From Self-Imposed Limits to Financial Abundance: Rethinking Your Money Story With Hilary Hendershot

Business owners are increasingly being pulled in so many directions, feeling like they aren't reaching their full potential in business and life despite their type a ways. With my background as a therapist, entrepreneur and as a.com dropout with ADHD, I interview and coach high achieving business owners like you who want to stop struggling for success by using psychological systems, strategies and the occasional carefrontation. This is the easily distracted entrepreneur, your place to slay overwhelm perfectionism and shiny object syndrome so that you can get done what matters most to you.

00:00:40

Hello. Hello my neurospicy ones. Welcome back to the podcast. Today's episode is going to be a fun one. I'm going to say it's fun because if you're listening to this, then you obviously enjoy also spicy language and when people keep it real and tell it like it is.

00:01:01

I had a chance to interview my friend Hilary Hendershot, who is the CEO of Hendershot Wealth Management and the podcast host of Profit, Boss Radio and all around money Maven. She is one of my favorite people. She's a total riot. I don't even know if she is capable of not telling it like it is. And those are my favorite people to surround myself with.

00:01:30

I like the raw, straight, direct forward way she puts everything. I just so appreciate it. But mostly because it comes from somebody who is also super compassionate, has done the work, knows her shit and I think you're in for a fun ride. Before we jump into my interview with Hilary, I want to remind you if you are listening to this when it comes out, this Friday, the 27 October, I'm hosting a free Creating Your Perfect Work Week workshop. It's a lot of lot of words in there where I help you dive into the piece that I think is the foundation of feeling on top of your business, being productive, getting done the shit that you want to be getting done.

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And that is looking at your schedule.

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And lately, I feel like I've been talking to a lot of people who feel very disempowered and feel like their schedule kind of runs them. And we're here to say no to that and actually realize, as business owners, we have so much more ability to control our schedule and make it work for us and make it something we actually want to do. So we don't want to create schedules that sound awful and feel like just working in corporate and are unrelenting. We're going to create something that when you're finished with it, you feel excited about it. And therefore the chances of you actually living by it are much greater.

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So if you would like to register for that workshop, head on over to Amberholley.com schedule to register for the free training. So now we're going to jump into this wonderful conversation with Hilary all about money. Welcome, Hilary. Thank you for being on the podcast. I'm so excited to see you so excited for this conversation.

00:03:30

Thank you for having me. I know we were chatting too much beforehand and I was like, Ah, this is all gold. We need to talk about it on record here. Let's get the money chat and the pot of gold. Let's just jump in because money is such an important topic, obviously, right?

00:03:50

Like, it's one of the biggest ones for anything. And it's such an important complex and I feel often misunderstood thing for entrepreneurs. It is misunderstood, but there's also people who are just not really very smart who have a lot of it. So I think we could all take cues from that. It's like, come on, you know that you know someone in your life who in school was the C or maybe even the D student who is now killing it.

00:04:16

And you have to think, look, it isn't where I started or the platform I got, or whether my parents paid for college or whether I was an A plus engineer Stanford student. But there is like a skill set to money, and we can acquire it. It's just that most people don't get it. In my experience, 80% everything follows the 80 20 rule, right? So 80% of people are like, living in scarcity and most of those people are pretending they're not.

00:04:45

So we're lost. See, already so many truth bombs. And I was going to say that I love that you say, I talk about this all the time. I was like, People, we need to dumb it down because we are overthinking everything. These people who are just like, fuck it, and they're making tons of money.

00:05:03

I'm like, we are doing something wrong. It's not that hard, but it's emotional, right? So you're hitting on there's a lot of mindset, emotional stuff, like stuff we learned growing up scarcity that impacts how we approach money, how we think about money, how we don't think about money, right? Very much so. It's very cultural.

00:05:25

I think, especially amongst female entrepreneurs, there's this kind of common phrase, ideology. It's like, oh, it shouldn't be about the money, or I don't need to be like as a financial planner, I can tell you it's almost impossible for anyone in the United States to retire without seven figures, without a million dollars in a savings account and an investment account. So, I mean, I don't know what you consider to be rich, but I just really invite people to stop saying that crap. And why would you limit yourself?

00:05:56

Money is not a zero sum game. People think that me having a lot of money means you not having enough, and that's just not the case. Money is a flow, right? Money is just a conversation. It's just like something we made up.

00:06:10

Human beings literally made it up. It doesn't exist.

00:06:15

If you really think about it with your podcast, with your AirPods in your ears today, you think that you understand the nature of money. That Lenny is this thing, like it's a dollar bill or it's the balance of your bank account or your credit card bill. But money? Those are just ways to measure this thing we made up called money. I mean, I promise you, dollar bills are not money.

00:06:38

Try to spend that on a commercial airline, right? You can't even buy a cocktail with a $10 bill if you're on American Airlines, you have to use a credit card because they have decided that cash isn't money on their steel tube flying through the sky. But the fact that they can do that should unseat certainty a little bit. We run around like, oh, money is hard to make or you have to work hard for money. And these are all I call them Money operating systems.

00:07:05

I trademarked that term. I love, but we all have these superstitious beliefs about money. But the very fact that you have ten people in a room and those ten people might have a different superstition or money operating system should tell you that there's no objective truth to them. They're just really common narratives that we all lean into and allow to be true in our lives. I love that it is true, and that's how we imprison ourselves and keep ourselves stuck.

00:07:39

And that's the opportunity to free ourselves from that, to understand that it's a construct. It really is. One of the most powerful things I ask people to do often if I'm going to work with them is to journal about what their history with money, their beliefs about money, their experience with money. And what you'll find is you have a very complex network of strongly held beliefs and you'll have evidence in real life because you're very powerful and you've proved them to be true over time. But they're all going to agree with each other.

00:08:12

There's never going to be a cognitive dissonance. It's like, oh, money, you have to work hard for money. Oh, except I keep a million dollars in cash at bank of America. No, that person is not going to have those two things be true at the same time. Right.

00:08:29

Because you have to keep proving that superstition true, and it's very powerful. The only way to really unravel it is like one thread at a time. You have to unseat certainty. I wonder how come that person down the street has more money than they know what to do with and they're sublime about it. What are they doing and saying differently about money?

00:08:52

I love that. Well, that's called confirmation bias, right? Like, we continue to seek out information and notice information that backs us up so we feel validated in that. And it's true. I mean, this is so random, but I have just had way too many conversations with people lately.

00:09:09

Like, really smart, successful business people, and we talk about only fans a lot. There's an ongoing joke that I'm like, okay, when am I starting my only fans. I was like, what a great way, just take sexy pics and get to work out and take care of yourself. How easy would that be to make money that way? And I know there's more to it, so we're kind of being facetious.

00:09:32

But it's like the idea that if you look, you will always find that there are people making money easily, that there is flow, that there is abundance out there. And so, yeah, it is about questioning your narratives and I think surrounding yourselves with other people, because often you're hanging out with people who have the same thought process, right? Correct. Very much so. It is not common to talk about money.

00:09:57

So if you even bring it up, that's a bold thing to do. I had some friends visiting a couple of weeks ago, and I mean, I make my living talking about money, and I'm talking about money, and she's reflecting and she doesn't know me and what I do very well. We know each other through our kids school. And she's like, I don't want to talk about money. I don't need to brag.

00:10:17

And I said, oh, well, that's really interesting that that's your money operating system. That even speaking the truth. Like, saying anything about money for you is bragging or it proves me one up or you won down or vice versa. Right. And you were talking about getting into conversation with people.

00:10:37

Most people have very limiting beliefs. So there's that. What do they call that? Success ceiling? Yeah, the upper limit problem.

00:10:49

And then they'll argue for it. Right. So if they meet or come into contact with people for whom have figured out how to have money be abundant, how to have money work for them, then they'll make it wrong. They'll criticize it, oh, you're just in the elite. You're part of the system that's rigged against me.

00:11:08

And that's how they make sense of that. And when you can get to, hey, I am super happy that you're financially healthy. I want to hang out with you and figure out how you did that. Like, I'm happy for you because I know your financial success makes my financial success more likely, even probable. Right.

00:11:31

That's a very different place for most people to be than they spend most of their time being. It was kind of repetitive, but I think you get it. And I will say that I have noticed that there were people that as I've moved and met new people and hearing the way that they talk about money, I was like, I can't be in that. I'm not going to collude with that mindset that people with money are bad. I was like, well, then you're basically setting a limit for yourself.

00:11:57

And I just don't believe that. And I think that's the problem. Like, you're saying, if we have to vilify, then that's going to keep us in a certain place too, because then we don't want to be the bad guy. Right. And so, yeah, paying attention to the messaging and the people you're around and opening yourself up, there's so much about it.

00:12:18

But I think now, of course, my mind just went in two places because of something you said, but then something we had talked about before when you talked about when people start their businesses, like how that money doesn't seem to be the number one factor in how they're figuring things out. Correct. And I don't think most small business owners, especially if they're providing services, need a formal ten page business plan. But most people don't give enough thought to how am I going to consistently produce profit, or how am I going to figure out the actions that I take that can produce profit and how am I going to say yes only to those activities? And that really is your rudder as a business owner, is like, I will say yes to doing this because that generates profit, and I won't say yes to doing that because I know that it doesn't.

00:13:05

And yet there's almost no teaching about that. Right. Especially in services, because most people charge on the sliding scale, kind of worse. If you're in a service delivery business and you charge hourly and it's the same hourly rate all the time, then you're literally trading dollars for hours. And I don't make that phrase wrong.

00:13:29

A lot of people say that very disparagingly, oh, I'm trading dollars for hours. But it's your job as a business owner to figure out how to not charge dollars for hours or to charge enough dollars for your hours that you're happy to be charging trading dollars for hours. But almost everyone I know in business is overwhelmed. Email is the enemy. People do things like, oh, I'm unreachable on email.

00:13:55

Okay, well, you're on text. And slack and instagram messenger. I mean, what's the difference? Yet there is almost no conversation about, okay, what are the activities that you take on a consistent basis that generate profit in your business owners? We kind of make magic.

00:14:14

We create stuff that wasn't there before. Your business is literally a work of art. It's a creative work of art that you've put into the world. I mean, spreadsheets happen to be my creative genius. I didn't make this lovely vase of flowers.

00:14:32

I paid someone to make that. So whatever you do, that is your creation that people are willing to trade dollars for. And it's your job to figure out how to trade the most quantity or for the most profit. A profit that feeds you and allows you to pay for your family's needs and wants today and also to save enough for tomorrow. But there's like this conspiracy in the community of business owners for the vanity number, which is the revenue number.

00:15:02

Right?

00:15:06

Again, people talk about having five figure months or six figure months or seven figure years, and these numbers are smoke and mirrors to me. I don't understand why people want to chase that. Because if you have $100,000 a month but you spend $150, you're screwed. I mean, that's a miserable life. And your business eats time and money.

00:15:31

And if you don't have enough money to pay other people to do the work, you have to do it all. And so it very quickly becomes like you're shackled to the workload. And I just don't hear people what I'm really interested in talking about more, what I don't hear people talking about for the most part is how can I strategically look at the evidence that I'm getting from the world, my activities, my results and the profit that ensues from them and do more of that?

00:16:04

That's something I do talk about a lot because I'm all about let's use data, let's have systems because we have to make it sustainable. Right? But I agree with you. In all the clients that I work with that's the number one thing is they're not using the data to make choices about what they're putting, investing in, whether that's the type of service or clients or whatever. It's literally like going by feeling, does this make me feel good?

00:16:29

And then it's like, well, but you have to take a look at the data for that. And then, yeah, do more of what's working and less of what's not working. It can be simple in that regard, but I think it's overwhelming for people to look at that stuff, to look at they feel even just to start with it all. And like you said, and part of it is because people don't talk about money. And I think as a couple's therapist, I talk about money all the time and sometimes I forget and then I end up being asking inappropriate questions in public because I'm like, why is this a big deal?

00:17:01

Like, fuck, I'll tell you everything.

00:17:05

So you've just hit on so many things. One is this need to let's be more transparent, let's be more open. Because then I think it helps people shift the way they're looking at it. But people need to be more strategic. I agree with everything you said and this is one of the things we teach.

00:17:25

So my firm, we do traditional wealth management. So I do financial planning, which is probably what you think it is. And then we also have this profits consultancy that we offer. And so inside that offer, with that client base, we show them how to produce a report that is customized to their business. And I used to call it the KPI report.

00:17:47

But KPI, it turns out, is a phrase that's so used and overused, it's just very watered down. Everyone had their own idea of what it was. So I was like, you know what, I'm just going to call it profit generating activities. I love, you know, over time, with the right view, if you understand how to look at the numbers, and you sort of force yourself to do the deep thinking. I mean, once a month, right?

00:18:09

Your bookkeeper sends you your numbers once a month, and then you do the analysis. And by the way, sidebar, most people think that a bookkeeper knows a lot about their business and just isn't telling them. That is not the case.

00:18:23

I can attest to that. For the most part, they're just data entry people. They're not strategic thinkers. Right. So it's on you, the business owner, to get strategic.

00:18:36

I am a profits coach, and I don't look at my P-L-I look at my PGA deck and my PGA report. And my team at this point is trained to put that report together for me. So I don't even do it's about it's like a decoder ring for your numbers. Right. Because the P L is just a list of transactions.

00:18:58

I mean, that's overwhelming and not useful. But if you're looking at inputs versus outputs that are custom to what you're doing, whether that's social media advertising or it's public speaking or it's radio ads or whatever that is for you, and then the outputs from that, and you get really philosophical about that, really, like, take a 30,000 foot view. You can absolutely move the dials in your business in a huge way, and it gives you, it probably takes my experience, three or four months for people to get really good at it if they really apply themselves. And then that is your channel, your bridge to your numbers, your bank accounts, and it'll never not be your business or your role as the CEO to do that. I mean, if you get big enough, you can hire a CFO, sure.

00:19:52

But even then, the CEO sets the strategy.

00:19:56

There are absolutely ways to rethink it, simplify it, and delegate it. Not the analysis of it, but the preparation of the reports so that it's easy for you on a monthly basis to say, okay, what do the numbers that I produced over the last 30 days inform about? What my activities in the next 30 days. Right. And I will say again, even being a data person, that piece of knowing what stuff to look at, to analyze for that profitability part, that can be very overwhelming.

00:20:32

I know. I just avoid it for a long time. I was like, I did the thing, and I know I've read Profit First and all that, but where I did the thing, where I was like, I have money. Spend it. Oh, shit.

00:20:44

There's no money. Stop spending for a hot minute. Money again. That's a painful roller coaster. Part of my backstory is of doing that to myself into oblivion.

00:20:57

I was half a million dollars in debt. Lost the condo, 500 FICO score, the whole nine. I get it. Yeah. And it's hard, especially when you feel like, okay, I'm doing all of the things.

00:21:11

And that's where I think it is hard. For people when they're already feeling overwhelmed to slow down enough to take that step back and to be more to analyze the data. And again, most people have no clue where to start. Right, right. That's true.

00:21:28

Because the numbers seem like just like my email inbox, there's just always more there's always more line items on the PNL, and that's why I'm glad you brought up Profit First. We're Profit First certified professionals and love the system. I devised a system that is very much like that for personal accounts when I was digging myself out of debt, and I've taught it to people since then. So we teach our clients a multiple account system. It's kind of like an irrigation system, right.

00:21:58

Like if you're going to put water into the hose and then the hose takes the water around the garden to all the plants that need it, that's what the Profit First system does. And so this PGA deck in combination with the Profit First system is really magical. I can log into First Republic Bank and I have a balance in my tax account, a balance in my owner's pay account, a balance in my operating expenses account, my payroll gets paid. So I do have a sense of how much money I've got to work with because I just don't consider the tax number or the profit number or the owner's pay number. That's already spoken for.

00:22:36

Right, right. So I don't know if you've talked about Profit First on your show before, but I love that system. I think I have a long, long time ago. Yeah, no, it is brilliant. I mean, that's why I do love his books, because he is really thoughtful about that, where it's like noticing that toxic habit we're in and then like, okay, we need to approach it from a different way to make it to stop being in that feast or famine cycle.

00:23:01

Right. Oh, he's great. And he did a bunch of analysis. I mean, the Profit First system is very prescriptive in terms of based on what type of business you're in, what the percentages of each of your checks that should go into each of those accounts I just mentioned. Right, yeah.

00:23:17

And so you said it's overwhelming and it absolutely is. I don't know how you would figure that stuff out on your own. And I'm not saying his numbers aren't perfect. I mean, I've tweaked them a little for my own business, and I often tweak them for clients. But it's a great place to start because at the end of the day, doing budgeting by bank account balance is very dangerous.

00:23:38

You're just going to end up in a roller coaster right. Because there's almost always going to be more months than money. Oh, absolutely. And that's what I ran into. It's like I was making a lot of money, but because there was no thoughtful decision making, because I didn't want to know, because then I'd have to say no to myself.

00:23:57

And I didn't want to. I was like, I don't want to say no. I want to do all the things. Right, if I may, to turn the therapist spotlight on you a little bit. If this is true for you, cool.

00:24:10

If not, tell me. But I often find that when people overspend, it's actually to perpetuate that there's never enough money cycle 100%. I have figured it out. I have done every money course, everything, because I bought them all. I mean, obviously I did, but no, I did figure that out.

00:24:31

And this has been the pattern that I'm currently working on of realizing I always find a way to make just enough. And then it was like it would magically come in just enough. But to have abundance, there was something about the abundance that was holding me back. And I'm like because I have the capacity to make a lot of money. And I did.

00:24:53

And I have. But I also then felt almost this pathological need to spend it all. That's so insightful. And there's something so terrifying. Probably there's a gender role associated with it.

00:25:09

I mean, you and I are the same age. We didn't grow up in a world where it was cool for women to be mean, you know, Farnish Tarabi wrote, When She Makes More, just five or six years ago or something, and it's like this. It's such a big issue when a woman makes more money than her man that we have to write books about it and have therapy about it. Right. Are we emasculating that?

00:25:34

I will say my husband is like, please make more. He does not hold that at all. At all. But for me, I think it was a lot of childhood upbringing stuff that I noticed, yes, around people with money act a certain way. Even though I didn't hold that belief, it was so buried deep in there.

00:25:55

I consciously don't feel that way, but unconsciously, I was like, there is a reason. Every time I get a windfall, I piss it. I mean, this is why they say most lottery winners end up being in a worse financial position three years after winning the lottery, right? So there's so much about it. And some of it was, I will say now, understanding my ADHD impulsiveness, but it was facilitated by that belief.

00:26:23

Right, but there's this part of like, no, this is my magic bullet, and I try to buy my way out of Burnout, and I didn't do it strategically.

00:26:34

And there's something about women being small, petite, demure. Right? And money is closely associated with power. And you have to decide, if you're a woman who makes money, how you're going to wear that swagger. Like, am I going to give myself permission?

00:26:54

Is this okay? Am I okay to have more money than I need? Right? It's like a big door you have to open for yourself. There's a lot I know, and that's, like I said, I continue to unpack that and kind of be aware.

00:27:11

But I do know where so many people like, today, I just had a client conversation about this, because I do see, I work with a lot of therapists. Not everybody I work with is a therapist, but a lot of service providers. But a lot of therapists are in that conundrum of the button chair. Like, you get paid only when your butt's in the chair, and that's it. And so we were talking about this is somebody who does really well and charges a lot, but it's like you either have to charge enough to have that cushion so that when shit happens, you don't have to feel stressed about being sick or going on vacation or clients like the Ebb and Flow or whatever, or you have to figure out other ways.

00:27:50

Right? And so I see this so much, and it feels like lately, the theme I also am hearing from a lot of people is, I've always been able to make lots of money. I've always had plenty of clients, and now things feel different. They're, like, stuck. So then it's like, well, this is the inherent problem, I think, when it's all like, you only get paid if someone sits in your chair, right?

00:28:17

Yes. I meet so many people like that. And these days, there's a whole bunch of freedom around how you package your stuff and how you talk about it. Right. So I hear from people, oh, I'm a happiness consultant.

00:28:29

I'm a self love ambassador. Okay, fine. But ultimately, you charge like a therapist, right. And you're charging $165 an hour. You're making enough to pay your bills.

00:28:39

You're 50 years old, you haven't saved a dollar, and you're spending six figures on in vitro fertilization to have a kid without a man. What are you doing?

00:28:53

What's going to happen when a kid needs daycare sister?

00:28:58

It's just like, we put so much on ourselves to do all permission, in many cases, prices. Oh, but they'll leave me. Okay, good. They'll make room for people who will pay your price. This is your life.

00:29:13

Right. And we defer and sell ourselves out to please other people when we haven't even asked them if they pay more. Yes. Oh, gosh. And this is something it's that balance of I want to help people.

00:29:27

The helper syndrome. Right? And I get it. I have those struggles, too, where you think about that, but then you're like, but you can't help people if you're in poverty and if you can't sustain yourself. Because a lot of women I see, even when I ask them, a lot of people I work with, when I start, they don't even have a business budget or a personal budget.

00:29:47

They have no idea. And I'll say, well, how much do you need to make? And they'll sometimes make up a number, and then after we've done work together, like, okay. Well, the actual real number is this. And then even then, I'm like, does that pay for the lifestyle you want to have?

00:30:00

And it's like, no, it's the bare minimum. So I think we're always aiming too low. This would be to survive. I was like, that's my Armageddon budget. Because I love Excel.

00:30:11

Excel is my porn. So your magic, what you create, is my porn. And it's like, I have the budget of like, this is the lifestyle I want and I love and I live. And then it's like Armageddon is the one that gives me comfort when I know if shit hits the fan, I could still live. Most people are operating from an Armageddon budget.

00:30:33

I feel. They are. And it's appropriate for your first couple of years in business, the first time around, to cinch the belt up tight. I mean, every business needs startup capital, whether that's your 401 or your husband's credit cards or I mean, whatever that is, I get it. But we forget that the plane is supposed to get to 30,000ft cruising altitude, right?

00:31:00

There is a point at which if your business is not throwing off plenty of money for you to live today and save for tomorrow, it's not working. Like, something has to change. Just because you're comfortable and you've got shit to do all day doesn't mean you've succeeded in doing this thing. And your financial future is important. And I think we don't really think about how ill equipped we are financially because our parents were ill equipped financially because their parents were the first generation to live long enough to ever retire.

00:31:34

Right? Like, the average life expectancy used to be 60 years. We're now retiring at 65. And the vast majority of our parents don't have functioning financial lives. We're like, kind of the first group to have to grapple with longevity and the need for a multiple seven figure nest egg.

00:31:57

I have a lot of compassion for it, but it is really time to break through and allow ourselves to up level. And it is okay to say, I need this business to pay for my family, for my life. I'm going to give my life to this business. It has to pay me back generously. And to spend time tweaking that versus I really do think a lot of people stop when they get to scraping by kind of level 100%.

00:32:30

And even my example, I didn't feel I was scraping by because I was doing things I loved and I felt good, but I was also sabotaging that. So I made it scraping by because I wasn't being strategic in my spending. And it was like, I need to get rid of the profit, you know what I mean? And not investing. And I think that's the other thing, and I think it's a disproportionate number for women that I see so many women business owners, and I talk to them all the time, and I know them, and I kind of end them of not being prepared for retirement.

00:33:09

And to that is like, fuck, who can even think of that? I'm just trying to survive now. Right? It almost allows you to stay stuck in the moment, to not have that profitability. It's absolutely a widespread problem, and from what I see, people get into business because they want time freedom, which is very difficult to have if you have a nine to five or an eight to six job and you have to be in the office.

00:33:37

I mean, I get it. The number one predictor of happiness is people being able to determine what they do with their time. So we get into business because we want time freedom, and we want that ultimate possibility, the no ceilings on what's possible. But then we get distracted along the way. It starts to feel hard.

00:33:55

We can't figure it out. I think people get in a routine of they do their email, they do their marketing, they do their client stuff, and then I can't handle anymore. I'm done. Right? Don't ask me to push.

00:34:08

I've had clients to whom I've said, you're just not out there selling enough. Half of your sales conversations are effective, and you're producing profit, but you're not having enough sales conversations because you won't push yourself past that comfort zone. And there's always a place where the human animal gets uncomfortable. I don't want to be more visible. I don't want to be the keynote speaker.

00:34:36

I'm scared of having sales conversations, whatever that is, right? And I find that it's like that left turn that people won't make or struggle to make. That can be the stopping point. And again, people aren't talking about retirement. More often than not, you meet a business owner, they're going to say to me as a retirement financial advisor, oh, I don't need to retire.

00:35:03

I'm a knowledge worker. I'm just going to work forever. I'm in service delivery. And I have news for you. I don't have any 80 year old clients who are working.

00:35:11

I just don't. And at some point, your health or your willingness to work is going to stop if you don't die. To be literal, it makes me sad when people say that because I see being financially underprepared. That can rob you of dignity. If you have more time than money, what you don't have is choice and freedom.

00:35:38

So that's really what I'm out here about. And I do think that the inclination for business owners to want to be nontraditional and but convention is a problem when it comes to that because, for example, I see articles that say, oh, the 401 is a government conspiracy. You've seen stuff that's in that family totally of messaging, when in reality, tax deferred savings accounts are the number one tax break that Congress gives you in the whole country. The ability to save money on a tax deferred basis and earn compound free returns over 30 years of working is a huge financial benefit that's literally exponential returns. But people don't realize it because it's hard to grapple with the numbers, because you have to take such a long view.

00:36:32

You know what I mean? And I don't mean that you need to take anything specific out of that particular point, except for certainly some people are going to win the lottery. Some people are going to have a third standard deviation event. They're going to have a $10 million exit. And they never had to really plan for financial freedom.

00:36:52

It's just going to happen for them. It is rare, right? But the idea of bucking convention and not saving or doing the slow, hard things like being the tortoise and the story of the tortoise and the hare over time, I think hurts more business owners than it helps. I speak as someone who I literally see people's account statements. So I know what people have, I know what people make, and I have a sense of what people are doing that is most likely to drive them to success.

00:37:26

So I'm agreeing with you. No, I love that, and that's why well, many reasons. I adore you, but I wanted to have you on, because I do love that you are talking about that. And I see a lot when you're talking about especially women in retirement, because it is overwhelming. It is scary.

00:37:45

We are exhausted. We don't really get that education. And as human beings, we do not like the far off win. We like the immediate win. Like, psychologically, we prefer the target that is close to us.

00:38:01

And the happiness I have in this moment is what's more real to me than the happiness that can be down the road, even if down the road, it can be 30 times, 100 times better. Right? Right. We do it in dating. We do it in dieting.

00:38:17

We do it in exercise. We do it in money. We do it in every fucking thing we do. And so there is this mental bias to get over. But that's where I think it's helpful to hear from people like you that we need a reality check.

00:38:34

I think you're a great reality checker, ma'am. You would have a great TV show. I could see you just like, crushing people. No, in a good way. In a good way.

00:38:44

When I woke up this morning, I hope I get to crush people today. See, I meant that in a totally good way. That did not sound positive. I get it. It's just that I financially imploded, right?

00:39:00

I train wrecked myself. I was homeless. Thank God. My mother opened her guest room door to me, but I came home to a condo front door with a padlock on it because the sheriff had taken it back on behalf of the credit union that fully owned it. Right.

00:39:17

So I know what it feels like. Right. And I will never, ever forget the internalized. I mean, I was deeply suffering and shamed. I felt like a complete failure.

00:39:32

I was like, oh, my God, I'm, like, the worst person in society today. Everything I have and everything I've learned is hard won. Until then, I thought money was a buy the book kind of thing. And that is really what broke me open to this whole idea that our relationship to ourself and gender roles and society and our money path and shit your grandmother said to you when you were seven impacts how you are with money. And the cool thing is that you can unravel that.

00:40:05

But this is not book knowledge for me. But I think that's what's so inspiring about it, because, like you said, you went to the heart. Like, the worst thing that people whenever I'm seeing people in therapy, especially, and their worst fear, I see very successful professional women, whether they're like C suite execs or lawyers or doctors or business owners, whatever, and they talk about the worst fear is I am going to be bankrupt and homeless, and I'm going to live under a bridge. There's a narrative that I hear all exactly every time I hear that narrative, and even from people who they're doing fine, right? But there's still this mindset of not knowing how to manage it or not knowing how to do it in a way that feels comforting to them, that gives them the reassurance that they need.

00:41:00

Right? Yeah, well and you talk about the short wins versus the long range wins. I will say in the short term, if your income is Mediocre or medium or average, there's really no way around it. If you go from being an overspender to being an over saver, it feels like tightening the belt a lot. Right?

00:41:22

I did not buy coffee in a coffee shop for two years. And this is not the late factor. I wasn't even drinking coffee. Right? I had A-6-A day food budget.

00:41:33

I got free coffee from the coffee maker in the office, right? I earned my stripes.

00:41:43

I was very committed. I was like, this is not how my life is going to go. I decided. And that, by the way, is the first step is deciding how is money going to go in your life? Like, it's gone the way it's gone so far, but anything is possible in the future.

00:42:01

And I had a very clear deciding moment, and I was very committed, but yet living on less. There's no way around it. It's not luxurious. But then there comes a point, and I paid off the debt slowly and rebuilt the savings, and then I started talking about this stuff and interweaving it into my business and then sort of mushroomed. Like, my experience was that almost in a six month period or something, I went from I'm still climbing the mountain, to I've plateaued, and now I've got more income than I can spend, which is truly my experience now I open my bank accounts and I'm like, God, I feel like I shop all the time.

00:42:40

It just balance just keeps going up. I said, Honey, we need to invest more. Let's take it off the table, put it in an account somewhere, invest it. And I worked hard for that. But that is in my experience, that is the eventuality.

00:42:54

Now, there are still people who are committed to the I'm going to be homeless and bankrupt and eat cat food mindset. And some of my more fun or light hearted work with clients, my high net worth clients, is to tell them to spend more. No, you're not. You got me. I'm on deck here.

00:43:15

And you're not going to end up bankrupt or homeless. Go for that cruise upgrade, get the A class cabin.

00:43:25

People have money mindset issues at every level, if that makes you feel any better. 100%. It's true. Yes. And the way we approach money and think about money, it doesn't matter actually how much is in the bank.

00:43:42

You can still have those feelings. Right. In couples work I talk about often, there's one of them that has a high need for security. That's how I word it because it's like they need to see a certain amount in the bank and a certain this because they need to have that financial security. And then you have the other person who's more the spender and doesn't really think about the long term.

00:44:06

Sometimes it's good that they're together because gives a little balance to life, but. It'S a little bit of checks and balances. Exactly.

00:44:16

But yeah, I think I do appreciate that. I love that you share your story because that should give hope to people. Like you said, there is a hopeful message in this that even if up until now you don't feel prepared through hard work, you can still make this happen, right? Absolutely. I think it really comes down to I mean, you and I both know that human beings are massively powerful.

00:44:40

That sometimes words give world. In other words, sometimes your experience of life really is a function of your speaking. If you don't believe that, stop gossiping about your spouse and start saying nice things and just watch your relationship improve. Right. And when it comes to money, anything conceptual, really, relationships, time, money, these are all areas of life that are massively impacted by what we say about them.

00:45:06

And so you can start by just saying, I haven't been a financial expert up to now, but I'm figuring it out in 2023 or today. Now is the beginning of the rest of my financial life, which is going to be absolutely abundant. I'm learning how to be an expert on this stuff.

00:45:23

It's like a place of, oh, new beginnings. Uncertainty, right? Affirmations are sometimes just icing on mud. I mean, I'm not selling you to stand in front of the mirror and say I'm skinny and rich. I'm skinny and rich.

00:45:33

I'm skinny and rich. Otherwise we'd all be skinny and rich, right? 100%.

00:45:42

But that place of like, okay, this is a mountain I can climb. How do I know this? Because the dumb kid I was in high school with did it.

00:45:54

Touche.

00:45:58

I don't mean to be tried, but there is truth in that. We all know someone who made a bunch of money through non intellectual pursuits or whatever it is. Only fans, maybe, I don't know. I've only heard of only fans in the news when those people end up on trial for murder. So maybe okay, you might have a there's a whole foot fetish thing.

00:46:22

I think I say this actually before OnlyFans it was talking about YouTubers. Who. Unbox things. It's like life. They make so much money.

00:46:31

It doesn't have to be hard in that regard. We overthink. And like you said, it's obviously not rocket science. It is not rocket science. Ultimately, when it comes to money, it's basic algebra.

00:46:43

It's basic what's the word I'm looking for? Mathematics. Adding and subtracting. If you could do basic adding and subtracting, you can make profit. There you go.

00:46:53

But it's all those other things that are guiding those choices that you make, right? Yeah. And it's undiscovered or unrevealed until you really introspect about it. It's all been baked in up to now and until you look back and go, wow, that was really impactful. I've been living like that with capital T true.

00:47:17

This whole time. And the only thing that happened was my dad said it to me when I was eleven, money doesn't grow on trees. Oh, it doesn't? Oh, shoot.

00:47:32

I love it. So good. There were things we talked about beforehand that you just have these really good truth nuggets. And I know I now regret my choice of crush it. Crush them.

00:47:44

I didn't mean that like that. But I know we're out of time, so we're not going to get to talk about the other things. But yeah, I just really appreciate the conversation because I think I love your perspective, like you said, the experience you've gone through, but the fact that this is your life. You help people analyze and figure out how to be profitable and that it is about unpacking our own stuff. Like we're holding ourselves back in so many ways.

00:48:13

It is. And I'm hoping that there's a more commonly talked about curriculum for business owners in the near term future. That's certainly what I'm doing with my podcast and with my consultancy, the Money Blueprint program that we offer. But I do think it's an acquirable skill set and I think it all starts with a decision. Ultimately, the information you need is out there.

00:48:39

Data acquisition is easy, but your filter has been impacting you up to now, so you can change your filter. Love it. Awesome. Thank you. It was wonderful to see you again.

00:48:50

And if people want to get more of you, which, of course, they're going to want to. What are the best places to connect with you? Two places. So, I'm the host of a podcast previously called Profit Boss Radio, soon to be renamed Love Your Money with Hilary Hendershot. And then everything else I do is on the web, of course@hendershotwealth.com, and Hendershot has two T's.

00:49:18

Hendershotwealth.com. Awesome. And we will have all of the links in the show notes, of course, to make that easy for you, but yeah. Thank you. Thank you again.

00:49:26

Thank you. Don't forget to register for the Creating Your Perfect Work Week workshop, happening October 27. Head on over to Amberholley.com schedule to register and get more information.