Denise Duffield...:            Hi it's Denise here and welcome back to another episode of Chill and Prosper, we are the podcast about making things easier and finding nuances around money blocks, money mindset, marketing, and being in business for yourself and entrepreneurship. So thank you for rating and subscribing. Please share this within your business groups, we would love to increase our listenership and I want to get in those top 10 lists of podcasts so that would really help me out if you shared that and just did a really quick like review, you don't have to do anything big and you don't have to give me five stars at all. It just helps people find it.

                                                All right. So today we are talking about something that's very near and dear to my heart as a personal development obsessive, and it's four myths about spending money on personal development. Okay. Four myths about spending money on personal development, because I see backlash sometimes about people buying courses and, "Oh, you don't need to learn this, you can just do it yourself." I see a lot of resistance. I see people underspending. I see pull overspending. I see people holding themselves back from learning things and giving themselves what they really need because of money mindset issues. Okay. So I think it's going to be an interesting conversation.

                                                All right. So let me just take you back for a second, right? So I've always been someone who loves reading. Love, love reading books. And as tween, as a teenager, I loved reading horror, I loved Stephen King, and I loved mystery books, and I loved big novels like Gone With the Wind, that was my favorite book when I was in year five and year six. And I read a lot of romance-y kind of things because my mom used to read Danielle Steel. Okay. So that was my introduction to the world of books. Loved, loved, loved, loved reading.

                                                But I used to go to this secondhand book store after school because I would often lose my keys, ADHD, and it was just around the corner from my house. So I would go and just stand in the aisles and read books in this second hand bookshop until my mom came home and I could go home. And I learned to read very quickly because I wanted to try and read as much of a book as I could because I didn't have any money to buy books. And I think I shoplifted a book once and this is the book that I shoplifted.

                                                So I found this little red book and it was called The Magic of Believing by Claude M Bristol. And it was one of those books that was very popular at the time of being published, which was like those Think and Grow Rich books, and How to Win Friends and Influence People, and a lot of those books were written kind of from the perspective of a white, middle aged male who might want to succeed in his job, succeed at sales and things like that. So the language often is about confidence and setting goals and things like that.

                                                But I read this book and I didn't finish it and I shoplifted it and I feel really bad about that, but the shop's not there anymore. Sorry. I feel bad about it. But I was so engrossed in this book because it was about changing your thoughts, and it was the first time I'd ever read anything about that, about how you could change your life by changing and your thoughts, essentially. I just thought, "No, your thoughts are your thoughts and your family's your family, and your destiny's your destiny." And that's kind of it because I didn't really have that in my life. Even though I watched Oprah after school and I had a general sense of what Oprah was teaching back then in the '90s.

                                                So I was 14 and I went, "Oh my God, what is this thing?" And that's what led me to reading personal development books, books about change your mindset, about goals, about using the law of attraction, for example. And so I started reading that and then I started sharing that with my friends. And then in my 20s I often worked in organizations that had personal development and personal growth and consultancies and things like that.

                                                But I didn't invest any money beyond books in that kind of thing, because I'd go to these conferences, and think about this, this is the early 2000s, right? So I'd go to these sleazy, cheesy conferences where it would be guys in chinos with pagers on their belts, dancing to music, and it would be like, "Put your hand up if you're a winner!" And they'd be like, "Yeah, I'm a winner!" And I would sit there and go, "Wow, this is really weird. And if this is personal development, I really don't want to have any part of it." Because it just felt really sleazy, and weird, and hyper, and just a bit discombobulating in my body, it didn't feel sustainable, and it just felt really gross.

                                                And it wasn't until I found this world of more women teaching personal development, personal growth, entrepreneurship, that that's when I really got into the world of personal development and I started to buy courses. I would spend money on mentors and mastermind programs, and yeah, at conferences and all these amazing things. And it got to a point where I was actually spending a little bit too much money on that. Okay. So this is what we're going to be talking about a little bit today is finding the balance of how much should you spend on personal development, and what are some of the myths around that, and what about some of the guidelines around that?

                                                Now of course, if you've got all the money to spend and you just spending it on personal development and personal growth, I think that's a good thing, and I think that there was a bit of a weird perception about, for example, coaching, when I first started coaching 10 years ago. I actually resisted being a coach for a long time because I thought it just had this stigma around it and people would say, "Oh, are all your clients just friendless, weird people? Are they just paying to be your friend?" Not realizing that coaching is often with people who are motivated to invest in themselves, motivated to find out those little spaces where they can improve, who are self-aware people who are just looking to improve something because they've recognized that there's something wrong there. And that can look very weird to the outside world, okay?

                                                But there's one big myth that I think really annoys me in this world. And it is that you should implement everything in one book, course, or program before you start another. Okay. And it really is one of those punishment things. And I see this with people like they won't put down a book that they hate because they just feel like, "Oh, I've paid for the book." Or it's disrespectful to the author. Instead of going, "This book doesn't resonate with me, I'm just going to put it down."

                                                Same with having discernment around mentors, and things like that. Sometimes you join something and it's not right for you, but you go, "I've got to get my money's worth out of it. I've got to punish myself." And you know who I'm talking to, Katie, if you listen, you don't have to punish yourself. I remember you shared that, I won't share your surname. But I know other people have done this too. They go, "This program is not what I expected it was going to be, I'm not going to ask for a refund. This mentor is not right for me, but I have to do it all to punish myself, to get my money's worth."

                                                The flip side of that is sometimes you join a course and it's really great and you feel guilty that you still haven't finished it all. Okay. And people do this to me in Money Bootcamp all the time, they go, "Wow, I did the first assignment..." Which is the upgrade plan, "And I got so much out of it that I was really motivated to go and work on my business but now I've got to finish Bootcamp." And I go, no, sometimes you join a course for one little element. Sometimes you work for a mentor to get one little change. And that's okay, you don't have to finish everything before you go onto the next thing. It's totally okay to look at what you need right now and have the discernment to end arrangements, or to leave even though you're going to have to pay for it because you feel you need to get your money's worth.

                                                So when I used to go to conferences I would be the front row in every session and feel so much FOMO about having to get my money's worth out of going to everything. And then one of my friends, Victoria Gibson, who we have been to many conferences together, we've been roomies at lots of conferences, I realized that she didn't go to any of the sessions, or she would sit at the back. Or if she came and sat with me in a session, she would talk the whole time. And I was like, "Babe, no, I have to sit by myself."

                                                But I realize that she got just as much out of the events that I did is because she's a connector. So her connections come from meeting people at breaks, meeting people at the bar. She's the one talking to people at making connections at 3:00 AM when I've gone to bed at 9:00. And I download her... She goes, "Oh, what's the best thing you learned today." And I'll go, "Oh, I learned this, this, and this." I'm like, "You sneaky bitch, you got all the cliffs notes versions, you're so smart." You can pay people to take notes for you, by the way, at conferences.

                                                But there's this thing that we have to consume everything and we get massive FOMO about it. And I really think this goes back to our childhood when we are told you have to finish everything on your plate because there's starving children in the world. Even if you don't like it, you have to clear your plate before you're allowed to have dessert. And you know what, we're grownups now, you're allowed to have dessert for breakfast. You're allowed to eat dessert first. You're allowed to buy a program just for one little aspect of it.

                                                I went to an event, I paid $7,000 to go to this VIP day with a group of people. You know what I got out of it? Nothing that was taught on that day was new at all. I don't think I got one single business tip, but the lady was telling me about how she downsized her team because she wanted to simplify her business. And the ah-ha I got out of that, I went, "Oh my God, I have this belief that I can't have a million dollar business without a big team." You know what? The next year I went a million dollars and I had one part-time assistant.

                                                And so I got my money's worth from that event because I got that one ah-ha that shifted everything for me. Okay. So you don't need to implement everything in every program to get the value. You might be procrastinating joining courses or working with mentors at the moment because you've got this hangover thing. "No, I've got to finish my vegetables before I'm allowed to have the dessert." People say this for Bootcamp. "Oh, I'd love to join Bootcamp, but I'm doing this other course now and I need to finish it." No, you do not, you're allowed to get what you need out things, you're allowed to choose. All right. Hopefully that's opened up some stuff for you. I've got another couple of myths and we're going to take a quick break, I'll be right back.

Speaker 3:                           Hi everyone, my name is [inaudible]. I live in Romania and I'm a manifesting business coach and bestselling author. I help women entrepreneurs triple their monthly revenue using manifesting instead of complicated marketing or hustle. I'm all for raising vibration, ease, and abundance. I joined Money Bootcamp back in 2015 after dreaming of buying it for six months.

                                                Back then I was just starting my coaching practice. I had tons of limiting beliefs about money and I had no idea how to manifest my dream life. Now just two weeks ago I had a six K launch in 24 hours, making 10K months is my new normal, and I do it all working part-time. My biggest ah-ha, or the thing that impacted me the most was the incremental upgrades part. I understood that I can get there one step at a time and that's how I have everything that I have now.

                                                Denise is my ultimate mentor. I love the [inaudible] that she teaches. I love her business model. I love the Chillpreneur vibe. Because I modeled her I got here and for that I'm forever grateful. Thank you for existing and creating this awesome community where I feel safe to share my successes and my struggles. I'm so inspired by all the other Bs in the bootcamp who make millions each year and who open the way for me to be able to do the same. It's a must course to buy. I cannot wait to be able to share that I'm also a Chillpreneur millionaire. Thank you so, so much.

Denise Duffield...:            Okay. Welcome back. We are talking about how much to spend on personal development and what myths there are around personal development. And you might have the pendulum swing like I did, I spent nothing then I spent too much, and then now I'm in a sweet spot of discernment.

                                                Okay. So myth number two around personal development is that you should only work with one person at a time. You should only work with one coach at a time. And I think this is a little bit of a guru approach. I've seen this before where big guru coaches come up and they teach everything, they have different levels, they're trying to be everything to everyone. And so it almost trains their followers that that's it, they get everything from that coach or that person.

                                                And you can get different things from different people. You really can. So I'm working with lots of different people at the moment. I'm working with people on getting my books out there in the world. I work with people to keep me accountable. I work with people to teach me a particular thing. I work with people who help me uncover my blocks. So I do a form of EFT one-on-one session every single month. I work with people at different income levels to do that. I am in different masterminds. So I'm in some masterminds just to get techy kind of things and keep my eye on the pulse. I'm in other groups and masterminds to help me learn about fairness, and equality, and equity in the world, and to open my mind about different topics. And then I'm in ones that are just about business and marketing.

                                                So you are totally allowed to work with different people. And where's that line for you? Sometimes people go too far and I'll tell you where it happened for me is that I realize I was not trusting my own wisdom and that I was trying to get answers from other people. So I was like, "What do you think I should do about this? What do you think I should do about that?" And I wasn't making decisions in between, I was waiting to hear from my coach. But that mistake wasn't working with lots of people, it was working with lots of different people on a similar thing, making decisions, instead of realizing that there's different things that I needed from different people.

                                                Okay. So often I'll join a mastermind a year, but then I'll have consults. So I might have an overall kind of inspirational coach. And then I work with someone quarterly who is a bit more plan-y and who will like be that touch point for me in planning, and I do that with Mark too. So we have a quarterly kind of coach. But then I have those people to work on little nuances. Okay. So find your line between trusting yourself and trusting your own wisdom, but also getting the support you need in lots of different ways and not putting all your eggs in one basket, not thinking you should get everything from one place.

                                                And by the way, if you're on the other side of this, if you're a coach, if you're a mentor, if you're a course leader, don't fall into the trap of trying to be everything to everyone as well, and it's okay to set boundaries around that. So for example, in Money Bootcamp, we have boundaries about what we use the group for. The group is not a general generic business and marketing group. So we don't allow questions like, "Hey guys, what webinar software should I use?" Because there are so many other business groups for that. I'm very clear that I can help people with their money mindset in that group and that's it.

                                                Okay. So if you are on the flip side of that and you're trying to do everything for them, you can just say, "That's not my zone of genius." And actually people would ask in Bootcamp too, "Oh, can you put in a lesson about equity, and racial equity, and money?" And I was like, "Oh, maybe I should." And then I went, "You know what, here's this person, who's got an amazing course on that." And so I can acknowledge that that's a problem, but this is not my zone of genius to teach you about it and you have to invest in another coach too, because I'm not everything to everyone and it's okay to have different zones of genius. Okay. So that might even be an ah-ha for you about who you're working with, but also who you're serving and how you're serving and trying to expand it to include too many things.

                                                Okay. So we did myth one, you have to implement everything first. Myth two, you can only do one thing at a time, or you can only work with one coach at a time. Myth number three is an interesting one too and it's a very tricky balance. So the myth is you can't spend it until you've made it. And the balance is so tricky here because sometimes people spend money they don't have to do courses and it doesn't work. But the other times on the other flip side of it is you're trying to do everything yourself when a course could shortcut your success and make you the money quicker. It's a tricky one, right? I acknowledge the... It's hard to know what that line is.

                                                Now in the early days though, I would go, Oh, I'm going to go to this marketing conference." And my husband, Mark, who had massive money blocks too, he would go, "But don't everything now? Don't everything about marketing now?" And then not realizing that personal development is not a one and done thing, motivation is not a one and done thing, marketing knowledge, there's always so much more to learn. I've got a multimillion dollar business, there's so much more I could learn about marketing and different areas that I have no idea about. And that's why I keep on spending on courses. I don't know everything. I don't know everything now.

                                                But you could be getting pushback from people in your life going, "Well, you're not making any money, you can't do that course. Why are you going to that conference, you're not making any money?" Or even things like, "You're not making any money. So we can't get extra childcare." And sometimes this is a chicken or egg thing. You're not making any money yet because you don't have time to work on your business. You're not making any money yet because you're getting so stuck with your money mindset. You're not making any money because you don't know how to do it and you're wasting time trying to figure it out yourself.

                                                And so there's discernment around that for sure. Look at what you need to learn, what's holding you back from making money, what skillset do you need to learn, what mindset work you need to learn, what would help you to actually make money? So most businesses like pre-internet needed investment. If you wanted to start a shop, it would cost a lot of money to set that shop up. If you wanted to set up a local business, or a local service, back in the olden days, you wouldn't have a business unless you had an ad in the Yellow Pages, unless you had a shop front, unless you had business cards.

                                                And there's something there though about the intangible of an online space not being as respected. And I believe working on your money mindset is an incredibly valuable and integral part of running a business. And that's why I always say to people, "Money Bootcamp is one of the best investments you'll ever make." And people tell me, "Money Bootcamp is one of the best investments I've ever made." Because money mindset is the most intangible thing ever, but it will stop you from making money. You might be just wasting so much time and effort, just trying to do things yourself, trying to push through. And it's totally okay to spend money before you've made money with that caveat of be smart about it and find that line. Because some people I've seen, they've been around for a while, and they're doing course, after course, after course and they're just not freaking doing it, they're not making any money because they're not taking action in between.

                                                Okay. So you'll find the balance for you, you've got to learn and implement, learn and implement, and set an intention that you'll make that money back very quickly. Okay. So you could set an intention that you'll join a course, you'll make your money back in a month, or a year, depending on the investment, and that's just, it's a smart business decision, and don't let people turn you off it just because it might be personal development, or it might be something that they don't feel like they need to invest in.

                                                Okay. So myth number four, "There's so much free stuff out there, why even pay for it? I'll just do it myself." Okay, so remember Janet Jackson singing (singing). And Luther Vandross goes, "Free, baby." Yes, the best things life are free. Absolutely. Of course being with your family and doing all the things, your kids face smiling, free, cool. There's so much free stuff. Yes, you can learn everything. Yes, you can learn stuff from this podcast. Yes, you can go check out a book from the library. But there's something there sometimes about investing in yourself and having more juice in that.

                                                Okay. So you might have read my book, Get Rich, Lucky Bitch! And you go, "Why would I join Denise's Money Bootcamp?" Because it's a completely different level of accountability, of support, of ongoing nuances with coaching calls, and having the community, and the value of seeing people achieve.

                                                So stop thinking that everything has to be free, everything has to be sweat equity, it's really cool to shortcut your success by being smart about things. Okay, by being smart and realizing that you can shortcut someone's years of trial and error, you can shortcut someone's years of research by buying their book, buying their course, buying their system, buying their program, and then it shortcuts your success. It's so, so worth it.

                                                Okay. So there are my four myths for you about spending on personal development. One, you have to implement everything before you start something else. Two, you can only work with one person, one coach, even one book at a time. It's really okay for you to switch between them. Myth number three, you're not allowed to spend it until you've made it. It's the ultimate chicken or egg conundrum. And myth number four, "There's so much free stuff out there, I'll just do it myself."

                                                Be smart about it, this is a investment in your future. This is an investment in potentially growing a business that'll pay you for a long time. This is an investment in money that you can spend on creating everything on your dream board. It's worth spending money on and you can even say that to yourself, "It's safe for me to spend money on personal development and personal growth." All right, my lovely, stick around for one more final thought after this last break. Bye.

Jenni:                                    Hello. I'm Jenni Bush, also known as The Equine Business Assistant and I absolutely love Denise's book. So I wanted to give you a few things that just always stick in my head because whether it's Chillpreneur or Get Rich, Lucky Bitch! I've got the books, I've got Kindle versions and I've got Audible because I love to consume things and I find every time I listen to it or read, I get a new shift. And one of the was when, I think it's in Chillpreneur, Denise says, "You can't be both the show pony and the plow horse, and being an equine business mentor, that was just a real ah-ha moment for me and it's really helped not just spare me on, but also my clients, and I often tell people to go and check out Denise's books because they're absolutely awesome. So I would thoroughly recommend them. And yeah, thanks. See you later, bye.

Speaker 5:                           Hi, my name is [inaudible] Dylan, I'm an equity diversity inclusion consultant living in Vancouver, Canada, and I read both Chillpreneur and Get Rich, and they really allowed me to shift my money mindset. I'm total nurturer with my money and from these books I was able to kind of really think about how I spend it, where I spend it, and what I can do. Totally recommend these books and any of Denise's programs. And I think it's been amazing.

Denise Duffield...:            Hi, welcome back. We are talking about feeling good, feeling good about money, feeling good about finances because you might not even realize how much you live in this underlying sense of anxiety and fear all the time. So I want you to acknowledge what you're feeling scared about and find those little places in your day where you can stop it.

                                                So here's an example. When I used to go out to my post box to pick up my post, I realized that I had this unconscious thing of like, "Oh my God, what's going to be there?" And I was scared to open it, right, and so I was like, "Oh, what's going to happen?" And so I was like, "Oh no, I'm going to turn that around and that's going to be a new anchor for me. Every time I go to my post box, it's going to be a chance to feel good about my money." How? Because I would say to myself, "Checks are in the post. Checks are in the post. I'm so excited to see what money is in the post." And yeah, you get bills sometimes, but that's just a fact of life. But it's the fear that you need to turn around.

                                                And I used to do the same with my inbox, "Oh, I wonder what horrible messages are in my inbox, there's going to be refunds and people telling me they hate me and I suck." And I started going, "Oh, wow, I can't wait to open my inbox and see what money is in there today." And more often than not, there is because you're looking for the opportunities and you're feeling good about your money.

                                                So it could be a little affirmation, "It's just safe for me to feel good about my money. It's safe for me to prosper. It's safe for me to feel good about my bank account." And I changed my bank account name, you know how you can do that sometimes? And so it's like, "Money loves me." When I file my receipts in my email system, my filing folder is called Money Loves Me. And so instead of going, "Oh, that's another bill." I'm like, "Money loves me. Money loves me. Money loves me." And I have all of those little anchors all over the place.

                                                So if you're in Money Bootcamp and you don't know what I'm talking about, go to the positive anchors assignment because there's so many examples, dozens of examples, of different things you can automate in your day to feel good about your money on a daily basis, and it makes such a big difference. And so look for those places in your day, those little places where you're not feeling good and make it a switch, make it that that will be your reminder to just take a few minutes to feel good about your money and it will make a huge difference.

                                                And I want to hear your success stories around that too. Someone sent me a message and said, "Oh I did your checks in the post thing, and guess what? There was a check in the post." Ah, amazing. It could be, "I'm a money magnet and I find money everywhere I go." That's a really great way to feel good about your money too.

                                                Okay. As usually, if you need my help, I've got tons of resources on my website, Denise DT, about how to feel good about your money, how to uncover money blocks. Otherwise, I will see you next week on another episode of Chill and Prosper. Bye.