279. Building REAL Confidence with Kara Loewentheil

21:30Just like don't even exist. And the media aimed at men is make money, go out and kill the day, invest. So women have this idea that being responsible with money means essentially like never spending it. And I think that's driven by shame. If you have the story that you're bad with money, you're irresponsible with money, you don't understand money, you're not good with it, then you're like, okay, I'm just trying to keep the shame at bay. So I'm just going to be really conservative and I'm not going to learn how to invest. I'm not going to invest my money. I'm not going to spend money. I'm going to constantly be running everything through some kind of responsibility matrix, right?

22:06In terms of any of my expenditures. I see this in my own brain. I have to coach myself. My husband and I bought a very dilapidated 1850s farmhouse upstate and we are renovating it. And the amount of money drama that I have had to work through. And I've done a lot of work on money, but this is the biggest expenditure I've ever made. Old stories are coming up. But if you don't need that to survive or it's not, it's a second house or we actually rent in New York. So it's actually our first house. But just all of that kind of like, I just see even in myself with all the work I've done and having enough resources.

22:37And I think I do what I see women do all the time, which is try to get an expert opinion to make them feel okay about it. So I go to my financial advisor and I'm like, is this okay? And she's like, yeah, it's fine. And I'm like, yeah, sus. I don't think it's still probably not okay. I need to, I still don't feel right about it. So I think that that like noticing where you're afraid to invest yourself, your own education to even hire a financial plan, right? Like I'm not going to pay a financial advisor because maybe that's not responsible to work with someone like you and learn how to think about their money to hire a coach for your

23:06Financial Feminist:mindset or to just spend the money however you want. I think that sort of like trying to avoid shame by being like responsible in quotes when you don't even really know what that means. And you're only seeing one side, like maybe it's irresponsible to not invest your money. If investing your money would make more money that you could then use to do the things you want in the world. It's not really necessarily responsible to not invest. So just like I would say for listeners to think about, oh, when I say responsible, what do I even mean? How do I, what is my definition of that? Like, how do I know what that means?

23:37Because the odds are you're on autopilot with it, just assuming it means being conservative and hoarding.

23:44Financial Feminist:Let's talk about that permission slip feeling too that you just mentioned, because I think that is a product of us having this disconnect from our own intuition and our own quiet voice telling us what's right or what's wrong for us or what feels good, what is that feeling stemming from when we say, oh, okay, yeah, I need to go talk to somebody before I do this. I need advice or I need guidance when you actually don't need advice or guidance at all. Yeah, I can look at my accounts and be like, would spending this money be aligned with my values and leave me in a stable financial place? Yeah, I mean, I think women in general are socialized to defer to external authority.

24:31And if you think about all the messages women get in a given day about everything, it's amazing we get out of bed. If you scroll Instagram in the morning, it's like you're probably sleeping wrong. First of all, you were supposed to have face tape and hair things. It's like whatever insane things people are doing at night when they sleep, trying to produce beauty as a product while they're sleeping. Then you're supposed to like, are you supposed to drink tea in the morning or hot lemon water? And are you supposed to exercise on a full stomach or not? And then what are you supposed to eat for breakfast?

24:56And now it's all protein, no Shelby fiber, and then are you dressing right for your shape? And by the time you haven't even gone through your shower, and there's been like 17 different things that the world has told you, you can't figure out for yourself. You can't even figure out what can it

25:09Financial Feminist:showering wrong too. Like you're showering wrong as well. What are you supposed to be doing in the showers and everything shower was like, it's insane, right? Like as though you, a grown human being, homo sapien, are not able to figure out like what to eat for breakfast and what pants to put on your body. So when you think about like your whole day being like that for decades, it's amazing we could make any decisions. So I think there's all of that socialization. And then just these sort of premises, like one of the things I realized with my house renovation was that I had the thought, which I had just picked up or been taught or whatever, that a house was supposed to be an investment.

25:47So you should only put money to a house if you knew that you were going to get a certain financial return in a certain amount of time. So it's that control thing also. I'd feel confident investing in the renovation if I knew for 100 % certain that I was going to get this kind of return in this amount of time and there was no risk to it. So for me, that was the unlock in that particular case. So that's that self-knowledge piece. So I had to do that self-compassion piece first of like, okay, this is an old story that I'm frivolous and irresponsible. Let's look at the facts. I'm a multi-million dollar business owner.

26:17I bootstrapped this business by myself with no investors. I've grown it to this amount. right we've made whatever it is 28 million dollars total like i'm probably not bad with money so i mean like self-compassion check myself on my story and then that self-knowledge of like well what is what are my beliefs that i don't even know i have like i didn't really i wasn't aware i had that belief subconsciously it had just seemed part of the background it was just true until i started doing this and was like oh that's interesting that's a assumption like for me as a business owner, maybe that's not true.

26:50Maybe real estate is not my own personal real estate is not the engine of wealth in my life. My business is like, I have to decide that for myself. But that's what's so hard for women. And I think other marginalized people is that's me taking the authority to be like, well, I get to decide how I'm going to build wealth. What do I believe is the cash flow generator in my life? What do I think is worth it just for my own enjoyment of something that may or may not end up yielding a certain profit in a certain amount of time. We women want there to be that right answer, that control, because we've been taught that we don't know the answer to anything and that we have to have the right answer to be acceptable.

27:26So we don't know the answer to anything, but we also have to have the right answer for us to be allowed to live. Yeah.

27:31Financial Feminist:And that we have to know it's 100 % going to work out or else why would I do it?

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30:06Financial Feminist:The other part of shame that I want to touch on is so many of us think that shame is working for us. The, uh, I am going to criticize myself into changing. and the thing I always say is that if shame works, it would have worked by now. And like, how is that message of shame that we are saying is necessary for us to change our bodies or change our mindset or change our careers or like, how is that not working even though we're convinced we need it? Yeah, I know. It's so fascinating because like the psychological literature is extremely clear that this doesn't work, but we're always like, but maybe this time, let me try again.

30:49So what I often talk to people about that I think is a helpful reframe, and this is why I think coaching is like philosophy, is that when we're trying to think about what motivates behavior change, we're operating on some implicit model of how a human works, right? And so we have two models and these go back to like, you know, fights in enlightenment in philosophy about what people are like, right? Are people essentially creative, curious, contributory, interested in building things and figuring things out and learning and contributing? Or are people essentially like lazy schlubs who are greedy and mean, who have to be shamed and scared into behaving in a cooperative, civilized fashion?

31:33And I think if you look at little kids, you know your answer to that, right? Little kids have not been socialized as much as we have. And almost every little kid you'll ever meet is like curious and mostly friendly and wants to like figure things out and build things and make an art project with you or like play with you right there like that I think is what human nature really is and so when we are relying on shame to motivate ourselves it makes sense because we've been taught this very Christian Puritan really view of what humans are which is like inherently bad and sinful and need to be scared by the fear of God and shame into like doing anything.

32:11Sometimes it's easier to work on thoughts about your model of human behavior in general and then let your brain apply it to you than to like coach yourself directly because then the other thing that I often offer people is we're confusing correlation and causation. So like you've achieved what you've achieved in your life and you've been really self-critical and shaming and you think those things are causative, that the self-criticism and the shame was the fuel that drove the accomplishment. And so I just invite anyone who thinks that to consider that perhaps that was actually the albatross around your neck.

32:42Imagine what you might have done without that. I have women who go through this. I do a high-end mastermind called the Mission Impossible Mastermind. And almost every woman in that is exactly someone who's been like really high achieving, ran an international organization, has a business, is a whatever. And they are in a period of their lives where they're like ready to stop motivating themselves with shame and fear. and then they're like, what? How do I even do anything now? And that journey of like, it can be destabilizing, but you have to go through that process. It's sort of like when you do intuitive eating, you go through a process where maybe you will eat just pizza and ice cream for like two or three weeks, right?

33:24It's like you're sort of proving to yourself, your body and you have to get into a different relationship where you prove to yourself that you're not going to beat yourself up. And so it can be destabilizing. So for anybody who's listening to this and is like, oh, maybe I'm willing to believe that I don't have to shame or beat myself up to do things. Like I don't have to shame myself into looking at my money. I can make more money by not driving myself with criticism. It may feel shaky for a little bit. Like stick with it. I do believe we all have internally that like curiosity, creativity, drive, it's different for all of us.

33:59We're interested in different things, but like that little light is still in you. And you just have to give it space to like flicker back into a flame.

34:06Financial Feminist:How do we do that? Like, how do we uncouple the shame if we said, okay, this is the year I'm going to try to not shame myself? What does that practice actually look like? Yeah. So I think this is where the third element of the confidence compass, which is self-belief is really important. So part of it looks like literally just learning how to think new thoughts more specifically. So I have an entire episode on my podcast called The Thought Ladder, the book, the bestseller, take back your brain. I go all the way through the thought ladder and that. So you can get this for free or low cost, even if you don't work with me.

34:39But literally, that's one of the skills in self-belief is learning how to actually think a new thought. And this is where a lot of coaching that's out there kind of drops. It's like they get you there and they're like, great, now believe something new. You're welcome. Goodbye. You're done. It's actually a new skill. It's like going to the gym and trying to deadlift 400 pounds when you haven't trained. So the very quick version of it is, you need to stop trying to believe the beautiful thought you'd love to believe right away, which is like, I'm amazing with money. If your current thought is I'm terrible with money.

35:10And we had to go for what I call the 10 % less shitty thought, which is just a thought that feels like 10 % less bad in your body. So it might be like, it's possible that I'm good with some aspects of money. Maybe it's possible that my brain's lying to me about this. I am good at pick any money thing you think you are good at or at least neutral at. Like, maybe I'm not great with money yet, but I did save to buy a car. Like, anything, right? Just to give everybody that little bit of evidence. And so then you're going to, over time, build up to more positive thoughts. But you really have to start with, it's just like a savings goal or an investment goal.

35:45It's like, people want to be like, it's not worth investing because I don't have like a million dollars to put in the stock market, right? And you hear that all the time. And you're like, for the love of God, just put$10 in right now and just start. It's the same thing with your thoughts.

35:59Financial Feminist:We did an episode that was super popular, I think, last year. We'll link it down below as well. Basically, that the all or nothing mindset is killing you. And that's basically what we're talking about. I either go to the gym for an hour every single day or two hours, and I walk out looking like a drowned rat, or it doesn't count. That 10-minute walk around the block doesn't count because it's not enough. And I'm like, okay, so you are telling yourself that I either do it perfectly or I'm doing nothing. Yeah. How does that make sense? Like if you actually are trying to progress towards a goal, the answer cannot be I'm doing nothing.

36:38Financial Feminist:So the answer might be I'm taking very small steps. And that's great. That's better than I am either doing it perfectly, which by the way, you can't do. you cannot do it perfectly every single time or I do nothing. Okay. Then there's got to be an in between. There has to be a different answer. Yeah. It's like magical thinking. It's like, well, I did, you know, cook at home and eat some vegetables three days, but then I had a piece of chocolate cake. But okay. Your body still digested the vegetables. You still got the nutrient. Like, right. Okay. You went to Pilates twice and then you skipped the third time.

37:11That doesn't mean your body like didn't get the Pilates the first two times. Right. It's like, that's how you know when you are in that all or nothing thinking that you're not actually looking at what is the material improvement to your life that you're trying to create. You're just doing a little like moral purity play for yourself to try to, it's, you're sort of like the Greek gods would set up like the impossible challenges for the mortals. They would fail. It's like, that's what you're doing. You're just doing a whole little routine where you set up an impossible challenge to watch yourself fail to then beat yourself up.

37:41It actually has nothing to do with the thing you're actually supposedly trying to accomplish because if it were, you would be thrilled that you went to Pilates twice. And then even though you didn't go the third time, you'd just go again next week.

37:51Financial Feminist:And you have a absolutely crucial moment when you've had the two days of clean eating, then the chocolate cake, where you can either say, you know what, fuck it. I screwed up. And so this whole week's a wash and I'm going to go eat an entire pizza, even though I don't want an entire pizza, or I'm going to be, reckless the whole rest of the week. It's the same thing with debt. I already have$10 ,000 of debt. What's another five? It's like, it's another five. It's another$5 ,000 of debt. What's another whole pizza? It's a 50 % increase in your debt. You're not hungry anymore. So you're just saying, I made this one decision in a line of good decisions that I'm not proud of.

38:36Financial Feminist:And also, let's not demonize chocolate cake. Chocolate cake's a Yeah. But also it could just be like, you could be thrilled that you ate both vegetables and chocolate cake. That's what I would advise. But I think you're at this moment typically where you weren't checking the box or it wasn't perfect. And you can either say, everything's fucked. So I may as well just go on a spree or you know what? Okay. Did this thing. It happened. Again, I'm just talking very neutrally, right? I'm not mad at myself. I'm not shaming myself. It's just like, oh, that thing happened. Okay. I'm going to do a different thing tomorrow and see how that feels.

39:11Financial Feminist:Great. Great. It's the same thing with money. It's the same thing with anything you want out of life is you're going to have these moments where you feel like you've backtracked. The key is to not add shame to the mix. And this is what we're discussing here is like, how do you give yourself the 10 % less shitty thought? And also the way we build self-trust is through these little tiny moments where you say, no, I'm going to do the thing that actually I know will feel good for me. That's how you build self-trust is these small little moments. It's not this like big sweeping romantic gesture, right?

39:46Financial Feminist:It's very similar how we build relationships with partners. Exactly. Like you're going to be disappointed. Sometimes you're going to fight with your partner. It's like getting married and okay, I only want to get married if we can promise that we're never, ever going to have a fight. We're never going to disagree. We're never going to be bored with each other. We're only... This is not... It's never going to be a roommate phase. We're going to have crazy hot sex every single fucking day. Right. So I think it's really helpful. Let's say you're trying to set a financial goal and you're like, okay, I want to invest more, cut down on this kind of spending or not eat out as much as...

40:20Whatever the goal is. Deciding ahead of time, I'm 20 % flex on this. I know it's going to be... I know I'm going to not do it 15 % of the time. It's not about picking an exact percentage. But when you pull back the viewfinder and you just think, my goal is to do this more often than not over the long term, it really changes the stakes of each thing. I have a lot of resistance to seeing my trainer and going to physical therapy. And so when I decided to start doing those things, I was just like, sometimes I'm going to cancel these at the last minute. That's the out that I need. I need to know that sometimes I'm going to cancel it, even though I still have to pay for my session, I'm not going to go.

40:58But even if I canceled 30%, which I don't, and you won't either. But even if I canceled 30%, even if I canceled 50%, at the end of three years, I have still done this thing now so much more than I would have otherwise when I would have done it zero. So thinking about that, my goal is to... It's not being consistent and doing it every time. My goal is to inconsistently do this thing over a long period of time so that at the end of this time. I have done it sometimes. It's very hard to maintain your drama with yourself when that's the goal. And to get it to feed into the cycle with yourself where you're like, I'm amazing.

41:35I'm so proud of myself. No, I hate myself. It's like all this drama. It just all gets cut off at the head when you're just like, well, I'm just trying to do this some or most of the time.

41:44Financial Feminist:Yeah. And I will also say to that, my version is I tell myself, oh, okay, we'll just watch the YouTube video because it's a free workout and that that will do it there nine times out of 10, maybe like nine and a half times out of 10. If I choose that path, I quit halfway through or I don't actually do it because I have no stake. I have no buy-in and there's the phrase like people who pay, pay attention and it's true. So it's like, yeah, if you want to better, you know, your fitness or feel better in your body, it might be I'm going to pay$30 because that's what fucking Pilates cost. But like, I'm going to pay$30 for that class.

42:23Financial Feminist:And that's how I started going to fitness and feeling better in my body is I would pay whatever money it was for the bar classes in my mid 20s. And even for me, if it was Saturday morning, I was a little hungover. I was getting my butt to bar because especially at that time in my life, I did not have the money to waste. I had to show up. And so for you, it's like, yeah, okay, I've paid this personal trainer. I might bail a couple times. That's fine. But I have made this commitment because I have paid either with money or time or energy. So I have to pay attention. And I think that's one of the other things that, especially with money, we're like, oh, we want free because we're trying to save money.

43:03Financial Feminist:And like, yes, we love free shit. Like libraries are great. Like things that are free can be helpful. And also, if you're trying to progress in your life, trying to progress towards your goals, you have to figure out what is going to actually get you to show up. And for me, it was putting money down. It was like, if I pay for this thing, you better believe I'm showing up because I did not like wasting money. And it made sure that I had the accountability as well because I was in a room full of other people. I wasn't just going to walk out of class in the middle. I don't have that same motivation at home because I can bail and no one cares So I think that you also have to find that Sort of like level of commitment with yourself What does it look like to make a commitment and actually keep it?

43:52Yeah, I mean I think that you know, why do I why am I willing to pay for a trainer? Even though I sometimes won't go Because I know that if i'm supposed to do it myself at home, i'm just not going to right and right Yeah, I could coach myself around that and work on my mindset. I mean, to me, it's like an effort, money, time thing, right? It's like I have to use some resource. So do I want to have to spend like three hours a day coaching myself to work out? Or do I want to just invest in that accountability structure, even though I occasionally won't do it, right? so I think it's the like it is a shortcut and there's known psychological effects that like if you pay for something you value it more so a lot of being a like I think conscious mindset growth self-development person is like which biases in the brain am I going to coach myself out of and which one am I just going to like run with them and depend on that but I'm like use them to my advantage just like you know the new year is like there's a well-documented boost in your kind of willingness and interest in changing things or in like January.

44:49Okay, let's just use that. If we know that, then this is a good time to invest in self-help and personal development work because there's a documented boost you're going to get. Let's ride that.

45:00Financial Feminist:Yeah. For women and marginalized folks who have been taught that our worth is being selfless, being small, being good girls, how do we begin unlearning these roles without feeling like we're being selfish? I mean, I feel like my answer to this depends on the day because sometimes I'm just like, learn to be fucking selfish. I think that actually being selfish is like one of the best things a woman can do. Right, like what does that even mean? For a woman, that means, the way we're socialized, that means ever caring at all about what you think or feel. Truly, or like putting your needs above somebody else's wants.

45:40Anybody's, even like a stranger. There's however many billion people in the world, your name is supposed to be at the X billion point billion at the bottom. And if it's above, if you move yourself two rungs up, you're selfish. So yes, I mean, that word doesn't mean anything. I think that as with all things with the brain, we tend to think of how can I stop something? But what we know from behavior change in psychology is that it is much easier to start something. than to stop something, right? Like your brain doesn't really know, how do I stop feeling bad? How do I stop thinking this about myself?

46:13How do I stop this, right? What you can do is try to start something new. So if what you're trying to solve for is like putting yourself last, right? Rather than try to ask yourself, well, how do I stop putting myself last? What's helpful is thinking like, what's one thing I really would like to have more time for in my life? What's one thing I really miss doing or wish I could do? What's one thing I really enjoy? how can it let me schedule that let me agree I'm gonna spend the$30 on the spa visit whatever it is and then you're gonna probably need to coach yourself or get some coaching about all the shit that's gonna come up right so there's still that mindset work um I think the other thing to do is this is where like the self-knowledge piece comes in is we all have a big story about like how selfless we are and we're supposed to be if you get real about how you behave when you think and feel that way, it's not so great.

47:07It's just like when we think that we're good at not showing when we're upset. Ask your partner and your kids if they know when you're upset. They know. You're not actually an amazing actress, right? So I think that part of self-knowledge for me is just being real. When my thought is that I have to do everything and no one else does anything and I'm like such a martyr, I do not show up as some beatific saint, right? I show up as like a cranky, resentful person. So I think that the like, and I don't say that with self-judgment, right? Like I have all the self-compassion. That's how my brain is working.

47:44But I think that when, that we have to like disrupt our story kind of, that we are this like, that it's even possible. Humans are just not able to be like truly self-effacing martyrs. That's just not a thing that happens. You're not showing up the way you think that you're showing up. And I think that when you can kind of start with that reality, because the reason that people get stuck in it is they're kind of believing this story that they are actually able to be so selfless and give so much to other people. And so if they were to stop that, it's like taking away from those people. But you're not actually showing up that way.

48:15You're actually probably like low energy and cranky and resentful and your relationships suffer because of it. like you have a disconnect between the story you have and how you're actually being. And when you get more aware of that, it makes it a lot easier to change it because you realize you're not giving up some sort of amazing situation that you've created.

48:36Financial Feminist:Yeah. I think we're all worse actors than we think we are. Totally. Yeah. Are you kidding? Right. We're like, oh yeah. I mean, my husband is a huge people pleaser. He knows I talk about some guys all the time. He's like from the Midwest. And I can totally tell when he's upset. He's not fooling anybody. Yeah. That's like, yeah, the classic mom thing where it's like, I'm fine. I'm like, no, you're not. Right, right. I'm fine. Like everybody knows you're not fine. So what's the point of this? You're not actually producing the selfless experience that your brain tells you you are. You're not fooling anybody.

49:07Right. Or yourself. So let's just like all try telling the truth and accommodating each other. Like everybody's needs can be accommodated. So I think that's the lie, right? It's sort of like the capitalism, like only one person can win, right? Yeah. Like there's one, as opposed to like, no, in a relationship, in a family, in a workplace, whatever, like these things can be balanced. There's room to accommodate everybody. Nobody's going to get exactly what they want, but everybody can get a little bit of what they want.

49:37Financial Feminist:So you say confidence doesn't come from having the things we dream about. It's what allows us to actually create them. So what does that look like when it comes to setting goals, specifically goals around money? Yeah. So I think this is the big lie we're sold about confidence. Well, there's two big lies, right? One is it's a feeling. Yeah. Two is it's a power pose. Maybe there's three. Really, it's like, it's a feeling and you get it from having things. You get it from accomplishments, right? So you look at somebody who has the amount of money you think you want or has the partner when you're single or has the body you want or whatever.

50:09And your thought is like, well, yeah, it's easy for them to be confident, they have that thing. That thing gives them the confidence. But that's backwards, right? Having a thing doesn't give you confidence. I mean, you read any magazine article expose written by a fashion model from the 90s who was considered at the height of, right, female attractiveness at the time, and it's entirely about how shitty they felt about their body the whole time. Like, those external accomplishments do not create confidence because confidence is an internal state and set of skills. So you can inherit a bunch of money.

50:42This is not going to make you confident. Why would that make you confident? You didn't do anything to create it. You didn't build any skills in the production of it. It's just a circumstance. It's like being born with a certain color hair. And we have to understand it's the other way around, right? And this is, we have to build the belief that we can create something. We have to build our confidence that we are capable of putting ourselves out there and creating what we want in order to create it. So it's like a virtuous cycle. You don't have to believe at the beginning. When I started my business, I wasn't 100 % full belief that I could make millions of dollars.

51:14That wasn't even my goal at the beginning, right? I just had to have enough self-belief to believe that it's possible that I can get someone to pay me for coaching. It's possible that this is valuable enough for one person to pay for it. Then I am able, I have the confidence to put myself out there. Then I get that client. Then I'm ready to believe it's possible I could get five clients. Then I get that. But you have to start with the belief. If you are waiting for the thing to make you feel confident, you're going to have a much harder time creating the thing. Now, some people are able to drive themselves to the thing with self-loathing and fear and anxiety, but they don't feel any better when they get there, right?

51:49So a lot of my clients are people who actually are quite high achieving, like highly educated, high achieving, but that goalpost keeps moving, right? It's always like, well, I'm going to feel better. I'm going to feel confident when I get to be director. I'm going to feel confident when I'm managing director. I'm going to feel confident when I'm a partner. I'm going to feel confident. No, it never comes, right? Has to come from the inside.

52:11Financial Feminist:When we think about the Compass tool you mentioned, what would it look like for someone to use that tool weekly or even daily to check in on their financial confidence? Like how do you practically use this on a daily basis? Yeah, I would say so for financial stuff, I would use it if I have one way uses be to have a goal. So if you're like, I want to make a certain amount of money this year, right? So you then are gonna do a little audit kind of like, okay, well, let's see what are my self knowledge? What are my current thoughts about how I make money, how much money I can make, you're going to discover all sorts of shit.

52:48Like, I'm not in charge of how much money I make. Someone else has to agree to pay me that money. It's up to my boss. It's up to, like, you're going to discover all this stuff. You're then going to want to work on creating new thoughts to replace those with self-belief. You're going to discover that you probably need some self-compassion, right? You probably have some thoughts. Like, every woman I've ever met has a thought that she's behind. Behind where? Who knows? Just, she's not where she's supposed to be. She doesn't even know where she's supposed to be. She's just not there.

53:10Financial Feminist:And she doesn't know what she wants, but she knows she doesn't like life now. Yeah. Right. She doesn't know who she's supposed to be, but she knows whoever she is is bad. Right. So there's going to be some self-confidence work. There's going to be some self-belief work. So if you are working on a set of actions, like you've decided like, okay, I'm starting a business. I'm trying to get this many clients. I want to get promoted. And so every week I'm emailing my boss with what I did that week and whatever. So if you use the Confidence Compass, if you find you are not taking those actions first and foremost.

53:45Why, right? This is like the example we talked about earlier. Do I not understand why I'm not doing it? Do I know when I'm avoiding it because I feel bad? Do I just not, can't get up the gumption to hit send, so I need some new self-belief, right? So you can use it that way. The other way you can use it is if something unexpected happens and you're having a big reaction to it, right? The Confidence Compass can help you figure out when something happens and then we get put back on our heels, we get fired or an investment doesn't work out or the stock market tanks and we freak out or something like that happens.

54:20We can use it to figure out and diagnose like, okay, which of these skills do I need to pull in and use? Is it that I am now beating myself up?

54:30Financial Feminist:You shouldn't have made that investment. You didn't know enough about what you were doing. You should have asked that man named Chad who could have told you what to do with your investments, like whatever. So then you're like, okay, it's self-compassion I need, right? Are you starting to have thoughts that are like, I'll never get out of this. I'll never be able to make enough money. I must be bad at my job. Okay, now we need to pull in self-belief. So it just gives you a way of figuring out where to start. Sometimes you're going to need to use more than one skill. Sometimes you're going to need all of them.

54:57But if you break down any problem or any goal into essentially like, do I know what's going on in my brain that's creating my current outcomes? Have I worked on my self-compassion to be accepting of myself in this process? Do I know how to create new beliefs to propel new actions so I can become self-actualized and create this? That's always going to cover what you need in any kind of problem you're trying to solve.

55:25Financial Feminist:You have said before, quote, the seeds of who you want to be are already inside of you, which is very poetic. What do you want listeners to know about their capacity to change, especially when it comes to money? Yeah, that's that English major creative writing major in me. I really don't think that we are called, I don't mean called like there's some spiritual divine, whatever. I don't think that our like unique brain and body chemistry puts into our head real true intrinsic goals that we're not capable of achieving, right? I think we can like absorb external social goals, be told that we should do things that we don't actually care about or may not be capable of usually because we don't actually care about them.

56:10But I don't really think that we come... Like I have never wanted to be a visual artist. I cannot even draw anything, right? I did want to write a book and I didn't get there the way I thought I would, but I got there. If you have a financial goal that really is intrinsic to you, it's not being driven by scarcity. It's not being driven by fear. It's not being driven by, I got to make more than my sister so I feel good at Thanksgiving dinner. Whatever it is, if you really have a financial goal that aligns with your values, which is, there's a whole other conversation of how I teach, this is what I teach around decision making for women is making decisions with your values.

56:47If you have a financial goal that was really intrinsically motivated, the person who came up with that goal is the person who can achieve it. I was just coaching a client in my mastermind yesterday who's buying another business and she was having all of this anxiety that what if she's not the person who has the capacity to hold that and to do that, right? And I was literally coaching exactly this. I was like, but you're the person who had the capacity and the ability to come up with this idea, find the business, negotiate, come to an agreement, do the due diligence. Like, you had the capacity to start this.

57:20You might not have all of it now. You're going to grow it as you go along. But, like, you already have those seeds because you've gotten this far. So wherever you are in that financial journey, like, if you are called to it and it's truly intrinsically motivated, I believe you have the capacity to develop the ability to do it. And that's where that self-belief comes in of, like, even starting with a 10 % less shitty thought that's, like, it's possible I'm capable of more than I think. Like it's possible my brain currently doesn't know how much money I'm able to create, like opening up those glimmers of possibility.

57:53Financial Feminist:I love that so much. Thank you so much for coming back on the show. You're one of my favorite people both on this podcast and in real life. So feel free to plug away. Tell me about the book. Tell me about your podcast. Tell me about your programs, whatever you want to chat about. People can find my podcast. It's called Unfuck Your Brain. My book is called Take Back Your Brain. You're seeing a theme. And we have a free mini course on how to stop caring so much what other people think because that is often the first step to creating those confidence skills is like detaching from that obsession with what everyone else thinks about you.

58:24So to get there, you can go to unfuckyourbrain.com forward slash HSC. Just those initials, unfuckyourbrain.com forward slash HSC.

58:34Financial Feminist:I love it. Thank you for being here. Thanks for having me, guys. Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist, 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 sfpod. If you love Financial Feminist and you're listening, so I hope you do, We've got something to take your learning even deeper from the podcast, especially if you've ever felt like personal finance is a confusing maze.

59:12Financial Feminist:My book, Financial Feminist, Overcome the Patriarchy's Bullshit to Master Your Money and Build a Life You Love is out now. It is a New York Times bestseller that has sold nearly 300 ,000 copies, and it is not just another financial guide. It's everything you need to get better with money step by step, but through the signature feminist lens that you know and love here at Her First 100K. There is so much in the book that we've never discussed on the podcast. There are homework assignments, there are deep dive lessons, and there's even more information that you've never heard of here on the show.

59:37Financial Feminist:You can get a copy of Financial Feminist wherever you get your books. And if you are listening on Spotify right now and are a premium member, you can get the audiobook read by me for free. You can get signed copies and learn where it's sold at herfirst100k.com slash FFpod.