Hey, it's Denise here and welcome to another episode of Chill and Prosper. Thanks for all your kind words and all those things, I so appreciate it. I love when you guys do reviews or share it in your group so please, if you haven't already take a second to rate, to do a quick review, because it really helps other people find the show as well. Today we're talking about a juicy topic and it's about raising kids with a healthy appreciation for money. I think where this came from really, is people asking me what I'm doing with my own kids and how we can raise rich kids. How we can raise rich, lucky kids. I want to say to that, first of all, I have three kids and they're at the moment almost eight, almost six and almost four.
They're still pretty young. I totally get that there's going to be a whole new layer of money mindset stuff when they're teenagers. I'm not an expert in how to deal with all of that stuff around teens and money. I can only share what I've seen. Not only from my own experiences as a mother, but from what I've seen from people in my money bootcamp and some of the issues that we all have from our own families. Even if you don't have kids in your life, I still think you could get some nuances from this episode about how we've all learned so much about money so unconsciously from our families. But I actually want to start with lessons from a TV show that I love watching called Succession. Succession is about a wealthy media Barron of a big multimedia, but mostly TV company and his kids.
He has four kids and they are all trying to be the next CEO. It's about the dynamics of him not wanting to give up his power, then all of his kids just absolutely fighting for it. Fighting for his approval, his love and money. There's so much money stuff in there. The first season too, I was like, oh wow, you never really see this level of wealth so much in this kind of show. You see it on dynasty and things like that, but just the way that they would just take helicopters to their house in the Hamptons just for a ball game, to play baseball. Then they came home and it was just a really interesting depiction of wealth. A lot of people are struggling with watching the show sometimes because of the negativity around how that's showing wealth to be, like people who really exploit others.
There's a whole storyline about one of their business operations, there's sexual abuse and all this horrible stuff. They're just horrible people. That could be justifying a lot of people's money blocks and views about money is that rich people are bad, rich people are evil, rich people are greedy. Here's the thing though, a lot of the problems they depict in this show around wealth, about how that wealth has damaged these kids. As you know, they're absolutely damaged people. But, remember poverty damages kids too, right? Absolutely growing up poor can damage kids. What do we take from that? We can take from that, you can have a healthy or an unhealthy relationship with money, no matter how you grow up, because those kids in that show, they're not damaged necessarily by money.
They're damaged by having parents who are jerks. They've got parents who are arrogant, narcissistic, emotionally unavailable, egotistical, horrible people. And I've actually met people at all levels of income who are that. I grew up in housing commission, I tell this story all the time. But my mom was 17 when she had me and we never lived with her parents. She was always on her own and we really struggled sometimes. We were really lucky we got in a government house when I was nine or something. We lived in government housing with a lot of other people who have lived in government housing. I really loved it in lots of ways, because everyone's house is the same. It's very egalitarian when literally everyone has the same house.
Generally everyone has the same kind of money because it's means tested to live in government housing most of the time. It was very egalitarian, but there was a lot of dysfunction in that environment. There were families whose parents were alcoholics, drug addicts, neglectful, or abusive. You know what, that's the same in lots of different neighborhoods. You can be in a wealthy neighborhood and there'll be alcoholics, drug addicts, people who abuse their kids. We've got to decouple that feeling for ourselves that all rich people are like this, or all poor people are like this. The way that we can raise our own kids, it's not about how much money you have now necessarily beyond a certain point, right? Money is a tool that's going to help you, but you can raise children to have a healthy or unhealthy relationship with money, no matter how much you have, really.
I know it sounds a bit weird. Again, people are asking me what I'm teaching my kids about money, how I'm going to make sure that they have a healthy relationship with money. Think about some of the things that you heard about as a kid, that all we need to do is to be aware of those things. There's a couple of things that I noticed that I did. One, when my first baby, which was three or something, we went to a farmer's market and I gave her 50 cents to go and buy herself an apple from the farmer's market. She took that 50 cents and she put it straight in her mouth. I went, oh my God, don't put that in your mouth, money's so dirty. Then I went, oh my God, of course, that is a message that we have all received about money.
Money is so dirty. And of course your parents don't want you to choke. What I aim for with things like that, that I know I have been told about money and you might have been told about money is that I aim for neutrality around that. Can you imagine what that did to your nervous system, to be told money is dirty at a young age and the panic that your parents had in their voice wasn't because they didn't want you to have abundance. They didn't want you to choke and die on a metal object. But imagine what that has done to our nervous system to go [breathe in] and couple that with money as a concept, it's like literally we got an electric shock the first couple of times we played with money. Then there could be nuances around that, right?
Where you heard panic in your family's voice, because you spill some coins or you ripped up her dollar bill, even as a child, that memory might live within you around money. Think about some of those things and then aim for neutrality. Of course, I don't want my kids to choke on money, of course I don't. I say to them, Hey, we don't put money in our mouth in our family, we take care of money. Can you see how that's just such a different experience for maybe their nervous system? I go, oh cool, let's wipe that off a little bit but we don't put it in our mouth, we take care of money in our family. That's becoming our new story, we take care of money in our family.
That could be something that you do as well. If you've got young kids, but also, you might be a grandparent, you might be an auntie. Just be mindful about that when you are talking about money. Now, think of another thing that you've been told. I've done so many episodes about this, but I do not care because it's so important to hear, is the birthday party thing, right. About how we tell kids, make a wish, but don't tell anyone or it won't come true. I'm very clear to say to our kids, no, we do tell each other dreams in our family. Nope, we do talk about our dreams. Even though I've been like that since when I first figured it out, the first birthday party for one of my kids, is how ingrained it is in movies and TV and kids go to other birthday parties and they hear that, don't make a wish.
Don't say it, don't say it out loud. Then you think of how many adults really struggle with saying their goals out loud, saying their dreams. I'll ask people what they want to make and they get paralyzed. I don't think that's the only reason, but one of the reasons is that it won't come true. That's another big thing. What are some other things that you might have heard about money? It's just about being mindful of that. Every family has their own sayings about money. Then there are obviously some that are quite cultural or just universal and it could be money doesn't grow on trees. Something like that. Now I want, hold onto that thought, because we're going to talk about some of those things straight after this break.
Victoria Gibson: This is Victoria Gibson and I want to share with you the magic of money bootcamp by Denise Duffield Thomas. You'll think, Hmm, I'm okay about money, I want more of it. That's until you do this work, until you go deeper. I know that's what happens for me, going through some of the exercises and uncovering those hidden sneaky beliefs that just keep you from your dreams. Denise will help you easily unlock it. This course will help you do that too. I am forever grateful to her for changing my perception of not only money, but what's possible. I thank you, Denise for that.
Liv: Hi, I'm Liv and I founded a blog called The Indy Mood, which is a platform for small beauty business. Reading Get Rich, Lucky Bitch totally changed my life. There were so many emotional blocks around money that I had, that needed healing and clearing. Since reading the book, my blog has had its highest earning month yet. I've exceeded my monthly financial goals. A day after reading the book, I began writing down affirmations like, it's okay for me to win and that same day I found a lottery ticket inside a book at a store that won $20. I saw it as a sign and have been doing the work ever since to manifest larger goals and it works.
Denise: Welcome back, we are talking about can you raise rich kids or talking to kids about money. I just mentioned just before the break about saying things like money doesn't grow on trees. You know what's interesting about this, when I ask people, if they heard that, rich families said it, poor families said it, everyone's said it because it's just one of the things that is a cultural thing about money. If you come from a country where English isn't your first language, I would love it if you sent me what your country, what your culture says in a similar vein. Money doesn't grow on trees, right? I was in a bookstore the other day and I saw a book and it's called Money Doesn't Grow on Trees. It's a book about these kids who are asking for things and their parents shame them and say, money doesn't grow on trees.
Then at the end, the kid goes, well, where does money come from? Their parents go, well, you work for it and you can start a business or you can get a job. That's how you make money. And the kid's like, money comes from hard work. You can imagine how much I freaking hated this book, I could not believe it. I was like, what a shit ass book. Yes, we want to teach our kids work ethic, absolutely we do. But if we are saying to kids, the only way you can make money is through hard work. What is that setting up for us? I meet people all the time who are making their jobs, their businesses, way harder than they need to be. That means that they reinvent the wheel all the time. They don't invest in shortcuts and hacks like courses or templates or systems.
They don't hire anybody because then they wouldn't be working hard. They don't create passive income because that's not working hard, is it? If you create something once, how dare you get paid for it forever. It totally goes against that grain of hard work. Well then what do I say to my kids? I say, if you have a dream and you have persistence, you can achieve anything. If you have a dream and persistence, you can achieve anything. It's funny how that work hard thing comes up so easily. We went to see Jo Jo Siwa in concert. I took Willow, and it was actually one of the best concerts I've ever been to. I didn't expect it to. But it just shows she is just such a master, she was so energetic. To be honest, I don't think she has the best singing voice, but she really tried like 10 out of 10 for effort.
I came away so inspired from that. Willow was like, well I want to be a pop star, like JoJo. And I went cool, then she was like, I don't want to go to rehearsal today, I don't feel like it. I said, well, would JoJo miss rehearsal? I was about to say, I'm sure JoJo's worked really hard and I went, oh man, it just comes into everything. I really just go, if you have a dream and you do the work, that could be another thing too. If you have a dream and you follow the steps, then you can achieve whatever you want. Because sometimes people go the other way and then just go, oh, if you have a dream everything's going to fall into place and that's not true either. I have lots of dreams and I still have to do stuff.
Just think about what are you saying about hard work, money and about wealthy people? Are you making judgements about wealthy people or does your family talk about people who are poor, oh, they should work harder. We know that's not true. We know that's not how society works. People who work hard, don't always make the most amount of money. We know this. There's something that I do that I think is super important. I talk about what I do, my work, about how much I love it. I talk about following my passions, about my creativity about doing work. They see us doing work, they see me doing calls, they know that I have a money bootcamp.
I think Piper thinks it's a mommy bootcamp, as in moms being all together and they get a sense of that, but I don't hide it. I see some people, they really hide it. They only work during school times or they just hide it all from the kids. Sometimes I have a call in the morning before they go to school and I've an office at the back of the house and I just go, I'm going to my office, I've got a call and they go, okay. I think what's cool about that is our kids don't have a lot of separation anxiety because they used to, I've worked from home the whole time since they were born and Mark has at least half the time, they don't remember him ever having a job either.
We're always kind of around. But that means that sometimes when we have a luncheon, we do work and we talk about that and they get involved. They stuff envelopes for us, we send out a welcome card for money boot campers and as the little ones get older we want to get them involved as well. Some of my friends, their teenagers are involved in their business. That's really important. I do talk about how much I love my business. Before the pandemic I used to travel a lot more and I haven't been away from home for a while. I used to say, I'm really excited, I'm going to a conference. I never apologized for it, I didn't say, I'm so sorry, mommy's so guilty about going and I'm going to miss you so much.
I'd say, I'm so excited about going on this conference. This is what I'm going to do. I just never apologized for it because I want them to see that it's okay to follow your dreams and it's okay to work. It's okay to earn money. We talk about money as much as we can that's appropriate for their age. We're getting to a point now though, where it is going to be more of a thing and about contrast. Often it's not how much money you had growing up, it's the contrast that can bring up money blocks. Remember I said that I grew up in housing commission, everyone has the same house. There was no competition, it was very like samie. But then my mum married a wealthy businessman for a while and we moved to his mansion and it was this huge, big, tacky, nineties McMansion, kind of thing.
Suddenly there was contrast, I was different from my friends. I see this a lot with people who have money blocks. Where it's like, we didn't even have that much money, but I didn't feel it. But then there are people who were like, well I was middle class, but I went to a fancy school and I felt like the poor kid. Or I came from a middle class family, but my family had a little bit more than everyone else and it made me feel different. I know that as the kids get older they're going to start to see that contrast a little bit more and how we can talk to them about that. We live in a big house, we have a very abundant kind of house and Willow, when she was five, she went to someone's house and she was like, you only have one bathroom.
I thought, oh crap. I have to talk about this. I had a big discussion with her about, having money doesn't make you better than anyone else. Not having money doesn't make you worse than anyone else. Some people want to live in a big house, some people can't afford to live in a bigger house, but some people live in a tiny house. My mom, she lives in a motor home and then she comes and lives with us in between. Just saying, it's not okay to shame people for how they choose to spend their money because obviously I can't go, let's talk about the inequality of money and all that kind of stuff just yet. I try to, but what's the appropriate level. I'm like we're extremely blessed and I never want to hear you shame anybody about anything like that.
I said, I don't care whose house you ever go to, you always say, wow, what a lovely house or wow, what a lovely lamp or something like that. I'm just trying to teach them to be humble and realize that us having money doesn't make us better than anyone else. It really doesn't. There's one last thing I want to share about kids and money. As I said, this is going to be bigger and bigger for me as they get older, is not shaming their desires. This is a big thing, but also not giving them everything either. If you grew up with lack, you might desire to be wealthy so you can give your kids everything that you didn't have. I understand that sentiment a lot. Also, I don't think you will, if you had all the money in the world, would you give your kids everything that they wanted?
I don't think you would, I think you'd still want live by your values. I can afford to get my kids anything they want. And I'm not saying that to brag, it's just a reality. I mean, within reason. I go, wow, my mom could just say, I can't afford it. Money doesn't grow on trees, and that was no. It also made me feel really freaking guilty and horrible and all the things. I have to learn, what am I going to say to my kids? Because I can't afford it, is actually a lie. We were somewhere the other day and she said, can you buy me this thing? I said, no baby, it's not Christmas, it's not your birthday. I'm not just going to buy you something for no reason. She said, but you're a millionaire.
I was with my mom, and my mom said, yeah Willow, she's a millionaire, you're not. I had to laugh because I was like, yeah, doesn't mean I'm just going to buy you stuff all the time. But I don't shame it. I say, look babe, as a family, we are really concerned about the environment and she's a Green Warrior or something like that in her school, she's a recycling monitor. But you are this. So, we are not just going to buy things for no reason. That's not our value as a family. I'm making it part of this is who we are as a family. Not that you are wrong for having this desire. I'm like, yeah, that's cool. We actually went shopping yesterday and she was just showing me all these little dolls and she's like, how cute?
I was like, oh my God, they're the cutest things I've ever seen. I remember my mom didn't quite have that bandwidth to say that because she felt kind of a little bit resentful that I was asking. She probably felt guilt and shame around not having the money. I would just say, oh my God, that is so cute, I'm going to take a picture of that. This is what I learned from my friend Marisa Roberts. She's got a business called Beautifully Organized, helping busy moms hack their homes and businesses. She would say, that's great, I'm going to take a picture of that. Then we can add it to your birthday list or we can add it to your Christmas list. I took that leaf out of Marisa's book and every time we saw something, she's like, oh my God, I love this.
I was like, that's so cool, I'm going to take a picture. Because I want her to know that her desires are valid and that it's okay to dream and it's okay to have discernment and not have all the things. But also that it's okay for her to want it and to ask for it and it's okay for me to say no. That's the biggest thing.
One final, I think kids just want to be loved, to be accepted, to know that you are proud of them, you accept them for who they are and that's it. I'm not going to try and hack them into be entrepreneurs, if they're entrepreneurs great, if they're wealthy in their own right that's amazing. But I don't aspire for that for them, I want them to have a healthy relationship with money, but most of all, I want them to have a healthy relationship with themselves and to love and accept them themselves. I'm sure you might have some questions or even stuff you disagree with me from this episode or just little ahas. Of course always reach out and let me know what you think about this episode and how it relates to children in your life. Okay, cool. I'll be right back after this final thought.
Katherine: Hello Denise, my name's Katherine, I run a ceramics company in Oxford called Oxford Clay and I've loved your book so much. They've been giving me so much confidence to start my business, just try different things and enjoy the process as well and not worry about getting things wrong. Since reading your books, I've actually written an ebook on eco-friendly pottery, which I'm just about to release. It was really down to you, just given the idea of doing ebook and just the confidence really. So thank you so much.
Christie: Hi everyone, Christie Gray here, and I'm a life strategist and an astrologer based on the gold coast in Australia. Coming into 2021, I knew I had some money blocks I needed to work through. I picked up Get Rich, Lucky Bitch. What I loved so much, is Denise's approach and useful actions built into the book because I need that as a Virgo. But my biggest light bulb moment that created momentum was decluttering money blocks as a daily practice. You need to do it at every income level. I doubled my income in February from January this year, and I'm set to double my income this month from February. This work works, read the book it's total worth it.
Denise: Hi, it's Denise again, and thanks for sticking around for my final thought. Thanks for listening to this episode today. My final thought is about fun and money. I remember there was a movie called Fun Money. Fun money is seen as this very frivolous thing. What's your relationship with this concept of fun and money, maybe it's you think of your business as fun money. That's not real money, that's just fun money. That's just a little bit of side hustle money, it doesn't count. Maybe you think that it's only valid if you make money out of things that stress you out, or that feel really serious or feel like hard work. It's not safe for you to make money just doing something that's fun for you. Maybe your aha, is that you discount the things that feel fun and easy for you because you go, oh God, I can't charge for that, that was so fun.
It was so easy, I can't charge for that artwork, it just was so much joy and fun. It's safe for you to make money and have fun. Making money can be fun, it can be hugely fun. It's fun to make money. I think Sara Blakely said this too, it's like money is fun to make, fun to spend and fun to give away. How cool is that? I want you to write that down somewhere because that's just such a profound thing, is it can be made with joy. It doesn't have to be hard work, to be a hard slog, it doesn't have to be painful. It can be fun to spend, so maybe you're actually good at making money, but you feel guilty about spending it and it can be fun to give away.
It's safe for you to make money in all sorts of fun ways. It's safe for you to love money and for it not to be serious and it's still to count and you still charge full price for the things that are fun to make. Fun money. I'd love to hear ahas around this, about where you're allowed to make money and where you're not allowed to make money. It could come up in lots of different ways for you about where you're holding yourself back from offering things, because it's not real or it's not serious. How much fun. Sara Blakely, money is fun to make, fun to spend and fun to give away. Isn't it though, all right. Have a fun week, have a fun prosperous week and I will see you next week on another edition of Chill and Prosper. Take care, Bye.
Music: Thanks for listening to Chill and Prosper. Tell your friends to Chill and Prosper, review and subscribe. We hope you had a very good time.
