Ep #109: Money and Your Thoughts About It

Hi, this is Lindsay Dotzlaf and you are listening to Mastering Coaching Skills, episode 109.

To really compete in the coaching industry, you have to be great at coaching. That’s why every week, I will be answering your questions, sharing my stories, and offering tips and advice so you can be the best at what you do. Let’s get to work.

Hey coach, today I want to talk to you about something that I don’t talk about all that often on this podcast. And although I have to say this isn’t specific coaching tools or coaching tips that you can immediately take and apply when you’re working with your clients, it is a topic that just keeps coming up in my awareness. It keeps coming up with my clients. I’ve been coaching on this a lot, you know, it’s coming up with my colleagues, with friends.

It’s just on my mind and I thought I would record an episode about it for you because it is coaching adjacent, I would say. Like your thoughts about this topic will affect your coaching and your coaching business, even if you aren’t immediately applying them when you’re working with your clients. This is more work for you as the coach to do. And some of you might work on these things also with your clients, so it might be useful for that. But this is really just for you.

And no matter where you stand on this topic, I really hope that the things I talk about today will be very useful for you because I’m going to talk about this in ways that I haven’t heard, I mean, people are definitely talking about it. But I’m going to give you some thoughts that I have and tell you how I think about things that might just be a little bit different than what you’ve heard before or how you think about things.

So what we’re going to talk about today is money. Money, money, money, are you ready? And I know that this can be a topic that can be a little activating for people and be a turn off, or “Oh, no, let’s not talk about this.” But I promise you what I’m going to talk about today is going to be kind of a different spin on money and maybe some ways to think about money that you’ve never thought about them before.

And some of you might be lit up by money, which is amazing, and love this topic and think like, “You’re not going to tell me anything I don’t already know.” But that also might not be true. So I want you to give it a chance. Even if you’re like, “Money, blah, turn it off,” give me just a few minutes and see how it goes before you make the decision. Because here’s what I’m going to talk about, not how to make money, which you can go find a thousand podcasts on that right now at this moment, right?

What I’m going to talk about is how I think about money. How I think about money that I create. What I do with money. How I think about it in a way that motivates me, because I’ve been pretty open about this before on the podcast, but I’m not super motivated just by looking at like what’s the amount of money I make. That doesn’t light me up, it doesn’t light up my soul, right? It’s like, “Yeah, that’s fun, okay, I can afford a nice hotel room or whatever.” I can think about it like that.

But there are things that I do with my money that do light me up. And I encourage you, I’m going to share a lot of them today, and they’re things that I’ve really never shared, that I don’t talk about. I just do them for me. I don’t do them to get any kind of praise for them, so I think that’s why I don’t talk about it a lot.

But what I’ve realized, as I’m recording this, it’s kind of holiday season here in the US in the winter, lots of holidays coming up and money can be a big topic. And I think that there are things I do with my money that make me feel so great about money and about my business generating money. So this is going to be useful for you especially if you have thoughts that are like making money is bad, or people with money are bad, or who needs that much money, who needs to be rich? Like whatever your thoughts are.

If you have thoughts like that, I hope to prove to you today that they’re just not true and they’re not useful, right? So for those of you that are coaches, that are running your own business, just think about what this does to you. To your mindset, to the way you feel about running a business if you have thoughts that are like money is evil, money is bad, I shouldn’t need money, I shouldn’t want to make that much money and you’re trying to run a business that has to bring in money, right?

Like it really is the only way to run a business, is to bring in some money, right? Like think about this, even if you’re running a not for profit, you still have to bring in money. Every business that there is, every entrepreneur, for whatever reason, for many reasons, has to bring in money. That’s just how it works, at least the way our country is right now, right?

The way the climate is in our country, if you’re in an entrepreneur, if you’re running a business, you have to bring in money in order to do the things that you want to do to make the impact you want to make with your business.

So let’s dive in, let’s talk about all of the things about money. The first thing I want to say to just get it out of the way is that although I said I’m not super motivated by just looking at the bottom line, right? By looking at what’s the exact amount of money I’m bringing in, how much money did I make this month, this year, whatever, I do, like nice things.

So I don’t want you to hear me say this and think like, “Oh, okay, she’s just like talking about all these other things we can do with money that aren’t buying things for ourselves.” It’s really fun to buy things for yourself. And one thing I will say is, if you’re like, “Oh, but like, I don’t really like nice things,” or “That’s not for me,” I would encourage you to find the things that you do like.

Not to go blow a bunch of money, not to just like spend endlessly, but to just find the things that do light you up and do delight you. And one thing that I see that a lot of coaches do, I know this because I’ve coached so many people on it, is they watch other people and they say, “Oh, like that’s how I’m supposed to spend money, these are the things that I’m supposed to like to spend money on.”

And I say always, absolutely not. You find the things that light you up. So if the things that light you up are really expensive sweatpants, buy those. Not just to buy the expensive sweatpants, right? Like if that’s what you hear me say, you’re kind of missing the point. But just finding the ways, like what do you love to spend money on? What are little, tiny treats that you can do for yourself to just show yourself, “Oh yeah, money can be fun. I do like money.”

I encourage you to practice that thought. If that is not a thought that you have currently, practice it, warm up to it, find the ways that you do like money. Hopefully, by the end of this podcast, you will have some great ideas. But I’m going to start with just the really superficial.

So when I think about buying myself nice things, what I think about is I really value quality over quantity. It’s very much like what I teach in my mastermind, in my programs, right? It’s all about simplicity, but quality. Very high quality, over more and more and more. Over giving, giving, more quantity.

So I love to buy great shoes, I love to spend money on shoes. One recent obsession which I have really tried to like limit myself on because it feels a little silly, is blazers. I am so obsessed with blazers, all of them. All different kinds. Every kind. I want a little blazers. It’s getting a little out of control how many, not that I have that many, but how many I love. I love all of them.

These are just a couple silly examples, right? But just to let you kind of get to know me and see some of the things. I really also love super comfortable clothes. Like very nice, very, very soft, that is like top priority, clothes. Like joggers and a sweatshirt, yes please, I will wear that every single day, all day, give it all to me.

And then another thing that I have learned that I really love is to have my nails done. Now, I hate the actual process of getting my nails done. I do not think of this as self-care. I do not think of this as, “Oh, I’m like treating myself,” because that is not what it feels like to me. I hate it. Every time I make an actual appointment to get my nails done, I want to cancel it.

I try to find excuses of why I shouldn’t go. I try to convince myself that maybe I can just do them myself. But here’s the truth, my nails are so thin they break very easily. Although I have been taking lots of probiotics and that’s helping a ton. But they’re so thin. They look like chewed off kindergartner’s nails if I don’t have them professionally done.

So that short time period where I’m sitting, having my nails done where I am not loving it, the payoff is for three weeks or however long it is between appointments because I get powder dipped nails, so all of that time in between when they just look nice and I don’t have to think anything about them, I delight in that.

Okay, so those were just some examples of things that I love to spend money on. I also love to travel. I love, love to travel with my kids and the thought of like showing them new experiences just fills my cup like you wouldn’t believe. This is probably one of the number one things to blow my kids minds. And I’ll come back to this a little bit later in the podcast.

So now that we just got that out of the way, right, like it is great to just spend money on things that you want when you have the money to do it. But let’s talk about all the other ways that you can spend money and that you do spend money as an entrepreneur, and kind of some different ways to think about it that maybe you’ve never thought of before.

So one way that I sometimes see coaches go down this rabbit hole of coaches making money, is they start thinking about why would someone need, why would a coach need to have a million dollar business? Or why does this coach, like why do they talk about money? Why do they set these huge goals?

And something that I want to let you in on that I’ve talked about a little bit on one of the Q&A episodes is that it’s easy to see that and think that those coaches, I’m saying in quotes because I’ve seen it just all over the industry in so many different ways. One thing that happens is you hear that and you think that they’re just like sitting on piles of money, right? They just, they make a million dollars in their business and then they have a million dollars.

This is 100% not true. And I think about this all the time when I am hiring people. When I’m paying my own coaches, when I’m paying anyone in the industry, I never think, “Oh, this coach is making so much money, why would I pay them more?” I think about all of the employees, all of the people that work for them, all of the jobs that they are providing. To me, that lights me up.

So when I think about hiring a coach, paying someone to coach me, whether it is a coach that I know is maybe a newer coach who doesn’t have a big team, they’re not paying a bunch of people, I just think how fun it is for them to receive the money, right?

I take my brain back to when I was a newer coach when I would get so excited every single dollar that came in, every client that hired me. Every client that paid maybe, you know, if I had raised my prices, or they paid a new price, or the first time someone paid me in full. I think of all of those things and how exciting that was. And I love thinking about that when I am paying someone.

And then if it’s a coach that I know they’re making a lot of money, you know, it doesn’t feel as exciting to pay that particular coach a certain amount of money because it doesn’t light them up in the exact same way. I think about all of the people that they are paying with that money, right?

Like how fun is it that they get to pay other coaches to coach for them? Or that they get to hire all of these employees that get to work for a dream company? Or, you know, just all of the different things that they are doing with that money, I think about that.

I also, obviously, this is all what I’m talking about right now, is just money going out of my business that I’m paying people. I love paying people that work for me. And I think about it kind of the same way I was thinking about when I’m hiring a coach. I’m always thinking about what does that mean to them, this money that I’m paying them? I love to pay people really well for what they do. I love it. Love, love, love it.

And I’m never thinking like, “Oh, how much could I just hire this for? How much could I hire this for?” I think about what is the amount that might blow their mind? That will feel so fun that this will feel like their dream job, right? I think about this as part of the way a company can make a social impact. I’m going to be talking a lot more about that, about donations and giving money to charity and all of those things.

But I really think that paying people from my business, people who are working for me, people who I’m hiring for whatever reason, that is also social impact, right? That money is going out into the world and helping people, just in a different way.

Side note, the other thing that I also think about when it comes to this and the impact is one of my values, it’s one of my company’s values. One of the ways I think about impact is the impact that I just have on humans, whether it’s me or my business in general, that I have on humans on a day to day through their interactions.

So even when I think about contractors that I hire or employees that I hire who work for me, I think about what is the impact I’m having on that person at the end of the day? Like, yes, there’s the money, but also at the end of the day, after they’ve stopped working for the day or done the job that they’re doing for me, do they think today was a good day?

Now, as a coach, I know that I can’t 100% control what people think of me or how they feel or any of that. But I can influence it, right? The more time I spend thinking about that and the impact that I’m having on someone’s life, the more likely they’re going to have a great experience.

I think about this with my clients, with coaches that I hire, with employees that I hire, with contractors that I hire. Literally anyone that’s interacting with me in my business, this is something I spend time just considering. It’s just a very different way to think about it than what did this person do for me today? Did they deliver? How did this client show up for coaching today? Did they show up the way I think they should, right? Like all of that, when I flip that and I think what impact did I have on them, it just makes a huge difference in the way I think about things.

I also think about this when I think about paying taxes, which can be, I know, not a very fun thing to think about. And not that I’m sitting around, thinking about paying taxes often. But when it is time to pay my quarterly taxes and I think, “Oh my gosh, that’s a lot of money that I’m paying in taxes,” I think there are reasons that we pay taxes, right?

There are things that I am paying for with those taxes. And of course, there are things that I’m sure I don’t agree with that those taxes are going to. But it just takes some of the kind of burden or the thought of like, “Oh, this is terrible, I can’t believe I have to pay all that money.” I don’t ever think about it that way.

I think about all the reasons I love to pay taxes and all of the things that the taxes go to that I like to enjoy as a human that lives where I live. And I do not want to get into a discussion about which things I agree with or which things I don’t because, of course, there are some things that I think my tax money didn’t go to. But those just aren’t the things that I spend time thinking about when I’m thinking about it like this for my business.

So those are the first two things, right? There’s like the kind of flouncy things that I like to buy in my life. There’s the way I think about paying people inside of my business and what I’m doing with that money. But then the rest of the things that I want to talk about, and this is one reason, one big reason I decided to record this podcast, some of them might be things that you aren’t thinking about.

Or if you’re a newer coach, you’re thinking, I’ve had so many people say this to me, “Oh, I can’t wait until I can do that.” Or, “I wish that I could do that now,” or anything like that. The rest of what I’m going to talk about for the rest of the episode, I want you to really consider, and I’m going to give you examples, that no matter how much you’re making, if you are bringing in money, you could start to do some of these things now.

And some of them can be done with money, but some of them can also be done with time. And the reason that it’s so important, I think, to think about money like this, to think about ways that you are creating an impact in people around you, in the world, and just creating that social impact. The reason it’s important is because being an entrepreneur sometimes can be hard.

And sometimes you can be stressed about money and that you’re not making what you want to make, and that you got here because you wanted to make changes and you wanted to help people. And it can get frustrating that you aren’t doing that immediately. So I’m going to give you some ideas of how you can actually do that right now, because it’s so useful to link these amazing positive thoughts to your business right now. Instead of thinking, “Oh, well, yeah, that’ll be nice someday.”

One thing I will say for the next few things that I talk about, these are just my examples, right? I’m just going to give you some tangible examples of things I have done in my life. And the reason I’m doing that is so that you can find the things, like get your brain going on what would this look like for me, right?

So if you hear something that you’re like, “Whoa, yes, this is the type of thing, this is what lights me up about money.” Take note of it, take a second and brainstorm your ideas. What do you want to do with your money? Whether it’s $5, $500, $5,000, right? Like really thinking about what does this look like for me, no matter where you are in your business, especially if you have negative thoughts about money.

So one way I love, love to use my money in my life, is I love to remove burdens for people. It really fills me up to think about someone else feeling stressed about something, feeling overwhelmed, feeling anxious, and me saying, “Let me help you with that, it’s easy. I’ve got this,” and truly just taking it over for them. So there are so many different ways to do this, but I’ll give you some examples.

One thing, we built a house a couple of years ago and moved. And when we moved, one thing I knew for sure, this is kind of silly and it might make you laugh, but I never wanted my husband to mow the grass ever again. He complained every time he had to do it.

Also, I love mowing the grass. I used to love mowing the grass, but I have the worst allergies ever of all time. So it was like every week I would mow the grass and then I would pay for it for days. I would be stuffy. Actually you can probably hear him a little stuffy right now. Anytime I spend lots of time outside, I am stuffy. I have allergies, so I just couldn’t do it, right? I had to decide I can’t do this anymore, it’s not worth it for me.

So he was doing it and he just hated it. He hated everything about it. So when we moved I told him, “Let’s just get rid of the lawn mower and just never mow again. How about that?” That felt so great to me, right? It’s such a small thing, but it was just like let’s hire someone so that you never have to think about this again. We literally don’t have a lawnmower.

Now, some of you might think that’s silly, right? Don’t use these examples as like what you should do. This is where I’m encouraging you, like find your things.

Recently, so as I’m recording this, Thanksgiving is coming up in the United States. And I have a grandpa who lives a couple hours away, who is I think, I’m going to say 91. And he just lives by himself. My grandma died a few years ago, and then my dad who actually also lived with him, died last year. And it’s just him, he’s just by himself. And I’m the only real granddaughter that he has that he talks to. And we wanted to invite him up for Thanksgiving.

But the rest of my family, you know, I kind of talked to them and we were all trying to figure out how can we get him up here. And he still drives, but I just knew I didn’t want him driving. He got in a car accident a couple years ago and I just didn’t want the stress of thinking of him driving up here or getting lost. He doesn’t have a smartphone, he can’t text me, right? Like it was just a whole thing.

And I thought, at first we were trying to figure out how we could go down and get him because it’s only a couple hours. But Thanksgiving will be at my house and I just could not make it work. And then it hit me, I could hire someone to just drive him up. Is it expensive? Yes. Is it worth it? 1,000% yes.

I am driving him home after Thanksgiving, but he’s going to come up and stay a couple days. And I don’t even have to think twice about it because I know it’s handled. I don’t have to worry about him getting lost, I don’t have to worry about him getting in a car accident or causing a car accident, and he still gets to come.

And when I told him, he cried. Now, to me, that is like the ultimate use of my money, of our money, of family money, of any of the money. Things like that are what drive me to say I love making money.

Another example is when the pandemic started here in the United States a lot of places closed and they closed for a while. So the woman who cuts my hair, who I love so much, who I’ve been going to for a long time and we’re friends, so we would kind of chat. And her hair studio was closed, like a lot of them were.

And I knew she was stressed, right? I knew that that was a thing that was just like, if my clients aren’t paying me, if I’m not cutting hair, how will I make money? And I took it upon myself to just send her the amount that I would pay for the hair cutting in the same timeframes that I would normally schedule haircuts and get my hair cut.

Now, was that something I had to do? No, she actually was like, “I can’t take this. It’s too much.” But I insisted because I didn’t want her, I knew if I could just ease that stress just the teensiest bit, right? So again, these examples might not be things that you think, “Oh, that’s amazing, or that would feel good to me.” But just find the things that would. And even if they’re the smallest things, even if it’s putting a $5 bill in, what is it called, the Salvation Army people, right? That like ringing the bells and they have a bucket and you can put money in.

Even if it’s putting $5 in there and thinking and like linking that to money is good, I like money. Why? Because I can do these things, I can help these people. Okay, so that’s one example, just removing burdens, removing stress for people.

My next example, and this is really interesting because a lot of you have probably heard of the five love languages, which most of us have probably taken that quiz at some point. And one of the love languages is gift giving. And when I take that quiz, which if Maggie Reyes is listening, she has things to say about that. She is a marriage coach, go to her podcast and find her episode about the love languages. I love it, it’s so good. It’s one of my favorites.

Anyway, when I take that quiz, gift giving is not high on my list. But here’s what I have learned about myself, I don’t love just giving gifts, right? Like just, oh, it’s my birthday, it’s someone’s birthday, I should get them a gift. Or it’s Christmas, I should get someone a gift. Or it’s whatever, just like get a gift. I don’t love gifts just for the idea of a gift.

What I do love is blowing people’s minds. I love surprising people. I love surprises. Personally I love surprises, but I also love surprising people. And I love the thought of just someone being delighted, delighted, right? Just like someone being lit up by something that I have either done, or surprised them with, or bought them, or given my time, right? It doesn’t even have to be money, it could be time.

So I’ll give you some examples of that, that I just recently have spent time delighting people or surprising them. So not too long ago, my friends and I were going to see The Chicks, formerly known as the Dixie Chicks, which I love. I love them. If you don’t, I’m sorry. I don’t know why, I don’t know what’s wrong with you.

So we decided to go to a concert and I told them, “Why don’t you just pay me for the tickets, like here’s the price.” And I just told them like the regular seat price. And then I bought, I think, like second row tickets or something. And for me it was so fun to just walk in and they like thinks that we’re going to just regular seats and it’s going to be fun.

And then we just get to like walk closer, and closer, and closer. And they were losing their whole mind. That was so fun. It was fun for them, it was fun for me. And yes, for me, like the experience of being there and doing that was fun. But seeing their reaction to it is truly, that’s what gets me, right?

Another thing that I love to do is just buy surprise gifts. So if I know someone’s having, and I don’t do this all the time. So if you’re like, “Wait, she’s never done this for me.” I don’t do it all the time. Sometimes I’m really good about it, sometimes I’m not. But I love just surprising people, right? Just sending them gifts for no reason. Or just like, hey, I know you’re having a bad week, here’s this gift, or you know, something like that.

Another thing that I’ve done recently, and I’ll get more into like truly thinking about social impact and charitable donations because this kind of crosses into that. But recently, my daughter came home and she said, “Hey, we’re doing this fundraiser at school and it’s so exciting. We get to raise this money, and then we get to go, it’s for local families. And then we get to go shopping and buy them gifts,” Right? Like buy presents for their kids because they don’t have the money to do that.

And I love this, thinking about making a social impact locally with families that don’t have this, right? I love the magic of holidays and of Christmas,. And if I can just provide a teensy bit of that for families that don’t have it, that to me is incredible. So she told me that and so I sat with it and I was thinking about it.

And I sent her teacher an email and I said, “Hey, in my business, basically I set a certain percentage of my revenue aside for charitable donations and thinking about social impact. And I would love, if it’s okay with you, to give $1,000 towards the shopping.” And I also said, “But I want to be sure, like I don’t know how many families there are. I don’t even know if that makes sense. If it’s too much, let me know. If you’re shopping for like one family and you don’t need that much, let me know.”

So she emailed me back and she said, “I’m in tears right now. I can’t believe it. I was actually very stressed because we’re getting a late start, I was afraid we weren’t going to raise the money and the kids were going to be super disappointed because we’re going to go shopping for these families and we wouldn’t be able to buy the things that they want.”

And so, of course, I said, “Oh my gosh, okay, let’s figure this out.” So we emailed back and forth and we decided, I didn’t want to just give the money, because I didn’t want the kids to like lose the excitement for it because it’s kind of a competition between classes. So I didn’t want like a big amount of money to come in and then them think, “Oh, we already did it, so we don’t have to bring in any more money.”

So instead I went and bought 10 $100 gift cards and I’m just sending one in each day. My daughter doesn’t even know this is happening, so she’s also shocked, right? She was like, “Oh my gosh, we’re giving $100, that’s crazy. That’s so fun, it’s amazing.” But we’re not, we’re giving that every day. And this money is already set aside, right? Like I plan to do things with money in my business.

So not only did the burden come off the teacher of how are we going to make this money? And I know enough teachers to know that if they didn’t raise the money that they wanted to, my guess is she probably would have funded some of it which is the last thing I want it to happen.

And so just the fact that I could do that, right? Like send in that money, I was taking the burden off the teacher, I was delighting the kids, and now there’s this impact on the community that goes beyond reach that I would have otherwise, helping people that I don’t even know, that I will never know, that I have no idea who they are.

Okay and talking about this brings me to the last thing that I want to talk about when it comes to money. And this is actually what I thought this entire episode was going to be about. But then I really thought, no, like, let me expand the way I’m talking about money to all the different ways that I think about money, all the different ways I think about spending money.

So the last one, which a lot of entrepreneurs do, or at least think about, is thinking about charitable donations and money that you are putting back into the world in ways that you know that are helping people that need help.

So for me, this does kind of touch on a kind of tender spot in my heart and in my soul, where a lot of you that hear me on this podcast now, you only know who I am now. But when I was little, my life was very different and I certainly didn’t live in a situation where we had any money to be giving to anyone.

And not only that, but there were times that we definitely benefited from services and things like this, that now I’m able to give money to. So it just kind of feels full circle for me. And I have some memories as a kid that are just so imprinted in my brain that I think about often when I think this is one reason I have my own business, because I want to have money to give to these certain situations.

So I’m going to tell you just a couple of things, a couple of ways that I think about this and think about charitable donations. But also I want to encourage you to, you know, if you’re thinking, “Oh yeah, that’s nice, I can’t wait till I’m making a lot of money to be able to do that.” I’m going to give you some examples of things that I did in the very beginning of my business when I was a brand new coach, when I was making next to no money.

So now, the way I think about this is I set aside a certain percentage of my overall revenue, it just goes to there’s, I don’t even know the words. When I log in and I’m looking at my book keeping sheet, there is a line that says charitable donations or something along those lines. And there’s always a lot of money there.

And one thing I will tell you is that spending that money and looking, one of the only reasons I ever actually log in to look at the spreadsheet is so I can scroll down and see how much money is in this box so I know how much I can give. And the way I do it now is every quarter, because I pay quarterly taxes, so it’s like okay, I pay taxes, and then I decide where do I want to give some money.

And when I think about the way I do it, and there is, 100% there is not a right way. And to be fair, I also do it outside of that quarterly time every once in a while. if there’s something that comes up or that’s on my heart that I want to do then. The only reason I have it marked as quarterly is just so that I remember to do it and so that I feel, I get excited about it and spend time thinking about, “Oh, yeah, this is coming up, where do I want to give this money?”

So the way I choose to do it, and again, truly no right or wrong, is I like to mix it up. So sometimes I will give money to a larger, you know, kind of national organization or something, an organization that is helping with something that has kind of happened recently, right? Where it’s like going to a specific thing.

I also love to make sure that I’m giving money locally. So I kind of go back and forth. So I’ll give it to like a bigger organization and then I will find a more local, maybe smaller place that I can donate money. And that’s just how I think about it, right? I love to think about just all the different ways and making sure it’s kind of spread out everywhere.

This is not a right way. Some people I know have one charitable organization that they love so much and they just always give money there. I don’t think it matters. I think what does matter is if this is something that sounds incredible to you and sounds like, “Oh, I can’t wait to do this,” I started doing this in the very beginning of my business.

I knew it was really important to me. And in the beginning I had more time because I didn’t have as many clients, and so I would use time sometimes instead of money. I would go to local women’s shelters I actually know a woman who runs a women’s shelter, I would go there.

And at first it was like I’m donating coaching. But, of course, many of the women who were there were not in a space where they actually wanted coaching, right? Like they didn’t know what coaching was. It just wasn’t very useful. So what I ended up doing, honestly, is just going there and sitting and listening to them. And I would just talk to them and just be like a friend.

And what I would do, so every client that I signed in the beginning, which wasn’t all that much. I would set aside a certain amount per client of this is how much money I can use to do this, whatever I want in the world, right? To like donate or whatever. So it would feel like such a small amount.

But here’s what I learned, is that I could take that small amount that I had set aside, I’ve actually never told anyone this. I don’t even think my husband knows that I did this. I would take that small amount that I had set aside, because I found out that at the women’s shelter, a lot of times there would be kids there.

So I would go, and of course, I would coordinate it with the woman running the shelter, I would go pick up food. And not fancy food, like Chick-fil-A, or Wendy’s, or like some kind. I would say, “Hey, how many kids are there today?” I would bring them all something approved by her, like chicken nuggets and fries or something that just lit them up. They thought it was like the best thing ever.

And it would just give them that distraction of maybe you’re in a bad situation right now, and here’s just a little thing that will light up your day, right? Like they thought a kid’s meal was like gold, it was like dropping off gold nuggets in the form of chicken nuggets. And truly, it just lit them up and that is the only reason I did it.

And it was such a small expense on my end, but the way it lit them up and the way it relieved the moms, right? The women who were there, who are there with their kids, who are in a situation they don’t want to be in, to have someone to just come sit with them and talk like a friend with zero judgment. And bring their kids food that just delighted them and distracted them for a little bit.

And I would sometimes bring other things too, toys or coloring books or whatever. But that was just a way for me in the beginning when I didn’t have that much money to still feel like I was helping. So if this is you, if you’re a new coach and you’re like, “Yeah, but I’m just not making that much yet. I can’t wait till I can do that,” just consider that you could actually do it right now.

And it could completely change the way you think about money in your business and in your life, when you start connecting it with things like what I’m talking about today. All right, so I challenge you, I challenge you to find these things for yourself. Find the ways, and not just the like buying fancy things. Because, okay, that’s great, but what are all the other ways that money lights you up?

And I want you to tell me, I’m so intrigued by this. Post about it and tag me. Or if you’re in my spaces, post in there and tell me all the ways because I’m sure there are so many things that I haven’t even thought of. And I would love to hear from you what lights you up about making money. What motivates you to keep going, right? Like that’s one thing that I think about a lot, is if I’m not that super motivated by just seeing the bottom line, by seeing the number, what does motivate me to keep going when I’m having not a great day in my business, right? Or when I’m like, “This is hard, I could go work for someone else.” Or you know, when my brain is just being very dramatic and telling me that today is a terrible day, these are the things that just keep me going.

And I know this is different than what I usually talk about, right? Because I usually talk about the impact, and serving our clients, and changing their lives and all of that. But this is just one more thing that it’s like if you keep putting to the side thinking about money because you don’t like to think about it, or people that make money are evil, or like whatever your thoughts are, trust me, I’ve heard them all. I just challenge you to start thinking about it in some of the ways that I’ve shared today or to find the ways that work for you.

All right, I hope this was fun. I hope you have some ideas. I hope you pull over your car or get out of the shower, whatever it is you’re doing, and write down things that excite you that you can start doing right now with money that you are creating in the world. Thank you so much for being here and I will see you next week, bye.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Mastering Coaching Skills. If you want to learn more about my work, come visit me at lindsaydotzlafcoaching.com. That’s Lindsay with an A, D-O-T-Z-L-A-F.com. see you next week.