Sarah Poynton-Ryan 0:01
Money matters. I wish that I've been taught when I was at school. I'm an investor, a business owner and a money educator understand it better. Compound income, cash flow, budget or investment to recover from debt. No one explained to me, put your money to your work is about normalising the conversation you Hey everybody. It's Sarah Poynton with the Money Mechanics podcast. Welcome back today. We are joined by the incredible Shari teaman. And Shari is a mindset mentor or creative strategist for business owners. And I came across Shari because I was at an event when in Wembley in London, and I saw Shari speak on stage, and she was talking about how we need to evolve the versions of ourselves to be able to step into the future versions of what we want our life to be. And it really hit me, Shari, as I told you when I met you, you made me cry that day. You made me really go inwardly and ask some questions. And I'm so excited to have you here, so excited for our listeners to listen to what we've got to say today. So thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. I'm very excited it's gonna be great conversation. So my first question for you is, where we start, everybody is, what is your earliest money memory, and how has that shaped where you are today?

Speaker 1 1:23
It's a loaded one for a silly story, but I've had an interesting Money Story over the years. So my first money memory, I don't my parents birthdays are both in April, so I don't know which birthday was for, but it was early April. I remember my mom pulled up into the car park of what used to be like a pharmacy that sold cards, and she let me go in. I was probably five or six with money to purchase a birthday card so she wouldn't see it, or my dad wouldn't see it. And I went. I was so excited. I was, you know, with my tiny little hands, I'm still tiny, but I was extra tiny. Then my little hands holding up to the tail to get my change. And I didn't know at the time that you have to take an envelope with the card. So in America, they have the card and then the envelopes behind you've got to take the matching one. So I came out with just the card. Now my mom was very loving, but a tough cookie, so, like, there wasn't she didn't mince words. My dad's more than mincer of words, and she's like, where's the envelope? I had no idea I was supposed to take one. So while I had, like, my first freedom with money, I thought I did something wrong, and she didn't care. She went in and got it, but something there plucked and if I now look backwards, I can see had a lot of that this whole lifetime. I'm now 51, of right thing, wrong thing, not sure, sure can do it, but we'll see what happens. And it's such an interesting thing, even just to ask me that question, I never would have linked those two. So thanks, amazing.

Sarah Poynton-Ryan 2:48
So talk to me a little bit about what your money story has been linked and you know what your experience around money is?

Speaker 1 2:56
Yeah, my money story is a strange one. I grew up, I guess Brits would call it like middle upper class, right outside New York City. And my family comes from Holocaust survivors, so they came as immigrants to America. They had nothing. Both my grandparents worked in factories. The other side of my family came right before the war. They had a printing factory. So like real salt of the earth. You know, every penny mattered, and my father came from that wheeled his bed out of the closet every night in the room that he shared with his three siblings and grandmother. And so everything I grew up with was self made, which was exciting because I didn't know lack of possibility. My dad started from nothing. He didn't have the old money stories. Well, he did. The factory was a family factory, and then it went bankrupt when he was in uni. So we stopped uni, went to the Navy so that the Navy would pay for his uni, and started work very young. So there's a lot of this, like ON OFF, ON OFF. But I grew up, never wanting for anything, but not spoiled, because my grandmother was a survivor, lived with us, so I had like perspective built in, but went to summer camps. We didn't really go on holiday, but if I wanted something in the shop, it wasn't a problem. I honestly, embarrassingly, now I didn't think about money. It wasn't something my mom didn't work. She helped my dad and his company, but she took care of the home, and that's how I was raised, especially in this Jewish model Orthodox world, we did the cooking and the baking and all that stuff. And then I went to uni. And after I graduated, I got married at 23 very young, and I had I worked, I worked in like a hat shop, and I worked in fashion a bit, but as soon as I had kids, I stopped working, and I had like, side gigs. I was a makeup artist for years. I did mosaic are all creative things that made me money, and it was fun for me, but I didn't have to worry about paying the bills, right? So for me, my money story didn't really start till my early 30s, when I got divorced. So I was. Stayed in my mom of two boys, I built a school for them, like very driven, same personality, but I didn't have the awareness of the money piece connected to the achievement piece. My achievement and money stories were very separated, until I went through this very rough divorce and went from not having to think about money, to having nothing. And the divorce took a few years, and it was very rough, and at the time, because of the way divorces are, you know, the lawyers kind of freeze everything. So I won't go into details, out of respect for the other people in the scenarios. But I had a very different life suddenly than I had and during the divorce, because I was a stay at home mom, my ex husband's lawyer had me I didn't even know this was a thing, had me evaluated by an employment ability expert. So there's a stranger who knows nothing about you. Awesome has you sit down in a very stressful, muggly, plain office and asks you a series of questions to find out what you're made of, not stressful at all, amazing. So you're there to prove who you are, prove what you're capable of in the midst of an entire life change.

Sarah Poynton-Ryan 6:09
So need in that crazy time,

Speaker 1 6:12
exactly, and I was going to perform fabulously, obviously, with all of my genius and creativity, right? So, long story short, this lovely, strange lady smacked a sticker on my head. And this was 1516, years ago that I could make $30,000 a year, like being a secretary in the school, or doing, you know, something like that. And that's no dig. In America, $30,000 a year is not going to get you very far. 30,000 pounds in England, a bit better. Not great, but people can live on that. In America, you can't. And obviously my lawyer was very happy about it, because we were trying, he was trying to show my ex husband had it, because he's like, she's very smart, she can make a lot of money. And I understand he didn't want to have to support his ex wife, and I was the mom of his two kids. Everyone's got lots of opinions about that. In any case, I then had, for the first time, a value slash position slapped on my head in a sticker, which most people don't get price tags on their heads and their roots.

Sarah Poynton-Ryan 7:16
So okay, a very short interruption of the episode. So I want you to get back to listening. I just wanted to remind you that the Money Mechanics weekly newsletter is completely free, and we'll send this out to you every week. All you've got to do is find the link in the show notes and get signed up when we send this out to you, this weekly newsletter is going to include things that will help you to become a better money mechanic. It could be things like what's happening in the markets, things like budgets, how that's going to impact you, and I'm also going to share a lot of insight into what I'm doing in my own portfolio and in the portfolios of the guests we've got on the podcast, to really just help you understand what you could do differently to make your money work as best as it can for you. Make sure you go and find that link and get signed up.

Speaker 1 7:58
My lawyer tells me I did a good job. It helped them assess the money and the child support and all of that. I'm like, Okay, I didn't understand the interview at the time, and then I was officially divorced and moved from a seven bedroom house into a two bedroom house, two bedroom apartment that I loved and I felt safe and I was very happy, and actually just moved out of there less than a year ago because my landlord wanted his apartment back, like it's been home, even as I've grown my business, it's home. I don't I don't need big things, so because I had a lot and then lost a lot stuff, doesn't mean a lot to me. But what happened was that $30,000 sticker stayed on my forehead for a very long time. So after my divorce, I've kind of fell into a darkness after the adrenaline ran off and I knew what I didn't want for so long, but I looked forward and I couldn't see anything. So I started diving into personal development to figure out how I got here and what I was going to do next, and learned about the industry, and absolutely loved it. I've always been a helper. I'm like, oh, so I trained as a yoga teacher and as a life coach at the same time, about 12 years ago, and then started my business up. Great. I'm gonna have a business. I'm gonna pay my bills. This is so exciting. And every time I made money, a big bill would come. Every time I made money, it would go somewhere, to something. An emergency would happen. A car thing would happen. And it took me about four years Sarah, to realise that 30k sticker was modulating what, no matter how much I made, I ended up down at 30k Wow. And I'm like, What is with the and I had no awareness of it, which is, like, the scary part of how our brains work, no idea I was achieving. And I was on podcasts, and I was starting to get, you know, amazing clients and all this stuff. And I'm like, wait a sec, something's off here, and then it hit me. I'm like, Oh, it was such a specific number. I'm like, Where'd this number come from? Oh, my God. So I manually removed the sticker from my head, and off we went. But the patterns still stay. Of how big can I go? How good a mom can I be if I do this and I. For those of you don't know me, I live in New York, but I all of my clients are British, and I travel back and forth every other month. I run a coaching department for a company in the UK, and all my private clients are British. Always have been, even when I was only in America. So and navigate this life that people will say, Oh, I wish I had. It's so glorious. You're travelling all the time. Like, glorious, yeah, I'm rolled in like a little snail ball in a plane, in the back of a plane, jet lag, 24 hours a day. It's extremely glamorous. Yeah? So I watch people's Take on me and expectation and assumptions about me, and then I look at my reality, and they're not the same, and I'm not lying about them. But even when we tell people the truth. If we have a big personality or big brand, people make their stories no matter what. So I love talking about this stuff. Was so excited when you asked me to come on, because people are surprised when they hear my money story, because they would assume I lay down in my bed and I do you know snow angels in loads of money, where feathers and money, I'm waiting. I'm waiting. Always dropped, even the fake dollars on there, but I'm waiting. It's coming. What does money gonna do a brand shoot with it exactly. There's still this discount part of my brain that's on scholarship for school, for my kids school, and, you know, one pocket to the other and standing in the supermarket playing credit card roulette to see how I'm going to pay for the groceries that week, while also being really proud of the deep work that I do, money and achievement is still separate in my brain. Interesting.

Sarah Poynton-Ryan 11:31
That's really interesting, actually. So do would you say that you've ever been underestimated financially? Have you maybe underestimated yourself, or have other people underestimated you from that?

Speaker 1 11:40
That's a great question. I would I would say, categorically, still to this day, better than I used to be. I definitely underestimate myself, and I think people, people don't, and I do, so there's a weird misalignment there. So I had last year the strangest Sorry, I'm storyteller. You're asking me questions and I'm giving you long stories.

Sarah Poynton-Ryan 11:59
Sorry, I'm excited to hear the story. So you carry on the interesting

Speaker 1 12:02
one that I think a lot of people will relate to on either side of it. So you know, we have this whole charge, what you're worth. We're all priceless, priceless humans being so our price tags have nothing to do with what we charge. So I met someone last year at a speaking gig that I did, and he was actually American, and everyone laughs because I'm American, but all the Brits know me, Americans don't. So he spoke after me, and I've heard of him. He's a big mentor in America, and he came up to me after he's like, why don't I know you? Oh, that's so sweet of you. Very nice to say is absolutely loved your talk, Sherry. I want to speak to you. Great. So he hopped on a call, and he said to me, I'm really upset. I didn't know about you last year. That's a compliment. Thank you. Why? He said last year, I was looking for a coach, and you're exactly the right fit for me, but you were not recommended by anyone because you're not high ticket enough. And I was like, what? Usually we're all so worried about charging and no one's going to shop with us. Where I had the flip of it was such a smack in the face, I didn't go run and change my prices, by the way, because from an integrity perspective, having times I know people say, Oh, money's not the objection for a lot of people, it is. We live in a crazy world, and it's okay. I don't undervalue myself with my prices, but I also don't think they need to be over inflated. But it was so interesting that someone would have shopped that way and not found out about me because I wasn't in the tier that he was looking Yeah. So that really shifted something for me. Of this, I don't look at I don't shop that way, I don't think like that. I don't market that way, but lots of people do, and is really interesting to see, ah, in the more luxury market or higher ticket market, think about it. They wear certain shoes, they eat in certain restaurants. They'll drive certain cars, and our car drives better than a cheaper car. They shop a certain way, so they're going to shop like that for their business growth as well, or even their mindset. So it was interesting because it's such a different way that I look at things that I had to incorporate that is like another perspective that I wouldn't see given that, oh, everyone just wants a good deal. No, they don't. They actually don't very interesting.

Sarah Poynton-Ryan 14:05
And as a person who also has an education company, that's really interesting for me to hear because it helps. Again, you do think often the reason why people we don't sell more is because the price point, you know, we're becoming too expensive. But actually, for some people, we are too expensive, but for other people, we're too cheap. And that's really interesting about again, who are the clients that we're trying to speak to, and the message they want to hear to

Speaker 1 14:29
absolutely, yeah. And for each person, their value to money matrix is totally different. And we put our own money story on our own assumptions about what we've told or questioned just to be comfortable, and then we keep ourselves in whichever corner of the matrix you end in. Some people are so high priced, they don't have they don't have any clients, but they're terrified to devalue themselves, which I understand, but it's everyone's own story. It's not even something measurable.

Sarah Poynton-Ryan 14:54
Fascinating. Yeah, it's fascinating. So what would you say? Most. People misunderstand about money the most. So you obviously work with lots of different clients from different backgrounds, different ages, genders, all of the things. What do you think is the most common misunderstanding about money?

Speaker 1 15:11
What frustrates makes I hear it on a daily basis from every range of people that I speak to, is when they hit a certain money number, they will feel successful now, I have no doubt you have this too. I can't tell you how many clients I've had who've had those 200k launches and hit the numbers they wanted, and they call me in a full panic, which I'm waiting for. By the way, I'm numb. I feel absolutely nothing. It did nothing, and the terror of they got where they said they wanted to go and broke themselves for and they got the result, and they finally believe me that it's an internal thing, not an external thing. And listen, our society and our education system and cultures have created this because it keeps us, all, you know, singing from the same hymn sheet. But when people in our world, the 2% of the world who are willing to be brave and take chances and create things that haven't been created. Still feel nothing the course correction is terrifying because they have to ask themselves questions they never had. So it's never been about the money. It's about the emotions underneath the money that people like to hide money behind.

Sarah Poynton-Ryan 16:16
And you know what? I don't mind sharing this for the podcast, and it'd be interesting link to that in 2022 I think it was, and I've set myself a target, and very similar to what you've just described, I did. My target was to do 100,000 pound in 24 hours, right? It was mega goal for me. I was like, so excited, and I hit, like, 98,000 and some pennies, and I was devastated. Yeah, I was devastated because one I'd missed my target. So in my mind, I'd convinced myself that was a failure, even though, when you know my mentor at the time said, Sarah, you've done nearly 100 grand in a day, most people don't earn that in three

Unknown Speaker 16:56
years. Like, what are you? Go buy yourself an ice cream

Sarah Poynton-Ryan 16:59
you doing? So there was that. But also, like you've just said, I felt nothing.

Speaker 1 17:04
Yes, it's scarier to feel nothing than feel upset.

Sarah Poynton-Ryan 17:08
I felt I was like, Well, nothing's changed. Nothing's changing. Like, I've got that. And should I tell you what it did for me? It made me think, well, I have to go bigger. Then, of course it did. And like, bigger, bigger, bigger. And then I was at that period of my life, I started thinking, Do you know what? Bigger is not the point. I've got to look more internal. And, I mean, I've been doing a lot of work, and I still work on this a lot now, until you are happy, money won't make you any happier. In fact, it makes you sadder and more lonely if you've got it and you're really an unhappy person, because it does feel very empty money that, for the sake of money, does feel quite an empty thing if you've not got any substance behind it as a humanly

Speaker 1 17:51
and even understanding what the money will bring you. So for some people, money brings freedom. For some people, money brings safety. We can't talk it's not the same currency. So if you're talking a number and I'm talking a number, our numbers mean something different. So until we understand our internal drivers, the external can't fill an internal hole. So I know it's very nice of me to say, well, you have to feel safe before you have the money, but you need you do because you won't feel safe when you have it if you don't know what it feels like. Because we have to experience the feeling, instead of waiting for something to save us. Now, I'm not saying money isn't great to have, but it's an amplifier. If you're not a good person without it, you're going to be a not good person with it. If you're a good person without it, you're going to be a great person with it. It just affords us new opportunities. But it's almost too many multiple choice on the test where then a lot of us, our nervous systems get overwhelmed when we have it, it's that, you know, age old people who win the lottery lose the money because they don't have the expansion and the bandwidth to understand who they will be with it and how they fit in a world with it.

Sarah Poynton-Ryan 18:55
So often, what, in my experience, what happens with people is that they stay in the same financial patterns even when they know, in theory, that that financial pattern is hurting them, or, you know, destroying their business or destroying their personal life or their, you know, relationships or their internals. Why do you think people stay stuck in those patterns even when they know better?

Speaker 1 19:18
I'm going to give you an example away from money. I had my I have two children. I had my youngest child 23 and a half years ago, Sarah, I still wear my pregnancy sweatpants that are all stretched out from 23 years ago because they are comfortable now. If you came to my house, I would have to change out of them, because I wouldn't see me in them. But they are my comfort zone, and they take me back to a place that was a beautiful memory. And there's a part of me that likes to go 23 years ago, I could still fit in them. I mean, a house could fit in them. That's why nothing touching me. It's a great feeling. So we think it's about money, but it's about our comfort. For so even if our socks have holes in them, even if something no longer works. I mean, how many of us could go into our kitchen and find that appliance we think one day we'll fix? Or everyone has the bag of the leads that go to nowhere, but never throw it out, because one day someone's going to need one exactly, exact same thing. There's this efficiency and safety thing. If I put it down, I have to know what to put instead, and that's where the issue lies. So I won't replace those sweatpants until I find something that feels as good and comforting as those which nothing can so I'll rush if you knock on my door and be like shit. I gotta change out of this, but I will put them on every day, even if the string is gone and they're frayed at the bottom, because I relate to them, they bring a part of me back to myself, and I feel safe. It's absurd, but it's the same story.

Sarah Poynton-Ryan 20:53
So in terms of how people then react to money, having it or not having it, or trying to figure out their way, how do we break that pattern? Like, what's the advice to get out of the bad habits that we know are not good for us?

Speaker 1 21:07
So if we take the sweatpants example, the sweatpants that are torn are my known, whether it's comfortable or not comfortable anymore, it and they and I have a relationship over yonder in a shop with new sweat pants that may not be comfortable, is an unknown I am not willing to risk. I am not giving up my Sunday afternoons of luxury and my gross sweatpants because to put on a new pair of sweatpants. And I don't know how it's going to go. I'm being facetious, but you see where this is going. So what we need to do here is, I mean, I do this exercise with clients all the time, split a paper horizon vertically down the middle, known pros and cons. Unknown pros and cons. I'm not walking into a haunted house if I don't know what's happening. If I know it's going to be fun and I know it's an escape room. I mean, I still wouldn't go, but some people would. We are more afraid of success than we are failure. It is primal inside of us, and nobody, especially in the entrepreneur space, will talk about this. No, we want success. What does success look like? I don't know that guy has it. Maybe I want his. You don't want his. You don't have all of his stuff either. So until I know what's possible for me, I can't stretch and I can't choose pleasure over pain, I'm going to choose the same bruise again and again, because at least I know it's my arm if I'm over there and I can squeeze it and I can let it go and it's in my control. As soon as something over there could potentially be worse, could be scary, or even worse, I have to repeat it. Now. I'm in a danger zone, and that's what success looks like. If I have a 50k month for the first time, I'm telling you right now, I wouldn't be happy about it, Sarah, because how the hell am I going to do that next month? I'm not going there that is a place I can't go, because it's gonna I'm gonna have to change my identity. Then I'm gonna feel like a failure on a month that used to feel great for me. Why would I bring more more fear into my life? I have enough. I have enough to share with everyone if they want an extra so because we haven't assigned and designed what that open unknown looks like, we categorically cannot move our feet, no matter how many motivational tapes we listen to, no matter how many coaches tell us what to do, no matter what everyone else's pot looks like, I My feet are cemented in the ground. I cannot go there because I won't know who I am. It's an identity thing.

Sarah Poynton-Ryan 23:32
And this, this actually leads into the thing that you were talking about when I saw you speak in London, that that really sort of got to me, because you were talking about how if you are not willing to step out of the old version of you, it's impossible to step into the new version of you. And whilst that seems obvious to most people, in business, in life, in relationships, in money, in everything, that must be true for every aspect of life, right? So we stay stuck because it's safe, yes, even though we think we want to get unstuck. What's the ingredient that gets you from here to there? Like, what's the thing that people need to change?

Speaker 1 24:16
So the thing is, is that we want it, but we don't know how to go there. So the way I work is reverse engineer everything. My whole brand is about being a maverick, so I have to turn everything upside down, because it's just the way my brain works. I'm not doing it to frustrate anyone, but we got stuck a certain way. We cannot use that same pathway to get unstuck it ergonomically. Doesn't make any sense. So we've got to go to where we want to be and reverse engineer if I want it to look like that, who's the person that I have to become to have that level of success and feel safe in my nervous system and feel safe in my bank account, and believe it's possible and know it wasn't accidental, because there's nothing worse than worse than poking holes in your own version of success. Oh, well, I made. That money because my neighbour sent me a client, it didn't count. Or, oh, you know, a payment plan came through. Like, what? What are we doing? What are we doing? Everything like, let's make sure we're not proud of ourselves. That's helpful. So if I create what the version of success looks like, and I check for all the minds that may go off, and I understand what it will feel like and why I want it, and maybe tweak the plan a bit, because most of it's up made in our head anyway. And then I reverse the plan and say, I'll give you a silly example. I have a client of mine who, at the time, when Oprah still had her show, his dream was to be on Oprah. I'm like, that's amazing. I'm not going to poke holes in anyone's dream. You. We all do enough damage to our own. I'm not telling someone they can't do something. So I said, Great. What does the business model look like right now? Well, I work solely one to one. Awesome. So you Dave. Our name was not Dave, but we'll call him Dave. Are telling me you want to be on a big stage in front of millions of people, but you've never yet had that experience because you sit quietly in your little office with cobwebs on the ceiling, speaking one to one with people who don't recommend you to any other customers. Is that correct? And he's like, Oh God, I said, yeah. So until you are someone who can stand in a room of five people and speak and then 10 people and be bold enough to put out a workshop for 20 people, Oprah's not going to know you exist, even if you are the best option for her, you are making sure you don't become the person who can get to Oprah. So if we reverse engineer, what are the small steps? And these become small and ridiculous, which is why people don't do them. What's the difference what I had for breakfast sharing, who cares if I made my bed? I don't care about rituals, and it's funny for me, because I'm not a ritualistic, habitual, consistent person. I work in Sparks, but I also know myself very well, so I know what mood is going to take me forward or backwards. I know what BS I tell myself is going to take me backwards. I know what level client and kind of conversations and content I create is going to take me to who I want to be next or leave me very comfy in my sweatpants. So it's always a choice, but we don't make it once. It's a combination lock, constant, new version, old version. Lots of your old stuff can come with you. Most of us think we have to become an entirely different person, minus 40 pounds, plus better hair colour and a new accent, and also a new family and backstory, and then we can have what we want. Well, it doesn't even make any sense, but we have so many layers of protection, so even if we wish for something, we can't let ourselves go there, because we have no idea how to be there. And if I don't know how to be somewhere, I'm not going to the party.

Sarah Poynton-Ryan 27:31
You're scary, right? So we don't scary. So do you think that we, our relationship with money is impacted by social media.

Speaker 1 27:42
1000 I think every aspect of our life is is impacted by social media. And I hate, I hate saying this because it's so trite. But we do look at the highlight reels, and even if we are good, responsible, grown ups, with families and jobs, it's very hard not to see it. It's very hard not to compare everything about us to someone's 32nd version that they probably filmed 45 times, and hate the way their nose looks in it, I mean, but they look confident, and they look so happy, and what they said makes sense. I watch my own content. Sometimes I'm like, God, I wish I had her in my life, and I show up very vulnerably so, like, I'm not playing that game, and it's still, I have to constantly say to people, you know, I have the same crap as you, right? Like, do not put me on pedestal. I have no interest whatsoever. And you saw me, I'm very sweary. I'm very open. Most of my sessions are like a joint therapy session. Like we are human beings. We are not machines. It's not going to be perfect. And what is perfect anyway, we change our goal posts every 10 minutes.

Sarah Poynton-Ryan 28:44
I think that's the thing. You know, the comparison to other people, like, they've got the car, they've got the house, they've got the family, they've got the things, they've got the stuff. What we forget in that moment? And again, I do the same thing. We all do it we forget in that moment is that you can see stuff, yes, but you can't feel emotion. You can't feel how that feels. And, you know, there's been periods of my life where I've been putting out the best version of success you could possibly imagine, but internally, like really struggling, like in my, you know, the first few years of my business, my marriage, really struggled, because I was really fighting to build a company, and I forgot about my real life. Like, that's the only way I can explain it is perfectly said, That's it be in two places at the same time. And at the time, I was like, that's the bit that's going to be for the future. But whilst forgetting I had a real life that needed to come along with me, I kind of split it in half, and my marriage really struggled, but social media never knew that. No one in the world knew that, apart from me and how I felt going home every day.

Speaker 1 29:50
Yeah, is so common, and it's so terrifying, because social media has made us split off. Because as hard as this is to say, we don't get any applause when we're nice at home. When we're paying attention to our family, but sure, like, 50 likes on my new T shirt that I'm talking about success. Like, it's so sick. Like, I feel bad for the kids of this generation because they don't have a different experience. We can kind of, I mean, I kind of remember I'm like a teenager with social media, but I can remember life before, and it feels weird, I wasn't as connected to people I didn't have new people. That's great, but all the bad stuff comes along.

Sarah Poynton-Ryan 30:24
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's something for everybody that's listening to this, to be aware of, like, whether you're talking about business or real life or money or anything, that comparison is not healthy. Like we've got to be aware that it is a highlight reel. And again, I know everyone says it, but there's a tangible thought to that. So sorry. What emotion do you associate with making money? Is it a joyful thing? Is it a fearful thing? Pressure, guilt, like what you know, what emotion comes up for you

Speaker 1 30:54
and we want them, and probably 30 more, depending on the moment. Sometimes I'm in flow and I'm like, game on, and I magnetise it all, and like, clients land out of nowhere. Can I pay you in full? And I'm like, where's the camera here? Yes, this is so easy. Of course you can very easy. And then other times it's like, pulling through treacle. And I know it's a me thing. The money didn't move and the business didn't move. It's entirely me, and I am the one pulling the lever. And it took me a long time to admit it, because it's a lot easier to blame the asset is, oh, the industry, the economy. Oh, well, no one's buying now, like, what people are buying and people are spending and, you know, look at a queue of any fancy store right now, no one's feeling anything, so if you show your value for the money. So for me, I feel every emotion, and I have to manage my emotions. I'm a very emotional being, so some people the achievement will then feed the emotion. My emotion feels feeds my success and my failure. So if I don't start with the emotion, I can get anywhere. So I have to, like, actively surrender. So I hold workshops in London. I just put tickets up for October. I already played the game in my head, no one's going to sign up. Sometimes I sell out in 36 hours. Other times, I sell a chunk of tickets and don't fill the room. My last workshop, which was as amazing as the other ones, I did a smaller room because I only I had six less people than I usually have, happened to have been one of the best workshops I held. So watching my reaction to the money is bigger for me than feeling the emotion, because I'll believe whatever emotion comes. If I'm excited, game on, if I'm scared, I won't do it. So I have to not engage. I have to push it off and say, How are we going to get into a better feeling about this? Because that's the only way anyone's going to get to have an amazing day with me if I get out of the way of them getting it. So it's a very tiring dance. I find it fascinating of people like you. I don't know if you struggle with this or not or have like I'm amazed at people who don't have this. I mean, they've got other stuff I don't have, but I don't notice that fascinates me. Yeah.

Sarah Poynton-Ryan 32:53
I mean, I definitely am. I would class myself as an emotional being like I have if I'm hyped and excited, you know, it like I'm buzzing, bouncing off the walls. If I'm sad, you know, I'm sad, there's no in between for me. There's no kind of, you know, my face gives me away more often than not. And in a sense, you know, we have a Money Mechanics live workshop that we run twice a year, and I've done events since 2018 and, you know, we've had events where we've had 500 people in the room, we've had events where we've not sold any tickets, and you're like, what's happening? Like, what's going on? And it's really hard to not go, oh, it's because I'm the problem. No one wants to work with me anymore. I've copped it up, blah, blah, blah. It's so difficult to kind of get all that off you and go, What are we doing? What's the strategy behind it? Like, what's changed? What are we not doing that we were doing? And I think sometimes in business, I definitely am guilty of this. Tell me whether or not you think this is the same, but we can have success and then become complacent of that success, and they will. I sold it out last time, so obviously I'll sell it out. I don't

Unknown Speaker 34:01
even have to think about it, and then

Sarah Poynton-Ryan 34:03
it doesn't happen. You're like, oh, what's your thoughts on that?

Speaker 1 34:07
It's it's like the other side of the same coin. The complacency and the fear cripple it both ways. So how do we stay engaged without freaking ourselves out, or assuming there's a problem or assuming it's going to be fine? I think it's reigniting the passion to the why, which I know sounds fluffy, but if I know that people are going to buy and they don't, my responsibility as the facilitator is to find out what else they need to hear from me, to trust the value they'll get in the day, and then they buy. So if I move myself out of the way, I don't want to be complacent, because they won't get the best out of me if I don't care anymore. And that happens to a lot of people in our industry. It's like a well oiled machine. They just show up. They never do new stuff, they never create new content. They're on this video game level that they just think it's going to last forever. And I think after covid, I think everyone took a little humble pill because things just didn't work the same way. So everyone had to face. Themselves and their assumptions. So I kind of like the post covid world better in that one way. I think it's crazy in lots of other ways, but we all have to find out how good we are. I think AI is going to be the next bump up of that. I agree. So what I think is going to happen is, instead of all the fear mongering, we're going to need more connection at the end of it, because the good stuff is going to rise to the top, and everyone who sounds the same is just going to be obliterated. There's not gonna be room for everyone. So if we create more connection, if we are true to what we say, we do in the world, and make sure it's innovative and it's exciting and it's relevant, and it speaks to someone right now, not right now, four years ago, and I haven't updated my message, it's our responsibility to be the best stewards of our businesses in order to be the best stewards of the money. And the connection which come together in my mind,

Sarah Poynton-Ryan 35:46
makes perfect sense to me. So let's talk a little bit about your investments, your money. What's the smartest investment you've ever made?

Speaker 1 35:54
Ooh, the smartest investment I ever made. That's a great question. It's a sad one, but I'd say my divorce lawyer, who's my friend, and it wasn't one I wanted to make, and I have to hands on heart, I didn't make it. My dad did, which was very kind of him. I wasn't able to afford it. But what I learned about money during that hard time of my life, of not having it and then finding out how important it is and not knowing how to get more, I understood the value of paying for something valuable instead of either because I didn't have I was, you know, in the discount mode, I understood that the level of what not always the case, but if the level of what you pay for equals the value that you get, it's it's the least expensive thing you'll ever pay for. Because if you do the discount route, and it's not great. It costs you more in the long run. And I really understood value over money at that point, and it's how I buy since then. So I've made investments in my business that have been terrible, but I learned the most from them. So I don't regret them. I regret the choice, but who I became because of that choice was something I couldn't have learned if everything worked. So I really try hard. By nature, I have a black and white mind of good bad, just because I have a lot of, like, old trauma. So I'm in safety mode A lot of the time. So I look for, I would say grey, but I look for colour. As you can see, I look for colour in between, like, what was the win? So investments in the wrong people as partners in my business were very expensive mistakes that didn't have anything to do with money, because I didn't get paid expensive investments in a marketing team I thought was going to save me from myself and my business. They couldn't promote something that wasn't accurate and made me feel not like me, and it was 1000s I didn't have to spare, but I will never bypass myself again because of it. So every mistake was probably more valuable than the good stuff I got. Because for the good stuff, I know my decisions, I don't have to learn anything on them.

Sarah Poynton-Ryan 37:49
It's interesting, because on every single episode of this podcast, when I ask this question, quite usually, what people say is, I've made investments in whatever it is, and actually they've been poor investments because they weren't good use of the money. But I learned loads from it. I learned a lot about myself. I learned a lot about what not to do. And I think that's the thing, isn't it? Investment is very basic form. Is putting money, time, effort, energy, whatever the investment is, into something in a as educated way as you can, to get something back right. And sometimes that goes to plan, and sometimes it doesn't go to plan. But everyone listening to this, what I hope you'll learn from that is that everybody that you'll hear talking about this that's made investments that have not necessarily worked out, is that they still continue to invest in the things that make a difference, but in a more educated way. Absolutely that's such an important detail, is that, you know, my business partner says all the time, you know, when we're babies and we fall over when we're learning to walk, we don't just stop learning to walk. Never again, never again. Sorry. Didn't handle that. We just get up and we learn, and you continue, and eventually we walk right. And you know, it's the same with business, same with money, same with investment. We always need to think about what's the worst case scenario and then be educated in our move forward. Yeah, that takes bravery and courage sometimes. So how do people find that courage if they're not, if they've not really got it?

Speaker 1 39:24
So I think a good KPI that most of us don't measure when we make an investment is, I'm going to say it out loud, it's going to hurt but it's going to hurt me too, so we'll all get hurt together. Here am I trying to outsource my power here, and those were my my mistakes that I made in my bad investments. I was hoping someone was, I'll just say it plain, hoping someone was going to save me from myself. I didn't realise it at the time, but what I learned was I already knew enough. A guru wasn't going to know more than me or understand me, or I couldn't skip over the parts of business that scared me, hoping someone else will do. Them for me, and then I'd be okay. Like, even I have clients of mine who want to hire a sales team. I'm like, you cannot hire sales team until you know how to do it yourself, because it won't be in alignment with what you do. I mean, like, no, no, I don't like it. Like, I didn't say anywhere that you had to like it. I just say, you have to know how to do it, and you have to understand what your customer needs. So I think a question is, we'll never know if it's a right or wrong investment. We want to know where it's coming from inside of us. And you said it very well, sometimes it's an investment of time. If I don't have the time to put in, no matter how much it cost me, we've all had that expensive gym membership and never go. Our bodies didn't change just because we made the investment. Is, what are you investing? I've had clients who I always have a pro bono client on because I have a bleeding heart, and I don't like when people can't get the help they need. So for me, some of my pro bono clients show up even better than my clients who pay me 1000s and 1000s of pounds, because it's a readiness thing. So we've got to check in with ourselves. Am I ready? And what am I looking for if I'm looking to outsource my power, or I'm looking for someone else to be smarter than me. For me, I cannot press the button on that investment because it will fail and I'll learn what I need to learn about myself. But can I do that by asking that question first?

Sarah Poynton-Ryan 41:12
Yes, interesting. And do you invest outside of your business? Do you invest in property or assets, stocks, shares? Do you invest in anything like that? Is your real focus, growing your business?

Speaker 1 41:25
My focus right now is about growing my business. And again, because I'm a single mom of two boys in America with uni and all of that, I haven't really had the liquid funds to be able to do that, although now that they're both working and we're getting to a point, it's something I'm watching my beginner brain go, oh god, you're going to feel like a little girl in that room. And I'm like, ooh, we have a provocation to step up. So my goal is now, in the next couple of years, to start investigating the wealth growth, rather than survival mode. Because I'm very good at survival mode. I never have missed a bill yet. Knock on wood. But that I don't want to live like that forever. I don't have to anymore, but it's an old pattern. So to learn to be playful and explore things that would excite me to investment, invest, that's what I'm interested in. Like I'd have to care about the thing, and that excites

Sarah Poynton-Ryan 42:12
me, amazing. Well, I'll happily send you a copy of my book show. Thank you. I would love to read it, help you on that journey. A little bit amazing. So if you could rewrite one cultural belief about money, what would it be?

Speaker 1 42:26
Smart people make money? One of my mantras. I'm not a mantra person. But when I was very frustrated in business a few years ago, and there was a lot of, let's just say, charlatan selling a lot of stuff online, I learned the hard way, the smart people are not the ones who make the money. The good marketers are. You have to be savvy. You don't have to be smart. It's not the book smarts, it's not all of the certificates you have on your wall or how much learning you did. It's how activated can you be to sell your things. And unfortunately, a lot of times I feel like a rehab coach. I end up being the cleanup crew of all the fancy guru shiny things people buy. And then they come to me 10 grand poor and say, I know I should have gone with you at the start, but they sold so well. I totally get it. If you want real help, you can come to me. If you want a selfie game. There are plenty of people to choose from. And you know, that's not a mountain, it's a mountain I'm happy to die on. I don't want anyone else up there with me. I will stay there. I'm not moving from there. And I know it sounds negative, but it's also to give ourselves permission that you already know enough. You're already good enough to help someone in whatever you do. You don't have to be the best at it, you just have to be a few steps ahead of whoever it is you want to help with what it is. You know now, I'm not saying make a business up out of nowhere, but check in with your integrity and your standard and grow from there. They still may be louder, but you're going to be the long lasting one. And it took me a long time to stomach that, because I didn't understand that. I was like, Well, I'm smart. What's happening? Something to do that's not how people buy

Sarah Poynton-Ryan 43:57
that's so interesting, and I think it's also it's something that everybody really has to listen to. Because, you know, I hear a lot of, you know, I hear a lot of people. They've been on the courses in my industry. So in the investment property industry, you know, I've got clients that have spent upwards of 60,000 pounds and never bought a house. And I'm like, Well, why didn't you buy a house with that 60,000 pounds? And you'd be further ahead than had you spent spending 60,000 pounds on two years of coaching, and I've done nothing, and I can't ever really get my head around that. I totally believe in investment in, you know? Well, I believe in investment in everything, and investment in self development, investment in knowledge I am just I totally believe in that, yeah, provided there's a really tangible, exactly payback

Speaker 1 44:44
hiding behind it, so that then maybe one day we'll be ready or feel enough that that's never buying

Sarah Poynton-Ryan 44:50
the gym membership, but not going to the gym. Buying the thing is not the work. The work is in the actual doing of the thing.

Speaker 1 44:56
Because just because I know something doesn't mean I'm doing it, and that is something. We all whenever I say that, the whole room goes, How much do you know? If you knew? I said it at the E if you knew every no one in that room. There were 600 people in the room didn't not know enough. That's not what they came for. Yeah.

Sarah Poynton-Ryan 45:13
100% right. 100% right. So sorry. I could sat and chat in chat to you for hours. I think so at the end of every podcast episode, we ask our guest to leave a question for our next guest. They don't know who the guest's going to be, and we don't know what the question is going to be. But I've got a question from our previous guest to ask you, and then I'm going to ask you for a question for us to ask our next guest. So the question was from Mark Wright. I don't know whether you know Mark right or not. Won the apprentice in 2014 I know. I know. Yeah, worked with Alan Sugar, sold his business last year. So his question was, if you woke up with an alien at the end of your bed and that alien asked you, what is this money stuff? What would you tell the alien what it is and how to get

Speaker 1 46:03
it Oh, I love that question. I would tell the alien to go back to their planet, because ours is crazy if they're going to stay here for a little while. Money is an amplification of all fear, all joy, all everything. It's a tangible, transactional self worth coin that you can go make magic in the world, and how? How would you go make more of it by being yourself? That is what I would answer. Money would be amazing.

Sarah Poynton-Ryan 46:30
Thank you so much. And what is your question for our next guest?

Speaker 1 46:34
So my question would be, if, if money had a personality to you, like if you would characterise money as someone? What would that characterise? What would that characterise? Characterization be in your life?

Sarah Poynton-Ryan 46:47
Amazing. I'm just scribbling this down, and then we'll get that asked. I will send you the answer once we've got have a little listen. Sharon, thank you so much for your time today. It's been an absolute pleasure, and you really struck me in London when I saw you speak, and this has been an incredible conversation as well. So thank you so much for your time, and people want to connect with you or talk to you about coaching or anything that. How can they do that?

Speaker 1 47:10
My website is Shari tiegman.com or reach out to me on Instagram. I handle Shari tiegman. No one else answers my emails or messages. It's me. I'm very connected. I don't do any of the fake fluff like I love meeting people. So even if you just want to say hi, I heard you on Sarah's podcast, this was my takeaway. Or just want to connect, I am not miss pitchy salesy, like come and hang out. I'm always happy to have new friends. Amazing.

Sarah Poynton-Ryan 47:35
Thank you so much. I'll make sure all that goes in the show notes as well. If there's any links you want to set or we'll check. But yeah, thank you so much again for your time. Appreciate it. Thank you so much for getting to the end of the podcast episode. I really hope that you enjoyed it. I just wanted to take this opportunity to remind you that the weekly Money Mechanics newsletter is available to you completely free. This is a newsletter I'm going to send out every week to just give you some ideas around what's happening in the markets, what's happening at a global level, what's happening at a lot more local level, so that you can better understand what you can do with your money to make it work for you for the future. I'm also going to share in the newsletter what I'm doing in my own portfolio, just to give you some insights into what my ideas are, why I'm making the decisions that I'm making, in the hope that it will help you to make those decisions in your own portfolios as well. All you've got to do is find the link that's with this episode, hit the link and subscribe, and that newsletter will start to come out to you every single week. I'd also really love to take this opportunity to invite you to drop me a review. I love the opportunity of getting to share these podcast episodes with you. It really helps me to better understand how we can do the best job that we can hear at Money Mechanics, if you tell us your feedback. So drop us a review. Tell us the sort of guests that you want. Talk to me and connect with me on Instagram, you know, talk to us on YouTube, wherever you are hanging out. Tell us how you're finding it, and we can make this the very best podcast it can be. Thank you again for being such a valued listener. I appreciate you all, and I'll speak to you soon. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai