More Money, More Problems? Facing Your Fear of Success

 

Here's a fear most entrepreneurs won't admit to.

Not the fear of failure. The fear of success.

The unspoken worry that if things actually went well - if you made more money, if you grew bigger, if you actually hit that goal - something else might fall apart.

What if I attract attention from the tax man and get into trouble?

What if my friends resent me for earning more than them?

What if success changes me and I stop being the person the people I love recognize?

What if I make more money and then lose my hunger - and become complacent?

These feel like practical concerns. But they're money fears. And they're often more powerful than the obvious ones, because they live below the surface where we never examine them.

In this week's episode of Chill & Prosper, I'm talking about the fear of more money - the more money, more problems mindset - and the unspoken fears that quietly keep us stuck at an income plateau even when everything else is in place.

Inside the episode I cover:

• The tax fear and why so many people have a deeply physical reaction to dealing with money officials
• What the fear of visibility is really about and why success can feel dangerous to some people
• The relationship fear - worrying that money will change how people treat you, and whether you can handle that
• Whether the fear of losing your hunger is real or just another story
• How to acknowledge these fears without letting them run your income

Because here's the truth. You're allowed to want more, and you're allowed to have it without it all going wrong.

xx Denise

P.S. If today's episode brought up some fears you've never really looked at, Money Bootcamp is where we go deeper. It's a course, community and coaching container where it's genuinely safe to share your fear of success, fear of negative consequences and all the stories that are keeping your income stuck. 

Join us this week and be part of our next live coaching call at denisedt.com/bootcamp

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Here is the transcript for this episode:

Today's episode of Chill and Prosper, we are talking about the fear of making more money, the scariness of making more money, and more money, more problems.

Now, let me just say, it's okay if you're just like, "No, I don't get it. I'm not scared of money at all."

I want you to stick around because sometimes there are unspoken fears, but also, it's always worthwhile clearing stuff, even if you don't think consciously you have it, because sometimes you do unconsciously feel those things underneath the surface.

And you know, this is the month leading up to Halloween, which, oh my God, I love.

I'm going to wear the same Halloween costume as last year. It's a headless lady costume that I made from a Marie Antoinette thing with a big wig.

Oh my God, it was such a hit last year with all the neighbourhood kids that I'm just going to wear it again and make some improvements on it.

Make sure you're following me on social media as well, so I'll share pictures and videos of the costume. I'm @denisedt on Instagram.

But this is just such a perfect topic for this month, where scary movies come out and we see all of our worst fears that we just hang up as decoration.

And it's okay for us to dive a little bit deeper instead of that personal development thing of, "I love money and money loves me."

It's like, hang on, what if I do have some unspoken fears around money? What can I do to acknowledge those and to let them go?

Because often whenever I see someone having resistance and procrastination in business, it is usually because of an unacknowledged fear, and we're just protecting ourselves from that fear.

Okay, so let's talk about it.

I call it that "more money, more problems" kind of thing.

The first one, let's talk about tax.

I know there are so many people who are afraid of paying more tax. Not necessarily because of the money of paying it.

I do see that sometimes on socials. People are like, "I don't agree with what my tax dollars are spent on."

Totally fine.

But I don't think that in itself is the biggest problem around this tax conversation, especially for women, because I do think a lot of women are just like, "Yeah, it pays for schools and it pays for roads," and whatever.

But there's this idea of getting into trouble with the government that I think holds a lot of people back.

And I know when I first started my business, the idea of the tax man for me was very much tied up in the Grim Reaper, the Sheriff of Nottingham, just scary, scary man energy.

And if I get this wrong, I'm going to get thrown in jail. I'm going to get killed. Basically, it was so scary to me.

When I moved back to Australia from years of living in England and I started my business, I looked at the government website and the local council website.

And it was like, anyone who starts a new business can go and visit a tax accountant for free, have one session.

And I went in and there was this guy. He was so nice and lovely, just this geeky little accountant.

He's like, "Tell me about your business and keep your receipts."

And he was really nice.

I was sweating and so stressed and so nervous about this meeting because I thought, "He's going to judge me. I'm going to say the wrong thing. I'm going to get in trouble. I'm going to go to jail."

It was so scary to me.

And I feel like that similar thing of getting into trouble really holds a lot of people back, not only from starting businesses but from growing businesses.

So maybe you are at an income plateau just below a tax threshold, or just below a particular threshold in your country or state where you're going to have to incorporate or get a different business licence or do something a little bit more official.

Have a business bank account, something that will get the attention of the government or the officials.

And I definitely traced mine back to my childhood, where my mum was a young single mum and we were visiting the welfare office, where you have to go and tell them information.

And I remember I could feel the fear and stress from my mum of saying the wrong thing and getting our benefits taken away.

And I feel like that, combined with media around tax and money and official stuff, I was just terrified.

So I kind of had to deal with that inner child feeling and just be like, "It's safe for me to pay taxes. It's safe for me to do official things. It's safe for me to deal with the government."

That might really help you push past that next barrier.

Another one that I see that comes through around plateaus is the energetics of how it will upset things in relationships in your life.

So again, you might not have ever thought about this, but it's always worth clearing.

Same with the tax one. Just say, "It's safe for me to pay more tax."

Even if you don't know where that's coming from, just say it.

"It's safe for me to pay more tax."

See what comes up.

Same with this next one, right?

Money is energetic. Money does impact relationships. It challenges the status quo.

And especially if you're in a field where maybe you're the first in your family to do that thing, or maybe you're the first in your industry to really make money out of it.

Let me give you an example.

A friend of mine who was in a health-related field said that in their training, they basically say to them, "Oh, we hope you're in this for the right reasons because you're not going to make money out of it."

And it's kind of implied that if you want to actually make a decent living out of being in this industry, you're evil.

Same with another friend. She was kind of ostracised from her wedding business community because they were like, "Oh, you're only in this to make money," because she was a bit more expensive than other people, because she'd done some money mindset work.

So think about your industry, but also think about the family dynamics.

And this is really a big one, where you might not even have fears around it, but you're holding yourself back.

You might be thinking, "Oh, but one of my siblings will feel really jealous if I make money, and that'll upset them. My parents will feel a way about it. My dad might feel emasculated about it. My brother might feel weird about it. My family in another country might feel a way about it. My friends from home might judge me for it."

Because we're humans. I think part of us wants to belong. We want people to like us. We want to feel part of a community, a group.

We don't want to upset things. We don't want to be kicked out and lose our community.

I'm not a religious person, so church is not the first thing I think of. However, that is such a big thing for people, going, "I'm doing something different. I don't want to be kicked out of my community. I don't want to be judged."

And if you grew up in a church hearing that money is the root of all evil, you're going to have some fears about it, even if they're not acknowledged.

Your inner child's going, "Oh, this is scary."

So again, it's like, "It's safe for me to make more money than other people. It's safe."

And you can name those people just to test it in your body.

You can say, "It's safe for me to make more money than my husband. It's safe for me to make more money than my partner. It's safe for me to make more money than my parents. It's safe for me to make more money than my dad."

Think about the people where it's like, "Oh, I'm going to vomit if I say it."

That's the stuff that you want to get out.

And by the way, you don't have to do this alone.

This is the sort of work we do in Money Bootcamp. We do it as a group. We do it in our community. We do it on our live calls.

So don't feel like you're a weirdo freak for having these feelings.

This is normal. This is the money mindset work.

Definitely come and join us if you need this help at denise.com/bootcamp.

But it's really making those underlying fears come out so you can acknowledge them, examine them, and find ways to mitigate them for yourself.

And sometimes the mitigation is just saying it out loud and going, "Oh my God, who cares if I make more money than my brother? That's fine."

And sometimes it's like, "Oh, okay, I'm afraid of getting sued. So as I build my business, I'm going to have business insurance."

And then it just puts that to rest a little bit.

And then you're like, "Okay, okay, I can make more money now."

You might have a fear that you're going to have to give up something.

And I think this is another common one.

You think, "Okay, making more money means that I'm going to have to give up my integrity, being a good parent, being a good citizen, caring about the environment, being a nurturing person, being an ethical person, having love or health. I can't have both. I have to choose."

And so often when you are stuck at a plateau, you feel like, "Oh my God, I have to step through this big decision and I have to give up something. I have to pay the piper to do it."

And all that stuff is so embedded in our culture, right?

"You don't get something for nothing."

"There's no such thing as a free lunch."

"You've got to pay up."

And I think we integrate that into our business around success and ease because we think, "Oh, well, it can't be this easy. There must be a catch. I have to do something for it."

And looking at those income plateaus, that's where you are at a sometimes self-imposed income ceiling because you're afraid of what's on the other side.

So you have to ride it out, acknowledge it, remember it, and then just be like, "Okay, I can deal with this."

One thing that's really helped me so much is tapping and affirmations.

I've got some tips for you after this short break. See you in a sec.

Hi, it's the Fairy Gin Mother, Robbie Jerome here. I'm a wellbeing writer in the south of England and host of the Joy of Gin podcast.

In Denise's book Chill and Prosper, I especially love doing the exercise "Is Your Business Flowing?" in Chapter Four.

It totally transformed my approach to business when the penny dropped that I have permission to shift, quit, tweak, or pivot every part of my business to suit me.

I discovered I wanted to, one, host a podcast about joy and gin, and two, offer gin mindfulness retreats and meet-the-distiller events going into 2023.

My business model now feels so much freer, more joyful, and chilled than ever.

I recommend Chill and Prosper to anyone who wants to craft a delicious and enriching business that's unique to them, like a signature cocktail.

Thank you so much, Denise.

Okay, welcome back.

So, you know, we're talking about fears, right? Fears of getting into trouble, fears of changing dynamics and relationships.

And it's okay for your fears to be very, very specific to you.

Sometimes what really helps, and what we do in Money Bootcamp, is ask, "What's the worst thing that could happen?"

And yours might be so, so specific.

It could be, "Okay, this person's going to ask me for money," or "I'll have to say no here," or "This person won't like me," or whatever it is.

And it's okay for yours to be very, very specific, especially even if they don't really make sense to other people.

That's totally, totally fine as well.

So I love tapping.

I mean, I love tap dancing, by the way. I love ballet and I love tap dancing, but that's not what I'm talking about here.

Tapping is Emotional Freedom Technique. It's a form of acupressure that you do on yourself while you talk about fears and you talk about the negative things in your life.

And it can be a little bit tricky for people to get their heads around at first because they're like, "Why would I say the negative thing out loud?"

And I'm telling you, that negative thing lives inside you anyway.

It lives inside you when you're about to start something new in your business, when you're having a sales conversation, during your launches, probably at night.

It's ruminating all throughout your body all the time.

And so doing EFT, Emotional Freedom Technique, is a way to feel free from those emotions ruling you and sabotaging you.

And it's so good.

I've been doing it for probably 20 years, and every now and again I'll see it in the media.

I'll see a tennis player doing it at the Australian Open or a football player doing it on the field.

When I first saw it, actually, it was one of my university professors.

When I was at uni years and years ago, she would just tap like this as we came in.

And one time she explained it to us and she said, "I get really nervous public speaking. And so as everyone's coming in, I'm just tapping on this point."

And she didn't explain anything else.

Then a couple of years later, I was working in consulting and we had this temp come in.

She knew that I was interested in personal development and she said, "Have you ever heard of this thing called tapping?"

And she lent me her DVDs to learn it, which is crazy because now you can just learn it on YouTube, right?

And it was such a big shift for me because I realised how much of my life was ruled by fear and anxiety.

"What if people don't like me? What if I say the wrong thing? What if I get in trouble? What if I do this stuff?"

And I didn't even realise it was just such a low hum in the background constantly.

And that's exhausting.

It just comes into your life.

I was always sweaty and anxious and all this kind of stuff.

So tapping really did change my life in that way because you tap on the different points and you would say, "Even though I..."

And I would say, "Even though I have this anxiety, even though I'm not good enough, even though I didn't get the promotion, or even though I'm scared about having this conversation..."

And then you finish it with, "I deeply and completely love and accept myself."

"I deeply and completely love and accept myself."

And knowing work from people like Louise Hay and a lot of those personal development authors, they talk about self-love and acceptance being such a big part of the personal development journey.

Because if you're constantly judging yourself and what you say, and being afraid all the time, you just can't live a full, true life when you're constantly thinking, "I'm not good enough. I'm not good enough."

You're not going to put yourself forward for things.

You're going to hold back.

You're going to sabotage wins.

And really, you're just taking up so much emotional energy.

So I literally just started saying, "Even though I have this fear, I deeply and completely love and accept myself."

And when it comes to all these specific fears, it's like, okay, what am I afraid of?

"Even though I'm going to get into trouble with the tax man, even though I'm going to make a mistake, even though I'm going to have to pay more tax, even though I won't be able to handle the bookkeeping, even though I'll get a big tax debt, I deeply and completely love and accept myself."

So you can literally just write those things out and freeball it.

Literally just say the thing.

All the ones I said about people.

"Even though my dad's going to feel embarrassed that I make more money than him, even though my ex-husband will try and take all my money..."

And some of them feel so gross to say out loud.

I've had people say to me, "But if I say it out loud, I'll manifest it."

And I'm like, "No, no, no, no."

This is like letting go of it so you don't have it in your body all the time, right?

You want to let it go.

And some of those things require a little bit more deep cleaning.

It's like carpets, right?

Some stains you can get out yourself. Some you need the professionals to do.

And some you'll go, "Oh, I need to do some therapy on that one. Oh, that's very deep."

Some of them you'll go, "That's not true. That's just a story that my grandma told me about what happened to her great-great-grandmother, and it doesn't even apply anymore."

Some of it is like deep ancestral stuff where you're like, "No, no, no, I won't be burnt as a witch if I talk about my love of tarot."

That's just energetic imprinting that it's safe for me to talk about tarot.

All those relationship ones, all the things that you feel like you have to give up, that more money, more problems thing, going through the threshold.

"Even though I feel like I have to give up my integrity, even though I'll be a sellout if I sell my paintings, even if I can't have love and money, I deeply and completely love and accept myself."

And what's really cool too is you can do this with kids.

You can just be like, "Even though I got into trouble at school today, even though I'm scared about public speaking..."

I do this every time I do public speaking too, by the way, because I get nervous about speaking on stage.

So I remember my professor and I go, "Even though my heart's beating really, really fast, even though I feel really nervous, even though I'm going to screw it up, even though people won't like me, I deeply and completely love and accept myself."

And I think that really helps.

I also mentioned at the top of the episode that you can do things to mitigate the stuff.

And there will be some practical things that you'll go, "No, that's not even a thing."

Or you go, "Oh yeah, that's actually a really good reminder from my brain that I need to put that in my terms and conditions, that I need to set boundaries, that I need to get business insurance, that I need to do things properly, that I need to set up a business bank account, that I need to collect my receipts."

Then you can go, "Thank you, brain. Thank you, brain."

Instead of going, "Wow, thank you, brain, for protecting me by making sure I never make any money."

Because that's not what we're after at all, is it?

So yeah, it's like, "Thank you, brain. Okay, you don't have to protect me like this anymore. I'm a big girl now. I can do it."

It's just that constant reassurance, reassurance, reassurance.

Okay, so don't go away because I do have a final thought for you after this short break.

Hi, I'm Aileen Adamson, owner of Your Money Sorted, helping teachers to maximise their money.

I first discovered Denise with the book Get Rich, Lucky Bitch, and oh my goodness, what a game changer it's been for me.

Through that, I discovered that I actually had a poverty mindset.

I've always been really good with money and good with the figures, but I could never understand why I felt so horrible about money and why money always made me feel worried.

And through that book, I was able to realise what the biggest problems were and the fact that my mindset was the biggest problem.

Denise, I cannot thank you enough for that.

Okay, so this is something that's really, really helped me because I am a ruminator.

Especially late at night when I'm trying to sleep, I'll ruminate on things and I'll daydream about things that haven't even happened, like problems.

And so something that stopped that pattern for me is I start to say to myself, "Gosh, you're so creative. That would be such a good gripping movie, but that's not your life."

And it just takes me right out of it.

"Oh, that's just an imagined problem. And I can deal with that if and when it happens."

But just by saying to myself, "Gosh, you're so creative. Gosh, that would be such a great book or such a great movie," it just reminds me, no, that's not real.

That doesn't have to be my life.

I'm just making that up. It's just an unacknowledged fear.

And then I just say to myself, "Oh, it's safe."

And it could be, "It's safe for me to make more money. It's safe for me to say no. It's safe for me to have boundaries."

Without then ruminating and going on with, "Oh my God, I'm homeless on the street."

So that really helps.

Also, if you've got kids who ruminate on stuff, teaching them that thing of, "Gosh, you're so creative. That would make a great movie, but it's not your life."

I think that's a really useful technique too.

One of my kids especially loves going into catastrophes and what-ifs and the bad stuff.

And I think that helps us snap out of it too.

Okay, so then, "It's safe for me. It's safe for me. It's okay. It's okay."

That will really help because why not you?

It is safe to have more success. It is safe to have more money.

You'll be able to handle it. You'll be able to figure it out.

I'm here to support you. The Money Bootcamp community is here to support you.

It's not going to change you.

It's not more money, more problems.

Life has problems. Humans have problems no matter how much money you have.

So take money out of it.

Money actually solves problems, okay? It really does.

All right, so don't forget this month we're talking about scary money conversations.

We've got a free ebook for that. It's at denise.com/scary.

And it will help you through some of those scenarios that will make you feel a little bit better about dealing with scary clients and zombie clients and all those ghost clients.

It's so much fun.

So grab that ebook, and I will see you for the rest of the month and next week's episode of Chill and Prosper.

Take care. Bye.