274. How to Shift Your Money Mindset and Earn More in 2026 with Mimi Bouchard

20:33Cassandra Sheppard:You're not going to have that confidence if deep down your identity does not align with someone who can actually succeed.

20:41Mimi Bouchard:And everybody has their own privilege and their own story, of course. I also do think we're in this age where it is so... And again, everybody listening, you know my work, you know that there is so many systemic barriers that prevent us from building a life and building wealth. Period. End of story. New paragraph. End of new paragraph. and also I think as women we are constantly told you're not good enough you're not special enough somebody else has something you don't and I'm sure you would agree with me we don't have anything that somebody listening doesn't like yes we all have our own privilege we all have our own story but like I don't have something in my DNA that makes me predisposed to be able to run a business better than somebody listening or to, again, be better with money.

21:29Mimi Bouchard:These are all learnable, teachable skills. These are things that you can say, I'm going to try and see what happens. That's why her first 100K ended up being a success. That's truly it. I said, you know what? I want this and I'm going to figure out how to do it even though I know nothing about how to run a business. Nobody in my family is a business owner. No one knew how to do this. And there are parts of my story absolutely that gave me financial foundation that somebody else might not have. And at the same time, I think it's easy to just write off a goal or a dream because you're like, oh, somebody else has already done it or somebody else has something I don't.

22:10Mimi Bouchard:No, no, it's waiting for you.

22:13Cassandra Sheppard:Yes. We can acknowledge the injustice that happens in the world, but we can also have that while empowering ourselves to create the life that we deep down desire. And both can be true. We all start on a different playing field. That's just life. We can't change that. Some people are way luckier than others. Some people are so much more privileged and we can't change that. But what we do have control over is how we act and our habits and how we feel about ourselves and what we decide to create in our lives. I like to say this thing called E plus R equals O. The event plus the response equals the outcome.

22:54Cassandra Sheppard:The event, the situation, we often cannot control at all, okay? We have no control over that. But 50 % of the equation is our response, right? What are we gonna do with that? Are we going to let it empower us and give us even more grit and excitement? like Tori, the fact that my parents struggled a huge amount with finances when I was growing up and how there were bankruptcies in the family, remortgaging the house every five minutes, we couldn't afford a lot. My parents are artists and I grew up in a very financially insecure household. That fact, I actually think has helped me become the person I am today with the business I have today because it gave me a taste to what I didn't want in my life and it gave me even extra motivation.

23:38Cassandra Sheppard:So it's all about how we decide to frame the situation we're in. And if we need extra proof, there's always going to be a story of someone who started in a worse place than us that created the life that we wanted. So looking at those people, and it was hard for those people, you know what I mean? And even just you having your platform, it's such an inspiration to every single woman listening out there. Because it gives everyone this taste of like, oh my gosh, if she can do it, I can do it. Right? And it gives this momentum in society, women creating wealth for themselves. And that I think is so cool.

24:15Cassandra Sheppard:So it's like, we have to do our best because we can inspire people that the next generations, like it's up to us.

24:23Mimi Bouchard:Yeah. And while we work to change the system that exists, the thing we can control is, you know, how we build wealth, how we take care of ourselves and our families or in our communities. Absolutely. So a lot of our audience feels this kind of low-grade anxiety about money. It's not crisis level, but it's never fully calm either. I see this a lot when I talk to women when I speak or when they write into the show and they say, I'm always afraid the shoe's going to drop. I'm always afraid even if I feel stable now, something's going to happen. Shit's going to hit the fan. So what do you think keeps people stuck in that middle ground for so long, maybe even after they're secure on paper?

25:08Cassandra Sheppard:We have this addiction to feeling like we're bracing for impact. I think a lot of us women feel this way. Listen, including myself, I've had to work on this so much within myself, even having the business I have and employing the people I employ. I'm constantly actually feeling this feeling of bracing for impact, waiting for that thing to go wrong. And this is something I'm actively trying to work on a huge amount in my own personal life because I saw it as a big limitation. It's so hard. It is really not easy. And, you know, it's not good for our nervous systems either and our general joy level day to day, right?

25:46Cassandra Sheppard:So the first part is acknowledging it. I think with everything in life, with anything that you want to improve within yourself from your personal development, you know, it's the, it's really understanding what it is and acknowledging it as number one. And number two, I mean, the step number two after that is realizing that there can be a different way to live. Right. So this is something I'm, I'm genuinely working on. I'm journaling about this pretty much every day at the moment. So it's funny you bring it up, but it's like, why do I need to feel like I'm bracing for impact all the time? You know, how can I release that anxiety and just feel that genuine, deep, positive belief of I'm going to be okay.

26:25Cassandra Sheppard:You know, I've done everything I can. Sometimes you just need to understand that you've done everything you can. Give yourself a little pep talk. You know, we have to parent ourselves sometimes. We have to give, you know, the little young version of ourselves a hug and a kiss on the forehead and tell her, you're going to be fine. You're doing great. You know, We have to do that sometimes. It's a huge, important part of self-development, of falling in love with ourselves, right? And giving ourselves that love and that safety that we need. I think anyone listening to this podcast has a level of responsibility towards their own finances.

27:03Cassandra Sheppard:They feel... If they're listening to a finance podcast, that means that they have an interest to improve and maintain their finances. I think that alone shows that you're the type of person that is actually going to be okay. You know what I mean? You're not ignoring problems. You are actually trying to improve yourself. So just give yourself some slack, you know, like cut yourself some slack and, and realize that we don't have to be so hard on ourselves all the time anymore. We're, we're, we do that as women, we're hard on ourselves and we can just acknowledge that. Yes, maybe we're not exactly where we want to be yet, but we can improve in those little tiny moments in our day, you know, we can start to do these consistent things, whether it's waking up, you know, 20 minutes earlier to just have some time without your phone, maybe sitting outside and having your coffee with your, with silence or journaling a little bit, or listening to an activation or listening to a motivational podcast.

27:57Cassandra Sheppard:Maybe it's, you know, whenever you are making your coffee in the morning, you add a little scoop of collagen to balance your blood sugar a bit more. Like it could be these most, the most tiny details that could just help you improve your life, whatever that looks like for you. And when we start to lean into these tiny little things that actually make a huge difference in our lives, we're going to start to notice the compound effect take place. Just like how the compound effect takes place in our investments and our finances, the same thing goes with our personal habits. Whether that is stopping a thought in its tracks when you're looking at yourself in the mirror and you're like, oh, I have to change this about myself.

28:37Cassandra Sheppard:No, stop. That little moment of you telling yourself, no, Mimi, Tori, I'm not going to do this. We're not going down that road. It's just these tiny moments that you can reteach yourself. And that's the biggest emphasis that I would like to make in this podcast is transformation is not this big thing that happens one day. It's something that you do every single day in a small way that will actually compound into huge changes in your life. And you will not even recognize yourself after a year or two of really just committing to small things. You're going to be happier and more fulfilled and feel more like yourself because that's what this is all about, is coming back to the truest self.

29:22Mimi Bouchard:I'm doing a little spring reset with my closet. I am swapping out the really heavy sweaters into the lighter sweaters. And I am swapping out the rain boots. I mean, I can't completely get rid of the rain boots because I live in Seattle, but other things like nice little shoes that I have a little more flexibility on because it's literally sunny while I'm recording this. And this is why I keep coming back to Quince. I'm obsessed with Quince. It's not just because they sponsor the show, but I truly love shopping with them. I bought my living room couch from Quince. Quince makes beautiful everyday pieces using premium fabrics and their spring pieces are lightweight, breathable, and effortless.

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31:49Mimi Bouchard:There are many, many times, especially a couple of years ago, where I was pretty burnt out in our business. I had just launched my book and I was just tired. And there were so many thought patterns that were not helping me and were frankly just mean. Like we're not, we're not kind myself. And you run that road to your beautiful metaphor enough, and you just realize, I'm really tired of this. And so rather than every time running that road, I'd realize, okay, I'm halfway down it. And I just stop and I'd go, okay, we're not going to do this today. And then I would just turn and take a different road.

32:23Mimi Bouchard:And that was a constant practice. But then over time, that road didn't exist anymore because I knew that going down that road didn't serve me. It was not helpful. It was not kind to myself. And one of the things that you teach is, I think, so helpful is what you call the bounce back rate, which is like how fast you recover from mistakes. Can you talk about how someone can apply that to, oh, I went and spent money I didn't have. Let's give that as the example. I went and, you know, overspent from my budget and now I feel like shit. Like, how do we use that bounce back rate? And also, how can we employ those mindset tools to not beat ourselves up?

33:02Cassandra Sheppard:100%. I love this bounce back rate concept that I kind of coined a few years ago. I write about it in depth in my book. So essentially, it is the anti-perfectionism belief, which is perfect, because I definitely have struggled in my past with perfectionism and thinking this all or nothing mentality. You know, if I fall off the bandwagon, starting all my goals on Monday. Doesn't matter. Yeah, it's over. Yeah, exactly. So the bounce back rate is really quite brilliant when you think about it because it does not put perfection on the pedestal whatsoever. So many of us think that to create a better life for ourselves, we need to be perfect.

33:42Cassandra Sheppard:We need to do it perfectly, right? That's actually completely false because not one human being on planet Earth has ever even had one perfect day. Your perfectionism is fear.

33:52Mimi Bouchard:Like it's just fear. Yeah.

33:54Cassandra Sheppard:Yeah. It's holding you back, right? This is the ultimate thing to tell a perfectionist. your perfectionism is making you not successful, right? Because it actually is holding you back.

34:04Mimi Bouchard:It's quite literally true. And again, we live in a society that has told women, you must be perfect. So we've already set a standard that is actually completely unrealistic. And I know there's people out there that are going, oh yeah, well that's unrealistic for other people, but it should be realistic for me. No, like perfectionism is just fear. Your fear is the thing that's holding you back. And that fear of failing, that fear of screwing up, that fear of maybe you're not good enough, that's what your perfectionism is doing. And it's not serving you at all.

34:35Cassandra Sheppard:Totally, totally. And the bounce back rate is a new measure to measure how successful you are being, right? And it trumps the perfectionistic view. Because when you start to focus on just how quickly you bounce back to getting back on track after you fell off the bandwagon, just that bounce back rate, the rate at which you can bounce back to feeling like your best self and doing the things that you feel good doing, right? If you just focus on how long it takes to get back on track as opposed to how perfect you were, this will expedite your results like crazy because you're not going to get into this mentality of, oh, you know what?

35:16Cassandra Sheppard:I messed up. I might as well spend the rest of my bonus because I spent it on this silly thing. So I'm just going to spend the rest and then we'll start next month. Obviously, I can't change. So here we are getting back into this old pattern of overspending. If we want to use money as an example, if we want to use our health goals as an example, oh, if you tell yourself that you want to go on a walk every single day to get fresh air and sunlight, and then you miss a day, why would you then stay home all day, binge watching TV and not go outside and get your fresh air and your walk just because you miss that morning walk, right?

35:51Cassandra Sheppard:It's that same mentality of all or nothing, you know, eating one cookie and then eating the entire box. No, just be okay with, you know, eating a treat or be okay with missing a morning of your morning walk. That's okay. You're normal. You're human. That doesn't mean you have to go down this other extreme. And that's what perfectionism causes. it causes extremes and extremes will hold us back. If you can just be more consistent and focus on how quickly you can bounce back and just be casual about whatever that quote slip up was, then you're going to get there so much faster. Not one person on planet earth is perfect, right?

36:27Cassandra Sheppard:And there have been the most successful people out there that you look up to that have never had one perfect day. So that's obviously not the solution is perfectionism. It's not, What those people do differently is they have a quick bounce back rate. Maybe they do something that doesn't make them feel good or they broke a goal that they had. Instead of dwelling on it, they just get back up and go back to what they know that they want to be doing. And when you identify yourself as the type of person that you want to be, if you start to show up as her and you feel like your future self, I call it the person you want to be, the identity that you want to embody, if you can continuously do that, you'll notice that your bounce back is actually a lot faster and easier because it's just aligned with your identity.

37:09Cassandra Sheppard:If you identify yourself as someone who is quite responsible with her finances, that likes to have a certain amount in her bank account, doesn't like to go below that, feels very positive about the investment she's making, the savings she has, how she's spending her money. If you identify as that version of you, it's going to be harder for you to overspend and make these quote bad money decisions because you won't want to. It'll feel weird doing it. It'll feel uncomfortable. And that's the goal is to first shift our identity to align with who we want to be, with the life we want to live, because then it makes doing those things and taking that action quite a lot easier.

37:49Mimi Bouchard:I want everybody listening to go back about five minutes and listen to that again, because I love thinking about tracking success, not I've done this 15 days in a row, but rather, okay, on the 15th day, I wasn't able to. And rather than just saying, okay, I'm going to wait till the first of the month, again, screw it. Or I've already messed up my New Year's resolution. So I'm just going to put the whole thing in the garbage. It's like, no, rather than tracking how many days I've been on, let's track how many days it took me to get back on. Cool. I did this in a couple hours. Or I did this. It only took me two days.

38:26Mimi Bouchard:My bounce back rate was two days. And that is very similar to what I see people talk about of trying to get rejections. I'm sure you've seen this. There was actually a woman literally going viral on TikTok as we're recording this who was like, my goal this year is to get 100 rejections. And I've already gotten Dutch citizenship. ship. I've gotten like this speaking engagement and I've gotten like a$10 ,000 client. And also I've heard no 20 times. So it's like, that's the, that's kind of what we're talking about here is rather than tracking how many yeses you've gotten, it's like, no, I'm going to go for it.

39:01Mimi Bouchard:And it's not going to be perfect, but I am going to track, okay, we're going to get back in the bandwagon. How much time does it take me to do that? Yeah.

39:09Cassandra Sheppard:Yeah. Just focusing on that. Cause there's one very simple solution, just getting back on track. The moment that you realize you fell off, if your brain immediately goes to, okay, bounce back rate as my success tool, as my measure of success, then you're just immediately going to want to just bounce back. If your measure of success is perfectionism, then once you realize you fell off track, you're just going to feel shame, guilt, self-hatred. What the heck is the point of that? What? That doesn't benefit you at all. That's a waste of your precious life is feeling that way about yourself. And sometimes we've all had to feel that way a lot for a long time to realize that we're just tired of feeling that way and that our life is too short and too precious to feel that way.

39:54Cassandra Sheppard:We have to come back to our why when it comes to this work a lot of the time. And I don't know about you, but my why is life is short. We have one shot at this thing. I want to feel the happiest I've ever felt. I want to feel the most fulfilled and the most abundant. And I want to tune into my potential. You know, I want to be the best Mimi that I could possibly be.

40:15Mimi Bouchard:When you think about someone building trust with themselves around money again, what is the smallest behavior change that actually restores that trust?

40:28Cassandra Sheppard:Not feeling fear when you look at your bank account, you know? I think that's a big one. And we often try to avoid looking at things that make us sad or uncomfortable or realize we need to change. So stop avoiding. That's a really big one. And start to actively take control of your finances. We actually just launched in Activations this seven-day money mindset challenge that people have been obsessed with because it's more of a pragmatic kind of logical challenge. We have, I was mentioning to you off-air, we have a new script writer for the Activations. and she writes some of the most compelling content that we've ever had on the app.

41:09Cassandra Sheppard:It's very pragmatic, very practical. I'll tell you some of the activation titles just so you can get a feel of what this is. So it's a 7-Day Money Mindset Challenge. The first activation is feel motivated to improve your finances. So starting off with this rush of motivation and your why. The next activation is release money anxiety and feel hopeful about your financial future. seeing a new future for yourself. Okay. The next one is own your money story and rewrite what comes next. And then we have one called stop mindless shopping and spend in alignment. That's going to be a good one. Yeah. I knew that one.

41:51Cassandra Sheppard:Take radical accountability for your finances, shift out of lack and feel abundant, you know, starting to condition yourself to think and act and feel like the abundant version of yourself, like the version of you who has the financial future you desire. And then the final activation in this seven-day challenge is take aligned action towards your financial future. So really ending it off on an action oriented frame where you can actually just start to take action out. Anything, whatever feels sticky to you, something actionable, something doable. And that's what activations do. So many people write in saying, oh my gosh, you know, since listening, I've increased my income by X amount.

42:33Cassandra Sheppard:And it's not the activations that magically make money poof into your account. We know this. That's not what it is. What it is, is who you become when you listen to this type of visualization content that helps you reprogram your mind, right? So activations is just a tool in your toolbox that you can use. If you don't want to do activations, you can also journal. You can also have a friend that you work on with these new beliefs and you can check in every day and have some sort of accountability with them. I think journaling is a very important one as well that I like to lean on. Me too. And there's so many different personal development practices that you can lean on.

43:09Cassandra Sheppard:Activations is kind of just like a shortcut audio tool for people that like to listen to things on the go. But you can do this whichever way that feels most aligned to you. The intention is to create new thoughts and to tell yourself that these old limiting thoughts are actually not the truth. And it really helps you to step into this new identity, this new way of being, of living.

43:33Mimi Bouchard:Mimi is there um is there a way that we could actually hear an activation I want people to like experience it and be able to you know continue on their learning right now sure if

43:44Cassandra Sheppard:you want we can send you like a two-minute sample activation you can plug into the podcast okay

43:49Mimi Bouchard:that's that's so cool okay cue money activation right here

43:56picture that number

44:00Cassandra Sheppard:a specific dollar amount. See it clearly. Maybe it's a monthly income or a yearly salary. Whatever it is, get specific and get ready to call it in.

44:30Feel the security, the freedom, the confidence that that number brings.

44:42Cassandra Sheppard:See the number in your account.

44:48Cassandra Sheppard:It doesn't matter that it hasn't arrived yet. You can take actions toward that number now. You can embody the energy of the future you that has that amount now. Ask yourself, why do I want this number?

45:22Cassandra Sheppard:How could this amount of money change my life?

45:33Cassandra Sheppard:What action today aligns me with that number?

45:45Cassandra Sheppard:Breathe it in.

45:51Cassandra Sheppard:Allow yourself to revel in it. Because this number is possible. It's not if. It's when.

46:11Cassandra Sheppard:you have to truly deeply believe it and then start showing up like someone who is worthy of it

46:31Cassandra Sheppard:and let this be the moment you choose clarity Empowerment And unlimited possibility With your financial future The savings you want to build The debt you're steadily reducing The income that feels aligned That sense of security that you're craving

47:07Cassandra Sheppard:Feel the spark of possibility.

47:19Cassandra Sheppard:Can you feel the shift?

47:25Cassandra Sheppard:Feel the abundance coming.

47:32Cassandra Sheppard:Feel that motivation inside of you. Igniting.

47:42Cassandra Sheppard:You know you can do this.

47:55Cassandra Sheppard:You are capable. You can create wealth. You are deserving.

48:09Cassandra Sheppard:You are worth it.

48:29Cassandra Sheppard:your financial future is waiting and you are ready to meet that version of you that has it

48:52Mimi Bouchard:Okay, Mimi, so if anybody listening is like, I want more, where do they go?

48:57Cassandra Sheppard:Well, we created a special little link for you guys if you want. It's activations.com slash financialfeminist. We are offering your listeners a 14-day free trial and a humongous discount, the biggest discount we offer. But we can only do that on the website because the app store doesn't let you do discounts. So if you want the best deal and a 14-day free trial, you can try over 800 activations just like that one for any moment of the day, any topic that you can think of. Just go to activations.com slash financialfeminist. And Tori, we can put a list of your favorites on that landing page too if you want.

49:36Mimi Bouchard:That would be so cool. I do have, there's so many that I love, especially the ones that, yeah, I love feeling like the main character in a movie and that is the theater degree in me. And it was like, oh, wait, you're going to, okay, being the center of attention, we're going to talk about how to be in the spotlight. Great. And I love those, especially when I'm on my morning walk. I'm like, oh, look at the sunshine. And look, I like Hans Zimmer scoring my life. It's so great.

50:00Cassandra Sheppard:He's the, literally my, I'm obsessed with him as a composer. Con Zimmer, like such emotive music. But I love how you like the main character ones because I'm obsessed with those too. I would really highly suggest anyone listening, try that seven-day money mindset challenge. Even if you just take advantage of the 14-day free trial, do that seven-day challenge and then like cancel if you don't like it. But trust me, that seven-day challenge is so good if you want to just reset your finances for 2026 and feel that level of like inspiration and motivation while also mixing in that practical, logical side of things.

50:37Mimi Bouchard:When we think about the ability or the power of habits in our daily lives, my friend Liz Moody, who's been on the show before, we've talked about habits with her. How does thinking about incorporating things in your life rather than taking things away make more consistent behavioral change?

50:59Cassandra Sheppard:Oh, I love that question. And it's so spot on. When you add positive things instead of focusing on removing, you know, the negative things, it's just psychology 101. It's more enticing and more exciting to do that. Just like with healthy eating, you know, if you want to eat healthier, add more veggies and fiber into your meals instead of trying to restrict and take everything bad out. It's not realistic. We want to create a life for ourselves that is maintainable and it just becomes who we are, right? So I think really focusing on that positive, anything positive that you can add into your life without overwhelming you.

51:37Cassandra Sheppard:You don't need to do it all. Just do those things that really allow you to show up in your life in a way that you want to be showing up, right? You don't need to wake up at 5am and do a two-hour long morning routine to transform. I saw more change in my life by not doing that and by simply listening to a visualization audio like an activation on my daily walk. The walking activations were what changed my life. Before I ever released these to the public for years, I was creating them for myself. And that's what changed my life is listening on my daily walks. But for someone else, it could even just be a motivational podcast that they listen to every night when they're getting ready for bed or just whatever it is for you.

52:20Cassandra Sheppard:Just be consistent. That's the message. Be consistent. Try to just do a little bit for yourself every day. Whether you even like to meditate? That's amazing if you can stick to that. Try doing that for 5-10 minutes every day. Whatever you are drawn to, whatever feels realistic for you, exciting for you, lean into that and be consistent. Because if you just do that, you're going to see a change.

52:44Mimi Bouchard:Yeah, looking at your money, right? Rather than saying, okay, I'm going to avoid it and everything's going to be fine. It's like, no, how can I make this fun for myself? And what Mimi's talking about, everybody, is she hasn't used this word, but it's like habit stacking, right? she's like, okay, I'm listening to this thing while I'm also going on my walk. I was doing this last night as I said, okay, I haven't got my walk in today. I pulled out my walking pad and I had some work to do and I just sat there and I did the work I needed to get done while walking. And I felt better afterwards because of course I did.

53:13Mimi Bouchard:Now, did I want to walk? I did not. I did not, but I knew I'd feel better. And that's the other thing we've talked about on the show a million times is that self-care is hardship. Self-care is stuff that typically in the moment you don't want to do. like you don't want to go to therapy and you know have a hard conversation about your patterns you don't want to eat a salad you want to eat pizza all the time and again we're not victimizing pizza but like there's certain things that we do that feel uncomfortable in the moment but make future use life better looking at your money right probably uncomfortable in the moment but ultimately it makes future use life better and this is what we're talking about is like the things that actually make a difference in your life and creating time to do those things.

53:56Cassandra Sheppard:And one of the most amazing things to do as well is getting very comfortable and familiar with the feeling of having more money. A lot of us feel limited. We want more money, but we feel uncomfortable with that amount of money. And that kind of rejects it from us. If we don't deep down feel comfortable with that amount of money, how can we expect to really take the action necessary to get there, to take the risk necessary if it feels unfamiliar and uncomfortable? We have a whole category in the app called targeted visualizations. This is money-focused visualizations. It's a little bit more on the woo side to some of the other activations we have.

54:38Cassandra Sheppard:So pragmatic money mindset challenge if that's for you. But if you are into a little bit more of that, like align with the energy of the level of wealth that you desire type of verbiage. Our targeted visualization category is really quite amazing when it comes to that. And it helps you familiarize yourself with that level of money. For example, we have everything from manifest$1 ,000 all the way to millions and millions, whatever that amount is that you want to familiarize yourself with. And it helps you get into the energy of how it would feel to be earning that amount. You have an income category to be earning a certain amount in income.

55:15Cassandra Sheppard:It's all about getting familiar with it and just trying on how it feels. Kind of like you're a method actress and you're kind of, it'll help you walk around throughout your day like you're already embodying this version of you that has a certain level of income or amount in her savings. And it's a very fun exercise. It feels really good to do. And it also, it just like makes you, it gives you the sparkly feeling of potential, right? Of this like goose bumpy, what if? And that's personally what I love about this work is like you feel that like sparkly aliveness feeling, you know, when you think about everything that you could become.

55:53Mimi Bouchard:And it's one of those things that uniquely women feel. We feel guilty if we're not doing well enough with money. And then we feel guilty if we feel like we're doing too well. And I think that, again, is back to the mindset or back to the beliefs that have been ingrained in us by society is feel shame about your debt, feel shame about your spending, feel shame that you don't have enough. And when you start doing well, you have all these new problems, which is the same shame, but in a different way that's going, who are you to have more money? Who are you to be the person that is doing well while other people aren't?

56:28Mimi Bouchard:Which is a real thing I think about all the time. And I think one of the outcomes of that is that when you feel shame that you're not doing enough, and then you feel shame that you're maybe doing too well, shame lives in shadow. So we don't want to talk about it. We don't want to talk about it with our friends because they might judge us for being in debt or it feels very personal. And then on the flip side, I don't want to talk about that I got a raise at work or that I'm investing and that my business is doing well because then what if they judge me for having too much money or being out of touch?

57:00Mimi Bouchard:Like it's so common with women on either side. And to me, that just tells me we can't win. So you may as well get in a good relationship with your money because no matter what, society wants to make you feel shame. Wants to make you feel shame about either not doing enough or doing too much. So you may as well do the amount that feels good to you and pursue money because, again, it gives you those options and those choices.

57:28Cassandra Sheppard:You're so spot on. I actually have never thought about it that way, but that is so spot on. Isn't it crazy?

57:33Mimi Bouchard:I wrote a whole book about it. But no, it's wild. It's wild. And that shame and that judgment is cultivated. It's on purpose. Society has built that shame and judgment so that we don't pursue money. And so when you're talking about activations and mindset, this is proven in the research. This is proven in the data where we exist in a system that tells women, you shouldn't want money that's gauche, that's greedy, that's impolite. You shouldn't pursue it. You shouldn't want to be rich. And that's one of the reasons I am so unabashedly using that terminology in our social media and on the pod is like, I am going to tell you, I want you to be rich.

58:12Mimi Bouchard:I want to be rich. I love being rich for all of the options being rich affords me.

58:18Cassandra Sheppard:100%. Yeah, I totally agree. And I think when we feel comfortable saying that, I want to be rich. I want to have six figures in investments. I want to earn this amount of money. When we tell ourselves that and we feel empowered with that thought and we feel okay sharing that with the world, that becomes part of who we are. And then we're more likely to actually get there because it's just, we don't feel shame around it.

58:44Mimi Bouchard:It's not as scary anymore. It's not as like this thing on a pedestal somewhere that we can't have. It's like, no, the more I think and the more I hear somebody in my ear tell me that this is possible for me, again, just like listening to the show, I'm telling you this is possible for you. It's no different than that. Okay, my last question for you. I could talk to you all day. But what is one thing that anybody listening could do this week that could actually change how they relate to money even before the numbers change?

59:15Cassandra Sheppard:Get crystal clear on who your future self is, on how much she earns, on how much she has, in investments and savings on how her relationship is with herself, with money, in every area of her life, actually. In my book, I talk about the five pillars of your life, mental, physical, financial, social, spiritual, those five pillars. If there's one thing that you can do this week, especially harnessing that new year energy, grab a journal, grab a pen, and just go through those five pillars, okay? Mental, physical, financial, spiritual, social, those five pillars, and just do an audit. Rate them. The current life you're living, rate it out of 10, 1 to 10.

59:54Cassandra Sheppard:How are you feeling in every single pillar of your life? And then get very clear. I spoke about this in the first episode we did, Tori, on how clarity is incredibly important when it comes to creating your dream life. So get very clear. And I think putting pen to paper is a very effective way to do this. If you want something more guided, we have a ton of writing activations on the Activations app, but you don't even need that. You can just do this yourself with a piece of paper and a pen and just brain dump on paper everything that you want to improve in your life. Create a vision of your future self, the version of you that has the life that you desire, okay?

1:00:31Cassandra Sheppard:Start to see it in your mind. Start to feel it in your body. How does it feel to be her, okay? And then you have that clarity. You have a roadmap. Once you have that clarity, then you can tune into being her now in everyday moments while you're doing your everyday life, programming your brain in these everyday moments, whether you're habit stacking, whether you're sitting down on your laptop about to work, just remind yourself from post-it notes, from listening to an activation, from listening to a podcast, from having a check-in with a friend, remind yourself who you want to be. Who is she? How does it feel to be her?

1:01:06Cassandra Sheppard:And how can you be her now in everyday moments? Start acting like her, thinking like her, believing the same thoughts that she believes in. And you're going to then find yourself in a gray area, having one foot into the old life and one foot into the new life. And then that's a really beautiful place to live. And then if you stay consistent, you're going to become her and it will happen.

1:01:26Mimi Bouchard:Mimi, that was so helpful. I'm so happy to have you back on the show. Thank you so much for being here.

1:01:31Cassandra Sheppard:Oh, Tori, it was a pleasure. I always love chatting with you and I love your audience. And yeah, thank you so much for having me on again. I hope that we can make 2026 the best year yet. And everyone listening can feel that inspirational energy that we're trying to inject into this episode. I love it.

1:01:47Mimi Bouchard:Thank you. All right, team, if you've been waiting for a sign to finally become the happiest, healthiest, wealthiest version of yourself, this is it. So whether you're looking to improve your confidence, upgrade your money mindset, just feel better about your thoughts and emotions around money. You can join the hundreds of thousands of users, including me with activations. And Mimi was so generous. So just for financial feminist listeners, there is a special limited time offer You can get a massive discount, but it's only available through our exclusive link on their website. So you could go to activations.com slash financial feminist to download it and get that 14 day free trial.

1:02:25Mimi Bouchard:Also, there's a playlist there of all of my favorite activations. So if you're wondering what's in my headphones, what I'm listening to, you'll get access to that over there. Again, that's activations.com slash financial feminist.

1:02:38Mimi Bouchard:Thank you for listening to Financial Feminists, produced by Her First 100K. If you love this show and want to keep supporting feminist media, please subscribe or follow us on your preferred podcasting platform or on YouTube. Your support helps us continue to bring this content to you for free. If you're looking for resources, tools, and education, including all of the resources mentioned in this episode, head to herfirst100k.com slash sspod.

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1:03:38Cassandra Sheppard:I have to buy everything in three sizes to find one that fits. They know me at the post office.

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