Money & Mindfulness. Lisa Messenger
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outside the norm, challenge the status quo and find imaginative and unusual ways to build a castle from rubble. I believe I have discovered a personal formula for finding profit in the unprofitable, for stretching my means to pursue my dreams, and for living the fullest version of my life.
Over the years I have discovered processes, strategies and people that help me to amplify, expand and utilise the resources I have, to plug the gaps in my knowledge and lift me over any mental hurdles. And now, I’m happy to share it with you. What’s more, I feel like I NEED to, because I truly believe the only way that we can all collectively rise up as a community is to stop seeing money as a dirty word and to talk about it – loudly and honestly.
I fully appreciate the M-word brings up mixed feelings in most people, including myself. Perhaps you almost didn’t buy this book because it had the word “money” on the cover. Money, politics, sex and religion… Gulp! My generation was certainly raised to believe these topics were taboo and shouldn’t be discussed lightly – or at all – even with your closest friends. Thankfully times have changed, but even at dinner parties today, I’ll see people recoil as the subject arises. If that’s the case for you, I’m sorry because I may just offend you. I want to talk about it loudly and unashamedly.
This is the book I wish I’d been given in my twenties when I’d look at my older, wiser friends who were buying houses and starting businesses and think – how on earth can they afford to do that? It’s the book I wish someone gave me on my very first day in business or the book I wish someone had slipped into my bag at one of those networking events when people would talk about their success while in the back of my mind, I still wondered if I could make rent that week. I couldn’t understand how anyone could afford to ‘live life and prosper’. I was utterly desperate to know their secret. Did I ask them? Of course not! That was far too embarrassing and also would have been seen as bad manners. But inside, I secretly longed for answers and for many, many years I continued to tread water, unsure of where to go, what to do or how to approach the subject, until a fateful intervention from the universe (more on that later).
This is not a how-to book. There are some tips and tricks in here, but this is ultimately a book about my journey with money and how I’ve come to embrace it and positively want it. I’m no different to you, I’m just a businesswoman trying to make a mark on this world. However, I’m not averse to taking risks or backing myself, and when others would have probably retreated against hard financial times, I only fought harder. People say they don’t have the money to create a start-up and I say, “f**k me, I didn’t either!” And that’s the point of this book. Somehow because of my attitude, ideas and approach to business, I managed to keep going and fund an incredible business that is now being taken seriously across the globe. I hope to bring fresh ideas and a bit of attitude to the table through these pages, to help you get your head in the right space to overcome your money fears or discover any internal blockages.
Think of this book as a blank cheque for your future (one of those massive ones they give out on The Ellen DeGeneres Show if that helps with your visioning). It’s really up to you how you spend it, but just know it’s yours if you want to take it. Reach out, grab it. Why don’t you take a moment to visualise your future… with money in it. Whether you’re an entrepreneur with a team of 50, a mother of a young family, the boss of a global corporation, or a single 20-something in the middle of an around-the-world adventure, I hope this book helps you examine your current thinking, appreciate your real value, amplify your self-worth and find the means to achieve everything you dream of.
It’s time that those of us in the know stopped keeping our cards (gold or otherwise) so close to our chests, and spark honest, open conversations about money and how to make just enough to achieve your personal purpose and leave a rich, abundant legacy. I will never wake up with dollar signs in my eyes, but I do want to live a life so full of wonder, adventure and excitement, that when I look up at the night sky it seems full of diamonds. Who’s with me?
I was brought up in the day of hire purchases and lay-bys. Few people had credit cards back then, so you could really only spend what you could afford (yeah, that wouldn’t fly in society today). My mum, a single parent, was paid in cash for her wages and I was always aware that money was a tough subject. As a result, there was a constant hovering, hindering worry that we didn’t have enough, or quite as much as other people. I distinctly remember Mum sticking notes above the toilet paper roll saying something like, “just take one sheet” and feeling guilt-ridden if I ‘indulged’ by using two. (Although she now says that note was for environmental reasons, but the jury’s out. Either way – go Mum!) As a kid, I viewed money – and how to earn it – with a mixture of fear, suspicion and superstition. I was the little girl parroting, “Find a penny, pick it up, all day long you’ll have good luck,” and I really believed it.
Fast-forward to my adult life and I still can’t walk past a 5-cent coin on the pavement without bending down to pocket it. If you spotted me doing this, would you ever imagine that I’m actually the owner of a global business, the founder of a magazine sold in more than 37 countries – which costs over AU$350,000 an issue to produce – with multiple side projects, collaborations, partnerships and deals worth millions upon millions of dollars coming in every year? Yet, I still can’t walk past a “penny”. And that’s not the only childhood imprint that has stuck with me as an adult.
A report authored by behaviour experts at Cambridge University found that an adult’s attitude towards money is essentially formed by the age of seven. Seven! That means we’re clued in on money matters probably long before sex, drugs, rock ’n’ roll, politics and all those other ‘evils’ are on our childish radars. A 2014 survey by Halifax bank in the UK found that 77 per cent of children aged eight to 15 know their parents worry about money, close to the real figure of 91 per cent of parents who are actually concerned. The same study found that 59 per cent of children would like to learn about finance from their parents, followed by teachers at school (20 per cent), then the Internet (8 per cent) and television programs (4 per cent).
As an entrepreneur, everywhere I look – business meetings, networking events and social occasions – I can see glaring examples of grown-ups whose inner child still holds their purse strings. These grown-ups may as well be carrying Hello Kitty purses and handing out Monopoly money, because it’s so obvious their early money memories still propel, control, enable or restrict them. I see it in the millionaire who doesn’t like tipping, in the struggling freelancer who spends $2000 on a present, in the CEO who boasts about their profit but won’t spend $10 on a magazine, and the start-up founder who honestly can’t tell you how much his company is worth because he has zero grasp of the finances, so adopts a head-in-sand approach to business.
That is why, although this book is focused on helping you reach your full financial potential as an adult, I’m beginning chapter one by jumping into a time machine to revisit my childhood – and why I’m asking you to regress with me. Take a moment to think: what is your earliest money memory? How was money discussed in your household and how did it shape your view of the world, your parents, your peers, your neighbours and yourself?
You might look at me now and think I’m financially savvy, but it certainly hasn’t always been this way. For many, many years I was scared of making money, losing money, saving money, spending money and deserving money. I was trapped in a mindset of scarcity where I had a warped view of wealth, how much I needed, how much I deserved and what I needed to do to achieve it. It took a lot of work, self-development and self-analysis to get to a point where I see money not as the enemy, but as an ally to help me achieve my purpose.
When I called my mother to ask about my financial upbringing before sitting down to write this chapter, she admitted that when my sister and I were little she did feel like a black cloud