With Thanksgiving upon us this week, my attention is extra attuned to gratitude.
At the top of my gratitude list?
YOU! My amazing, growing, inspiring community of truth-seekers.
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And moments like these —>, working alongside my dear right-hand woman extraordinaire, Hannah, on my right, and dear friend, Kim, on my left. Working bliss!)
I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for joining me on this journey, for opening my emails, for receiving my offerings, and for sharing your stories with me.
I’m just floored by the outpouring of growth, and the diverse ways you are interacting with my work. Victories big and small abound!
Today, I want to take you behind the scenes for a sneak peek at some of the victories, challenges, and experiences happening in our community.
My hope is that you’ll see yourself in one of the stories below. . .
. . . That you’ll get a gem from someone else’s experience and then turn around and implement in your own life.
. . . That you’ll realize you’re not alone in your money story.
. . . That you’ll appreciate how far you’ve come.
. . . That you’ll jump in on the mojo happening!
Hope you enjoy it. 🙂
In the coming weeks, I’m looking forward to sharing tools to help you navigate your Holiday Money Story and move into the New Year with financial clarity and ease. More to come!
To all my American readers, have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
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Below I’m highlighting five snap shots that I hope you’ll find valuable:
1. Amanda’s Renaming Genius
2. Rowan’s a Leader in her Community
3. Todd Created a Gentle & Doable 3-Month Action Plan
4. To Quit or Call? That is the Question
5. She thought she was the ONLY one . . . she wasn’t.
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1. Amanda’s Renaming Genius
Amanda participated in my Introductory Video Course, and did one of the exercises where you rename your income and expense categories as part of the Values Based Bookkeeping Doorway.
Check it out – it’s like a poem!
She wrote to me a few weeks ago:
“My favorite thing was the idea of renaming my categories as I am tracking my money (I have had a system in place for years but it always had the expected, boring categories). I spent a few hours last week doing just that and LOVED the process. I attached it here cause I am a little proud. 🙂 Just wanted to share”
What I love about Amanda’s new “expense categories” is that when I read through her categories, I feel like I know her. Deeply. Her worldview, her priorities, her gifts, her desires.
Here are a few of my personal favorites from her categories:
- Because souls need food too (classes, books, etc) Because life it to be enjoyed (entertainment/recreation) Because we love our peeps (gifts) Because our bodies were meant to run on real food (groceries) Because we can all use a little extra oomph (supplements) Because they saved our children’s lives (Kaiser bills) Because Thomas Edison knew what was up (electricity) Because sometimes there are no words (misc expenses)
Isn’t that fantastic?
Try it for yourself: Align your expenses with your priorities, re-frame those you don’t like paying, get clear on what’s most important . . . have fun, eat chocolate.
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2. Rowan Is Leading Her Community!
Rowan, a rockstar, tons-of-fun student of mine has taken on The Money Mastery Experience, and is a leader in her community. In all ways, from what I can tell.
She’s sharing about her Financial Transformation journey with her facebook community.
This week, she posted this picture, and let her community know she’s “gettin’ busy with my financial therapy homework”.
In the comment thread, she acknowledges “This is some intense biz, i’m a cicada busting out of my too tight skin.”
I loved it!
Rowan is committed, she’s going for it, and she’s inspiring others to do the same. This stuff is SO hard to talk about, and I admire Rowan for her courage to be transparent. What a fabulous model for all of us!
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3. Todd Created a Gentle & Doable 3-month Action Plan
Todd bravely jumped in to my Homestudy Course, and took advantage of getting some laser coaching from me on our recent group call. We worked together on letting go of too-ambitious (the kind of ambitious that is more detrimental than helpful) goals, doing a body check-in, and arriving at the gentle 3-month action plan that he could truly commit to.
“I think that by having a clear sensible goal AND being gentle with myself in my approach, I am finding the process to be more of a gracious invitation to positive change than a demand to reform my horrid ways. What a difference a healthy attitude makes!”
I was so touched to read this thread in our online forum, where Todd updated me and the rest of the program community about how it was working out.
What I loved most about the thread is that Todd got to share about his success with a doable plan that came from deep inside of him . . . and another student chimed in about how he inspired her to address a similar pattern in herself . . . and the synergy was palpable as they both realized they were not alone in their journey, and inspired each other to take action from an embodied, realistic place.
Yep, my students rock.
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4. To Quit or to Call? That is the Question.
I love this. Earlier this week, while mommy-ing my Noah, I got a call on my cell. I didn’t recognize the number, but since my day was low-key, I picked up the phone. The voice on the other line was an old student of mine, from years ago when I did live classes in San Francisco.
She told me that she enrolled in the Homestudy Program months ago, and hadn’t once logged in to the members area to access the course.
She said – I got to the point where I was either going to quit and give up entirely, or pick up the phone, call you, and ask for help.
I’m so glad she chose the latter! She needed a bit of hand-holding to bust through the obstacle of resistance before her. In just a few minutes, she was well on her way, downloading the first few chapters, contacting a bookkeeper in her area to help her crunch her numbers, and hiring a Financial Coach to help her understand her data and plan out her priorities & goals for the year ahead.
My question to you: Where in your life do you need to make a micro-decision to get you unstuck? Who do you need to call and ask for help? When you find the answer inside of yourself, do it! 🙂
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5. She thought she was the ONLY one. She wasn’t . . .
Another homestudy student of mine wrote me a private email with the subject line: “Do not think this will be interesting for others on the path of Conscious Bookkeeping”.
Like so many of my students, clients and readers (you?), this woman truly thought that she was the only one with her particular money stories and issues!
The details are less important than this: She thought she was alone in her struggle, and this was simply not true. As I read her story, I recalled so many students who had walked similar paths, showed up with the same fears and struggles.
Here’s the lesson: Whatever your money story, You. Are. Not. Alone.
We tend to keep our money stories in the shadows, thinking we’re alone in it. I’m here to say we are not, you are not.
There’s a level of shame here, that everyone experiences – thinking that their situation is far worse, far different, far messier than everyone else’s.
While it’s true that each of us is so unique and complex, there are universal money themes and patterns: we’re in this together, folks.
Believe me, I’ve heard it all. I truly never hear anything “new” anymore – whatever you’re experiencing, you’re not alone.
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Above all, I’m sharing these stories to celebrate my growing community, and bring these conversations into the light where everyone can benefit from them.
I hope you’ve found a piece of you in one or more of the stories above and have found something worth chewing on, playing with, and integrating into your financial forest.
Have a beautiful holiday, if you’re celebrating . . . and thank you so much for being here.
