Avoider? Saver? Spender? Or Martyr? When you combine your money mindset with your money type, you know your current relationship status with money. Financial freedom is not an end destination. It is the ability to make money regardless of circumstance!

I chat with Monica Shah, the Founder of Revenue Breakthrough. We unpack what it takes to make a consistent, sustainable income by moving your relationship from just MOTION into ACTION.

Show notes

• Monica’s career journey to found Revenue Breakthrough.

• The reality of jumping into your own business and the unforeseen debt!

• What does it take to make consistent, sustainable income?

• Monica’s ah-ha moment is when she realised that she was working backwards.

• The sad reality of working twice as hard with half the money than you can potentially make!

• Five main steps to generating money:

  • Shift your relationship with money

  • Focus on income-generating business activities

  • Tracking the (right) numbers closely

  • Follow the plan

  • Rinse and repeat!

• Don’t get distracted with the daily to-do lists!

• SELLING is the most important entrepreneurial skill to learn!

• Understanding your money type based on your relationship:

  • Avoider

  • Saver

  • Spender

  • Martyr

• The difference between MOTION and ACTION.

• You are not going to spend 100% of your time doing what you love.

• How badly do you want it?

More about Monica

Check out Monica’s website and her awesome book, Getting Rich: You’re Doing It Wrong.

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Transcript

Lisa Linfield:                       00:21                     Hello everybody and welcome to today's episode of Working Women's Wealth. Today I'm joined from New York by Monica Shah and she is the founder of Revenue Breakthrough and also is a seven figure business coach. Hello Monica, welcome to the show.

Monica Shah:                     00:38                     Hello Lisa. I'm so excited to be here.

Lisa Linfield:                       00:41                     So founded Revenue Breakthrough. Tell us about your journey as to how you got into this whole business.

Monica Shah:                     00:52                     So it's interesting because my company's called Revenue Breakthrough, but I wasn't always making revenue breakthroughs. That is for certain. I started my very first company in 2006 and I had just left L'Oreal, so I had graduated from the Kellogg School of Management, which is an MBA program in the US. It's what are the top five of the country and so I really thought that I was like totally hot shit. And I also went and I got a job at L'Oreal Paris, and so as a brand manager for L'oreal Paris and I was working on the skincare line and then I realized that I had to start my own business. So I left off all excited to start my first company. It was literally like jumping into a pool of water that you expect to be warm and instead it's like ice cold. Most people could relate to the fact that like you're so good at selling somebody else, but then when it comes to selling yourself, you suddenly hit this brick wall and that's what happened for me.

Monica Shah:                     01:53                     Within 12 months of being in business, I was over $25,000 in debt and I just couldn't figure out how to pay off. And everything that I was doing in my business, it wasn't so much that I was like worried about the debt because debt is important and dept has its place in terms of being able to help you create things. It was that I wasn't making in dept and ends. And I have to figure out what to do. So I started doing all these different things to generate money, like walking dogs and cats sitting and doing focus groups and selling stuff on Ebay because I just couldn't figure out the money piece of it. One of the things that I did a lot of was rent my apartment out on Airbnb, which is a rental company that's now all over the world.

Monica Shah:                     02:47                     But at that time it was brand new and it was exciting and fun except for the fact that I was doing it so much that it was like, I didn't even remember what my apartment looked like. And there was a particular week a half period where I had rented my apartment out for eight days in a row and had been sleeping on one person's couch and then another person's couch and then another person's couch. Because nobody has extra rooms. So I was sleeping on pillow couches and two times and I was pretty exhausted and I grabbed all my bags that I got on the subway to come back to my apartment and I get off the subway. It was the 34th street, BDSQQ subway lines. And I had three bags on one arm, three bags at another arm, and a bag across my chest and a roller bag that I was carrying it in my right hand.

Monica Shah:                     03:35                     And I started walking up the stairs in the subway and people are rushing by me and they're knocking bags off of me and they rolling down the stairs. And I finally get to the top of the stairs and I looked to the last, because I it is like, why don't you take the escalator. I picked that stuff so I can take the escalator. The escalator was broken that day and I looked to the right and the elevator was also closed for that day. And I looked in front of me and there was literally four more flights of stairs to get to street level. And at that moment I just got really tired and I dropped all of my bags on the subway floor. Then I did the unthinkable. I sat down on a New York subway floor. You know you've hit rock bottom.

Lisa Linfield:                       04:24                     Absolutely.

Monica Shah:                     04:24                     I sat down on the New York subway floor and I'm sitting there and I'm like all disheveled and this pile of bags and people are walking by me and they're trying not to make eye contact and the tears are rolling down my face and I'm trying to figure out what I want to do with my life.

Monica Shah:                     04:40                     And I got really clear in that moment that I had been being a real barter for my business. Like I had been working 80 plus hours a week just so I could say that I was a business owner because I didn't have to go work 40 hours for somebody else, which was insane. And I got to the point where I realized that I had to figure a way out of this situation and if I did it to figure a way out of this situation, I was going to be in massive amounts of pain because I was already getting there. And I think this happens to so many business owners is that you start very confident it put together and then you kind of hit some roadblocks, especially where those roadblocks are around momey and you start to really like have your own confidence be shattered and you start to really not trust and believe in yourself anymore.

Monica Shah:                     05:29                     And it was really getting into that state. It's a state now that I really recognize with my clients who fitted this for themselves for a number of years, come to these sort of like exhausted and broken and feeling like they used to know who they were but they don't anymore. And I got clear that I have to figure this out over the next year. I was giving myself a year and if I didn't figure it out in a year I was going to go back and get a job. And the thing about me is that I'm not super employable because I don't like being told what to do it does that seem like a worst case scenario. So I did what I needed to do. I hired business coaches, I hired marketing experts. I talked to my dad who was an entrepreneur and sold his company when I was at college.

Monica Shah:                     06:16                     I talked to my business school friends and I started to try to figure out what does it take to make consistent, sustainable income in a business, not just like have one $5,000 a month, but to really make consistent sustainable income. And what I got clear on was that I was doing everything in the wrong order at the wrong time and I was working twice as much as I needed to be and making half the money and when I look at entrepreneurs today to this day, I see it happening all the time. People are working two to three times as hard as they need to be and making half as much as they could be. And what I was doing was doing what I call sort of Russian roulette marketing, which is like I would wake up and decide what marketing strategies I was going to do that day based on like my friend, what she was doing.

Monica Shah:                     07:06                     Or based on the latest newsletter that told me I should do like a video or told me I should write a book or told me I should do a nurture sequence of emails or maybe do a bunch of interviews. They didn't have any rhyme of reasons to it. And I find that that's how a lot of us sort of learned about our businesses is that we're kind of just choosing what we want to do that day without really looking at where are we in our business and what do we need to do first, second, and third. So one of the things that this really made me to is that they're five main steps to generating money right, in the business. And the first is you have to shift your relationship with money.

Monica Shah:                     07:45                     Because now that I've been a coach for 14 years, eight years in this current company, and I can tell you that I can tell people what to do with their money all day long, but if there is a fear around money, around looking at your numbers or an identity where you feel like you're not good with money or you're not good with numbers, you're always going to have a block around selling and around marketing.

Monica Shah:                     08:08                     So we first have to improve your relationship with money. It's shifted change it. And that's really step one and it's one of the reasons like even me as a super qualified NBA was struggling with money, right? It wasn't that I didn't know what to do. It was that I wasn't doing it. It wasn't looking at my numbers, I wasn't doing the sales conversations, I wasn't doing the tracking that are essential as a business owner. And that leads to step two, which is really focusing on revenue generating activities, like focusing on the things that generate more money. And we'll talk more about that later. And then step three is tracking, like really looking at your numbers and tracking it. A lot of people tell me, well I don't track, I actually haven't met anybody that doesn't track. It's just that you're tracking the wrong things.

Monica Shah:                     08:53                     You're tracking all the things that aren't working. You're tracking the things that you liked to track. You're tracking the day that don't have any money. Instead of tracking the things that do work, I recommend every business owner has a dashboard. I recommend that you're tracking at least seven numbers a week that you're looking at in your business to make sure that you know where things are going and what the health and temperature of your business looks like. And then step four is to make a plan and follow the plan. A dynamic plan. For most business owners planning is something that happens at the beginning of the year and it didn't say fantastic fun experience with colored markers and a frameable product, but it is not something that is usually done in such a way where it's actual numbers to a spreadsheet. And I know Lisa for you planning is a big thing of what you do with your financial advice that you give to people and changing and shifting as people grow is really important.

Monica Shah:                     09:48                     But I find that a lot of business owners, they have a hard time with the notion of creating a projection of then being able to change that projection as the year moves forward. And that's a huge piece of the planning process. And then step five is to rinse and repeat. And I added step five actually after I wrote my book. So it's not even in there. And the reason I added it as I thought way too many business owners being distracted in their businesses. So they'd write one piece of an article and then they wouldn't write another one for four months later or they do a speaking event and worked really well for them, but then they wouldn't do another one for five months later because they were just so easily distracted. And so really getting good at soaking in on the things that are working and magnify that which you are talented at that which is bringing clients to you and really having an awareness around that. And when I started doing those five steps really in my business, everything shifted. I paid off the $25,000 in 12 months, was able to put $8,000 in the bank the following year in savings and then grew by revenue every single year doubled or tripled that leading to what we crossed seven figures in 2013 and then we rode in revenue ever since.

Lisa Linfield:                       11:02                     You mentioned that you wrote your book. What made you get to the stage where you thought well, actually I think I'm ready to write a book because it takes quite a lot of your journey with yourself and journey with your clients to get it to such a state that you think well actually, I can put it down for others to share.

Monica Shah:                     11:20                     So it's a great question Lisa, and I'll answer in two parts. I'm going to answer it from a business perspective and then a personal perspective because way too many people get a book confused with business. And so one thing I just want to put out as a public service announcement is a book is not a business. So writing a book it didn't have itself is not going to generate a lot of revenue for you. Even if you got a publisher at this day and age, a famous publisher to publish your book. Most advances for first time authors range anywhere from $20,000 to $50,000, which isn't usually enough money for somebody to live on for an entire year. So that's the first piece is if you are going to write a book and you are a business owner, my suggestion is that you use that book as a lot of people say use it as a big business card, which what that means is give it to people or sell it to people.

Monica Shah:                     12:19                     It doesn't even matter if you're making a ton of money from it as a way to open doors for yourself to get more clients into your other programs. So I have a lot of authors who've come to be, who are super [inaudible 00:12:33]. Tens of thousands of books, but they're still struggling with money because they never bothered to create programs that go with their books and put the people who bought the books into those programs. So that's a really important aspect of like mend in your business. And then point number two is if you're going to write a book, maybe because it's on your bucket list or because it's something that's really important to you, make sure that you're not writing your book during time that should be revenue generating time because the book itself is not going to generate revenue. What will is doing sales conversations and meeting people that are in your target market.

Monica Shah:                     13:12                     So when my client write books, I recommend that they do, like they pick a Saturday, like one or two Saturdays of the month and they spend the entire Saturday writing. Or if Saturday is not an option because that's time you spend with your family. Maybe you pick a Tuesday and Thursday night and those nights you write from 6:00 AM to 9:00 AM or maybe you pick 6:00 AM to 8:00 AM in the morning. Then you're not actually writing during business time. Especially if you don't have another income source set up yet. I do have some clients that have full time jobs or that have another income source so they can spend their days writing. But you just want to make sure you're securely taken care of before you take that revenue generating time and give it towards writing. Now on a personal level Because I think that's what you were asking, right?

Lisa Linfield:                       14:01                     No, absolutely. I think your insights are fantastic about writing a book. I agree entirely.

Monica Shah:                     14:06                     Part of the reason we I started there is because in some ways I feel like a grandmother in the industry of business coaching because I did it for so long and one of the things that really makes me sad is how many people make this mistake. They think of business as a book and they come to me and they have spent a whole year or even two years writing a book and now their savings are depleted, their confidence is depleted. The book didn't sell as much as they thought it would and they are like sort of left feeling like they did the wrong thing. It's part of the reason I want to make sure people really gap that it is a beautiful thing to write a book, but it is not a business that above itself.

Monica Shah:                     14:45                     Now I'm at a point in my business life where I feel like part of my mission is to help as many people before they get into trouble. [crosstalk 00:14:54] Your mission too Lisa.

Lisa Linfield:                       14:57                     Absolutely.

Monica Shah:                     14:58                     so from a personal level, what's so interesting is like when are you ready to write a book? I think everybody has a story. I really do. For example, if you're writing for a story about success but you don't give yourself successful yet, then maybe you have a different story to write about something else other than maybe the story about success will come later. So when should you write a book is really based on what you want to write a book and know that there's something incredibly cathodic and healing that comes from writing. It's also one of the most cyclists tasks there is because it is hard and so when are you personally ready?

Monica Shah:                     15:39                     I would say it is in alignment with what you work to do and if it is in alignment with what you want to do, you don't have to wait like until you've reached maybe a certain place in your business. A certain place in your life is so much about book writing is about excavating what your story is now, wherever you are now and if you've been called to share it, then know that your story is worthwhile to share. What I do recommend though, because I've written two books now and I'm on my third, is that you don't let it last too long, like the writing part of it because there's this thing that authors joke about, which is by the time you're halfway through your book, you hate the first half. Like it's like websites, like you've spent so long building this beautiful website two months later it's outdated.

Monica Shah:                     16:24                     Like it's no longer new anymore. The same thing happens with your writing. So I recommend them that people said no more than 90 days writing a book, Really get it done. Because if you spent longer than that, you're going to change so much that you're going to hate everything that you wrote and you're just won't never finish it.

Lisa Linfield:                       16:44                     And what did you learn most about yourself through that process?

Monica Shah:                     16:48                     What I learned for both of my books is what happens is writing forces you to create a system, whatever system it is. So if you're writing a business book, it forces you to create a system about whatever business topic you're writing about. And so for me, my first book is called Getting Rich - You're Doing it Backwards. And I wrote my system down, my five step system on how to make money, how I made money, how I crossed the million dollars in my business, how I helped all my clients do that.

Monica Shah:                     17:17                     That clarity helped me to become a better teacher because now that system I've taught over and over and over through the years. The second book, pause, 52 Ways To Make More Time and Money is more of a spiritual memoir sort of book. It's a book where you flip through a page in the book and there's a story and then there's an exercise for you to write. So it's meant to be like an interactive kind of book. That book is a beautiful book and the fact that I love the cover and I love the stories and I really built a knowing of how much wisdom I had to writing that book, like how much I had grown. Even from writing the first book to writing this book, there's something beautiful that happens if you trust yourself through the writing process where you suddenly get like as much as there's critical voices in your head, as much as there's those voice that say you haven't done enough or you haven't come far enough. A book can show you just how far you've come and just how many hurdles and how much wisdom you have to share.

Monica Shah:                     18:18                     And then the other aspect that didn't come from writing but came from when I put the books out, is now I go to events and people recognize me and they've read my books and they say things like, your book changed in this way. Or I was on page 15 and pause and I had this realization. And I think there's just something so amazing about the outcome of a book. I think for me it's so hard to write a book, to really get yourself to commit to the whole process of writing and editing and getting the cover designed. By the time you put it out, you're kind of like be done with that. Then it's so amazing to get to the other side and see what it does when it's actually in someone's hands. And that has been a really lovely experience to be touching people without actually realizing I'm doing it.

Lisa Linfield:                       19:13                     So your first book Getting Rich: You're Doing It Backwards. Why do people do it backwards? What is that going in starting assumption?

Monica Shah:                     19:21                     They're doing it backwards, number one, because they're not focusing on the things that they need to be doing to generate money in their businesses. So if you look at your to do list, even for what you've created today, like on your to do list, like I can even look at mine to this day, I have to look at my to do list this way, which is what are the actions that are going to generate money the fastest? So the number one way to generate money in a business system is through selling. Now selling comes into two major categories. One is one to one sales conversations. The difference between a sales conversation in a connection conversation as it connection conversation is when you're connecting with somebody, but you're not actually telling them about your programs, your products, or your services, and you're not asking for money.

Monica Shah:                     20:10                     And so you can have multiple connections conversations before you ever get to a sales conversation. But you do have to get to the sales conversation eventually. And a sales conversation can be one to one or it can be one to many. So you could do a call to action in front of a room, or you could do a call to action on a video or on a webinar. That would be a one the many sale. And I believe selling is the most important skill set that any entrepreneur can learn. And I believe everybody should learn it because very few people are born good salespeople. There's multiple skillsets there. There's learning how to sell one to one. There's learning how to sell one the may. So going back to where I started here, it feels conversations is the number one way to make money than the top revenue generating activities are the things that are going to generate money, things that are going to lead you to sales conversations.

Monica Shah:                     21:03                     So for example, by own to do list this morning I had, I always try to work four to six weeks ahead of time in terms of my article. So on my to do list I had like write articles for February, albeit to do if I had create handout for February class. I had worked through curriculum for next week's events and then I had reached out to potential sponsors for our big annual event. Now if I were just working through that list, then I might not get to that fourth item, which was reach out to sponsors. But if I'm looking at that list from a revenue generating perspective, and I'm saying which activities is going generate revenue the fastest, then the first thing on my list would be to reach out to potential sponsors for our events. Because that's a sale, that's a sale item. And that's what I think most people do backwards is that they aren't doing activities that lead to sales conversations first.

Monica Shah:                     21:57                     They're just going down their lists and doing lots of different things. The other thing where people are doing it backwards is part of the reason they're not doing revenue generating activities is because they have a fear around money and that fear around money keeps us from doing things like looking at our numbers or doing sales conversations or asking people for money or looking at our prices. So if you're looking at revenue generating activities, just to kind of get you guys started, the top three that I recommend to generate more sales conversations are speaking sponsorships and webinars and webinars only with the caveat that they only really start working well when you've got that email list of over a thousand people. So those are the three things that I think really helped to generate more of those sales conversations. And most people are spending all their time and energy just trying to get everything crossed off their to do list. And so they're looking at things backwards. Instead of looking at how much money do I want to generate and what are the activities that needed to be able to do first to get those sales conversations so that I can hire other people to do all of these other little tasks.

Lisa Linfield:                       23:08                     And how do you help people to shift that mindset? Because it's quite a major thing. I mean through my journey and I've shared with my listeners, one of the biggest challenges for me was this ability to sell other people's products when I was in corporate versus the ability to sell myself and my products. What are the steps that you take people through from a money mindset perspective to understand what their mindset is and how they should take it forward?

Monica Shah:                     23:34                     Yes, so it's an interesting because, this isn't a question that I can answer fully and the time that we have. In fact, we have an entire event called master your money that happens in May in Atlanta and we spend three really full day diving deep into this. But one of the first things that I like to talk about, especially when it comes to sales and money, first you want to dig deep into what your actual beliefs are. So everything that we know about money, everything that we've experienced around money, everything that we've seed around money happened between the ages of zero to seven because in that time period between zero to seven you literally absorb everything that you see. Everything that you hear and everything that you experienced comes into your subconscious mind and becomes a belief or a value, whether you realize it or not. And those beliefs and values are running your show right now.

Monica Shah:                     24:33                     And you don't have any ability to say no to that. So one of the first places to start is to ask yourself the question, what was money like growing up for me? And like, what was it like? Did you have a lot of money? Did you have a little bit of money? And this is a great exercise to even do some journaling around. And another question to ask yourself as how was money talked about when I was growing up? And to again to answer that and for a lot of people, like for example, one of my clients was told over and over again that you can't be creative and make money. And so he went to NYU and he literally spent his entire childhood watching movies every single night. I mean talk about mission driven from a very early age, like had an entire repertoire of movies and that's what he knew we wanted to do is you want it to be a creative.

Monica Shah:                     25:23                     But he went to NYU and he majored in finance and fell asleep through half the classes did it really get it but did it anyway because that's what his parents told him, went on to become a project manager and always have like a serious day job and that he went to create a feature like song and the film did well, went to the Tribeca Film Festivals and whatnot, but he was always so upset about it. And finally we got to the root cause, which is if I'm creative, I'm not going to make any money. And if they don't make any money that I'm always going to be unhappy. So every time he worked at his movie he felt like he was doing something wrong. And until we cleared that belief, right. And he created a new belief system for him, which is the more creative I am, the more money I make, the more I tap into the joy and passion, the more money I make.

Monica Shah:                     26:11                     Until we flipped that, not only to hit outside joy like his movie did it take off. I have another client whose parents used to site about money. And so when I started working with her one of the things I would ask you to do is look at our numbers and tell me about what was going on at sales conversations. And she kept avoiding it for about the first month. And I finally said, what's going on? And she's like, I don't know. I just get this strange six healing every time I want to look at my numbers. So every time we want to ask someone for money and we did dig dipper into it we realized that her belief system was, when I look at my numbers, I lose love in my life because every time the bills came in and her mom would start to pay them, her dad would come home and her mom would have to ask her dad for money or report to him on what the bills were and they would start fighting.

Monica Shah:                     26:59                     They would fight to that entire week of like bill paying time. And so for her, she acquainted, when I look at my numbers, I lose love. And this was a young woman who was looking to get into a serious relationship. So love was a huge priority for her. And so we really needed to flip that to release that belief. And instead we put it a new one, which is the more money I have, the more love I have and the more money I have, the more I can create amazing love in my life. She was looking to meet someone and it was great because the next person, she ended up dating with somebody who worked in the money fields. So like not only did she not have to worry about it, but like she created somebody who already had their money stuff pretty figured out. Like was it triggered by the same things that she was.

Monica Shah:                     27:46                     So if you're somebody out there who's resisting this money piece, a lot of people don't even know what resistance looks like. It looks like you haven't raised your prices at a while. It looks like you don't send your invoices out on time, that you don't open your mail, that you don't look at your numbers, that you've been hitting the same ceiling in terms of revenue, or that your expenses had been too high for a while. It can also look like money is great for you, but you're afraid to hire people and you're afraid to get support team. You're afraid to bring people on to relieve you of some of the work you're be doing because you're so worried about money or you're working way more than you need to. All of these translate to a money story that you're carrying.

Lisa Linfield:                       28:26                     Absolutely. You use the money types, full money types that you use with your clients to help them have conversations about them. Tell us a little about that.

Monica Shah:                     28:37                     Sure. Money types along with looking at your history around money can help you to figure out what is your current relationship with money based on your past experiences. So there's four different money types. I'll go into them quickly now and then if you'd like to go deeper into the money type or any of this money piece, I'll let where you can reach out to us. The first type is what I call it avoider. Now, if you're an entrepreneur, you're an avoider because most of us do some level of avoiding in order to survive, but when I talk about being an avoider here, it means that you avoid looking at your mail. You avoid looking at your bills. You avoid doing negotiations around momey. You avoid looking at your numbers. You don't know certain things like how much revenue you're bringing in or how much money you owe or what's on your credit cards at any given time and generally speaking, the very nature of all of this just makes your skin crawl a little bit. And a lot of times my avoiders will say, but Monica, I'm a really powerful manifestor. Like I create money when I need it and I create things when I need it? And then there's a little bit of fear there that if you stopped avoiding and you got really clear on what you needed, then might somehow turn off the manifestor again. And if that's that you don't have to avoid, in fact, the more powerful you are as a manifestor, the more clarity you have, the more powerful you will be as a manifestor. And what avoiding is doing for you is it's all of the avoiders have the same characteristics, which is that you're working really hard because you don't know how much work you need to be doing to generate a certain amount of money.

Monica Shah:                     30:19                     Or you're worried if you're chronically worried about your business and how much money you're generating or you're anxious around it, or there's a piece of you that never feels like you're doing enough. So you've kind of robbed the joy. So your business as well. Now the second type is a saver. Now you know you're a saver if you've got savings or even if you don't have savings, you could be a saver like you know for certain that you have to pay a certain amount on your credit card every month, like the dollar and cents. You're super organized that way. Now the thing about being a saver that I think is really interesting is that while it's good to be a saver where things become out of balance, is if you're so interested in saving, that you're preventing your own growth or you're leading yourself to exhaustion.

Monica Shah:                     31:11                     So if you're productive your own growth. It could be that you're so interested in saving that you haven't invested in a coach or a vendor or a new website or a team member that can help expand your business. So you've been sort of hitting the same revenue ceiling for a while and you're too afraid to really part with your money to be able to do that. The second thing that can happen is you're exhausted. Like I meet a lot of moms who are savers, but feel so guilty about spending money on extra childcare than instead of doing that, they just work their live in tails off. They're getting up at 5:00 AM they are hitting the computer again at 8:00 o'clock at night because they feel so guilty about spending any more money on themselves or on their businesses, but it's causing sheer exhaustion and will lead to burnout.

Monica Shah:                     32:04                     The thing to remember, if you're a saver and a lot of savers have a couple of things that come in. I know this is true for me, I'm a recovery to avoider and definitely a saver. The reason I'm a saver is because I've had money trauma in the past, right? I just told you my money trauma story and because I've had that money trauma, I'm very protective of my money and sometimes to a fault, and I think that's true for a lot of people that have had money trauma. If you've ever experienced bankruptcy as someone has ever taken your money from you, if it took you a long time to make money, if every dollar you look at your tail off for, it can make you a saver. But I do what you to look at that and ask yourself, is it serving me? Like it's one thing to be protective and responsible with your money.

Monica Shah:                     32:50                     It's another thing to be OCD about it, right? To the point at which you're causing yourself paid. I do what you don't look at it. And we all struggle from it. My father sold his company when he was in college and he's a first generation. I'm first generation, so he came from India with $1,000 in his pocket. So he really knows the value of money. And I was just at home with an over break and he had bought a bunch of stuff from L.L.Bean on Black Friday after Thanksgiving and he got some great stuff on sale and apparently LLB only goes on sale like once a year and it's this clothing store, like a fun sporty clothing store. And then the market drops like a hundred points and he went into a saver, right. And he suddenly was like, I can't afford these clothes anymore.

Monica Shah:                     33:33                     And he took him back to LLB and like in a seat of saver dome. Then like afterwards, he's like, that was silly because he kind of needed that. And like that's like a great example of what we do when we're in saver, but we're like being an irrational saver or a fear driven saver. Because after he'd returned them, he said, now I kind of wish I hadn't. Like I just was at a moment of fear and I started to contract, right. And take everything back. And that happens a lot when you're a saver. And for some people that moment of fears os every day. And it's a good thing again, to use the money types and your money voices to like kind of bounce off of each other. Because these types are driven by the voices in your head, the experience that you had when you were little.

Monica Shah:                     34:19                     And then the third type is a spender. So spenders are [inaudible 00:34:25] these are folks that love to do fun things. You know you're a spender if you have to pick up the check at dinner. You know you're a spender if you love to treat people, you're a spender if people owe you money but you don't necessarily harp on it and you'd love to give people gifts, you love to live the good life, you love to be in luxury. Now there is a place where you can be out of balance as a spender. And that place happens to be when you're a spender who can't pay your credit cards off, or you're a spender who happens to be hiding his or her spending from your partner or from your family. Or maybe you're a spender that feels really guilty about your spending and sometimes as spenders you could be spending because of a reason other than you need what you are buying.

Monica Shah:                     35:11                     So it could be because you're spending because you're lonely, or because you're desperate or because you're hungry or because you feel disappointed. I know for me my spender really starts to come up when something doesn't go well in my business. I've definitely curved this, but I noticed it in the past is that I would go on like Amazon and buy like 20 books on a particular topic and two different courses, all that thing that isn't working. Because I'm trying to throw money at the problem, right? To make that disappointment better and that it wouldn't even have time to be able to like engage or implement or absorb all of that information and that it would just be like a waste. Right? Like some way to make myself feel better. So if you're a spender and do what look at that.

Monica Shah:                     35:54                     What would make you feel better? What else would make you feel better other than spending money on this thing that you're throwing money at. And then finally, the fourth type here is a murderer. So you're a murder if you would just wish that you didn't ever have to ask for money, if you could just give your stuff away for free. If you do, give it away for free. If you undercharge, if you barter, if you feel like you can't ever ask for enough money for what you do, the very nature of doing sales conversations, it's really hard for you because we get to that money piece. It's like you start to stutter and get afraid that is definitely sides of being a murder. And the thing about murders is often murders are incredibly talented at what they do because one of the things that I've learned with working with murders over the years is that as a murders[inaudible 00:36:44], you have a tendency to really get yourself well trade.

Monica Shah:                     36:47                     Because what of your belief systems is if I could do enough certifications so I could do enough training that I'll be so good that they will be able to ignore me and then I will ever have to ask for money. People just come flooding in. Well, unfortunately that rarely happens. I personally have never seen it happen. And so what ends up happening is that you become very good at what you do it because you're not putting yourself out there and you're not asking for enough money. You end up accumulating a great amount of that or needing to live off of very little money or depending on your family to an unhealthy level. And then there's burnout that follows. That's what happens when it's out of balance. So what's interesting about all four of these types is you can be more than one obviously, you can be a combination of them.

Monica Shah:                     37:38                     I would say that my primary type is I'm gonna avoid for sure. And then my secondary type is that I'm a saver and they exist for you always. There's no like eliminating them and that's because there's, we don't have time in this particular conversation, but there's a light side to them and a shadow side. And when I explained mostly was the shadow side, but there is the lighter side of all of these two that really support and help you in your business. And one of the things to get for any of them is it's about managing it. So as it avoid, or the way I manage it is I have a team of people that helped me to stop avoiding. I have a bookkeeper, I have an accountant. My bookkeeper gives me reports every month so that I can look at them. I have a client manager who knows that I avoid the hard stuff. And so when she sees the avoiding, she'll give you a little bit of like, "Hey Monica, you're avoiding, you're avoiding this." And that's really important, right, is to share with your team and your family what type you are.

Lisa Linfield:                       38:36                     When you combine your money mindset with your money types, how quickly can one transform once you're aware of this. So through your coaching. You're coaching all these business people and people are stuck. They either want to start a business but they can't. They're in a business but it's not growing and they're stuck. And you go through the process and you check out what the relationship with money is and what money type they naturally kind of tend towards. How does one move from that state of stuckness into a state of action?

Monica Shah:                     39:09                     Well, here's what's interesting. So much of the money type and the money boy stuff is all around the awareness of the beliefs and values in your own head and what's driving you to take your actions. So in my work with people, I teach a really important thing and that is that changing your beliefs plus moving into massive action equals results. So if somebody is stuck in their business and they notice, hey, I have the belief that selling is evil and I actually need to now change that belief to selling is a gift that I give others, they're still going to have to mount the obstacle of doing sales conversations. And when I do the belief and value work with my clients, it is to make it easier to have more courage to do the thing that is fearful. So what makes the change isn't just knowing what your voices or your type is.

Monica Shah:                     40:06                     It's knowing what your voice and your type is as a way to help you build courage so that you can then go do more sales conversations and it is actually the taking of the massive action that's going to lead to the change, right? That's going to get someone out of the stuckness. There's a lot of coaches out there that teach mindset and values, which is really important, but if you are only working on that half of it and you're not working on the courage component and the action component that you're going to get very little results. And it's one of the reasons I think with this whole onset of things like the secret movie and manifesting, I think all of that is fantastic, but I call it sort of the goddess side of a business. But I think you've also got to combine that with the lawyer side, which is all about acting and having the courage to act. So when you ask like how long will it take? My response to everyone is it will take as long as you are procrastinating around taking the action. But if you can take the action and then take it again and again and again, change can happen immediately.

Lisa Linfield:                       41:16                     I'm just smiling because it's absolutely true. I am an endless by nature so I'm much more pragmatic and practical. And when I first started off the whole mindset thing was like

[inaudible 00:41:28]

. But where I said no, I'm absolutely aligned with you in terms the fact that it's both when it comes to money, 90% of money is what you think about. And only literally around 10% is having the actual knowledge of the way you structure investments and funds and management and stuff like that and it's the same as anything starting any business.\

Lisa Linfield:                       41:51                     90% of it is just the way you think about it. And I always say to people, it comes down to one question, how badly do you want it? Because if you want it badly enough, you'll do the work that looks at your mindset, that looks at how you think about things and then you'll take the actions that are needed in order to bridge the gap, be it learn skills you don't have, take steps you need to do, get on top of your numbers, all of that. It comes back to how bad you did you want it. And I think one of the things that is characteristic in many stories is a place of being at rock bottom, which you were. But for other people that don't get to that extreme place of rock bottom, it's being conscious of the both. At any one stage how you think will determine how you act. But taking that action is the major step.

Monica Shah:                     42:43                     I completely agree with you what you said, I would say in addition to knowing what you want, it's also how willing are you to act. When I look at my first couple of years in business, I don't know that I don't so deeply into what is my fear, why am I having it? As much as I used it in conjunction with the action, which is like today I have to make five sales calls. It is freaking scary. Let me determine how I can reframe this fear so that I can keep calling people. And I think that is the most powerful way is to take massive bold actions. And then in order to make that taking massive bold actions happen consistently and to make sure you can do them, you got to look at like what are your thoughts around them and what are your fears around them.

Monica Shah:                     43:34                     And I find that people get a little bit confused between action and motion. And so motion is when you're planning or when you're learning or when you're organizing and when you're thinking that you're going to do something or you're considering it or you're talking about it. Action is actually doing it. And I find that for a lot of business owners, especially in areas where they are uncomfortable, they would rather do motion, meaning they'd learn about it or they plan it or they talk to someone about it or they complain about it but they're not actually doing it. And it's important to really learn the difference because we're kind of raised in an academic society where in academia you do a lot of motion and not a lot of action. And so we take that tendency into our businesses and the people that are the most successful are the ones that actually do less motion and a lot of action.

Lisa Linfield:                       44:32                     I couldn't agree more. So you gave an example of one of your clients had been told that they wouldn't be able to make money doing creative things. And for many of us we have these great passions and hobbies or interests or talents or things like that that through the era that people just live through where it was all about analytical mess, practical stuff like that that can make you money and all this creative stuff is nonsense and you'll never make money. Do you believe that we can all make money from doing the thing that we love doing?

Monica Shah:                     45:12                     I do. I have to give a different definition of it though because I think people get a little confused. In my business right now I would say that I love like love, love, love, probably about 30% to 40% of that. And then 50% to 60% of it, whatever that math was are things that I don't absolutely love and am passionate about. So what happens in a business in which you want to make a full time income, but I want to be clear about that because there's a difference between a part time income and a full time income, because a lot of people will say, but Monica, I'm making money. I'm only doing the things that I love but when it comes down to it, they're not supporting themselves. Somebody else is paying the bills and so what I really need is a full time income where you could really support yourself to do that.

Monica Shah:                     46:07                     There is going to be work evolved that lives outside of your comfort zone that you don't love doing in order to make space for doing the things that you love doing. So let me give you an example for me, one of the things I love doing is I have a platinum masterminds and this is my highest level clients. These are all women who are making anywhere from 250,000 to seven figures plus in their business. They meet with me three times a year and they are coming for their next meeting next week and I love that group of women like I feel so blessed to be coaching them. Many of them of them I've worked with me for over five years when they get together in person. I get nervous when I'm creating the curriculum but I love doing it with them. I love being in that room with them, but there's a lot of energy and work that goes into being able to create the experience of doing what I love, right?

Monica Shah:                     47:02                     So doing the sales conversations to put people in the mastermind, creating the curriculum for the mastermind and working through the calls and the events that we do for the rest of the year so that we can put ourselves in front of people who would want to join the mastermind. Those are all things that can be grown first, that can be harder work and I'm not passionate about. Now the beauty is once you get to a certain level in your business, which I'm at, I have other people helping me with those things that I'm not passionate about, but I still manage it. So I still have my fingers in it. So there's not a point at which I'm going to let go of that, at least at this point in my business. So I think it's a matter of owning that yes, you could do what you love and make money from it, so sure, but you're not going to be doing what you love 100% of the time.

Monica Shah:                     47:52                     An author who loves writing for sure he's going to wake up and spend some part of their day writing, but eventually they're also going to need to spend time marketing their book, putting themselves out there, getting new bookstores, especially now, even with the publishing company. If you as a first time author are putting no effort and energy in to supporting your publisher to get that book out, your book is going to last a half a week in the store, so then they're going to send all the copies back. So it's always about knowing which part of your business you're truly passionate about and then be willing because you love that part of your business so much you're willing to do the other parts of your business that you're not so passionate about.

Lisa Linfield:                       48:34                     That's fantastic. I truly agree with you. I mean, I think I love what I do and I've created two businesses to satisfy both sides of my brain, I guess. But there is a lot of work that just is long hours and lots of work? But that doesn't mean I don't love what I do. I love what I do, I'm passionate about it. And I would choose it again tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow after that. But there is a lot of hard work and things that you just got to do for the process.

Monica Shah:                     49:02                     Yeah, and it's funny because it's almost like, well, if I were to call you at 2:00 o'clock tomorrow and be like, Lisa, or you would love with everything that you're doing, you may say yes, you may say no, and the same would be true for me. But I think sometimes people get the confusion that if they're doing something uncomfortable, that they're doing something wrong. And I really think that's not true. If you're doing something uncomfortable, it usually means that you're growing and that you're doing something right.

Lisa Linfield:                       49:28                     Absolutely. One last question, for you personally what is your definition of financial freedom?

Monica Shah:                     49:36                     I love this question and it's one that I actually refer to all the time when I teach because some people think the definition of financial freedom is having so much money that you don't ever have to worry about money again and I don't believe that that's possible. And I'll tell you why. It's because money is an energy it's a force. It just like other energy and force, it can't be controlled. So at any given day you can lose it. My husband and I are both connected to a lot of very successful people and I know quite a few of them who have built companies and they've lost all of that. You don't have to go into bankruptcy have had crises happen. So I've come to realize that financial freedom isn't about like, oh, I have plenty of money in the bank. Financial freedom is about having the skillsets that no matter what happens to your money, that you can rebuild. That no matter what happens to whatever risk `that you're taking right now you know how to sell your way to building another business or to building that bank account back again no matter what happens. And that's what really provides you a restful sleep at night.

Monica Shah:                     50:43                     And then a more personal aspect of financial freedom for me and always will be is that I know what my priorities are. And so my priorities routed this order. They are spirit, self, like self and health, family and then my business and I built a business so that I can straighten every other priorities. So that I can straighten my spiritual relationship so that I can strengthen my relationship with myself and keep my body healthy and so that I can spend time with my friends and family. It doesn't work the other way around and that's just my belief system. It is the belief system of many of clients as well. I didn't build the business so I could avoid those other three things. I didn't build the business so I could ignore those other three things I didn't build the business so it can become the first priority and through me that has meant that I can really enjoy my life.

Lisa Linfield:                       51:33                     Wow, that's a fantastic perspective. I really appreciate you sharing that both as you said, from a kind of more experiential then your personal perspective. So how would people be able to get hold of you and to learn more about the things that you are working on and the programs that you have and to maybe download your books and sign up for your courses.

Monica Shah:                     51:54                     Sure. So the first place to start would be to go to Revenuebreakthrough.com/marketingcalendar and that is our money making marketing calendar. One of the things that I said in the interview that most people are really sort of interested in is what are the revenue generating activities that I should be spending my time on? What are those things that are going to lead to sales conversation so that I could really grow my business? And so the money making marketing calendar lays that out for you. It tells you what those activities are and then what sequence to do them. Daily, weekly, monthly, et cetera. And it makes it a lot easier for you to run your business that way. That's where to start. And then if you'd like to reach out to us to learn about other stuff that we're doing, we're at supports@revenuebreakthrough.com we always love to hear from people and I'd love to have a conversation with you. If you're somebody who wants support either individually or you want some business trading for your particular business, we can set up a conversation at support@revenuebreaktthrough.com or we do have a 1-800 number. It's 1-800-208-0913

Lisa Linfield:                       52:58                     Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it, Monica.

Monica Shah:                     53:02                     Thank you Lisa. So enjoyable and I'm so excited to talk money. It's always one of my favorite topics.

Lisa Linfield:                       53:08                     That was Monica Shah and he really enjoyed that interview because there was so much of it that resonated deeply with me that I was giggling the whole way through. It really is just a journey. This journey with money and this journey with starting second incomes and trying to build businesses. Just all of it is a journey and I think we need to have the humor to laugh at ourselves when we recognize what we're doing wrong and the strength to take action and change things where we know we need to improve. So for those of you who are wanting to take a little bit of action to in some extra income, go over to our website lisalinfield.com and check out the article on nine ways to earn $1,000 sitting on the couch.

Lisa Linfield:                       53:54                     It will start giving you some ideas as to transitioning from selling your time for money or kind of employment type jobs or side hustle to how you start to create a second income stream. And if you want to do that and you need some help in what are the next steps in the action points that you need to take? Definitely sign up for our course, the 30 day side hustle. I think it'll give you a