Shifting focus from money to growth

Nuggets of golden advice from money mindset coach Meera Shireen

In my full time job, I had a comfortable salary. Money came in every month, and I operated from a place of abundance. I hardly thought about money.

My lifestyle is quite frugal, so it was easy for me to spend when I wanted to.

When I quit my 9-5, I was given a cushion of gratuity for my 10 years of service.

Some of that money we invested in assets, and the rest was kept to keep my bank account open.

This amount is very little, and yes, it gives me anxiety when I think about it.

I have my husband’s credit card to use for expenses. I have never used somebody else’s credit card for anything before, ever.

Of course I feel very grateful for it, and for his unconditional support; and that I even have this option.

However, I would be lying if I said I was comfortable with it.

Ever since I finished college, I have always been financially independent.

As I invest my time and money into my new business, I see my personal bank balance diminish.

This makes me want to not spend money on myself (think basics like gym, coffee - (aka I don’t need those expenses)

There are expenses I have to set-up and run my business. Which I feel guilty about. (aka Do I really need this?)

With this mindset, I end up operating from a place of scarcity and lack. This is silly but feels inherent.

When you start operating from a place of lack, any abundance that can flow into your life, stops.

Your energy shifts towards the negative, and it stifles your growth.

As these thoughts fester, I seek help - surely this cannot be the way.

Can you relate?

Why do we have this attachment to money?

So looking for answers, I speak to money mindset business coach Meera Shireen, who I have interviewed here before, and we talk all things money - specific to entrepreneurs who are starting out.

“It's not necessarily an attachment to money, but more an attachment to security, right?” says money mindset coach Meera Shireen wisely. “Part of being an entrepreneur is saying no to that stable foundation, and building your own foundation.

“People don’t realise they have these feelings about money until they start their entrepreneurship journey. It's actually really easy to manage money if you have a job, because you have tangible numbers to work with, you can create a system and create a plan that works, you know exactly what's coming in.

Whereas as an entrepreneur, our businesses operate in cycles. So we'll have months where we'll have money coming in, and we'll have months where we don't have money coming in. And really fortifying our nervous system against that those dips is such a huge part of being an entrepreneur.”

Gold, right?

So, how can we shift our mindset away from a depleting bank balance towards a more positive one?

“You need to recognize that the money that's going out is an investment and you're receiving something in return. You can think of it like money is moving from one bucket into another; the money is moving from the savings account bucket, into this business foundation bucket. I think one good way is to almost visualize how that money is moving and it's not being depleted, it’s simply shifting hands,” explains Meera.

“You have to be comfortable with this outflow so that you can create something that'll eventually have an inflow. And so a big part of it is just understanding the sequence of events and how different it is from having that regular 9-5 income.

Living a “Lean Lux” lifestyle…

“A Lean Lux lifestyle is about figuring out the things that are making the most impact on you, like, going to the gym has such a profound impact on me. So I'm keeping those things that have that profound impact, and then just dropping the rest. I'm willing to pay money for that, because it puts me in that elevated state; in the frame of mind that I need to be in to successfully run my business. But maybe ordering take out is not changing my mental state, so I cut that out.

What are the pillars in my life that I that require me to pour into: my health, my family, maybe my nutrition, whatever those are. And so making sure that you're prioritizing those things, and you're not compromising those things for financial reasons,” explains Meera.

I guess I can go to my circus classes guilt free then :)

Focusing on your relationship with money…

“It is so easy to go through entrepreneurship and feel like it's never enough and feel like there's something always missing and feel like there's someone always ahead of you,” explains Meera.

“Once you really focus on your relationship with money and feel good about the money you do have and sit with gratitude for all those things, then you're going to be a much happier entrepreneur.

You're not going to be the stressed out burned out hustling person, you're going to be able to approach your work with joy and ease and happiness and think more about who you're serving and making an impact than anything else.

Meera’s advice for entrepreneurs on how to think about money, especially in the early stages of their business:

1. Think about spending money as an energy exchange: “You will put a lot of effort into a lot of different things, and you won't always see an immediate return. But almost always, all the energy you put into that thing is going to come back to you somehow. So really understanding that everything that you're putting out is going to come back somehow.”

2. Financial compromise is necessary: “Recognise that there is going to be some financial compromise in the beginning of your journey. Some of the most successful entrepreneurs that I know personally, before they became entrepreneurs, they established a lifestyle that was so lean, that they were so happy with.

   And so their entrepreneurship journey was not about becoming wealthy, even though it lead to them becoming wealthy, it was really focused on the passion of their work, because they knew that they didn't need a lot of financial resources to be happy. So they weren't focused so much on the numbers as they were on the work and the product and making it so that it has the most amount of impact. And then from there, they ended up attracting so many clients and creating so much wealth.”

3. Your timeline is your own: “There are so many people who are going to tell you that you can make X amount of money in four months, or less than a year, or it's going to happen really fast, or it happened really fast for me. And that might be true for them. But your timeline is going to be totally your own.

   And maybe it'll happen fast. But maybe it won't. And if it's not happening fast, there's probably a reason for that - maybe your nervous system needs to calibrate to higher levels of money coming in. Maybe you just need to understand money at a slower pace.

   How can you take small steps in the right direction that are going to be way better than huge steps that keep pushing you backwards. There's no finish line. Everyone's got their own pace on the journey.”

And closing thoughts from our chat that really summarises it all:

“True happiness and true luxury is being able to live life on your own terms. Focus on serving people, focus on your product, focus on making things so good that of course, you're gonna end up with a lot of money.”

Honestly, in my 5 months of being a full-time entrepreneur, I can say with certainty that the journey is 90% mindset.

You can listen to the full interview here.

More on Meera here.

If you have any comments or questions for Meera, leave them here and I will make sure she gets them.

In other things..

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• I’m hosting a free Ai masterclass!

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That’s all for today.

Have a great week,

Love

Abha xx