Denise Duffield...:            Hey, they're gorgeous, it's Denise here, and today is another, Ask Me Anything episode, this is part four. We've got, one, two, three, obviously that we've already done, and in these episodes I answer questions that have come in from various places.

                                                Every time we get a question, I don't know, on the blog or from emails, we pop it into a document and I'm getting through them all, which is really, really fun. It can be a little bit random, but there's always something in here for everybody. It's a mixed bag, a pick and mix of juiciness and goodness.

                                                I'm just going to jump straight in, in no order or anything like that. The first question is around self-worth and money, and this is a really great place to start, about detaching your self-worth from the rollercoaster of your income, because it's really tempting to feel really good when the money is good and then really low when the money is low.

                                                The thing is, when you're in business for yourself, sometimes there is those high highs, and we do have to detach our self-worth from money, because money doesn't make you perfect or a good person necessarily. My answer is, always working on your self-worth, self-love and acceptance is the key to everything.

                                                Obviously money can make your life easier, but you can slap millions of dollars into someone's life, it doesn't mean that they're going to like and accept themselves any more. Actually we can look at that from lottery winners, within five years, it's something like 80 or 90% of lottery winners have lost all of their money, because if they had dysfunction in their life, sometimes it amplifies that, right.

                                                That's why I always say to people, it doesn't matter what you're trying to achieve in your life, if you can work on self-love and acceptance, that will be the key. EFT, I deeply and completely love and accept myself, and then that way it's money is just money, money is a tool, it's not a literal indication of your self-worth as a human being, it just is what it is.

                                                Then when you detach from it, then you can go, "Oh, I can charge high prices without feeling like it's me." Then your pricing is not related to you as a human being either, the price is just the price, money is just money. You do that with a lot of self-love and acceptance work, whether that's inner child work, just lots of tapping, it could be mirror work. Louise Hay's book, You Can Heal Your Life, is all about self-love and acceptance, and that's the only thing I strive to do.

                                                It's also incidentally, the only thing I teach to my children. I'm not sitting down, I do talk to them about money and I try and make sure I have neutral to positive conversations about money, but what I'm really interested in teaching them is self-love and acceptance. Because then who they are can truly shine, and I can't control who they're going to be, but I can absolutely role model that, striving for self-love and acceptance, because it's never a destination, it's a journey and that's the only thing you can do, all of us. I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

                                                This relates to the next question, is when someone says, "You're too expensive," or "If you really cared about us, it should be free," so it's a pricing question, how do you handle that? Well, again, my answer is self-love and acceptance, because then you can just go, "Okay." If someone says, "You're too expensive," you go, "That's fine, it's true to you, that's okay, but it doesn't mean that me as a human being is too expensive, it's just the price that is a mismatch to you."

                                                Sometimes people wonder how I can be so zen with some of these things, where I just go, "Okay." I don't take it that personally, because I know that even if someone thinks I'm too expensive, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

                                                Do you hear the difference? Then it's like, you're never going to have a price. I always say this, right, there's no such thing as a critic-proof price. In no way can you ever find a price that everybody's going to be happy with, so what can you do? You can deeply and completely love and accept yourself, so then it's like, "Yeah, well that's the price. It's fine that you think it's too expensive. I don't judge you for it, I don't judge me for it, it is what it is." It just sounds very zen, but it honestly just comes back to, I love and accept myself, and I'm okay with it, yeah.

                                                All right, so this next question is just about comparisonitis, how do you not compare yourself to other people? It's tricky, it's tricky, tricky, tricky. The honest answer for me is, I do not watch ... If I find that someone's triggering me, sometimes I unfollow them. I'm just like, "I don't need to know, I don't need to see," but in the start of my business, when I had so much comparisonitis, I did a little affirmation that was really good. I would say it, and I'd put my hand on my heart and I'd say, "Good things are happening to me too, good things are happening to me too."

                                                I actually used this literally only a week ago. You might think, "Oh yeah, but Denise is fancy and rich now, she never feels that." I still do, and I saw someone and I was like, "Good things are happening to me too." Because it was a reminder, it was almost like a gratitude reminder to say, "Yeah, but look what you are doing, and you are doing some cool stuff too."

                                                Try that, because yeah, there's always going to be someone who is getting something that you want at a time when you are not having it or there's lots of reasons, and you can just say, "Good things are happening to me too." Sometimes it's that affirmation that not only changes you and just goes, "Oh yeah, that's right," but it's also a really good manifesting affirmation, right. Good things are happening to me too, the checks are in the post, money in the post, so hopefully that helps.

                                                Also it's totally fine if someone is triggering you, yes, you can do some mindset work and see why, but sometimes people, it's just not a good fit and you're allowed to just unfollow them, that's fine too, that's totally cool.

                                                Okay, so this is a question about upgrading, okay, so, oh, this is a good one, because people, sometimes with money, mindset work, some people present it as more bigger, better, faster, richer, blingier, that kind of thing. I'm not a celebrity archetype and money archetypes is often about outward things of success. You can love really designer things and big stuff, and so that's often what wealth is associated with in our society, is shiny, wealthy, that kind of thing.

                                                What if you don't like that, what if you're not interested in that? What is wealth to you? We all have to start giving ourselves permission to define what wealth feels like for us. What does it feel like to you? That could be living in a tiny house, having handmade shoes from a sustainability company, having a very small curated wardrobe of clothes. It could be having designer clothes as well, there's no right or wrong.

                                                It could be that you just want to feel comfortable, no-one has to spend their money in the same way. Sometimes people resist money mindset work because they think it's all about being something that they're not, instead of realizing that it's about being who you are and giving yourself permission to double down on that.

                                                Today I'm wearing UGG boots, tights, a musical shirt that I bought off a Facebook marketplace and my favorite Hamilton hoodie. I love thrift shopping, I love it. I love when I go to a musical, that I can buy everything on the merch stand if I want to. I think, have I got a handbag? Yeah, I do have at least one handbag now, but I didn't really for a long time, because it just wasn't my thing.

                                                You can choose, and sometimes we don't realize that we're allowed to choose, we feel like we have to get what we're given, or there's only one way to do success. I find again, if I come back to self-love and acceptance, that really helps you to discern what would feel good for you, because sometimes we've never been able to have the choice, we've never felt like we are worthy of buying what we want to buy. You can go and test things out and see what feels good.

                                                I've gone into designer stores and I've tried things out, and sometimes they feel really good, and sometimes I go, "Oh, this is why I didn't like this." You can practice and try it out, there are no rules, there are no rules.

                                                Okay, the last question before the break, so how do you deal with, when you are up-leveling in your business, so it might be up-leveling prices or branding or whatever, and there's that shift between old and new clients?

                                                This is a good one, right, because do you know when you're just like, "Oh, I want to work, or I want to work in a different area or work with different clients," and so some people leave because they're no longer a fit, but the new ones haven't come in yet, it's that lag time. It really is a manifesting thing too, is we say, "Oh, we want this," and it's that feeling, it's that lag time of like, "Dude, where's my stuff, where are all these people?"

                                                Sometimes we expend so much energy on the decisions of, "Am I going to do it? Am I going to do it? Am I going to do it?" You forget that you also need to still do the logistics of telling people about what you do. Okay, so I used to have clients, who'd go, "Well, I've increased my prices now, Denise, now what, where are my clients?" I'm like, "You still have to market the thing, dude." They go, "Oh," because it took them so much courage and energy to increase their prices, that that felt like the work.

                                                They were like, "But I've done the work now." I know, I've done this myself, I'm like, "But I've done the work." It's like, "Yeah, but now you need to tell people about it." They go, "But I just want to manifest the clients," and you go, "Yeah, marketing is how you manifest clients."

                                                Don't forget that we still have to do those basics all the time, and when you meet the universe halfway, the universe opens a thousand more doors for you. Okay, so you still have to meet the universe halfway. All right. Let's have a little breaky break, and I've got more questions in a minute. Bye.

Zoe Cross:                           Hi, Denise, Zoe Cross here. I support people with a visible difference, such as facial paralysis, to follow the career or the business of their dreams, and not be held back by mindset issues and by the stigma that is still attached to a visible difference, so I'm a business and confidence coach myself.

                                                Chill and Prosper is amazing, I love the case studies and well, I love the mindset issues. Mindset is absolutely everything, exactly as you say. I'm taking my time to read your book, because I keep having to stop and take action, concrete action on stuff that you're talking about in there.

                                                Amazing. Yeah, okay, I still haven't had ... Right, and the other thing is, yeah, the whole issue about, I can't afford it and the issue about ... Yeah, I love the tip you gave, for example, if you don't want to connect to too much work for clients right now, that one of the easiest things you can do is just offer an hours worth of your time.

Denise Duffield...:            Hey, welcome back to more Q&A's with Denise DT. I'm loving these AMA's. I think I'm going to try and do one at least once a month in the podcast stuff, unless you guys really hate them, but let me know, I've enjoyed doing them, so.

                                                Okay, so let's jump straight back in. This is a question of saying, "Denise, you're a multimillionaire, how do you stay motivated?" Okay, I love this question because I feel like it's a fear that we have of, if I get too successful something bad's going to happen. I'll get lazy or I'll get complacent or I'll have no joy in my life, because there's nothing to strive for.

                                                Look, I can just tell you, I'm rich, but I'm not mega mega mega mega wealthy, I'm not a billionaire. I'm sure I'd be great at being a billionaire, but it's like, there's always life, right. I think sometimes people think that you just cross over into this threshold where suddenly everything in your life is perfect.

                                                There's still life stuff, that's the first thing I want to tell you, so kids will poop themselves, dogs will eat Lego and you have to take them to the vet, your car tires will pop. There's just still so much life stuff that you have to deal with, nothing is ever perfect at any point. It doesn't matter how rich you are, you will have loss in your life. You'll never feel 100% confident about whatever, right, so that's the one part of it.

                                                The second part is, it opens up so much space that you never even thought was possible, and so you're never going to get bored. Unless you're someone who is a super boring person now, you are just going to be exactly who you are, just with more money. There's been a few people who have been like, "Oh, you seem so different, Denise, now." I go, "No, this is what I was like when I was a kid."

                                                I loved musicals and shows and ideas, and I felt like I actually lost a lot of that in the adultness and not having money, and so I'm not different, I'm actually who I've always been, I've just got money now to play with it and make it happen. Now I'm like, "Oh, I will invest in a musical, oh, I'll do this." Some of my tastes have shifted and changed as I've made more money, but actually I've just become who I have always been, if that makes sense?

                                                I think the question comes from this fear of, it's not going to be as good as I thought it would be, or there's actually going to be a lot of downsides. If you're in money bootcamp and you're listening to this, go and revisit negative consequences, always. What are the negative consequences of my dream coming true? Because that gives you valuable information then to go, "Oh, that's because I've got this money mindset thing, or I've got this money block that bad stuff is going to happen if I'm too comfortable or it's not safe for me to be comfortable."

                                                I can just tell you, it's really fun to make money. I've done an episode, I don't know if it's out yet, but of what I invest my money in. I love buying old cars for my farm and I've invested in a musical, so there's always something new to do. If I was a vampire, I'm sure I'd just find more hobbies to do, there's always new books to read, there's always new challenges.

                                                There's always new challenges of life as well. I'm in my forties now and now I'm dealing with perimenopause stuff. Then there'll be different phases of life where I have to deal with different things, so you're still going to be a human with all the complexity of that, and it'll just be you with more money. I think that's where that question's coming from, it's feeling like. Yeah, I'll be perfect, or it won't be as good as I thought.

                                                All right, the next question is, how do you avoid having shiny object syndrome, okay? It's totally okay for you to be that. Okay, I've said this so many times, this is an alchemist thing, right. If you're an alchemist in money archetypes, go to Denisedt.com/quiz, find out if you're an alchemist. Actually just send me a DM and I'll send you straight to the thing, because you won't have the patience to get through 62 questions.

                                                Anyway, just send me a DM if you think you're an Alchemist, I'll just send you straight to the option for it, you don't even need to do the quiz. The problem with alchemists is that they have been told so many times that they're flaky, that their ideas have no value and that you can only achieve in life if you follow through, and that's not true.

                                                There are certain people in this world who are here to generate ideas, to spark off possibilities, to come up, to breathe ideas into the world, to be a doula for other people's ideas.

                                                The problem is that if you are that kind of person and you try different businesses and you try them to completion, it's never going to work. You're not meant to be that. It's like if you're a midwife, a literal midwife, and you give birth to the baby and then you feel really bad, you're like, "Oh, well I'll come home with you and I'll help you raise the baby until it's 18." It's not your job, you're there to hand the baby off to the family and that's it.

                                                Sometimes you have to put yourself into a business or a situation where you can work on a lot of different things and be multi-passionate and not have all of them be your business. It could be, I'll give you some examples, but go to the Denisedt.com/quiz or send me a DM. It's being an idea generator for other people, being a consultant for other people, where you just brainstorm ideas all day.

                                                Being a professional problem solver, where people come to you and you just help them solve problems. It's a thing, you can do it by the hour, at retreats, in a VIP day. You can be an affiliate marketer and market a lot of different people's programs. You can just be a consultant for hire, where you just turn up and bring sparkle and joy into other people's programs. You do not have to do business like everyone else.

                                                Okay, so I'm super passionate about that. Oh, I'm sure I've done an episode about this too, let me just quickly check, because I've got the list. Yes, I knew I had. If you go to this podcast, it's episode ... It's called, are you too flaky to be successful in business. It's episode number nine. It's episode number nine, for all of those multi passionate, random, flaky, shiny object people. You're an alchemist, that's a thing you're allowed to be.

                                                Okay, I got on to a little rant there. What to do when you feel like you're doing all the work and you're still stuck? That's hard, right, when you're like, "But I'm doing all the tapping, where's my stuff, universe?"

                                                There's a couple of things, right. One is that sometimes the work stirs up other stuff, like a muddy puddle. It looked nice and clean and clear until you've got a stick in there and then you're like, "Oh, why did I do that? Now everything's bad."

                                                Sometimes you've got some cleanup to do, so if you are someone who's had a really messy financial situation for a while and you start to look at it and start to clean up stuff, you might find for a little bit it's like, "Oh, I forgot I had this debt. Oh, I forgot I had that debt." It feels like you're being punished, but you're not, it's just that it takes some cleanup work to do.

                                                The other analogy I use is, do you know when you start a new skincare regime and then you get pimples and you're like, "This sucks," you feel like you're being punished. The gunk was already there, it's just raising it to the surface and sometimes you have to persist. Sometimes though you just need some extra support, it doesn't have to be hard and horrible, you're allowed to take breaks and you're allowed to simplify things.

                                                Sometimes people are stuck because they're in analysis paralysis, they're trying to do everything, or they're stuck because they're really in a perfectionism thing, that they're not allowing themselves to take baby steps, they're not even acknowledging the baby steps.

                                                When in doubt, always go back to self-love and acceptance, doing some tapping work. Doing decluttering is a great way to move the energy. When in doubt shave your legs, is what I say in money bootcamp. Because I say, "If you've decluttered everything, just go and shave your legs," because sometimes it's the process of taking an action to create space makes you unstuck, it really does. It's funny how it works, when in doubt shave your legs.

                                                Okay, we've probably only got time for one or two more questions, but check out the other AMA's as well, because there's always something, and you can always send me a question too.

                                                Writing a book with an abundance mindset. This is an interesting one, there's no other information from that, but I think there's something there for writers. We still think that our words do not have value and we are still being told that writing is a job that you make no money out of. If you want to write a book, I think there's some unlearning there of like, "It's safe for me to make money from my words."

                                                I did this about, God, even three years ago, I realized, I would say to people, they'd go, "How are your books going?" I'd go, "Well, actually, books are just such a small part of my overall business model, I really see them as business cards. I don't care if they make money." I was like, "What am I doing? My books are great, it's okay for me to make money out of my books."

                                                I think the year before I'd made about $35,000 from book royalties, and then I did money mindset work on it, and the next year I made 80,000 on book royalties. It was just because I was like, "It's safe for me to be a wealthy writer, it's safe for me to make money out of writing."

                                                I think every profession has things to learn about that, and yeah, we do, we have a lot of things we have to unlearn about our profession. Who is allowed to make money and what is allowed to make money?

                                                Okay, and the last question here is, how do you keep an abundant mindset when you're feeling nervous about the economy or you're not feeling super abundant?

                                                There's a couple of things. One, you can do gratitude work, that always makes me feel abundant. I'm so grateful for, and you can just go, "I have food in the cupboard, I have clean water to drink, I have clean oxygen to breathe, I'm safe." Things like that, just to go, "I'm safe, I'm grateful." That can really, really help.

                                                Then sometimes it's different, right. I like to go to an abundant place, a nice fancy hotel, even if you're just ordering a water, being in a space of abundance, that might not even be fancy for you, it might be just somewhere like the ocean, it's free to go visit the beach and you can feel abundant there anyway. Then I find affirmation can be really good too, so it's just, it's safe for me to feel abundant.

                                                You can also write down a list of all the things that you're worried about, and really just acknowledge that and then give yourself permission to just, "It is okay for me to be worried and stressed. Why am I worried and stressed?" Then it gives you something to work on.

                                                Yeah, okay, so it's totally safe for all of us to feel abundant every day. All right. One more final thought after the break and I'll see you in a sec.

Reeza:                                  Hi, Denise. I'm Reeza, I'm from Pretoria, South Africa, and I loved listening to Get Rich, Lucky Bitch! and Chill and Prosper on audible. Your books helped me to give myself permission to want to have my own business and to enjoy being a businesswoman while still being a good wife and a good mother.

                                                It helped me to realize that I can have a business that works around my priorities of being a wife and a mum, while still living myself up in the business world and in making money, because it's so much fun for me and I love being in business and seeing how I can make money for myself.

                                                Thanks so much. I started my own company in the past few weeks, while listening to Chill and Prosper, after doing my husband's digital marketing for the past few years. Reading your books and working on my mindset has given me the confidence to talk to my friends about it, tell everyone about my business, instead of being afraid of putting myself out there.

                                                This week I signed my first client and I got a note from someone saying, "They find me so refreshing and authentic and inspiring," which just blew me away. It just is encouraging to realize that I can be there for someone else by showing up and being who I am. Lots of love from South Africa.

Denise Duffield...:            I want to share a quote that I've shared many times, it's from Sara Blakely, the founder of Spanx. She said, "Money is fun to make fun, it's fun to spend and fun to give away." Every time I'm feeling a bit like, I don't know, less than positive about my business, which does happen sometimes, I just always remind myself of those words and go, "No, money is so fun to make. Wow, money is so fun to spend, and money is so fun to give away."

                                                It really brings back just that little spark of excitement for me, so try that. That's from Sara Blakely, "Money is fun to make, fun to spend and fun to giveaway." All right, have a fun, abundant week and I'll see you next week on Chill and Prosper. Bye now.

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