The Real Story Behind Overcoming Money Blocks in Midlife (Ep. 13)

0:00 Did you grow up with these? Money doesn't grow on trees. Let me just go pick some of that off the money tree if you need that thing. Only greedy, mean people are rich. There's all kinds of stories that might be hidden inside our minds. Those are the negative ones. Maybe they're positive ones. Maybe you had experiences earlier in your life that showed you how empowering it is to make money and how you absolutely could do it. Every single one of us has stories hidden in our subconscious that direct the way we look at money and that means the way we look at success as well. Let's talk about it.

0:44 Welcome to Mind Your Midlife, your go-to resource for confidence and success, one thought at a time. Unlike most advice out there, we believe that simply telling you to believe in yourself or change your habits isn't enough to wake up excited about life or feel truly confident in your body. Each week, you'll gain actionable strategies and, oh my goodness, powerful insights to stop feeling stuck and start loving your midlife. This is the Mind Your Midlife Podcast. I am excited about today's episode because we have three people coming in to share some of their money stories and money experiences to help you see what it is I'm talking about today.

1:34 So clients, friends, previous podcast guests, really going to be cool to hear from them about their money stories. And what do I mean by a money story? Well, all of us as midlife women, we have had some success in our lives. I said this last week as well. You have reached milestones in your career or your business or your family or your just life and health, whatever it might be. And oftentimes, and oddly enough, it's often around midlife, but oftentimes in our lives, we hit a period where we also feel like we're stuck at a certain income level. all.

2:16 Or a certain amount of savings for retirement. And we just don't see any increase. We just kind of feel like we're treading water. And we really thought we would have more saved for retirement right now. This is something that certainly hits me. My husband and I are thinking, wow, we'd love to retire right now. But if only we had more income already saved, right? Or you're looking at your career and you have, let's say, 15 more years to go, but you've looked over the last 10 years and you feel like you've just sort of stagnated at a certain income level or you've started a business and you're just kind of sitting in one place.

3:00 And I certainly experienced that in a previous business at various times. Sometimes that can be caused by an economic situation or a lack of job availability. However, most of the time, and I would argue even almost all of the time, a lot of that is caused by what's deep inside our subconscious mind directing how much money and income and success is it okay for me to have? And is money a positive thing or is it a negative thing? Does it make me a good person or a bad person? All of that can be hidden inside our heads.

3:43 And before we ever get out there to start the business or get the job or create the invention or whatever it is, if inside your mind, there is a belief that you will have to do something selfish and greedy in order to make more money, you are going to sabotage yourself. So let's, let's look at some of these stories. I want you to really see what I mean. And yes, at the end, I will give you some tips on what you can do to identify your stories and to start to change them if they need changing. But we need to start with really understanding what does this look like? What does this sound like?

4:23 Because typically when I say to a coaching client, let's figure out what your stories are, they will say back to me some form of. Really tell myself stories about money. However, if we think back to our experiences in life, we have created meaning out of experiences, out of little sayings, out of things we used to hear that do tell us stories about money. So I'm going to give you a couple of positive examples first. These first two are stories that are, I would say, quite empowering in terms of money. So Our first one is Sara, and she is talking about how she really learned to be empowered related to money. Listen in.

5:09 Growing up, I always had a job, and I started working when I was 11 years old cleaning my dad's office. He was a small business owner as well. And I learned that I could actually afford the things that I wanted if I put money aside. So I opened up a high yield savings account and I started to save a ton of money. I also used to let, you know, those things where the government can pay you to, it's like an extra high yield thing where you lend money to the government and then they give you back a higher return. So I used to do that as well growing up and I was able to really save up a lot of money so that when I came out of college, I was able to pay back my loans and I was able to travel every summer and I was able to put a lot of money into retirement because I had worked to save money and I never really had to miss out on things because I had prioritized that. Doesn't that feel empowering? Yeah.

6:13 I love what Sarah was saying. And now I want to share with you another positive money story, again, from a childhood experience, because we really do save these things from when we're younger. This is Shari, and she's talking about a very young experience that really showed her that she had the power when it came to money and income. Have a listen. I remember when i was like i think i was like 14 years old or i was 13 going about to turn 14 right in the summer because i have my birthday's in september my dad said to me you know you like to buy all the stuff you like your stuff he's like but i'm done paying for your stuff you need to go get a job and i'm like okay i'll go get a job and we lived in a beach town so it's touristy And so the summer season was about to start.

7:08 And so my mom took me around to different restaurants to hire me. And no one would hire me because I was too young. I was just a little too shy of the working age. And I'm like, oh my God, what am I going to do? I need to buy my stuff. I need to get a job. This was a big deal. So a restaurant that we always frequented ended up just literally making up a job on the spot for me. She's like, you could be a toast girl. Didn't know what a Toast Girl was, but I showed up Saturday morning, 7 a.m., ready for my shift, and I made toast. I made toast, and I made waffles, and I took my job very seriously, and it was great. And after my first, so I got paid hourly, and that's all I expected to be paid.

7:52 But then when shift was over, all the servers tipped me out, just like they would tip out a busser. And you know, like the little aprons with the pockets that you wear in the front. And so I'm riding my bike home and I have like, my pockets are full of cash. So I come home, my parents are like, how is your shift? Like good. And I just start pulling all of this cash out of my, my apron. And I'm like, look at all of it. Holy mackerel, like kind of doing the math of, you know, you're getting minimum wage. Plus like you're making a lot of money for a few hours of work. And that's, that was my summer. I did that every weekend. And that that was and I would I was making it faster than I could spend it.

8:33 So I started accumulating and I would take the money and I put it on my bed and like, OK, this is I'm going to put this in the bank and this is going to be my spending money. And I would organize my money and I'd like to look at it. Now, if only we all had money stories that were that empowering. And spoiler, Sherry now works in money and finance and gives advice very similar to this. I have another story for you from Karina. And her upbringing was very different, possibly, than yours, depending on where you're listening from in the world. And it really caused some scarcity issues for her related to money. So listen in.

9:20 Okay, so Corina, tell me, how did growing up in East Germany affect the way that you looked at money? That's a very interesting question because, yeah, it was, I mean, obviously I was a child growing up, but there's still a lot of things that I remember. One of them was that obviously, which was very pertinent, when the wall came down and I was about 12, prior to that, pretty much everybody had work and people did whatever kind of work. There was always job security. It was never really a case that people would lose their job or if they would lose their job, they could potentially lose their home or things like that.

10:03 So that just wasn't a thing in communism. And then when the world came down and it all changed, people started losing their jobs left, right and center because obviously the companies that were run before, they weren't really profitable and it just wasn't the same thing. And I remember very much my parents really talking about, oh my God, these people just lost their job. We just lost our job. What are we going to do? And even though I think I didn't understand it at the time, I think that really affected my way of looking at money purely because I always had this need for security. Because from that early age on, I thought, oh my God, oh my God, it's like it's scarce. And it's so interesting because my sister doesn't have that, but then she's eight years younger than me, but she doesn't remember any of this. But I do.

10:49 And And when I, for example, look at my husband, he doesn't have that at all. And it's not that his family was very wealthy, not at all. But they just never had that because I guess their system never really changed. And looking back, for example, for my grandparents, it must have been even worse because my grandfather, who's not alive anymore, but obviously was back then, he grew up during Nazi Germany. Then obviously he went into communism And then when the wall came down Everything changed again And they went through so many Currency changes It was kind of really crazy. So, yeah, it's really interesting. And I mean, there were loads of other things.

11:33 I remember these little tins where you have a pineapple in it. They used to be, I mean, what are they in the supermarket? Maybe like a dollar or a pound or whatever. They used to be the equivalent of like $20 a tin. So it was totally unaffordable to people because it was just not a product that was produced in East Germany because you couldn't find any pineapples in East Germany. So these kinds of things were really hot commodities and people just generally didn't have access to them. And it's very interesting. My dad, and I don't remember this, but my dad was actually one of the few people that would go to the west for work because he was like a truck driver.

12:15 And then sometimes he would be away for weeks and they used to get sort of like money to buy like food for them. So they used to have like an allowance and he would never actually spend his allowance. He would always spend the allowance and bring stuff back for us because he used to say, when you were a kid, you were always sick all the time until I started coming back from the West with things like oranges and you got proper vitamin C and then you started to improve. And I was like, wow, I don't remember that. So it's kind of really crazy. But you just, we just had no access to that because that just wasn't a thing because you couldn't buy this in the shop. Is there any sense in which some of being deprived of certain things has stuck with you, do you think?

13:01 Is that a worry in your mind ever? I don't know. I think it's something that maybe is somewhere there unconsciously. And it's something that I had to work on, I think, for me. But I think more so than also, yes, the money was one thing, I think. But the other thing was always feeling that, not that you weren't good enough, but that you just didn't know enough, which was true. But if people would rub it like in your, for example, I'd never ate prawns until I was in my early 20s because I just, this wasn't a thing. I'd never even heard of it. And it was just something that I was very aware of.

13:43 And I thought, my God, I have to work twice as hard as everybody else. Because basically, when I was 18, I then moved to West Germany for my hotel management degree. And of course, in hotel management, there were a lot of things I didn't know. Like I didn't know anything about wine. I didn't know anything about these fancy dishes in these hotels. I'd never heard of this. And I thought, my God, I have to work twice as hard because I just don't have the base that a lot of these other people had that were studying with me. And I guess it just always made me work harder and appreciate things that I can do for like a lot more. And I think that was also one of the reasons why travel was really high on my list because I knew as a kid, we just couldn't.

14:32 You could only go to the East Block and it was so unaffordable that barely anybody could. And I was literally like, the minute I can go somewhere, I'm going. I don't care. I'm going to find a way to make this work even on a budget, but I definitely need to go and see places. So. But yeah, I think there's a lot to probably to like unpack there with like money and things like that and not feeling good enough and being a stereotype and which is interesting because that also then leads now to my work with the Middle East because I feel like a lot of them are also being very stereotyped and I hate when this happens. And I've seen it time and time and time again. And I always think I know how it feels to be a stereotype and I don't want anybody else to feel like this because it's just awful. You know what I appreciate about what you're saying?

15:22 Well, first of all, I appreciate you sharing that with me. And second of all, you've taken some of these things that could have really negative, really negatively impacted your life and made some of them be a positive thing. And that's, goodness, that's, I think, probably what we all strive for. So I love that, you know, we have these things about money or deprivation or security, but maybe they can become a positive thing, too. So, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. And I think maybe if you're in it, you don't see it like this because you feel it's a negative. But coming out of it, it's actually a positive because you just have to make it work somehow.

16:03 Like I knew, for example, when I first came to London, I knew I didn't have anybody to fall back. And my parents couldn't just suddenly pick up a bill and wire me a lot of money. So I was kind of like, well, I got to kind of just finding, I just need to find a way to make this work. And I used to do like extra shifts in hotels and things like that. And I was like, okay, I hate it, but whatever, at least, you know. I'll get what I want. And I wanted to be in London. And that was, that was sort of like my dream. And I'm like, I will do whatever it takes. And if I need to do, if I need to work a little bit more, I will. Awesome. Yes. That's such a great way to look at it.

16:45 Now, that is a really significant story. And I was so grateful to Corina for sharing that because I don't think I grew up in the US. A lot of you, I know where our top listening countries are. A lot of you have grown up in Canada, Australia, the UK. You may not have ever been in a situation that Corina describes, but you may have been in a situation that ended up giving you that same scarcity interpretation. It doesn't have to be the same story. Now, let me give you one more. This is again from Sara. And this is not so much about a childhood story.

17:28 I want to show you that we can kind of create a negative association with money or maybe a pattern that causes us to make decisions about money that aren't necessarily the best decisions really at any point in our lives. So have a listen. Now, here's where I have in the past fallen into, especially during the pandemic, some cautionary spending things. So I used to, during the pandemic especially, I would get bored and I would start scrolling. And then I would decide because I was scrolling that I wanted to purchase things and I would get sucked into that trap.

18:13 So I would go, you know, it might be something from Amazon that was like cleaning supplies, But it was still something I didn't really necessarily need, but I was like looking for something to give me that dopamine hit. And so I had to really go back to what I had learned growing up, which was to take a minute and wait and see if I really wanted that thing that I was planning to purchase because it has to matter to me in order to spend money on something. So I've really put that back in place now because I want to be able to continue to afford travel and all of the things that I love about my life without having to compromise on them.

18:56 So I now take that pause and I don't purchase anything until I know for sure that it's something that's going to enhance my life in some way. And sometimes that's fun. Sometimes it's practical, but it has to add some sort of value to my life. The dopamine hit. Ah, the right now hit the button dopamine hit. We know what that feels like, right? So she gives a little bit of good advice there. Take a minute and pause. I hope you enjoyed those specific examples. Our stories could come from the most tiny, small blip of an experience that we somehow give an interpretation to in our minds that makes it more meaningful.

19:42 And I just wanna pause and say, you might go back and you might think about all your experiences and you might think about your parents and how they dealt with money. None of this is anyone's fault because your parents might've been dealing with money in a great way for their situation, but you might have interpreted their words or their actions in a way that isn't. Productive in terms of money. So it's always about how we interpret the scenario. And some things are very clearly going to give us a negative association with money, of course, and some a positive, but a lot of it is interpretation, not really anyone's fault. So if I can give you some kind of generic money stories that get stuck in our heads a lot, I said it at the beginning of the episode, money doesn't grow on trees.

20:31 My parents, And so when my sister and I would ask for things when we were kids, used to say, jokingly, oh, let me go pick some off the money tree. It kind of is a scarcity thing. There definitely could be some associations with rich people being evil or mean or selfish or greedy, you know, insert the adjective that you might have, that idea might have dug into your head a little bit. Maybe it's more about grasping energy with money. Hold on to it. Don't let it slip through your fingers. That's one that somehow just kind of gives me a tingle, like I know it's in there somewhere. Don't let it slip through your fingers as if it's running away from us all the time, money.

21:15 Or maybe there's a lot of anger and angst about bills. And I'm going to come back to that in a minute. But if we are treating things related to money with a lot of negative energy and that doesn't help our energy around money. Maybe it's about working hard and go back and listen to episode 12 from last week, because I definitely talked about this. If we believe the only way to make more money is to work harder and give up more time and give up more of our life, that creates a negative thing about income. In reality, money is a means of exchange. Money is not good and money is not bad. Money has no.

21:58 Value even. It's not as if we're back in the old days where we're using coins that were actually made out of silver or made out of gold, and they themselves had value. Money is paper. And a lot of times we don't even have the paper, right? Money is numbers going back and forth online in various accounts, but it's a means of exchange. So if we want to have more money, we need to provide more value because money goes where value is coming from. So if we want more income, we provide more value. Maybe that's a product. Maybe it's a service.

22:39 Maybe it's doing what we do even better and more efficiently. It could be creating something new. So many things. It could be saving in a smart way, investing in a smart way. We're doing something that has more value, and that will yield more money. It is simply a means of exchange. But we have attached all these different meanings to it. So, and unfortunately, most commonly negative meanings, so that kind of muddies the water in terms of, if I want to make more money, what do I need to do? Immediately, sometimes we have this visceral, oh, I need to do bad things. And I am cognizant that some of you may follow me when I say money is an energetic exchange.

23:25 You may or may not. Think about it this way. When you meet a person, your first impression of that person comes a lot from the energy that they're giving off to you. You can tell, are they a little bit scary? They're a little bit intimidating? Are they friendly? Are they quiet? You're looking at their appearance, but you're also feeling something from them. That's what I mean by energy. And we do the same thing regarding money. If we're talking about income, sometimes we get very stiff. We have this kind of bad energy, and that's not going to do anything to help us chrome up with ideas that will create value that will give us more income.

24:09 So that's why we want to find those money stories that are buried deep down in our brains. And we want to ask ourselves if we want to hold on to them. And I'm going to give you a little method to actually do this with. It is not my method. It comes from. Byron Katie, in The Work, that's what it's called, she gives four questions to help us challenge negative thoughts and negative beliefs. So you ready? Here we go. That you find a money story sitting in your brain, you remember a memory, and now you've got some examples to think about. Here's what I want you to ask yourself. Number one, you've heard me say this before, is it true?

24:52 Is it absolutely true, the interpretation I'm giving to this situation? Is it absolutely true that I would have to do something bad in order to have more money or whatever? And most of the time, the answer is no, of course, it's not absolutely true. It's maybe a guess. It's an estimate. It's a prediction. It's a worry. Second question, can you absolutely know that it's true? We're going to sit in this for a minute. Is it true? Well, you might be tempted to say, yeah, of course it's true. It happened to me. Can you absolutely know that it's true? Could you prove it? Third question, how do you react? What happens to you or what do you do when you believe that thought?

25:34 So you have some thought about money where it's hard to get because you have to do bad things to get it. Let's say, is it true? Well, I mean, people do bad things to get it. Can you really prove that it's true? Can you absolutely know that it's true? Well, I guess not, not in my life anyway, but, prove it. So when I'm believing this thought that I have to do bad things to get more money, how am I reacting? What is happening inside my body and out? Well, I'm sure that I'm feeling stressed. I'm feeling a bit stiff about it. Maybe I feel that stress in my shoulders. That's where I tend to carry it. You might carry it in your stomach, your kind of gut, or maybe your heart feels upset.

26:16 Maybe it causes you not to take action on an idea. Maybe you end up kind of spinning your wheels in your head about ideas and never do anything. Or you feel like I can't ever come up with anything creative. I'm trying to market this thing and I just can't ever come up with an idea. Well, that's because inside you're believing this thought. Fourth question. Here's the powerful one and the harder one. So give yourself time. Who would you be without that thought. So if I take my example, if we never entertain the thought that we would have to do bad things to get more income, doesn't it just lift? It just gives me this freedom. It just lifts this heaviness off.

26:57 Let me just follow my ideas. Let me just do my job well. Let me just grow my business. I don't have to tell myself that I'm doing bad things. I know myself, I'm not going to do bad things, right? Let that lift. And this takes time. And I want you to be patient with yourself. And I want you to just think about it. Because even the recognition of the fact that these stories hold on to us in our brains and potentially affect what it is that we're doing in our lives, even that recognition will change some of your actions. And the best thing when it comes to I'm trying to figure out a way to make more money is to allow yourself to be creative and to just think of ideas.

27:47 And maybe those ideas relate to your current job. Maybe they relate to something totally new. But the only way we get to be creative is if we're telling ourselves it's okay and good to do that. And then if we're doing it in a calm state in the parasympathetic nervous system, and we're just kind of daydreaming it, let yourself have time to daydream ideas. Let yourself get in conversations with people who might be a good mentor or who might have advice or who've done something similar as to what you want to do. Probably a whole nother episode there. Maybe they have an idea. Just stay open to it. Let it be light. Let yourself be open to it. And the first step is to question these stories that are hidden inside.

28:33 Now, if you're lucky, like Sara and Shari shared, they had some positive money stories, then reinforce that. Remember that. Ask yourself, how can that apply now in this situation I'm in? In the end, the OMG moment I want you to get out of this episode is we all have stories that color our beliefs about money and the way we look at money and whether we attract or repel money, and if we can recognize those stories. Question them a little bit to see, is this really serving me? Is this really true? What would I do or be without this story?

29:14 That will potentially change the way you feel about situations you're in, your ability to come up with new ideas and the actions that you take. And at that point, the sky's the limit. It really is amazing what we can uncover with a little guidance about how these money stories get in there, how we can recognize them, and then what we can do to create a healthy relationship with money. So I am excited to offer a limited number of spots for a money mindset reset session with me. This is a one-on-one 60-minute coaching session, and I would love for you to take a look.

29:59 It will make a huge difference in your relationship with money. Go to CherylPFisher.com slash money mindset. Check out the details. There's no obligation, of course. Just have a look, and I can't wait to talk to you. And if you've come up with a money story that surprised you or that you feel like maybe I'm going to work on eradicating this from my memory banks, find me on Instagram at Cheryl P. Fisher and let's talk about it. I love to hear from you. Make sure you've hit the follow button because in next week's episode, I have a guest coming to join me to talk about grounding.

30:43 And if you've never heard of grounding, let me tell you something. You can do it right now today. You need no equipment, you need no extra time. And it is fascinating what grounding can potentially do for our health and our mindset. So make sure you catch that. Music.