that requires us to pull money out of our ass right when we need it. Let’s say we normally scrape by every single month, but last month the car broke down and cost an extra $500 to fix it. Any other given month you wouldn’t have 500 dollars extra, but knowing that without a car, you wouldn’t be unable to make it to work or, even worse, Wine Down Wednesday with your girls so, shits REAL. And with circumstances like this, we are able to pull out the magician gloves and MAKE.IT.WORK. Has this ever happened to you? Of course it has.
I encourage you to sit down and crunch what it would take to make an extra grand a month for Tina, whom remember, has the same career as you. If you’re a hairstylist, how many hair cuts would that be? If you work a salaried job, then how many hours of side hustle is that for you? How many lawns mowed, how many baby-sitting gigs, how many Uber rides is that every weekend? What pay raise is it that you now need to negotiate with your boss? Write down the cold, hard facts you money-deserving light of abundance.
As you begin to remove “Tina” and replace her with YOU again, are you feeling the excuses rushing back in? Don’t let them. Just for a minute.
What IF you made an extra grand per month? What does that feel like? What exactly would you do with it? Does it take some weight off your shoulders? What would you do differently if you believed that making an extra $1,000 was totally doable?
Guys, it is 100% undeniably, without a doubt, unquestionably TRUE that you can make an extra grand each month. Or 10 extra grand each month. Both numbers are neutral and require differently thinking. But INCOME IS A REFLECTION OF YOUR THOUGHTS. (Just like your parenting is a reflection of your thoughts, your body’s body fat percentage is a reflection of your thoughts, and your marriage is a reflection of your thoughts.)
The human brain is created to stay safe. It wan’ts to keep you protected. Everything we do is programmed in a fight or flight survival mode or rest and digest….and our ancestral brain tells us to not dive into the unknown. It tells us to do what we know is safe. This is why your brain wants to keep you small, protected, and inside your comfort zone even now, with the case of money and finances. (Our silly brain can’t tell the difference between the threat of a lion and the threat of a financial risk.)
And honestly, whatever excuse that tells you that making another grand isn’t going to work is a complete crock of poo. But YOU are the only one who can make it happen and who can look at the crock of poo and decide its a crock of poo. No one else is going to do this for you. No one else is invested in your poo. I have people that ask me, “How will I know that it will “work” if I hire a business coach?” and I always tell them the same thing: “You don’t know. Neither do I. Because I don’t know if you are going to show up in the light and determination it takes to make it happen. Its equivalent to hiring a personal trainer. It only works if you do the program. But, damn if you do the programs, will you see the magic.”
And guess what? As soon as you make that extra grand each month, month after month, you get to just up level again. And again. And again. It’s the ladder of goals. The ladder of growth.
Guys, Its so fun.
If you’re in absolute love with growth or the idea of growth, I encourage you to reach out to me any time. I am always here for you. But not your poo.
YOU ARE IN CONTROL OF YOUR INCOME.
Sincerely,
Becca
PS: If this article sparked strong negative emotion in you, I would like to invite you to journal on this. What story do you have in your mind that I challenged? What is your excuse? This is a great time to study your thoughts and find where they came from.
Happy Sunday!