Listen to This Before You Buy Your Next Course, Coach, or Program
This episode explores how to think about using our money to grow ourselves and our business. What's the right amount? Is there such a thing as too much? What should you think about before investing in a course? Through personal experience, I share my thoughts on how to go about investing in yourself.
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Podcast Transcript
Welcome to another episode of the Art and Business of Meditation podcast. I am your host, Lou Redmond, and I share this podcast as someone who quit a corporate job in 2015 to figure out what am I meant to do with my life, what is greater that is calling me? And it was a pretty wild journey to figure it out. And I spent years learning how to build my own business, learning how to make my way, how to bring meditation into the world in a way that people connected to it in a way that supported me financially. And so this podcast is an intention to help you on your path of creating your art, sharing your gifts, and also supporting yourself, building your business and doing so in a way that is aligned with you. So today's topic is more aligned with the business end of the podcast. A lot of the episodes before this have been around the art. Today is focused on the business end. And specifically we're gonna focus on money. Now we can do many, many episodes around the topic of money. Today we're gonna frame money in thinking about how much to invest in yourself. And, and I want to also bring in that when I say to invest in yourself also means to invest in your business. Because as solopreneurs, you probably maybe have just a one person business or you're wanting to create a one person business, and maybe that is a freelancer, maybe that is more under the entity of a business. Regardless, we are the business that our sense of embodiment and growth and work we do on ourselves directly correlates to the health and vitality of our business. So it's kind of hard to separate the two. However, I do believe we should separate the two. We should see ourselves as one individuals that have a business. And because it helps us to see the entity of a business almost as if we have birthed a baby, we have birthed this life into the world. And this is why I tell people, if you can, to create an llc, because psychologically, that creates this separation. Psychologically, there is this birth of, okay, now I have a business and it's pretty simple to go on legal zoom and move through the processes of creating an llc. This was super profound and transformational for when I did it in the end of 2018, beginning of 2019, and that year in 2019 was the year where I made enough that I considered myself making it, which was $39,000, I made enough that if that was the only money I made, I was fine. I had supported myself, I had succeeded in my dreams. It was be able to make enough money to support myself and so, you know, some people get into this work, and maybe if you're in the work for the right reasons, at least I think that's the initial focus. It's like, let's just get the money where you can do the thing that you love, right? You know, there's some people I talk to where they want to not leave their job that they don't like, but they are demanding that they start the job that they love making $180,000, because that's what they made at their old job. And it's just probably not going to work. That. So creating an LLC is just a psychological shift that I encourage people to do. If you aren't, if you haven't yet, and I didn't do it for a year, so don't feel like you're not there if you're not doing it, but something to think about, because what that does is, again, it creates this entity that is, in a sense, a baby. And so when we're now talking about money, I want us to use the analogy that money is to our business as food is to a baby, that it needs energy, it needs nourishment in order to grow. And so continually looking at how are you investing in yourself and your business is showing you how are you working to grow your baby, to grow your business? And so to approach this topic properly, let's backtrack a moment and let's talk a little bit about what is money? Now, that's a huge question that I don't even pretend to have the right answer to by any means. And so some might answer this question as money is a tool. Some might talk about the energy and say, well, money is freedom, Money is security. The issue I have with money being freedom or security is that if that what we're saying, then what we're saying is actually we can never feel free or secure without money. We are attaching that externally to money, which is just not true. There are many people who can feel a sense of freedom and security without money. So I would pause or offer a reflection if that's how you think money is. And I'm going to give you some ideas on how I look at it. Maybe they're helpful. At the heart, money is a story. It's a story that we are creating about it. And we each have our own story based on how we grow up. And these stories really impact how we think and how we act with money now. And there's such a wide, wide spectrum of what that looks like. And so without getting too Far into each person's stories, let's look at the definition of money that I think is pretty simple, obvious, and one that I think is going to most support the topic that I want to talk about today, and that is money is currency. And the root word there is current. And the metaphor I want you to think about is water. Money is like water. It's a flowing current of energy. And what is crucial is that like water, there is a flow. Water that is still becomes stagnant, becomes dirty. When a river flows, it stays fresh and clean. And so having some flow, flow of money that's moving in and out of your life is how I want to set this topic up. And if money is a current, what is it carrying? And what that is, is money is carrying our intentions. And so water can carry with it a toxicity or it can carry with it a clear fresh nourishment. And so it becomes neutral in that way. And so we have to start to look at money as this neutral current that we can imbue what energy we give to it. For so many, money is a source of distaste. There is both this grasping at getting it, I need more, I need more. And then there's this fear around having it, holding it and not losing it. And at the root of both of those actions, at the root of grasping and fear, is the energy of not enough. It's the energy of scarcity. And so if you feel like any of that describes you, like there's this kind of this desperation, there's this neediness for it, but there's also this fear of losing it when you have it. I want to send you lots of love. It's okay. And that this points to where some of the work is. Because if you're wanting to create a flow, a sufficiency, a sense of abundance, of enoughness, it starts with rooting out the energy that we feel around the money that's coming in and out of our life. And so I talked about this in an earlier episode called Transforming youg Relationship With Money, where we discussed a lot of Lynne Twist's beautiful book the Soul of Money. And she discussed, discusses in that book the lie of scarcity, that scarcity is actually a made up lie. And in the mindset of scarcity, our relationships with money is an expression of fear, a fear that drives us in an endless and unfulfilling chase for more or into compromises that promise a way out of the chase or discomfort. And so rich or poor, you can feel like you don't have enough. There are millionaires that feel like they don't have enough. Billionaires feel like they don't have enough as much as people that are in actual poverty. Yet there are people out there who have no money, like the Ashuar tribe, that have a sense of sufficiency that there is enoughness, even though they're living without money. So it's never about an amount of money. This is a big point I want to drive home and to understand what investing is, we first need to work through the fears and shift into what Lyn calls the truth of sufficiency, this state that we feel like there is enough. And although the money in our bank account might fluctuate up or down, at the core, there is a sufficiency. When we need money, it shows up and we can rest in that. Mother Teresa used to say that God will just provide. She was just, she just said, God will just provide. She was never worried about the next step, even though she didn't have any money or in any practical ways that she thought about making money. She just was rooted in a state of sufficiency in knowing that if God is leading her path forward, that he it all that is is going to provide the material to allow her vision to come to fruition. I'll riff here on a little story that shows that we get enough at the time that we need it. I mentioned in the last podcast about quitting my job and not really having a lot of money and waiting for this job to manifest. And this was before that gig for Costco that I mentioned manifested and I still trying to figure out how to make a living. And I did something kind of radical that I won't get into the full story of. But long story short, I thought that I had an opportunity to meet someone who was going to help me and I booked a flight for $700 the night of. And long story short, that wasn't the right thing to do. Didn't really end up meeting with that person and had to fly back to San Diego. All of this costing me about $1,000 impulse, this calling that was misguided and I was feeling really down and depleted. And this is where Grace, this is where the divine showed itself to give me what I needed. I was walking on the beach with a friend and this friend had met someone that they knew walking by and they start talking and the person walking by says, oh, Lyft is doing this thing where they're giving you $1,000 for every new person that you get to up to drive. Each will get a Thousand dollars. And I was like, whoa, I drive Lyft. I just started driving Lyft. Wow. I just lost a thousand dollars doing this planting. This is perfect. So I took that information. I went home. I immediately reached out to, like, six people and said, hey, there's this crazy thing. Da da da da na. And six people said they were going to do it. And I was like, oh, my gosh, I'm going to have $6,000. I've literally never had that much money in my bank account at this point. Remember, I was pretty much drinking all of my money away and living paycheck to paycheck. So this was right after that, quitting my job. So I would have never had that amount of money in my bank account. And long story short, five of those people don't sign up in time. What happens is that everyone thinks this is an amazing deal, and they just flood Lyft. And Lyft ends up shutting down the promo within, like, eight hours. But in that eight hours, I had one friend who I mentioned it sign up, and we did what we needed to do. He took his Lyft ride, I took my Lyft ride, and we each made a thousand dollars. And I made back the money that I lost making that crazy move. And so at the time, $6,000 would have been too much. I didn't have the energy to handle and work with that. I would have gotten too excited about it. I would have been too weird with wasn't meant for me. But the Divine was saying, we got you just enough to cover this thing that I did. And it was this insane synchronicity to show me that the universe has my back. And so I offer that little story just to give you that trust. If you are following something that is aligned to you, that things will happen that we can't understand. Which brings us back to investing in ourselves. Because what that does is it starts to grow the energy that we can start to hold in our financial world right now. $6,000 is not the same feeling it was in 2015. And I'm imagining if you look back at how you feel around amounts of money, you would see that years ago, certain amounts maybe felt a lot bigger than they do right now. And we, in a very energetic sense, feel a different way towards that amount. And so to think about the energy to grow that sense of what we can hold in our bodies. And before I go into it, I mean, just to think about the money that we can hold. How many stories are of the lotto winner who gets millions of dollars. But they've never had that amount. They don't have the body don't have the energy to hold that amount. And it seeps through like a 50 watt bulb going into a thousand watt circuit. It's gonna over flood what that bulb can handle. It's gonna burn out and often leaving that person worse off than if they would have never won that money. And so it's a really good example of how we have to kind of build our own space of energy, our own body of energy that we can hold the money that's moving in and out. Because just as 6,000 coming in seemed crazy at the time, so did 6,000 going out. That would have been seen insane at the time. But I'm at a point now where neither of those feels like out of reach or neither of those feels like it's a crazy number. So this is the growth around money. And it starts by learning the energy that we're putting towards it as we put it out, and the energy that we feel towards it as it's coming in. And so this is again, I feel like I'm setting up investing in ourselves, like over and over. But, you know, different ideas are coming to me. So I hope that they're just helpful in really setting this up and just, you know, having this conversation that I think is an important one to, to think about as you build your business. So if money is a current and we are energizing that current, the way the what we put to it, the, the energy, the love, the care, the intention comes through within that current. And so to start practicing this, just notice how you feel when you start spending money. Notice when the grocery clerk rings you up and you have to put your card in. How are you feeling in that moment? Are you feeling joy for the opportunity to have all this food and for the convenience of them packing it in the bag? And for you walking into your car, are you feeling like, oh man, that was expensive strawberries. Are you critical? Are you feeling like there's a sense of lack or scarcity? And so it's in these little everyday moments that we can really start shifting. Because you're going to buy groceries anyway, can you shift into a state of gratitude? Holy moly. Do you know how crazy that would have been a hundred years ago to be able to walk into a grocery store and get all the things that we can get? It's insane. Absolutely insane. So can you feel that gratitude for the convenience, for all the things that have gone in the background that have allowed you to have those Strawberries in your bag. And as you send and confirm and put your card number in there, say thank you. Thank you. Can you feel this? That? Yeah, of course. This is, you know, 150, 200, whatever it might be. It could be $2. Can you start to feel a gratitude because you can have the same purchase with such a different feeling. And that's the current that you're giving to money, that's the current that you're sending out into the world. And so I not only encourage you to do with grocery store or purchases that you have through your day, but also look through reoccurring purchases. Can you look at your bank statement and see the money going out for the electricity, for your Internet, for your phone, the things that kind of go in the background often, at least if you have that set up, can you go through it and feel gratitude for everything that that gives you? For being able to walk into your house and have the lights turn on to just start to bring a sense of positive energy to your money, to the current that's sending out in, to the world? I promise you just, just this act will be transformational, transformation. And so there's this nature of giving and receiving. And if we have a non dual lens that the energy that we put money, we send that current out with is the energy that it can then come back with. And so if we often feel guilty for buying a lot of things, maybe we also feel guilty when we make a lot of money. Maybe there's this energy like this is like a bad thing or I'm not supposed to have this. And so I like to think it starts with feeling the money that sending out first, feeling how we're charging that and then noticing how it comes in. Because really the movement in and out of our lives of money is not necessarily equal. It is true we live in a toxic consumerist culture, but that doesn't mean that spending money is consuming. A consumer is someone who takes, diminishes or destroys. And that might be the case if we buy gadgets or cars or shirts. And, and that doesn't mean we don't want to buy those things or do it with a positive energy. But those things are eventually going to go away. And so when I think about how do I be a steward of money? That's what I want you to think about is shifting from consumer to a steward that money is moving in and out of your life. And what stewarding is, is if you do it with investment, it is a generative act that it's actually creating more value than what you started with. And I like to think about it simply in paying for a personal trainer. It's a win win for everyone. I leave stronger. The trainer's energy is appreciated. There's nothing that's really lost. Actually, something new is emerging in this case, muscles and a better heart rate. And so this concept of spending money can be generative is why it's pretty much easier for me to spend thousands of dollars on self development, but tougher to buy new clothes is because I don't get a lot of value out of those clothes after the first time. But the development, I'm continuing to draw on things that I've learned or things that I've grown from or healed or transformed. I'm continuing to imbue them in my life and integrate them in my life for years to come. And it really just comes down to the things that we value and recognizing that our financial choices are a statement of, of who we are and what we care about. And so you can use your money to show the universe. This is what I care about. And what better thing to care about than yourself? And this is where really thinking of how much to invest in yourself is. There's no right number that I can give you, but I'm going to get some practical things and talk about where you're at in your journey and how I think about investing in yourself, because I don't want you to do anything that is going to make you feel unsafe financially. I don't believe in that by any means. And so I'm going to offer some ideas and maybe give you to think about, because if you can think, see this as investing in yourself and see that that is going to grow your business tenfold. I had a mentor tell me that every dollar you put in your business, and I believe every dollar you put in yourself comes back tenfold. Hale Elrod, the authority of the Miracle Morning, states that the level of personal development is directly related to your level of success. And I think that success in every area of life, but especially in what we're talking about in this Art and Business of Meditation podcast, the more that we can grow, the more that that's shown in how we show up and the work that we give to the world. Okay, so take everything as part of my opinion and please check with yourself before doing anything that feels unsafe. I don't want you to do anything that feels unsafe. I want this money to feel like it's working for you. That's what investment is, is. It's working. It's compounding. And it's important to be safe because there's also a lot of predators out there. A principle that I want to drive home is that I don't believe you should go into debt in order to invest in yourself. Because the nature of debt is actually the opposite of investment. It is a divestment. That being in debt, being in credit card debt, having that percentage, you are actually losing money. And energetically it is sucking money from your business, sucking money from you, taking life energy away from you. And so I'm a big proponent. And this comes from having my upbringing. I was fortunate to have parents who enforced and reinforced that if you don't have cash, you can't afford it. That doesn't mean I don't use credit cards. I just pay the credit cards off at the end of each month. However, if I don't have the money, if it feels like it's going to put me in a bad financial situation, and especially if I'm going to go in debt, I don't think about it. Remember I told you I didn't have the money to invest 2100 in Sarah McLean's meditation program in an earlier podcast episode, and this was at a time where I probably should have figured out how to get the money, but the universe was telling me, no, this is not the time for this. So I trusted it. I didn't force it. I didn't try to ask people to ask parents to ask whoever to give me money, because I trusted that if God, the universe wanted me to take this program, it would be obvious, it would be clear that the money would be there. And it wasn't. And so I let that go and I trusted that my own path was perfect. And I will figure out a way to do this next program. If you listen to one of my episodes on Here with Anne Sussman interview, she talks about actually doing that exact same meditation teacher training. But it was after she had gotten $25,000 from a deceased relative. And it was like a sign that this was what she was meant to use this money on. And so her case was different. The universe showed her. The universe gave her that money. Remember that personal story in the Story of Mother Teresa? Trust that it will make sense. And what is making sense mean? It means that you can make the investment and not then be in a complete state of stress and fear thinking about how you're going to pay your bills or how you're going to eat. And for many people that might mean different things. And so maybe you find a scholarship through some kind of program and you get a scholarship, because that's really what you need. And you have absolutely no money, no money in savings, just nothing. Nothing. No prospects, absolutely nothing. And there's people that. That could be really valuable for. For most people, there's probably a product or something that people are working at a level that you can afford. So you might not be at a place where you can work with a coach who charges $6,000 for, but maybe you can work with someone who charges per session at $40 and you start there. And so thinking about what can you manage, what is your level of investment? And at the beginning, if it's, if you don't have something saved, if you don't have a nest egg, if you don't have a big capital that you're intending to put into your business, then you're gonna have to kind of be more lean Startup. Lean Startup is a book by Chris Jalibu. I don't know if I'm saying his last name right. I actually haven't read the book, but the essence of a lean startup is using what you have, spending a little amount of money, but intentionally really spending that money in a way that's going to start to grow it and a sustained growth. You much rather have sustained growth over 10 years than ups and downs and crazy rocky roads. Sustainability, patience. You're in this for the long game. And so find the places, the people that you can invest in at your level. And if you're listening to this and be like, oh my gosh, Lou, I am in debt. I've already done this. I haven't listened to this podcast. I haven't listened to you. I went into debt. It's okay. It's okay. What I want you to do is one, really embrace that it's okay. And please put energy into clearing that debt. Not in a scary way, not in that you have to figure it out tomorrow, just start. And that might mean $15 a month that something is going towards that debt to clear that out, because if not, it's going to start taking energy from you. And a practice that I want to encourage everyone to do is to just simply, especially if you're in the beginning and you are a little bit tighter, is to just do a simple P and L of your life, of what money do you have coming in? What are your expenses you have coming out? Rent, food, et cetera. What do you need to survive? What does that give you extra. Just a very simple. I don't want to call it a budget. It's just. It's just a P and L. Just noticing the flow of energy in your life and thinking about, okay, what makes sense within, where the flow of energy of money is in your life right now. So do that. I really want to encourage you to do that. It's a very basic thing that I think is really helpful at any stage that you are in. And so notice what's a stretch, but realize that spending more is not always better. And I want to share a story of one. A time where I spent a big amount of money. For me, it was a stretch for me. In 2020, I spent 5,400 on a four month coaching package. And I felt like it was a stretch and I felt like I really wanted to put that money into myself. It was super aligned the way that things came together, the growth that was taking place. It just felt like, yes, like this is what I needed to do. And at the time I was making a little bit more money. So I had that money. I had that money in the bank. But I decided to make a payment plan. And when I made that first payment, I did it with such a positive energy of love and courage and commitment. And I really felt like something shifted in me that day. Something shifted in me because I realized that what I was doing was actually putting this money into myself. And it felt so expansive to see that I could be worth that. My life, my business, my growth could be worth that amount of money. And it absolutely transformed the way that I looked and saw money. And it was powerful, one of the best investments I've ever made. And so in 2022, I thought that, well, I am making a little bit more money and if I spent this amount, then I spending more would be better, that I would get more of that feeling. Aha. I was misguided. This is not about the amount. I said this in the beginning. It's never about the amount. It's about the energy behind it. But I didn't realize that. So I spent $8800 on a four month coaching package. Yet the energy behind it was FOMO and it was expectation. And I did not feel nearly close to how I felt in that beginning. I felt like I didn't get the value that I spent, but that was not on the coach. It was really on me. It was my energy that I spent it with. And it was a really powerful lesson. So how much should you invest? It really comes down to one. If you have savings, if you have an income, what that looks like. That's why I said doing the P and L is really important. And I would just start with that energy of shifting internally, showing gratitude for money coming in and showing gratitude for money that's coming out. The more you can let money go, the more that gives a state of abundance, but not doing it in a way that's stupid and not doing it in order to get money to come to you. We'll talk a little bit more about giving and receive. So initially, in your business journey, you're going to be spending more than you're making, you're going to be investing more than it's coming back. Just think of school. If you go to college, you spend years investing in that college, and eventually, hopefully, you make that money back. Although that's not the case anymore. So in this journey, just know that the first year or two years or maybe three years or maybe four years like myself, there's not a lot of money coming back. So maybe you're investing 300. There's not even a percentage because you're making any money. So you're just putting money out. And then slowly you start having money coming in. And so maybe the money going out hits at one year, for me, it hit like 150%, meaning I spent 150% more than I made. And then there was a year that year. After that year, it shifted where I actually invested 60% of what I made. So now I was making a little bit more than I invested. Whoa. Okay. And then the next year, it switched to like 30% of what I made. Okay, wow. But each year I was investing more money. I went from investing 4k to 6 and a half k to another 6k to 8500 to 21,000. And so each of those years, I might have been investing more, but because I was making more, the percentage of my investment was actually much lower. And so it ended up I kind of root in maybe like a 15 to 20% of the money I make as going back in. And there's people that would say to up that number, to say that, you know, you're just giving more nourishment and energy to the baby and it's not at its greatest growth yet. So to keep putting that money in. So it's going to be personal to you and your situation. And so it's trusting. I really want to encourage you to come back and invite in that connection with your source, your spirit. And if you are deciding on, is this something that I'm meant to do? Say show me, make it clear, make it obvious, give me the money for it. Make it clear for me. And if it's not and you feel fear and you feel blocked and you feel like you're getting manipulated in order to do that. We'll talk about that in a second. Then maybe that's not for you because there's a lot of manipulative things happen in this coaching world and so it's important to think about that. There's some, you know, people make this comment, which I just made, that you are worth it. I believe that I am worth it. And there is an energy that is worth it. But to use that in order to persuade someone to buy something for you, I think that's a bit shady. To tell them you're worth it. To spend this amount of money with you when they're actually feeling really afraid is a manipulative tactic and to make them feel guilt of if it's important to you, you'll buy it. There's coaches that have that line, right. If this isn't really important to you, you're going to figure out a way. And I believe that you don't need to say that because if it really is important to them, they're going to figure out a way. Right? So the way that I present at least more of offers, if it's one on one, which has. It's a bit more of an investment than something that's working with me or a course, obviously. So if it's a. It's a program or if it's a one on one, for me, it's just an invitation. Say, hey, this is where I'm at. These are my prices. I'd love to serve you in here. What do you think? Here's the invitation. And if it says, whoa, that's actually way too much, I'm like, great, you know, whenever you feel like this is ready, I'm here for you. And I try and just keep it as this is an invitation and not do any kind of trying to get someone somewhere like I'm trusting in the universe. So I want you to trust in the universe both when you invite people in to work with you, to not start to fall into these types of sales. And I could be wrong. I could also be coming at this. I might change my views on this in the future, I don't know. But at some point, this current state of my business, my sales process is no sales process because I'm not thinking about a sales process. I'm just connecting with someone and sharing what it looks like to work with me and seeing if it aligns and vibes And. And many times it does. And that's amazing and exciting, and I get to do great work and awesome. So it's really about the energy. And so I come at it with a very released energy, unattached. And you'll have people and so thinking about, are you coming at it from an attached place? Do you need this person to eat? It's going to be a different energy if you're coming at it from that. And people are going to feel that. And I really want to. I get in the coaching world, there's this. There's like obscene numbers out there. And I don't judge it. I don't judge it. And I don't block myself from being someone who charges $50,000 a year to be coaching. I don't by any means charge that at the current rate, but you might hear that, and some people can get offended at that. I've had stuff come up for that. And for some people at a certain level like that, the same person who can spend $50,000 on a watch, on a watch, and then you say $50,000 on a year of transformation and growth and someone there supporting you and there for you every day come like that is where the value doesn't necessarily equate. Right? So I want to invite you because it's easy to fall into judging people for charging a lot. Don't judge them for charging a lot. Judge them for how they're actually trying to bring people into their programs. Because, you know, if they can, you know, sell a mastermind for 50,000 for the year, then let them have fun and trust that those people in there are going to learn what they need to learn. If it's done in an integral way or if not, we don't have to control other people's journey, but we do. I do want to be a proponent of being aware of the manipulation that can occur and can prey on people who are really vulnerable. And they'll use topics like, you know, spirituality is not about getting rich, right? It's. This is not about getting rich, but it's also not about being poor. And so the idea where we're blending this spirituality in that it's a. That again, this money is a very neutral topic. So, you know, people have told me, oh, God wants you to be rich. And I'm like, no, I don't think God wants me to be rich. I don't think God wants me to be poor. I think God wants me to be free. And honestly, oftentimes money is going to create more energy around holding the money, if anything, it actually can inhibit a lot of times freedom, which is spiritual freedom, which is why monks have a vow of giving up their money. Because money's never. I say all this, I talk about all these types of prices, and I know I'm just ranting here. So if it's not valuable, then maybe you've already stopped listening to this. But money is never going to give you happiness or spiritual freedom. Just take this in, take this in and really embody it. Money will never give you happiness or spiritual freedom. It can't give you anything. Money doesn't give you anything. You give money energy. You give yourself to money. And so you might feel that hit of excitement when you make a sale and you might chase that. But that's not the liberation, that's not the spiritual, that's not the joy. It's not really kind of in our own personal work. What is the actual thing? Now, we might spend money in order to align ourselves more with that or do work that might allow that to come through. But at the end of the day, I also want to say that to achieve any of that, you don't have to spend any money, that you can find all this stuff for free, that all the wise books, all the wise teachers are going to point you to the truth. And the truth in many wisdom traditions is free. And you have donations. And that doesn't mean money is bad. So it's this balance that we're working. Because when I say that, then you're like, oh, yeah, well, no, money is good, right? There's this kind of imbuingness that you might be putting on to that. Oh, yeah, then this is the right thing to do. And I want to just pause and pull back from that because again, this is a neutral thing. Let's just take money out of that equation. Because in many of the traditions, and to get your word out, you need the money if you want to impact millions of people with that, you have to become a millionaire. You have to build a system, a business that can share your gifts and expand it outwards. Even the Dalai Lama, even these high spiritual figures, they have money that's helping getting their message out there. Yogananda had a benefactor. I'm blanking on his name, but this benefactor who devoted so much of how Yogananda became so big in America because he had found such refuge in Yogananda's teachings and his work. And so how beautiful was that money that that man made now that that man was a bit spiritually bankrupt and went through that story, so we don't have to go to that story. We can be someone who can let the energy of money flow in and out of our life without making it bad or wrong, without making a moral judgment around it, but just using it, continuing to know if, am I stewarding this or am I holding it? It? Am I holding it or am I stewarding it? Am I letting it flow out? Am I sending it to the donations that I care about? Am I stewarding my money in a way that's going to make the most impact? And what's great about the work that we do and how we invest in ourselves is we get to invest in people that we actually care about. We get to know that the money that we're giving to someone is really helping them. And we're already getting a lot of value from someone, and it's helping them share their gifts. Just as we want to be supported in sharing our gifts, we get to give that. And the biggest energy is, again, giving what we want to receive, but not doing it in order to receive. There was someone I followed. Her name is Margot Aaron, and she's just so funny. I loved her writing, and I would read her newsletter every week, and I was just waiting. I just wanted to give her money. I wanted to offer some reciprocity for all that I was receiving from her. And I just, honestly just loved her. I was like, I want to support this person. And so I was waiting for her to have an offer that aligned for me, and I was just like, take my money. She finally had a copywriting course. I was like, I want to sign up for it, because I just. I want to. I'm so happy to give this money. It was such a joy to sign up for that course. And, you know, that even makes the thing that you sign up for a lot more joyous, right? When you have joy putting that money down. Holy moly. I have ranted so much on this podcast, I don't even know if any of that was valuable. I might just be projecting my own fears and insignificant insecurities around money. So I'm still doing the work, too. So know that I'm basically not there by any means. But I also want this to be a conversation in the world that we're in, because it's an important conversation to think about and to just continue to get clear on how money is having an impact in our life and how we can use it as a tool, as a current, to bring a lot more joy, goodness, truth, and beauty to the world. So thanks so much for being here and listening to me if you're still here. Some people that I encourage you to learn from. Ramit Sethi. He has a Netflix show, how to Get Rich. He has a book, I Will Teach youh to Be Rich, both arrogant names, names I probably wouldn't check out. But he's got some good stuff and he's legit it and I have a good feeling around his integrity. So check him out. Ramit Sethi and that book has literally saved me money. Good place to start when you're getting clear on your money. Lynne Twist, the Soul of Money. I mentioned her quoted from her Mr. Money mustache, a man who retired at 30 years old and wrote a blog about it. You know, I don't love a lot of his frugality. Definitely someone more on the frugal end. So I don't vibe with everything he shares. But some some really good practical things around investing that I encourage you to maybe check out. So let me know how this landed for you. What did this stir up? What are you judging? What do you like? What do you not like? Shoot me a message and you can now send me a voice message. So if you click a link below this, there should be a link for speaker pipe and you can drop me a voice message a question and I'll be happy to drop you a voice message and answer that question back or maybe answer the question on the podcast. So thanks for being here and to help you in your artistry, I have created a free course called Meditation Script Mastery. It is going to help you create unique, powerful and evocative meditations that you can use to put online, that you can use in your classes, that you can share with clients, that you can learn how to find your unique voice, how to create meditations that no one else has created. I'm so excited about this course. I was originally going to charge for it. It's seven lessons. It's only an hour long. I was originally going to charge from it for it because it's so valuable, but I really just want to give it away for free and I want to reach as much people as I can to help them in their art of meditation. So head to meditation creators.thinkific.com and go ahead and enroll for the course. Again, that's meditation creators.thinkific T-H-I n k I f I c.com and you can enroll for free in this course. I should also have the link in the show notes for easy access and let me know what you think. I hope you enjoy it. There's so many good ideas in there, so many good topics in there to explore that it's going to really help you create your art and create your meditation. So it's a gift to you and I hope you enjoy it, share it with friends and sending you so much love and support. As always, we will talk again very soon.