How to Build a Healthy Money Mindset
Scarlett Stanhope
(YouTube Transcript)
Aneta (00:03): Scarlett, welcome to the Live the Width of Your Life podcast.
Scarlett (00:07): Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited for this conversation today.
Aneta (00:11): I'm so excited to have you here, and I'm really curious about the name, the Biz Hippie. Can you give us a little bit of background on why you selected that name?
Scarlett (00:24): Yeah, absolutely. So the Biz Hippie is the most accurate definition of my own personal journey and my own experience. And it's also this blending of these two aspects of myself that I think multiple people struggle to bring together in their own lives as well. So growing up, I was the type A high-achieving perfectionist. I was the straight-A student, but I was also the eight-year-old with migraine headaches.
And so this bled into my young adulthood, where I was managing restaurants by the time I was 18 years old, making more money than my friends. I was saving; I had 30,000 in savings by the time I was 20. I was getting my bachelor's in business management, accounting, and finance, maintaining my 3.9 GPA, and had no student loans or credit card debt. And on paper, I was really crushing it. I was checking all the boxes of success and doing what I thought I was supposed to be doing in the hopes that someday I would cross a magical finish line that told me I had arrived, I had done enough, and finally I could sit back and start living the life that I actually wanted to live.
But then one day I realized that life was already happening to me, that I was burnt out, I was exhausted, I was depressed, I was in some toxic environments and toxic relationships, I was covered in head-to-toe eczema and had migraines weekly just because of the discomfort of living in this life. So I realized it was up to me to start living the life that I wanted to live, and that I had to start now because life was passing me by. So that's when I began my own personal growth and discovery journey and started tapping into who I am, what's important to me.
What kind of life do I actually want to live if I peel away these layers of money and success that I have been chasing? And that's when I took a full 180 and went from biz mode to full-on hippie mode and just started saying yes to every opportunity that lit me up. I began my business, I started traveling, attending retreats, and I became a yoga instructor, life coach, and Reiki practitioner.
And I realized about a year into my business, as I was floundering around trying to figure it out, that we needed this balance between both. We needed the structure, the more masculine logical side, the biz side, also with the more feminine flow, freedom, hippie side. And that's when I decided to bring both of these aspects together, because I believe when we have both of these aspects, that's when we can really create our most abundant life. And so that's where that comes from: my own journey of finding my balance and abundant life.
Aneta (03:13): Wow. Yeah, it sounds like the blend of the masculine and the feminine energy. And, interestingly, you spent so much of your younger days really in that masculine hustle energy. Did you ever discover what was causing the migraines and the eczema?
Scarlett (03:24): I think it was really just stress, stress and pressure to be better, do better, this foundational sense of not enoughness where I had to keep running and pushing and trying to be better versus just feeling safe, solid and enough in who I was and what I was doing in the life I was living.
Aneta (03:50): Yeah. And when you were asking yourself these questions, when you were going through the reflection, were you working with a coach or were you doing this work on your own?
Scarlett (04:01): I hadn't started working with a coach at the beginning. I had experienced some versions of support along my transformation. One thing before I started my business, yeah, like right before I started my business, I went to Los Angeles and went to a huge event in a conference room in a hotel that Mary Morrissey put on.
It was called Dream Builder Live, where she goes through the whole experience of tapping into your vision and the kind of life you want to live, and how you can be more in control of that life. So I did have support through multiple experiences, whether it was reading books or beginning to travel and attend retreats or other healing experiences. But it was a while before I started working deeply with my own coaches.
Aneta (04:53): That's interesting. And you started this work at a really young age. For me, I was in my 40s, right? When I started going through a lot of the self-help, and when I recognized that maybe what I was choosing to do, the life I was living, wasn't satisfying. Why do you think for you it happened so much earlier?
Scarlett (05:10): Yeah, I think that the simplest answer is that I am somebody who goes really hard into things, like I'm a very deeply committed, passionate person. And so when it came to living this more masculine style of life, I was really, really good at it. I was really good at it.
I was crushing it. And honestly, I could have kept going and really climbed the corporate ladder, and I think I would have actually really thrived and achieved a lot in that situation. But because I went so hard into it, it just was not sustainable. Like, it got bad and bad enough that life was kind of Scarlett, you need to wake up. And it gave me multiple chances to say this is not sustainable. This isn't working. Something is wrong.
But I still couldn't even see it. I still couldn't realize it until it just got really bad. And I woke up, and I realized, wow, I created this. And I felt like it was out of my control and I was being really passive when it came to my life, but I cannot continue to live this way now that I have seen that I created this, and I can also see that this was a choice, and it's not the only choice. It doesn't have to be this way. So I think I just went down the downward spiral pretty hard and pretty fast, where I smacked the ground and was like, I need to wake up. And that luckily happened early on in my life.
Aneta (06:44): And I'm grateful that you are because you're doing the work that is so important. So tell us a little bit more about the work that you do with coaches and especially around money management strategies, which are so critical. How did you decide on that niche, and what have you found from a coaching perspective?
Scarlett (07:01): Yeah, so what I do know is I am a money and abundance coach. And so I really help people transform their relationship with money from the inside out. And when I first started my business in 2020, I was not trying to be a money coach, if anything, I was actively running away from being a money coach, because it felt like the obvious choice for me to do based off of my background in accounting and finance and corporate finance, but also I worked for a company called Richer Than You Think, which helps individuals budget and manage their money. So I also had personal finance information, but what I really cared about was personal growth and personal development because that had played such a huge role in my journey.
But then it was about a year into my business that I was having a conversation with a friend who was really stressed about money. She had a solid nine-to-five job, but was also growing her coaching business. And she felt like she was living paycheck to paycheck. And she said, I never have enough. How could I ever go full-time in my business when it feels like I can't even support myself financially with my nine-to-five?
And that's when I realized people really need this work to transform their relationship with money, but also learn how to be in control of their money, especially people who want to step off the beaten path who want to live against the grain who want to do things differently and start their own business and take this work that they're really passionate about and their service and share it with others but they also want to support themselves financially like money was the root of my demise basically I was chasing money and success my whole life and it was the thing that led to my burnout and led to the life that I was living.
And so that's when I really discovered money is such a deep form of personal growth and healing. think it's like boss-level personal growth because you can heal in so many areas of your life, but still have money be the one thing holding you back, especially when you're then trying to build a business and do work that you love and support yourself in that work.
So that's when I realized that supporting people in their relationship with money is one of the biggest, most impactful ways that I can serve and support people because money impacts all of us and often is the thing that holds us back from really living lives that we love.
Aneta (09:31): Yeah, it's so crazy because so many people have money stories, have money issues. It's just one of those things. How did you discover that you were good at helping people, not just with maybe managing the finances, which is one thing, but also developing this abundance mindset?
Scarlett (09:47): Yeah, well, I personally am a really big fan of doing deep inner healing work. Again, I'm a pretty, I guess, like intense go-getter person. I love to go deep. I'm like, bring it on. So a lot of the work that I do with my clients is, yes, learning to manage your money, track your money, and be in control of it. But doing money mindset work that lasts is very deep.
Because your relationship with money ties into your foundations of survival and safety. It also ties into your deep sense of self-worth, worthiness, and enoughness. So your own personal identity is deeply tied to money. And so when I work with my clients, I love to go deep into what is your money story? How is that impacting you? Where does it come from?
How are these seeds of scarcity and these scarcity-based beliefs showing up in your day-to-day? Yes, in your money, but yes, also in your life. And how can we deeply dig out these seeds, unwind these old stories that no longer serve you so that we can start to build the foundations of true abundance? So I'm very passionate about it because I think it's really, really deep personal growth and development, and I love to go deep because that's what really makes it last.
Aneta (11:16): It's so interesting. I just wonder how many businesses- like, if things would have been different if they did the money and abundance work first. Do you think that that should precede people starting their businesses, or should they be doing that work at the same time as they're starting their business? What have you found?
Scarlett (11:33): Yeah, I believe that your relationship with money is really foundational to your business's success, because you can make more and more money, and still feel the same about your money. I've seen this time and time again, where people feel stressed, they feel like they don't have enough. They think that once they get more money, that's going to be the solution. And that's going to solve their problem.
But then once that more money does come in, they still feel the same, and they still feel like they don't have enough. If anything, sometimes they can feel more stressed because now there's a sense of How am I going to maintain this? Now there's pressure to keep going. And so when we change our relationship with money, it changes the way we show up in our business; it changes the way we feel; it changes the things we say; it changes the energy we bring into our business.
And stepping into that energy of abundance first, that is what opens up the door for more money to flow in. Or even when more money is flowing in, it changes the way that we feel about that money, the actions that we take with our money, so that that money can even go further. And so I believe the sooner you start this work, the better, because your business is a money-making machine. So any gunk you have around money is going to show up in your business one way or another.
So whether that means doing this work first, or if you already are in your business and you notice, like, my money gunk hasn't gone away, even when I'm taking all the action and doing all the things, like this is the foundation that will shift things for you.
Aneta (13:14): That's so interesting. And yeah, of course you think about pricing, from negotiations, from sales conversations, I mean, it really does apply to every aspect of business. What are some success stories? Like, what have you seen from some of the coaches that you're working with? What has happened from the time when they first hired you and started working with you to afterwards?
Scarlett (13:37): Yeah, and I've seen a lot, and they vary in different ways. For example, I had one client who wanted to leave her nine-to-five job in six months, which was a very lofty goal. But throughout our time together, she was able to leave that nine-to-five job and go full-time in her business. She also moved out of an apartment that she had been living in for, I believe, nine years and started traveling the world.
So that's one high-level example. also have had clients who just stopped feeling stressed about money and stopped feeling like money was controlling their lives, no matter what was actually happening circumstantially. I had one client who said, "Right now, I have $10 in my checking account, and yet I feel more abundant than I ever have before because I know that I'm in control of this.”
I know how to shift it, and I can still feel empowered with my money, even though it feels scary right now. And to talk to that client, now a few years down the line, she has built the foundations where she does have steady, consistent income coming in. And it's because she learned how to feel safe with any amount of money and not let money control her life.
So those are some large examples that I see happen all the time. But then I've also seen clients feel really confident and solid in their business, their work, and their price point. They've released these shames or guilts around asking for money, and they've increased their confidence in being able to deliver, being able to serve.
And so instead of their price or asking for money being the thing blocking the flow of money in their business, instead they can confidently step into the identity of their abundant self, their leader self, their successful business owner self. And that changes the way that they show up, serve, have conversations, speak to their clients, and also their ability to confidently land sales and bring more money in.
Aneta (15:38): Yeah, absolutely. How do you work with clients who are really struggling? So maybe they've been in business; they are down to that last $10, for example. How do you take someone who, in the 3D physical realm, their version of reality, has bills to pay and there's no money, and they don't see it coming in, or they're late on things? And how do you help them to shift into feeling safe? This was interesting, you said, feeling safe in their body, regardless of what the balance says in their account.
Scarlett (16:13): I think there are two things here. One is that many people that I work with have an inaccurate picture of what is actually going on with their money. Because if you don't have a method for seeing your money very clearly, and knowing how much you actually have, and I'm not just talking about the amount in your bank account.
The number in your bank account is not an accurate picture of your financial situation and how much money you have. So unless you can see your money very clearly, your mind makes up stories about what's actually going on. And it's not really based on reality.
And therefore, the mind exaggerates; the mind feels like it has no power, it has no control. And maybe you're just playing out old stories from your childhood that you've just been carrying and building upon for your whole life. So most people's money stress actually comes from not really knowing what's going on with their money. And your brain is just filling in all of the blanks.
But the problem is, since your money is unknown, you can't really solve for that problem. It feels out of your control, and you feel powerless to it, versus when you can see your money very clearly, then you know what the situation is, and you can start to do something about it and build a plan to resolve that situation.
So that's the first step: getting really clear on what the situation actually is and not just hypothetically and not just by the number based on your checking account, like getting a very clear bird's-eye view, because that gives us the starting point of what you're working with and where you're working from. Now, say you've done that, and you've seen the financial situation, and it's still really bad. Now it's about how we can change the story you're telling yourself about that information, and how you can feel empowered and confident around that story.
And I think the problem is, is that the brain still exaggerates and makes it feel like life or death. We get into survival mode, and we really start to exaggerate like, okay, I'm going to die. That's what the brain thinks is happening. Even if we don't consciously realize it, we're in a panic, fight or flight state.
So how can we look at the information, face the accurate information, and see the reality that we're not going to die, that everything's okay, that you've been able to survive your whole life up to this point, and that you will continue to survive and that that's not going to change.
And by peeling away like these old stories, these old beliefs, and enhancing the current situation with empowered beliefs, an empowered story, an empowered narrative, and getting out of fight or flight, downright regulating the body. When you combine all of that, that's how you can feel safe no matter what and also create a game plan and a strategy for moving forward based on the current situation.
Aneta (19:29): I love that. Yeah, the nervous system is quite incredible, and it's amazing to see when our brain is so activated and when it thinks that we are in survival mode, that it does feel like we think we are going to die. But I'm curious, when you said something about people having an accurate depiction of their finances, what does that mean exactly? What are people neglecting? What are they not looking at? Like, what are some of the mistakes that people make when they don't have an accurate view?
Scarlett (19:58): Yeah, I think depending on where you are in your money journey, this could look different. So some of the clients that I work with have a lot of resistance and fear to looking at their money at all. So it's like, I'm afraid to check my bank account. And sometimes I do it, but it's really scary. But often I avoid looking at my bank account and seeing the actual numbers in there. So that's like the first version of not having an accurate picture of reality, which is not even being able to check your bank account regularly.
But then on top of that, your bank account is not an accurate picture of how much money you have, because your money is always fluid and flowing. It's more like a river, where there's money flowing in, and there's money flowing out. And so anytime you look at your bank account, what you're doing is you're getting a snapshot of your money in that moment in time. It's just like you're stepping into the river; you're standing in that river.
But if you were to walk out of that river and then step into it again, you couldn't walk into the same river twice because the water has changed, the current has changed, and the flow of water has changed. So your bank account is the same. Checking your bank account is just a snapshot of your money at that moment in time. But in order to get an accurate picture of our money, we need to zoom out and see bigger snapshots of what's happening with our money.
So one practice that I teach my clients is how to see their money on a month-by-month basis. How much money do you have coming in this month? How much money do you have going out this month? Where is it going? And then, when you look at the end of the month, how much money do you have left over, or are you in the negative, or are you breaking even? Like, that's important information to have, and it's very different than just saying I have $500 in my account.
So therefore I have $500 to spend, but then we can zoom out even further and say, okay, so what's the 12-month view? What does this look like when we zoom out and look at the whole year? And then I have another tool that I use with my clients called the account forecaster, where you can forecast and see the balance of your bank account over the next three months, so that you don't have to let the natural highs and lows and highs and lows and ebbs and flows of your bank account freak you out.
Instead, you can know, yeah, my bank account's going to dip really low on this day. That's okay. I've planned for it. I know more money's coming in three days, and then it's going to go here. And having that level of clarity around your money helps to create a deep sense of safety. It also helps you to let your bank account go much lower without creating a fear response or creating a story. And it can help you feel very comfortable moving around very large chunks of money in a short amount of time, and just knowing that it's going to be okay because you've planned for it.
Aneta (22:59): I love that. That's wonderful. And Scarlett, when you work with clients, do you mostly work one-on-one or do you work in different ways? What are the ways that folks can work with you?
Scarlett (23:09): Yeah, the best way to work with me is that I have a group program that I take my clients through that teaches them the whole six-month empowered abundance process. And through this, I work on the intangible side of money, like your mindset, your belief system, feeling really empowered and in control of your life. But we also work on the tangible steps of building a method for tracking your money, managing your money, and being in control of your finances.
And the reason why I love to do this work as a group is that money is often taboo. We don't talk about it. There's a lot of shame and fear around it. So to take money out of the closet and to work on this together and to have a safe space, to be really honest about your financial situation and your thoughts and feelings about your money is really, really powerful and transformative.
It also gets you out of your own perspective because often we only know our own financial situation, when really there are so many different financial situations that different people are dealing with. And even if they have different amounts of money, they can still be dealing with the same problems or have the same stories. So that's really powerful to just get a bigger picture of what your relationship with money can look like and what other people are dealing with with their money.
Aneta (24:29): That's awesome. And if someone's listening and maybe they've been in business for a while and they've had great years and they've been successful and suddenly things start to dry up, and they're like, I don't understand. I'm doing all the right things. What would you do with someone like that? How would you help them out?
Scarlett (24:46): Yeah, that's a really great question. And with everything, I think that we have to honor both the internal work and the tangible work. So the tangible is: has anything shifted in what you are physically doing, like the way you're running your business, the way you're outputting? And we can just get very analytical there and say, yeah, what's going on? What has shifted? What has changed?
And we could also look at, okay, maybe you need to do things differently because even if you haven't changed, the world around us is constantly changing and evolving. So how can we strategize to make different choices? So that's one piece, but I think the internal piece also has to happen as well. And one is often when we have lows in our life, we also pile on a bunch of stories, like shame or guilt, or why isn't it working, or what am I doing wrong, or I'm afraid that I'm never going to get it back.
And this creates an energetic leak. And so I would make sure and like really check in on if this is happening to you, what are you making it mean about you? Similar to when we have not a lot of money in our bank account, like what are you making it mean about you, and what are you piling on to that situation that's going to hold back the momentum of you being able to get it back?
And then also, I would look at what is the potential money block, the potential scarcity seed or story or thing going on inside that is creating this shift that is creating this change, because entrepreneurship is just a pressure cooker for personal growth and development. Every time you're trying to expand, you've got to just like step into your next level of healing. So there's something within you that needs to shift.
Scarlett (26:34): Maybe in tandem with the tangible execution, but also like what within you needs to be shifted so that you can get back into alignment with abundance and that flow of money in your business.
Aneta (26:45): Entrepreneurship is like, it's a huge mirror. You just see so much about yourself, and things still need to get healed, things you thought you already worked on. And speaking of healing, I know that you also, because of your own experience, talk about money and how it can be a physical manifestation of illness or disease. So what have you seen there, and how does our money troubles sometimes manifest physically?
Scarlett (26:49): Totally, yeah, I mean, I believe money affects all areas of our life, money will be the reason why we don't do X, Y, and Z, why we don't get married, why we don't have kids, why we don't have travel, or why we don't get to travel, but it especially shows up physically in multiple ways. One is that if money is the chronic stressor under the surface, they are all the time having a sense of chronic stress.
It's exhausting for the body. It keeps us in this low-grade fight-or-flight state all the time. And when we are in this state of stress and fight or flight, the body cannot recover. And so that can lead to bigger and bigger health issues over time when we are not living in a state of safety and enoughness.
And that always comes back to money in some way or another, just because of the society that we are living in now. So I think that the biggest issue is just the chronic stress. But then the other way that this can show up is what choices are you making because of money, and how could those choices be affecting your health? For example, I've had conversations with people who are like, yeah, I haven't seen a dentist in years because even though I should,
I just like can't afford it, or I'm not prioritizing it. Same with like, okay, I'm not gonna go to the gym. I'm not. I can't afford the healthy organic food. Like, I am not living in alignment with my values or able to prioritize my health because of money. So I think that's the other way that that can show up. And then if we're getting deep into more like the woo-woo side, which I'm also a really big woo person, even though I'm also very practical as well.
That's where the biz hippie comes from. I believe that our money stress can manifest very physically as well within our body. This could show up as chronic pain, other big issues, and ailments. Yes, it's one from the stress, but also it's like that stress has to come out somewhere.
For me, it was migraines and eczema. It was also my physical posture that was really messed up because I was in a job where I stood on my feet for 11 hours a day in four-inch heels. So there's the way it's energetically manifesting, but it's also the way it's physically manifesting as a result of our actions rooted in money.
Aneta (29:40): So true. So, so good. Scarlett, if folks want to work with you, what is the best way that they can reach out?
Scarlett (29:49): Yeah, so the very best next step that you can take if you're hearing all of this and you know that it's time to start shifting your relationship with money, then you can discover your money mindset type and learn how to start working with your money mindset type with my free quiz. And you can get this free quiz on my website, thebizhippie.com forward slash quiz.
And I love to recommend this quiz to people because starting to bring awareness to your current relationship with money is the first and also most important step to starting to shift your relationship with money, because we can live as we can live with our thoughts and beliefs and our stories around money for a whole life. And we just accept it as truth because so many people in our society are stressed about money and in our “ not enoughness where we just think that it is normal.
But it doesn't have to be this way. And so many people don't live their lives with these foundational beliefs of scarcity and not enoughness. So, starting to uncover your relationship with money is the really powerful first step to starting to shift your relationship with money. And the quiz is the easiest and also free way to start to uncover that.
Aneta (31:06): I love that. That's perfect. We'll include the links in the show notes. And then, Scarlett, I ask everyone a final question. And I think it's so interesting because you answered this initially when we first started talking. But what does it mean to you to live the width of your life?
Scarlett (31:22): Yeah. And I love this question because this is so much of what I help other people do, but it's also my sole mission and purpose in my life, making sure that I am living my life to the fullest and not someday, but starting right now. So for me, it's living what I would also call an abundant life.
Choosing what is most important to me, prioritizing a life that is fulfilling for me without letting lack, limitation or money be the thing that holds me back, and instead just continuing to expand my capacity to experience life for me but also in service to others.
Aneta (32:09): So good. Scarlett, hope that whoever is listening, and I know many people struggle with money, I hope that they do reach out and connect with you. I love what you've built here. Thank you so much for the great work that you're doing in the world. It's just been such a pleasure.
Scarlett (32:25): Thank you for having me on the show today. It's been amazing to get to chat with you, and I appreciate you having me on the show.
Aneta (32:31): Absolutely. Much continued success to you.