Hi, and welcome to this week's episode of Money with Alpha. This week, I want to talk about why wealth is available for you. I hear a lot, "Oh, I don't have enough money to invest," or, "I can't be wealthy," or, no one in my family's ever been wealthy," or, "I don't know how to be wealthy. I don't even really know what wealth means." it's an interesting word that seems to conjure up a certain freeze response in a lot of women that I speak with, so I wanted to debunk that a little bit today, and also to just talk through the steps of how to actually get to the point where you believe that it is available to you, because it absolutely is available. So there's seven areas. I often have five, but today I have seven different areas that I wanted to talk about. So the first one is identity and beliefs. Secondly, I want to talk about habits and stories. Then I'm going to talk about defining wealth, what it actually means and what it means for you, most importantly. And then having a purpose, so what is the purpose of money, and how is wealth part of that world? Then let's look at confidence and how to build it, and then how to create calm when it comes to your money. Hint, hint, it's automation. And then seven, how to build momentum, and how momentum is possibly the best way to then really actually accelerate building wealth. So wealth itself is a word that could mean all sorts of things, and it doesn't actually necessarily even need to mean financial wealth. So we'll get into the definition part in a minute, but it's it's an interesting concept. Like when when I first sort of started in in this space, to be honest, wealth wasn't even on my radar. Like I just wanted to understand money. And I started in the money space, and then it kind of grew into sort of confidence and a bit about financial independence. I I grew up in a very sort of matriarchal family, which is interesting because my dad came from a very patriarchal society and culture. But I had some really strong women in my world that tended to counterbalance that a fair bit to the point where I almost saw this level of independence as not such a even in myself, like I just followed that path because we tend to follow the patterns that we see 'cause it's familiar and we can understand it. And our brains think it's safe because everyone around us who's experienced it is still alive, so it must be safe. And to a certain extent it is, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's something you're going to end up thriving with. But this level of independence was almost to our detriment because you kind of were like, I don't... Like when my parents separated, my mom was so fiercely wanting to maintain her independence and she knew that money was often used as a bargaining chip and and some sort of leverage, and she didn't want that to influence how she raised me. So she didn't want to be beholden to my dad for money because then he could make some demands on the things that she was doing with me. So she sort of sacrificed herself financially in a way for that level of independence. So I saw this and went, okay, independence is what you need to strive for. We need to be independent, but I didn't see the shadow side of that at the time. I do now obviously, 'cause I've been on this personal development journey and, you know, life experience, it just you know, helps you have a different level of perspective. So I strived for that quite a lot, not just even financially independent, but in any kind of way. I didn't want to have anybody telling me what to do because I saw that a lot in my dad's culture. The women didn't earn their own money, so they were able to be told what to do by their husbands and their husbands would dictate where they could go, who they could see, what they could do, all these things. And I was like, "I don't want anybody telling me what to do, so I'm going to go do my own thing. I'm going to be just me." And that is great to a certain extent, but that doesn't mean that you're not open to any kind of help, and it doesn't need to even be financial help and it doesn't even need to come from a man or a husband. You can have help from your girlfriends. You can have support. You can support them and they support you, and and it's taken me a long time to really get comfortable asking for help. Even still, I'm not overly fantastic at it, but I'm getting better. I feel like we're in a support group. So we've and it's amazing, so this concept of wealth has flowed through to all of these different things which is why the first thing I wanted to talk about was identity and beliefs, because when we look at what we believe to be true, whether it is actually true or not is another thing. So we we can challenge that, and it's often easier for somebody on the outside to challenge it. I had clients a couple of weeks back where we were going through habits and beliefs and I I was challenging some of them to the not because I knew them better, I was challenging why they had them, and whether, in terms of habits in particular, which I'll get to in a moment, they were actually bad habits. You know, some of the things they were saying, was like, "I actually think that's a good habit," but if you don't, that's the thing. Like if you believe that this is not a good habit, then that's what matters, and why do you believe that? And then if we look at our beliefs in relation to our identity and who we believe we are, you know, do and I look back at, you know, childhood 'cause that's where all this really originated, we were often told things and we took that on. You know, I took on for the longest time that I was shy. Clearly I am not shy. As a child though, to the outside world, they might have thought I was almost mute because I didn't really say much. When we were at social functions, especially if it was an environment where I wasn't familiar with the people, I didn't really know anybody, I wouldn't really speak at all. At school, for probably the first three years of primary school, I sat under the stairs in recess time. I didn't really interact with anybody. I didn't really have well, I I didn't have any friends at school. And so everything happened outside of that main part of my world.So, I had almost, like, these, like, multiple identities in a way. Because at school, I was this shy kid who, you know, nobody spoke to, and I didn't speak to anyone. I had no real friendships. I didn't really say much in class. I answered if the teacher asked me, but that was pretty much it. But get me into a social environment where I'm comfortable, and I was a chatterbox. Like, literally, little miss chatterbox. And so when my mom would get these report cards from the school saying, you know, "Oh," you know, "When, when she interacts, she's," you know, "she's, she's good, but," you know, "it's hard to get much out of her." And she'd be like, "Are they talking about my daughter, like the, the chatterbox that can't shut up, at home?" But I'd, I'd convinced myself, or I had the belief that I was this shy person. And I was always a bit on the chubby side. I used to have my cheeks pinched by my dad and his culture. He was always telling me I was chubby. So I, I had this identity that I was chubby. And it only kind of took me years later when a really good friend of mine would say, "You really need to wear shorts more. You've got killer legs. Show them off." And I'm there going, "No, I don't. They're chubby." And, and even... so it's just so silly. And then these, these are things that then flow into other areas of our lives as well. You know, "I'm not good with money," or, "I make bad decisions," or da, da da... and then you'll find things happen to validate that. To the point where, you know, you might have invested in something and the price went down. You're like, "See, told ya I shouldn't have invested, because as soon as I do, the price will crash." And I'm like, "Yeah, but hang onto it, and then... but don't sell out, then," would be the, my response to that. I was like, "Just wait. If you don't need that money right now, and hopefully when you've invested it, you don't need it right now. Like, you know, investment is more of a longer-term thing." So it's understanding how our identity and our beliefs around who we are as our, our identity is impacting the choices we're making, the decisions we're making, the action we're taking, and the, the physiological feeling in our body around money and wealth in particular. Because wealth is what will give you that financial independence. It will give you the ability to make greater choices, to live the lifestyle you want, to, to go on the holidays that you want, to help your kids out if you need to, to make the choices to eat healthier whatever it happens to be for you. That's what money and wealth can actually do for you. So then that... like, challenging your identity or exploring the beliefs you have around your identity becomes really, really important. secondly then become the habits and the stories that go alongside that, so with that level of identity. So if you believe that you're bad at money, then your habits will be paying bills late, for example, or paying the minimum balance on your credit card instead of paying it off at the end of the month. It'll be, you know, constantly having to dig into your emergency fund or savings account to pay for stuff that, you know, was unforeseen and never having any real money in there, so... Or you're having to take money from different accounts. Even if you've got a certain level of organization, financially, it still won't totally hum and work. And they then become the habits as a result of the beliefs that you have around your identity, and then the stories that just get repeated. I was listening to a podcast the other day, and it was talking... the speaker was a, was a money person. I I love listening to anything about money. And she was saying how, for women in particular, if, like men talk about money, it's, you know, it's just an accepted topic. If women talk about it or women want money, it's considered greedy. And I was like, "I hear this story so many times," and I have to admit, it made me a little bit, like a little bit angry. I was like, "Why is this making me angry?" I was like, "Because it's a story." Whether the story's true or not, it's still a story, and if we keep perpetuating the story, it's going to live on and on and on, and it's never gonna go away. And I'm not saying that we hush it up and we don't talk about it, but we need to change the narrative here. We need to stop talking about how, you know, when women want money, it's greedy. When women want wealth, it's about making sure that our physiology and our beliefs and our understanding of why we want it is clear. We don't have to justify it to anyone. We don't... we talk to the right people. It doesn't mean that you are in any kind of group environment, and you talk to anyone about money. You, you curate who you have these conversations with. It's the same as when... if you want, if you want something encouraging, if you want someone to give you honest feedback, you find the right people to give you feedback. You don't talk to the person you know is just going to put like crap all over it. So you do the same thing with money. Have the right conversations with the right people in the right environments, and make sure it's aligned to what you want, and that your belief system and your stories are aligned to that. I I don't watch the news very often. I still hear about what's going on, because people love to share bad news. It's on Facebook. It's, you know, open up a web browser to do something. There are the headlines. It's kinda hard to miss. I read the financial news, and through that, I often find out about other things that are going on, because the other things are impacting the financial side of it. But I don't... I... you know, even just the other day there was a, another, another young one who was talking to my daughter, and she was telling her this story about how.. An 84-year-old woman had gone missing from her home. And I could just see my daughter's face, like it just freeze up and instantly go to think about her grandmother, who's around similar age. And I was like, "She doesn't need to know this." Like, ugh, there's, you know, great things happening every day as well. And then also talking another story about how there's a seven-year-old who was abducted from their home. And my daughter, one of the fears she has is, you know, kidnapping and so forth. And I was just, I don't know where she gets this from, but you know, but there's, there's stuff in DNA and past lives perhaps. Who knows? And I "She didn't need to know this stuff." Our, our, if our lives aren't improved or uplifted by the knowledge, then don't share it. don't need to know this stuff. And the same thing going with some of the stories. We don't need to perpetuate them again and again. We need new stories, ones that are actually going to help us go where we want to go. So I I get very passionate about this, as you can tell. So I will take a breath and calm down and get back to focusing the topic that I wanted to today, which is why wealth is available to you. But you see the power of stories and what they can do for us physiologically as well as in practical, real terms, and the the results that we experience, and the level of peace that we experience, or not, or lack thereof. So then defining wealth becomes important. What does wealth actually mean to you? Does wealth mean, you know, owning a multinational company traveling the world in a private jet, or traveling first class or business class everywhere, or, owning... Like, or does it mean having the freedom to choose what house you live in, what suburb you live in, choosing whether or not you want another car in two years or not? Are you happy with the one you've got? Then keep it. Do you take the upgrade for the, the hotel when you travel somewhere because, yeah, it's a little bit nicer and you feel like it? You know, or is it being able to choose the school that your children go to, you know? If you wanna send them to a, an independent school and you're paying school fees, you can choose to do that. So wealth is different for every single person, so it's really important to understand what wealth actually means for you. Ultimately, in my opinion, like the, the, the foundation is choice. It gives you the power to choose. And if you feel wealthy, it doesn't matter whether or not you've got millions of dollars in the bank account. If you can choose to do the things that you want to do, then you have wealth. I've known many people who are financially possibly excessively wealthy and they're miserable. You know, they're complaining about stuff, you know, "Oh, this person didn't deliver what they..." And they're, they're constantly experiencing turmoil. And I'm like, "So the money alone hasn't gotten rid of that." They can throw money at it to solve the problem, but the problems are still there. So it just, it just makes different problems in some cases, but it also then changes your ability to solve them, yes. And having money is obviously much nicer than not having it. But wealth is something to make sure that it's really, it resonates with you and what you want it to be. And that it's possible for you, but it has to be aligned with your values and what you actually want it for, which is why the next step here is purpose. What is the purpose for your money? So I'm not talking about life purpose and, you know, you're here because you want to, you know, be like Mother Theresa and give it all away. That's not it at all. But if you look at someone like a Warren Buffett, he's amassed an immense amount of wealth, and I think was it 5%? I think his 'cause his, you know, he's, he's getting on in age, so the, you know, there's some point his, his human body will, will no longer be. So he's, you know, planning for what he's what he's, what he's gonna do with all this wealth. I think it was 5% or 3% or something, like rather small percentage amount of his wealth is actually going to his, his children, his family. Which when you have that much money, that's a lot of money still. And then the rest of it I think was going to the, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. So for whatever charitable work they do. I, I don't get involved in that, that sort of space. But just, you know, from a representation perspective, that's what he's doing with it. So it's, you know, the, the building of the wealth after a while just becomes, okay, well, it's just more zeros, but what am I gonna do with that? What kind of impact? Today, I'm wearing my, I don't know if you can see, I'm wearing my Forgotten Women shirt which is also what triggered some of this conversation, too, because I was like, what money and wealth has allowed me to do is to support foundations like this that are helping women stay in their homes or find homes so they don't have to sleep in their car. For the last two years my daughter and I have done this, this fundraising challenge where we have slept in our car, which is we, we have a sedan, so it is acutely uncomfortable, but then it's meant to be. I see some of the get-ups that people come in and they've got their big SUVs and their blow-up mattresses and, and it's all lovely and dandy. I was like, "That doesn't look very uncomfortable to me." The whole point is to feel the discomfort and be able to connect more with the people we're trying to help. But anyway, that's, that's another tangent. But having a purpose that's just bigger than just making money or just building wealth or just having money for the sake of it. Like what, what do you want it for? Because otherwise it makes it harder to strive for because you're not really emotionally, physiologically connected to what you're doing. Especially for women, it's not just about building more money, more money, more money. And in that way, men and women are different. We need to have more of a purpose or impact behind what we're doing and why we're doing it and the what the result of that is going to, to bring. So doing it to perhaps, like I said, to allow your children to, to go to private schools or, you know, allow them to, to do some other kind of activity or adventure. For you, it might be supporting a charity. I've got a friend who, whose whose mother passed away and had diabetes. And so she supports that cause because it's, it's personal and meaningful for herSo being able to have something that you can do, like I went to Uganda it was probably about 13 years ago now, my goodness time flies, and I love the work that the Hunger Project do, and I love to be able to support them. But I also love the arts, so I love being able to support the Queensland Ballet. I also love animals, so I support a charity that that provides therapy dogs for people who need therapy, like it helps them have an improved quality of life. So, I use my money to be able to support all these different organizations that I feel very passionate about for various reasons. So that's what wealth means for me, being able to have the choice to do the things I want to do, being able to have the experiences that I want to experience, and being able to help the groups that I want to help. And once you start to understand what all of this is, what your beliefs are around yourself and your identity and wealth and what your habits and stories are as the on-flow effect of that, how you define wealth for you, and then the purpose that you have, you start to build that that wealth foundation. And with that comes the confidence, because once you start to see it working, you're like, "I can do this. Yeah, I can actually build it. Oh my gosh, this is doable. I can do this. This is amazing." And so your confidence grows. Once the confidence grows, then you need to create some calm around it, because at the moment it's probably just creating so much physiological tension in your body that's being stored in places that you don't want it stored. You want that you want the calm, you want your whole body to feel calm. You don't want to have this mental load around money anymore. And so with that you can do things like creating automation, so automate money going into savings, automate investing, so that ultimately you can build momentum and then just stop thinking about it. Like, we can stop we can have meaningful, uplifting, practical conversations and and the conversation will then change to, "Oh my God, I can't do this," or, "Money is so hard," da-da-da to, "All right, what are you investing in?" Like see, that's like such a big difference, that conversation. It literally will go from, "Why do I I just don't want to think about this anymore," to, "Okay, so how are you doing that now?" 'cause I've noticed this in myself, the conversation I've had in this space has changed over the years as I've become more confident, knowledgeable, experienced, and just generally calm about it, and I'm like So this year I've started to invest in slightly different things, because I can, and because, like I mentioned in a previous episode, I get bored doing the same thing all the time. So it's like, "Okay, I want to give this a go now." So it's a totally different conversation to rewind maybe 10, 15 years ago where it's like, "Well, what do I do with my money? I have absolutely no idea what to do." So it's from there to there. That's the gap, and that's the gap I'm trying to help you bridge. And this is essentially very much broken down the journey, starting with your identity and the beliefs you have around who you are and what capability you have around money, to what habits that you have when it comes to money, and the stories that you're telling yourself as a result of those, beliefs, habits as well. Then what is wealth for you? What does it mean to you? What's the definition of it for you? What's your purpose around money and building wealth? Like, why do you want it? Like, what's it gonna do? What's the impact you're gonna have? Then start to build your confidence, which is take action and start to do something, and then see it working or at least take the action, commit to yourself to do it, do it, and you build some confidence. Then create the calm around it. Like, just calmly approach all this now, because you've laid the foundations and you have clarity. And then watch the momentum and let build, and pay attention to the languaging you're using and watch how and listen to how your conversations are changing. And you can also see how even my physiology, talking about this, as I go to the end of it, I'm calmer, because that's just how it then flows. And it's a beautiful thing once you get to that, to know that you've been able to create the wealth and that you've done it. You've made the changes, you've done the work, you've gained the clarity to go where you need to go, and now you're just letting it play out, and then you can go enjoy life. Go, you know, do the things that you want to do without having to worry about, "Am I gonna have the money to do that?" Yeah, 'cause you've set it up to have it. You've you've got the system in place. Your identity is of one of a person who can do it So I know you can. Now you need to know you can. So start to think about that. Sit with it, journal a bit if you can. I would really highly recommend, if you can, if you're on the move while you're listening to this, that's great, but you might want to listen to it again when you can sit down with pen and paper, or just sit down with pen and paper and just start journaling what's kind of come up for you as you've listened to this. Because it's important to acknowledge that, because it's where you are right now, and that is an important, beautiful thing, because you will grow and evolve. You can look back and go, "Where was I?" as well if you really want to do this completely, and then you can see your gap stages and your growth as well. And then it becomes exciting because you see, " I'm growing, I'm on the path, and I can't wait to see what comes next." So with that, I will leave you to enjoy your week, and I will catch you in the next episode
