The day my relationship with money changed

When I was in college I read a quote on the mirror from my favorite hair colorist that said “Do what you believe and you will end up where you belong.” This resonated deeply with me. As someone who has never felt I belonged around others because of my radically different beliefs, I wanted something to trust in order to make it through the rough years, until I could find “my people”.

13 years later, I now live and work with the most inspiring people who help me live my best life.

You may know that I have a variety of passions. You may or may not know that I am committed to only doing work that 100% aligns with my passions and values. I’m sure you understand how challenging this can be with the income demands of living in San Francisco. To meet these demands, I have a wide variety of income sources ranging from getting paid well for my greatest passion [coaching], to making very little money from something I'm also extremely passionate about [taking care of babies]. I'm grateful to live a life of such passion, however, I know that I will never be able to jump to the next stage of my career until I'm able to consolidate the number of hours I work. This would allow me to spend more time in the magical land of empty space so that I can grow the businesses that I am most passionate about. 

I recently started doing business with an incredible person. His life accomplishments and thoughts around everything are extremely inspiring to me. He has elevated many of my business developments and sees value in my offerings.

One day he said to me "I don't want you to ever work for $25/hr again." This changed everything for me. I realize now that I was living with a limiting belief that I couldn't get enough coaching clients or provide enough value in my other offerings to make a living off of them.

In addition, I was stuck in a spiral where I wasn’t able to have enough free time to nurture my entrepreneurial magic to get the clients and do that business work that would land me at my current financial goals because I was working too much.

In the moment he said that to me, my world froze. I suddenly felt permission to trust in my abilities to make my businesses truly successful. 

The first thing I did was stop accepting all low paying work. It was scary as fuck as I turned down job after job and offer after offer. I worried a lot about money. It felt like I had jumped off the edge of a cliff without even looking down first. 

I spent my new free time cleaning and organizing everything from every inch of my house to every detail in my to do list. I suddenly felt a sense of peace I had been desiring my whole life.

With the additional free time I was also able to spend more time managing my finances, which was helpful as I was in a state of financial panic without any "stable" income. (It was easy for me to always get lower paying work so this was my only form of stable income.)

Soon there was nothing left to organize so I moved onto my health and self care. I tweaked my diet and fitness to perfection and fully committed to my daily meditation practice. I could no longer use the excuse that I didn’t have time.

Meanwhile I slowly started to get an occasional YES to my new higher rates which allowed me to barely make rent each month. However it was so weird to not have to work as hard/as often and make the same amount of money. I was having sudden flashes of panic from the days (my entire life) where if I wasn’t working, it meant that I might not have enough money for rent that month. Life was different now but my nervous system hadn’t gotten the memo.

Having all the extra free time was really uncomfortable. I started taking a bunch of classes that were on my todo list. Acting classes, painting classes, cake classes, make up classes, doula classes, writing classes... to fill my free time. I went to 4 times as many zouk festivals and datecations as I had taken in previous years. I started new businesses and projects that had been on my mind for years, from podcasts to documentaries to start ups. I read a lot more books. I asked very successful people how they spent their time and got lots of great ideas.

When I started believing in the value I was providing through my work, I became even better at my work in order to live up to the new standards of excellence I had set for myself. 

I went on a lot more dates. But this time it was different. I wasn’t the same person so I didn’t show up for dates in the same way that I used to. Since I had changed my beliefs around my value in work, I also changed my behavior to align with my values as a date. I became radically honest and present. When I had tendencies to act on patterned or culturally influenced behavior or language that I didn't believe in, I stopped myself. I wouldn’t allow myself to say or do anything that wasn’t aligned with person I *want* to be.

As I heard recently in the Rocketman movie: "You gotta kill the person you were born to be in order to become the person you want to be."

I adopted the policy I heard from Rich Litvin’s new podcast about only keeping 10s in your life. This is similar to the HELL YES or no concept. I now had the freedom to drop anyone who wasn’t a 10 (in the sense of amazing to me) out of my life. I had even more free time and space and became even more radically honest as my filters got more efficient.

As I continue to adapt to my new standards of excellence for myself to show up in my work, the rest of my life is continuing to streamline right along with it. I have a new relationship with space, emptiness and free time. My creativity lives here and I nurture it diligently. Meditation is now my favorite place to be.

For me, believing in the value I can provide in my work is life changing. It's the difference between living a life of fear, scarcity and patterned conditioning; and stepping up to my full potential and living the benefits as a result of my hard work and dedication. It's the opposite of easy and comfortable in every way but it's beyond worth it. 

I’m constantly creating new, impossible goals for myself to live up to. It doesn’t matter if I ever get there because I believe a goal is a place to come from, not a place to get to. When you live your life believing in your ability to do the impossible, nothing can stand in your way.

What is your creativity craving? What is your intuition saying? What are you waiting for? Your life awaits you.