Denise Duffield...:            Hey friend, it's Denise Duffield-Thomas here and here is another episode of Chill and Prosper. If you couldn't tell by the jingle, it's Chill and Prosper and I'm Denise Duffield-Thomas. Anyway, this week's episode, I am celebrating 10 years of my course, Money Bootcamp, and I'm going to share 10 lessons from 10 years of Money Bootcamp. So we have had about eight and a half thousand people go through that course now, about 8,000 who are actually in the group. And yeah, it's been a big, big journey. So it's obviously a very financially successful course. It's being different price points, but anything between a thousand, $2,000. So it's a multimillion dollar course, but I didn't expect that it was going to be okay. So that's my first lesson is if you were starting something right now, it doesn't have to be perfect.

                                                The first version of Money Bootcamp, I filmed it on an iPad in my little spare office and so it didn't have amazing sound. It wasn't crisp. I didn't get professional hair and makeup. It was just me sitting some of the lessons I did in my pajamas. It was just very basic and low quality, but the messages actually pretty much stayed the same in that whole time. So the first lesson is you do not have to be perfect to get started. I didn't start off Money Bootcamp thinking, oh wow, this is going to be a multimillion dollar course. I'm going to change thousands of lives. I was like, "I've got something to tell people and I want to share it and I'm going to do it no matter what." And so I did it all myself. I did the handouts myself. I did the video editing myself.

                                                I created the membership site myself and it was just simple, simple, simple. So where are you over complicating things? Where are you waiting for it to be perfect to start? Where are you waiting for the money to come in to make it all sexy? You could start really, really, really simple. That's the lesson number one, you do not need to be perfect. You can just get started. Lesson number two of doing 10 years Money Bootcamp is community is worth charging for. So it's a course, Money Bootcamp, you watch lessons and videos and there's handouts and things, and I have a Facebook community as part of that. And holding space for people is real work. Community building is real work and so many times we discount that. I see people who run Facebook groups for free or they just think it's an add-on, not realizing how much work goes into creating a community.

                                                There's a cost to it, it is an energy cost. There's dynamics to deal with, but also how much people need that and it's totally worth charging for. Some people come into Money Bootcamp, and they've only ever done one or two lessons as in they've visited the membership site, but they soak up the lessons via the community. And that's a very valuable thing for some people where can you create that space where you bring people together to learn from each other, not just from you, learn from each other. Community is totally real work. So that was number two is community. Community's real work and it's worth charging for. Number three is it's always new to someone. It's always new to someone. Sometimes I think, oh, everyone's heard this. Everyone's heard stuff that I've talked about in Money Bootcamp, but yet we have new people join almost every day.

                                                And they're like, "Oh, this is so amazing. Oh, I've never heard this before." And I think it's always new to someone. So don't discount stuff because you are bored with it or you think you know it because of course you do, you're the teacher of it, but it's not about you. It's about the people that you can help. And so there's definitely times where I thought, ah, yeah, everyone's seen this now, whatever, but then I go, "No, it's always, always new to someone." And that's the gratifying thing is that there's so many more people that you can help and it doesn't have to be super unique all the time. You just have to put your own spin on something. And so I've been doing this work for 10 years and I even find new things for myself too in it.

                                                Okay. So that was number three. It's always new to someone. Number four is you can always find new nuances within your work. I do monthly live calls for the community and we pick something, well, I pick something to talk about and it could be something like, "Hey, let's talk about weddings and money." And I'm never quite sure where it's going to go. And I even say to people, "Even if you've never been married, let's come and talk about the concept of weddings and money." And we can find nuances there that unlock new things for everybody. So I know in myself now, I could literally just get a random word generator and I could find any word and I could run a whole money mindset lesson around it. Anything. School shoes, what can we learn about your school shoes growing up and your money mindset?

                                                I can find them work anywhere. So there's something there about with your own work, where can you find new, fresh angles and find those deeper nuances? So then you don't get bored, but also it's fun to find those different angles.

                                                I always found with some of my earlier businesses, I would run out of steam at the six month mark. I'd go, "Oh, I'm done with this now. I've been doing this work for 10 years. I still find new layers and new nuances." So I think that's a lesson too, of going if you're bored with your business, do you just need to find a fresh angle or is it something that's run its course for you? And it's totally okay. Totally okay if things have run its course. But yeah, I'm 10 years in. I hope I'm still talking about this. And actually, if you look at some people in the personal development world, they're talking about the same stuff again and again and again and again, and they've just found little nuances. Oh, they're holding the space for people to learn that lesson again and again.

                                                And I used to think I had to entertain people in different way, like... And I'm like, "No, I am the steady person they come back to when they need to work on their money mindset work." I don't have to constantly entertain them in new and exciting ways. I just find new nuances and that keeps me entertained too. Okay. So that's a big lesson. Lesson number five, you don't have to do all the work yourself. You don't have to hold all this about face yourself. This was such a hard lesson for me. Okay? Because as I said, I did the first version of Money Bootcamp by myself and then I started getting help. I'd get a video guy to help or I'd get a graphic designer to help, but I was still doing everything in the course myself.

                                                So I would do all the calls. I'd do them different time zones. I answered everyone's questions myself. And when it got to about a couple of thousand people, I started feeling so overwhelmed and so responsible. And I had young kids at the time so I was up at night nursing and stuff. And so I would be like, "Well, I may as well check in for a couple of minutes to the Money Bootcamp group at three o'clock in the morning or five o'clock in the morning." And then before I'd go to bed, I'd be like, "I'll just check in for a little bit." And it got to the point where I was feeling anxious all the time about being responsible for people's experience, answering every single question that they had. And I remember even at 5,000 people, I was still answering all the questions myself, but I could feel the group's growth slowing down.

                                                And if you are at a plateau with your course or your group or your customer base, I want you to hear this because I could not hold that space by myself anymore. And I was extremely reluctant to get help. And I remember someone saying, "Oh, just get a community manager to come in and help you." And I was just like, "I can't. People expect me to be there." And by the way, my course with Money Bootcamp, you pay once and then you can be in the group forever to get that support. It's no ongoing fees, but I was feeling like I had to be there for every single question that anyone had in their life, day or night. I felt really bad. And so I very, very reluctantly hired a community manager who's our beautiful Mara, if you're in the group.

                                                And just for someone else to be there when I was asleep, because I'd go to bed sometimes thinking, oh God, people going to be disappointed or are they going to have fights or someone... Back then before I had boundaries, which is the next point after the break, people would start fights in there all the time. And I'd just be like, "Oh, God." And I remember thinking, I can't hire someone else because what if they like her more than me? I was like, "Ugh." But I could not hold the space anymore.

                                                I was slowing down the growth of helping people. I wanted to help more people. And with the model, I couldn't just go, "Okay, we're cutting it off now guys," because I would've earned no money from that. So it was very tricky for me to realize I didn't have to hold the space myself and I didn't have to be there for everyone 24/7. Now, the next point boundaries we'll talk about in a second after the break, because man, I've learned in 10 years of holding a big space like that, I've learnt so many boundary lessons and we'll talk about that right after this quick break, don't go away.

Speaker 3:                           Hello. My name is Petra. I am from Austria and I joined Money Bootcamp last summer. And since then, so many things have shifted already. Even though I allowed myself to start my own business and earned some passive income, and along the way, I learned so much about my money blocks and I have to do really a lot of mindset work and I love the lives of Denise every month. And I always watch both because they're so powerful and the community is great. Community is the best and Denise is the best. And I started shifting. I even invested in some stocks. I never dared to do that. So every time I do the mindset work and decluttering and forgiving, it just brings up new layers. And since then, I just evolved so much and I'm not scared of money anymore. Thank you for that, Denise. I love you.

Denise Duffield...:            Hey, hey, hey, welcome back. We are talking about 10 years of Money Bootcamp, which is my course and community helping people with their money mindset and sometimes that is dealing with your fears around pricing, letting go of some of your money blocks that you have inherited from your family, and just being really aware of all the money mindset issues that hold you back in business. And by the way, before I forget, I have a special to celebrate 10 years of Money Bootcamp. And it means you can pay it off over 10 months instead of, I don't think we do three or four. So if you go to denisedt.com/ten, and you can do both the number, 10, or T-E-N, you'll be able to join Money Bootcamp on that 10 month payment plan to celebrate 10 years of Money Bootcamp.

                                                All right, so we are talking about 10 years and my biggest lessons. Okay. So we did 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, number six is boundaries. I see a lot of people struggle with boundaries in their business because we don't want to say no. We want everyone to be happy. All the things. Now my biggest struggle as the group had grown to a couple of hundred, then a couple of thousand, then as I said, we're about 8,000 or so in the group, is I wanted it to be a democracy where everyone can just do whatever they like, whatever feels good. And the problem with that is that people do that. And so people would be like, "I want to talk about this and I want to talk about that." And the conversations were getting quite random in there and sometimes controversial because people would bring in things that were their agenda and would cause fights.

                                                So what I realized is that it wasn't a democracy. It was a cheerocracy, meaning that someone has to hold the space. Someone has to be in charge. Someone has to set the rules because it wasn't a democracy. And some of the people who were causing problems in the group, they would just come in. They didn't care. They'd paid their money a couple years before and they didn't care about blowing up a group. They didn't care about pissing people off. So it was my job to make it a good experience for all the new people to come in and to also make it a good experience for anyone who'd been there for a long time, but wanted to revisit the work. So the biggest thing I had to change was this group is for Money Bootcamp. It's not to solve every problem of your life and business.

                                                It's not to get tech recommendations of what software to use. This is to work on the lessons of Money Bootcamp, that's it. And I felt like such a bitch, ah, because I was like, "No, but I want to help." Because that's my personality. I want everyone to be okay. I want to solve every problem everyone's life, but I was doing a really big disservice and I wasn't able to grow the business because it was just too many different things and no boundaries. So people used to DM me to ask their questions. They'd tag me day and night. They'd tag me on Christmas day and there was just no boundaries. So the first thing was just like, "This is for Money Bootcamp, nothing else. We will delete things if they're off topic, we will turn off comments. We don't want any... You have to take responsibility for what you're posting here."

                                                So sometimes people would come in and just post rants, "Oh I hate this about money or I hate this person about money." And so we had to be like, "Okay, you have to take responsibility." So if you always have to post this is me and my stuff, not complaining about someone else's money stuff. And to have responsibility for the energy that you bring into the group. What was interesting about that setting those boundaries is that we started to attract more people who were self-reliant people and people who took responsibility for their stuff and didn't expect me to solve every problem of their life. People who took the lessons and ran with it. And that had to come from me and the energy of setting boundaries and what was appropriate and what was not appropriate to bring to the group.

                                                If you are worried about doing things like that, I understand, but I just encourage you sometimes it's good to have a container so people know what you expect of them. Some people feel very comfortable just knowing what the rules are and you'll find that there'll be people who will uphold the rules. You don't always have to, but sometimes you do have to show that you are upholding the rules too, of not letting people get away with things. And we I've had to push back people and say, "Hey, look, you are actually doing subtle self-promotion in this group, which is against the rules." And that they might be like, "Oh no, I didn't." I go, "Look, it's not what you think it is. The intention of it is that other people see this, they have reached out to me so then they think they can do it and then it becomes this whole big mess."

                                                So that took a lot of work for me. I had to work with my own coaches on it. I had to work on my own mindset issues that came up in my money blocks around, being a bitch, people not liking me, not being generous and kind, all of those things I had to work on. But I had to realize this is my business. And I think we've kicked out three people in that whole 10 years. And most of the time, we don't. You have to be really bad. We'll say to people, "Look, take a break for 30 days. Come back after that. But if you can't follow the rules, then we'll ask you to leave." And we have done that with a few people because I just know if you have someone in your group who is a total pain in the butt, that spreads. You attract other people like that.

                                                It makes the nice people want to leave. It's just not a good situation for everyone. And so you have to be the leader and just say, "This is not acceptable in the group." We had someone who we'd spoken to a couple of times behind the scenes to say, "Look, you're not posting appropriately in the group." Eventually I had to do that publicly and just be like, "No, this is not cool. This is not okay." Another boundary that I set only in the last year or so, ridiculous, taking weekends off being in the group. I switched from being in the group from my personal profile to my business profile. So then when I'm on social media, just checking out my friends and dog pictures, I'm not then feeling like I have to jump in there and answer questions.

                                                So I take Friday off and I come back in on Monday and I do not go in there. And that's eight and a half years, nine years I reckon that took me out of the 10 years. And it was only last year that we started to close the group down over Christmas. We do it at Easter. I'm not a particularly religious person, but we just needed a holiday break for myself, my team, that we are just like, "Cool, we're closing it down." And to be a role model for other people to say, "It's okay for you to do it in your groups." So yeah, the boundary stuff is really important. And that's really the next lessons. Six is boundaries. Seven is people are going to be unhappy with you setting boundaries and that could be hard.

                                                It can feel horrible to have people ask for refunds or people talk about you negatively. People will copy your stuff and that could be disappointing too, but the thing that's kept me going is always seeing those new people come in or the people who have been there for a long time and it's changed their life. And that's who you have to focus on, not the people the odd... I think it's 3% is what I always call it. 3% rule of they won't be happy, no matter what and you will learn from that. I now know that if someone comes in and they're too full on, they're the real fan girl like, "Oh, Denise, you're amazing." I can feel the energy of it. I used to give them special attention because they'd reach out to me privately and I'd end up giving them heaps of special attention.

                                                But they're often the ones who become a pain in the butt, who try and burn down the group, who try and disparage you, who copy your stuff, who ask for a refund, who try and sue you, and I can just feel that energy now. So I think when you've held space for people for so long, you'll see those personalities coming out. You'll see the people who will never be happy no matter what and that's okay. We're like, "Cool, have your money back. If you're within the refund period, awesome. Otherwise, you don't get to stay in the group." And actually I revoked access to someone's course access recently because she admitted she was like, "Oh just copied Denise's work. I don't even care." And I was like, "Cool, all right, you're out." So people will be unhappy.

                                                People will disappoint you. People will push your boundaries and it's tricky. Number eight, you can renegotiate anything. You can renegotiate any part of your business. When I started Money Bootcamp, it was six weeks and then we're done. And then I was like, "Oh, let's do another six weeks. Oh, let's do another." And we ended up doing four times a year, I would do a six week round of Money Bootcamp where I would do two calls a week for six weeks. And so that was a lot of calls in a year because I was always in that space. And then of course you're launching and stuff so I was like, "This is exhausting." And so last year, I started just doing monthly calls and that's it. And so I think it's tricky when you have lifetime access because sometimes people feel like that means nothing should ever change and that you should be there for the rest of their life.

                                                Lifetime access means for the lifetime of the course. And so you're allowed to change things. You're allowed to change the way you deliver things. I don't know how much longer, will I be doing Money Bootcamp for another 10 years? I don't know. Would I say for a year, okay, we're not doing any live calls for a year, but you'll have the support group? Maybe sometime in the future, we wouldn't have a group. You can negotiate lots of things. Just make sure you put in new terms and conditions that you know what people really get and what the length of things is that they get. But that's the lesson for me is that you can renegotiate things because I realized I was like, "I can't live like this." And I'd never promised, "Oh, we'll do 50 calls a year."

                                                But I was just like, "Oh, I may as well do another one, may as well do another one." I'd always promise you just get six weeks of Money Bootcamp, and then that's it. So you can renegotiate and actually a change I made this year, we have a Thursday night call and a Friday morning call and the Thursday night call was eight o'clock and I'd finish it. I was doing them too long, but then I couldn't sleep. And so I was like, "Oh, maybe I could make it seven." And there was part of me that was like, "Am I allowed to do this?" And I went, "It's my business and it has to work for me first. Otherwise, I'm not going to be able to show up and do it." So I went, "Cool. Hey guys, it's at 7:00 PM instead."

                                                And it's for an hour because they used to go for about an hour and a half and I was like, "We don't need it to go longer." So you're allowed to renegotiate. All right. Oh my God. Okay. Number nine is there's always more customers. You might think, oh, everyone's seen this, everyone's done this work, but there's always people out there who will be new for them as I said, but there's always more customers. And so what I actually do for that is I look ahead to people who have got long term courses and see how many students they've had. So for example, Marie Forleo's B-School, Jeff Walker's Product Launch Formula. Some of those guys have been around for a long, long time. And I think, wow, they are proof that there are more customers. So if you've got any kind of personal development course or business course, find a mentor that you can look to.

                                                Because the reason why I do that is not to copy their business model or anything, but for me that's proof because every time I've gone, "Everyone's seen this." I go, "No, they haven't." Because look at their business, they have a similar target audience to me. They've found 50,000, 60,000 people. And so I always say to myself, "You can quit when you've made more than them." That doesn't mean you can't quit, but it's just proof, if that makes sense, that there are always more customers. And number 10 is the mindset work never ends. Being in business is such a privilege, but there's so many mindset lessons around it. In that 10 years of Money Bootcamp, it's challenged me. It's challenged my leadership. It's challenged my boundaries. It's challenged my thoughts about myself, wanting to be liked, wanting to be loved saying no to people, disappointing people, holding space for people, the mindset work never ends.

                                                And so, keep on doing your mindset work and keep on growing your business because it will literally never end. And if you are celebrating a business anniversary this year, I would love to hear from you. Make sure you reach out. I'm @DeniseDT on all social media platforms. Tell me what anniversary that you are celebrating and if you're a Money Bootcamper, thank you for being there. Whether you've been there for a day or you've been there since the beginning, that first group in 2012, thank you so much. I know everyone in that group is just so supportive of each other and it's been a real privilege to be a part of it and to be the leader of there. I always struggle to say leader, but you guys know that I am in there doing the work alongside you, not in front of you.

                                                So thank you, thank you. And if you haven't joined Money Bootcamp and you are curious, well, we would love you to come and join us as well. Go to denisedt.com/ten. You can either do the number or T-E-N and you can pay for it over 10 months. So that's a special thing that we don't always do and it's only at that URL, denisedt.com/ten, T-E-N, or 10, because I would love to see you in there. I would love to help and support you to create your business success. And so yeah, 10 years of Money Bootcamp, thanks so much for being around. And I am going to skip the final thought for today because I did go over. So my final thought is just keep going, keep swimming, and your business growth is coming as well. All right. See you next week on Chill and Prosper.