Denise Duffield...:            Hey, lovely. It's Denise here and welcome to Chill and Prosper, my podcast for talking about money, money blocks, money mindset stuff, business, marketing, all the good things to help you do things in an easier, more prosperous and chill way. So today it's a little bit of a different thing for me to talk about, but it's so related to my work, we're talking about high school money blocks to clear.

                                                A lot of people talk about inner child work like helping your inner child to learn to self-love, and self sooth, and all these kind of things. But actually doing inner teen work is really powerful. Inner teen work can absolutely shift a lot of things in your life and business because it's a very intense time of life, it's super intense, it's when your body's changing, things are shifting. And I see a lot of people who are still dealing with money blocks because of their high school years. I'm seeing people with, honestly, a lot of confidence and self-esteem issues that came from high school. And even if you didn't have a "bad high school time", there's still lot of benefit in doing this inner teen work. It can be a really powerful thing to do.

                                                Okay. So what I find for a lot of us as adults, often we have to unlearn things and we have to go back and heal parts of ourselves. And definitely, if you are still figuring out who you are, and what you do, and finding your voice, I really highly recommend going back and seeing who were you before people told you couldn't be that, who were you when you were just kind of innocent, and happy, and doing things that excited you? And for some of you that could be preteen. It took me so long to overcome my resistance and imposter syndrome about writing, but I was writing when I was nine, 10, 11, 12 years old with joy, with ease, for fun and excitement.

                                                And then sometimes then things happen at school that tell you you're not allowed to be that, or you lose focus a little bit on some of the things that you loved. So there's a ton of unlearning, I think, for us all to do, and some of these will be more applicable to you than others, but really start to think about how resistance and challenges that you're having in your business at the moment, how it can be related to some things you learnt as a teenager.

                                                Okay. So I grew up... I'm Australian, if you haven't heard my accent, mate, I'm Aussie, mate, but I grew up in Sydney for starters. I went Dee Why Primary School, and then I moved to the central coast of New South Wales, and I went to Brooke Avenue Public School and The Entrance High School. Now The Entrance High School was just a normal public school, so was Brooke Avenue. And everyone kind of very similar, we were, I would say, lower-middle class, and there was a ton of people like me who had single parent families and low income families. And it was a really great way to grow up. I look at people who grew up in America, like for me, I see American TV shows and things where high school feels like it's a very different beast, I think, than it is in Australia.

                                                But it's so funny, as I said, my primary school, Brooke Avenue, I was remembering the school song and I have to sing it to you because it's actually really funny. You know that (singing), that song? So that was our school song. So I have to sing it. Sorry, I have to. It went (singing). It was so cool and I remember every... And there was another fucking chorus about at it. So yeah, growing up, I was never super cool, but I wasn't super uncool, I was kind of just in the middle. And I still have a ton of money blocks from school.

                                                So if you're someone who school was a traumatic experience, it is so worth dealing with this stuff. I see people who were bullied at school and it really impacts their self-esteem, their confidence, their ability to be visible. I see people who are popular, but their friends turned against them, and that creates issues, and all sorts of things. So let me just quickly tell you mine and then I'll go through some other things that I saw.

                                                So a big thing that I had to unlearn was being called bossy. Now I don't remember it so much at primary school, but it really kicked in in high school. I was on the debate team, the yearbook team, the, I don't know, school leader stuff. I was vice captain of my primary school. My captain was [Christie Monery], my beautiful friend Christie. So I was always kind of a bit of a leader and I can see this playing out now in my youngest, Piper.

                                                So she is such a strong personality and she's like me, she just likes to kind of tell people what to do. And we were just walking along yesterday and she goes, "I'm not bossy." And I was thinking, "Where did that come from?" And it comes already from school. At the time of me recording this she's three and a half, she's already been called bossy. What the heck? And I said, "No, you're a leader." She goes, "I'm a leader." And I said, "Anytime someone calls you bossy you tell them, "No, I'm a leader."." Because I really want to instill that in her because it took me so long to unlearn that bossy feeling.

                                                I did not hire anyone in my business for years because I didn't want to be called bossy. I didn't want to set boundaries in my Facebook group because I didn't want to be called bossy. I didn't want anyone to think I was too good, or I don't know. I remember someone saying, "Oh, you think you know everything." And I was kind of like, "But I kind of do. I'm sorry, but I'm really smart and I actually do know this better than you." But there was just something there about don't be too smart, or don't tell everyone the answer, hold yourself back.

                                                So if that's you that is absolutely something to unlearn. Like, "It's safe for me to be the boss, it's safe for me to be in charge." And really see how that is impacting you in your business today. Whether you are not putting yourself forward for things, you're not taking charge, you're not hiring people. Maybe you do have a team, but you're not telling them what you want them to do, you're afraid of being a leader and setting the agenda. So that's absolutely a big one for so many of us as entrepreneurs to let go of.

                                                Okay. Here's another big one that I hear all the time. People who are afraid to shine because shining and being the center of attention was an extremely negative experience for them at school. So whether you got the lead in the school play, or a boy liked you, or a girl liked you and someone wasn't happy about that, or you got an award, or someone was jealous of you, then that can absolutely impact you today. Maybe you hold yourself back from visibility. Maybe you don't want to outshine other people in your family, you don't want to outshine your friends, you don't want to make more money than your mentor. It could be something like that where you just were told that, "Hey, you're such a show off. You always have to be the center of attention." It could be something even from your report card, that you were like that in class, or maybe it was just something that happened within your friendship group and they weren't happy about it.

                                                Now I talked about bullying and I think there's so much healing to be done from being bullied because it can be so cruel, it can be so horrible. My husband Mark was bullied at school too and it did impact him for a long time because it wasn't safe for him to be himself. So if you were bullied about things like the way you looked, a disability that you might have had, or your appearance, or something that made you different, that can be extremely painful now to be honest about that, or to accept that about yourself. To think, "Oh, okay, well I'm not super skinny so I can't be on camera because everyone will bully me." And at school, well, especially for my school, the hot girls were surfer girls who were very skinny and they were blonde. So there was one ideal of beauty at school. And yes, definitely there still is that, there's still so many binary depictions of what success can look like.

                                                But on the other side of that, we live in a world where difference can be celebrated and there's so much more acceptance about just being who you are, loving who you are. And I really want you to heal that part of yourself that might feel shame still about who you are and what you look like because we live in a world now where you don't have to just be friends with the people in your town, in your school, the whole world is open to you and there'll be people, and customers, and followers, and friends, and listeners, and audience who will love you for who you are, absolutely love you. Okay. So I've got heaps more to share about high school money blocks and I will be right back after this very quick break.

Danielle:                              Hi, my name's Danielle and I am a dog mom living in the suburbs of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. I joined the Money Bootcamp a couple of years ago and for me of the biggest mental shift I had to make was allowing myself to earn more than my dad had earned. And working through the bootcamp exercises I was able to not only negotiate myself from just under six figures to well towards a quarter of a million dollars a year in salary and bonus compensation. I was able to also negotiate departure from that same role so that now I can start my business as a career coach and professional career mentor. So I am super grateful to Denise and to everybody in the bootcamp for all the inspiration, especially Mara who is there all the time and lifts our spirits. So thank you so much. Take care. Buh-bye.

Denise Duffield...:            Okay, welcome back. So even thinking about this might be quite painful for you, especially if you didn't have a good time at high school and my heart goes out to you, absolutely, because it can be so painful and so damaging to experience bullying at school. Because it feels really real at the time, it's such a short period of your life, especially high school, it's only really a couple of years, but it can impact you for life. Okay. So I talked about the bossy thing, like safe to shine, bullying about your appearance, or any differences that you might have away from the norm of what was considered cool at your school.

                                                Okay. A couple of other things, so if you had learning difficulties at school, that can absolutely give you money blocks now. So I wasn't very good at math at school, I had to have a tutor and I really had this perception for a long time that I wasn't good at numbers. And then I took that one further, "I'm not good with money." And so even now, I still have to use my calculator for everything. I use my calculator on my phone to do very simple sums because I'm still not good at math, but I'm really freaking good with money nowadays. I love earning money, but I equated that high school difficulty with money. I also had undiagnosed ADHD. I only really discovered that diagnosis as an adult, even though it was incredibly apparent. It's just that everyone in my family had it, and so I didn't think that I had it, I thought I was the normal one and I thought I was just disorganized, or something like that.

                                                So I have to unlearn so many things around that undiagnosed ADHD, like, "Oh, I'm a lazy person. Oh, I'm just not good at that particular thing. Oh, I'm disorganized." Ditto, it could be dyslexia for you, it could be something like that where you didn't like reading books at school, and so you feel guilty reading audio books because they're like, "Well, that's not real. That's not real." You might have a story that you're not smart enough. You might have a story that, I don't know, that no one will accept you if you were honest about some things that you struggle with. So there's so much stuff, right?

                                                And I really highly recommend you go and look at your high school report cards. And I did this only recently. And it was like, "Denise is really clever, but she doesn't apply herself." "Denise is really smart, but she's not organized enough in class." And I have a lot of compassion now for that girl because she was living often in chaotic situations because I think my mom has ADHD too, and she was doing the best she could with no help and understanding around ADHD. I fell through the cracks like so many women do, so many girls do.

                                                And so, one thing that was really cool about that though is like, "Denise always is talking in class." And I'm like, "Hey, that's what I do now, I talk." And some people go, "Oh, I don't know how you could sit and film so many videos in a row, or film so many podcasts." And I was like, "Yeah, go have a look at my report cards. I was born to do this, I could talk underwater." And that gave me a sense of shame for a long time. "Oh, you're so talkative. Oh God, Miss Talk-a-lot, Miss Chatter-box." And now I'm like, "Hey, every word spilling out of my mouth makes me money. Every single word makes me money."

                                                So that's a really fun thing to do is to go and look at your report card and see what you can transmute. If someone called you flaky, "Oh gosh, she's always got so many ideas." Well, great, someone can pay you for that now, you can be an ideas consultant for other people. "Oh gosh, she was always nurturing and taking care of everyone else." Yeah, well that probably makes you an amazing holder of space for people. "Oh, she was really quiet." Yeah, cool, well that maybe is something that's is your superpower. Your quietness, your deliberate attitude, your deep listening for people. "Oh, he or she was always the life of the party, they were the life of the party." Yeah, good, that's what makes you such a great connector of people, that's what makes your Facebook group their place to hang out.

                                                And of course, if you were bullied, then I'm sure your compassion for other people is just off the charts. So there's a lot of things you can transmute there, but if you do need any deep healing, I really highly recommend going to get some therapy, especially if you are super severely bullied, that kind of pain can really live with you and it's absolutely worth going and getting some proper therapy around it so you're not constantly living in that space. It could bring up fight or flight, or, "Everyone's going to reject me." Or anything like that. Really amp up your imposter syndrome or make you fearful about releasing things in your business.

                                                But here's something that I did that was just such a cool experience. So as I said, I love inner child work, I've done a ton of inner child work. If you're listening and you're a Money Bootcamper, go to the bonus section, there's a meditation about healing your inner child, there's some really great stuff there. And I bought my inner child a little teddy bear and did lots of work around it, heaps and heaps. So I was like, "What do I do for my inner teen? How do I heal this part of myself that's still so pained about those high school years?" So I bought my inner teen some cool stuff.

                                                I actually went into a store that like, I didn't ever feel cool enough to go into and I never had those cool clothes. And in Australia, that's Billabong for me, the surf wear company. I was like, "My inner teen would've loved a Billabong swimsuit, a Billabong bag." Just some cool stuff. And that's probably why I still a little bit like a teenager sometimes because my inner teen was so starved of cool stuff. And my inner team was so starved of self-care because I didn't know how to do it. So what would your inner teen need? And it could even just be a little talisman for a little bit, something you put on your key chain, or a sticker, or a store, or an experience.

                                                And you can just sit with it for a while. I really felt myself walking alongside of that inner teen and I would just send her love and just be like, "You're enough. You're enough. You are a safe. It's safe for you." And kind of gave myself those words that I probably would've needed at like 15, 16, 17, "You're enough. You're smart. You're clever. It's okay for you to be a boss. It's okay for you to be smart." All those things. So whatever it is for you, you can do that, you can give yourself permission to be the star of your own show, to be the center of attention, to be the boss, to be the chatter box who turns words into cash, to use your cleverness and your abilities to help other people to be fabulous exactly as you are. So if you've been just dialing everything down because you're ashamed, or you still live with that bullying thing, what if you just dialed it up and you allowed yourself to be as beautiful and fabulous as possible?

                                                It could be a hobby that you had to give up in a high school. Maybe your parents didn't have any money for you to ride horses, or take dance lessons, or you had to give up playing soccer, or something like that, you had to give it up. Or you just weren't allowed to explore some parts, you always had to study and you weren't allowed to go out, go to nightclubs, or go to shows, or something like that. What would your inner teen love to go, and be, and do, and have because that will really fill up that little spot and just give yourself permission to make more money as you are now as an adult without that teen angst still living within you.

                                                And these things, they might sound trite, but they're not. It's just letting go of old programming that will make you just run so much more efficiently. It's like an old computer, right, that's running all these old programs, let go of some of them, and it suddenly gives you all this bandwidth to go, "Wow, I've always wanted to do this. I've always wanted to do that." And it'll be really cool.

                                                So I would love to hear, I love hearing your stories. I want to hear your high school money blocks that you want to clear and let go of. And what did you miss out on? What would you like to experience to really fulfill that inner teen missing part of you? Yeah. Let me know, I'm @denisedt on every social media account and I want to hear your teen stories please. And don't go away because I've got one more final thought right at the end. Okay. See, in a sec.

Kathy:                                   Hey beautiful, my name is Kathy [Finnan]. I live in Newcastle, New South Wales and I'm a success mindset coach for overwhelmed entrepreneurs. I read Get Rich, Lucky Bitch! This year after I found it on Denise' website and pretty much stalking her for a while now. Two things that really stood out for me, well, firstly, I learned how to feel abundance so I could attract more abundance into my life and Denise showed me how it was possible to grow my business and still enjoy a successful life with ease and flow.

                                                I also learned so much about pricing. I was undercharging and setting my prices based on what was acceptable and the norm for coaches. And after the book, I increased my prices for my time and continued launching new packages and now I earn so much more. I highly recommend Denise's book to anyone who wants to breakthrough limiting money beliefs and what's possible for you, your income, and your business for the highest good of all.

Denise Duffield...:            Hi and welcome back. This is my final thought and it is about comparisonitis and how painful it can be to be comparing you and your life to somebody else and someone else's business. It's so painful and I'll tell you what I do to shield myself a little bit from it. So if there's someone who triggers me and makes me feel less than, I unfollow them, or I mute them. And it's totally safe for you to do that, right? There could be lessons in it, yes, everyone's a mirror, blah, blah, blah. But some people, it's just not a nice energy to feel that. So that's one of the first things I can do.

                                                I also don't really look too much at my competitors, I don't read their books, I don't follow them, and not because I'm not supportive of other people in my industry, gosh, heaps of people talk about money mindset, but it's more that I don't want my voice to be influenced by their voice and I want us just to be able to be very clear in our own individual voices and I don't want to start comparing my stuff to them unfavorably.

                                                So the other thing though is that I love following people who are successful and who have a quality that I want to emulate. So it's totally safe for you to see those versions of success and go, "Wow, that's possible for me as well." And this is particularly important. If you've got a story about something about yourself that you can't change, like the color of your skin, or your age, or your height even. I've even heard people have stories about their hair, like, "Oh, I've got curly hair, I can't be wealthy." But if you can follow people like that who aren't necessarily competitors of yours, but they showcase for you that it's possible for you as well, that's the best form of comparisonitis because you go, "Wow. If they can do it, maybe I can do it." "Wow, if she can do that with that accent that's like mine maybe I can do it as well." "Oh wow, if he can do that and he's just showing up exactly how he is, maybe that's something that you need to see."

                                                So a little affirmation for you could be, "It's just safe for me to be me. It's safe for me to be me." And every time I've seen someone and I've felt a little bit of jealousy, I say to myself, "Good things are happening to me too. My lucky break is just around the corner." So that might help for you as well. All right, I'd love to hear from you as always, send your ah-has, comment on when I post this on Instagram and I want to hear what comes up for you. All right, gorgeous, have an amazing week, I'll see you next week. Bye.