Meggie Palmer, Founder & CEO of PepTalkHer chatted with Denise Thomas, author of “Get Rich Lucky Bitch.” She shared the secrets of getting rich and how to grow a money mindset. Denise has taught thousands of women globally to overcome their old, family money habits, and step into a new, wealthy mindset.
How's working from home life going for you?
Denise: You know what, I've worked from home for 10 years now and I love it. I love being by myself and all of these things. But guess what? I've got three kids and a dog and my husband and everyone else are here in my little space. That makes it much, much harder. Apart from that, my life hasn't changed that much.
I'm seeing a lot of people freak out about being at home and figure out what to do with their money. Having lots of awkward money conversations at the moment, my heart goes out to everybody. Don't worry, we can all be calm and chill, and get through this together.
What's your jam and how do you help people?
Denise: My one kind of line tagline is to help people make money and change the world. And this is really, really important especially for women. When we have money in the hands of more women, it's been proven that we spend it in ways that really enrich our communities and raise the GDP of our countries. And really, we can change the world with that. That's the big picture for what I do, then going down into the micro means I help people with their fear of money, with their fear of having money, conversations with fear of charging people, of charging enough, and to really give women the courage to use the money to live a first-class life. Whatever that means for you. I do that through my books, and through my courses, and my money boot camp which is my money community.
Meggie: One of my coaches suggested that I read your book and found it really interesting. I thought that was pretty funny, I have to say. But the book has been really interesting for me because it's given me some advice. For example, one of the things that Denise talks about is that you should write down every time you receive money, you should write it down. So if you find two bucks on the street, or if someone sends you $200 for a birthday present, you should write that down. Can you talk a little bit tonight about why that's important from a psychological perspective?
Why should you list down all the money you receive?
Denise: What I find, especially for entrepreneurs, is that we compartmentalize our money. We judge money, right? We say, “Well, this is real and valid and this is not real and valid.” Now a really peppy example is someone who might be a new entrepreneur, and your partner has a corporate job. You might think, “well, their money is real and my money's not real.” You might think that the different categories of what you offer is real and not real.
If something comes really easily to you, you might think, that's not real money, or I really shouldn't charge a lot for that because it comes so easily to me. Some people feel like PayPal is not real money. Or, you might receive cash for something that you do, and you think that that's not real money.
Realize how much you’re capable of receiving
Here's what that does. It gives you a true picture of how much you're capable of receiving. Some people, when they start to do that, they realize that they're much more abundant than they thought they were. I've had people who've said to me, my goal is six figures, why aren't I hitting it? So it's like, “well, let's go and track your money.” Then they go, “Oh, actually, I am at six figures, I just hadn't quite realized it,” or realizing that they have been. It's like being in a relationship where your friend ignores you or treats you badly. That's what we do with money. Sometimes we go, “well, you're gross and dirty and you don't count”. And so from a manifesting point of view, why would we manifest more? Why would we attract more when we're treating money so badly in our lives?
Megie: Interesting. A lot of people have lost their jobs. A lot of people have lost a home, a lot of people have been asked to take pay cuts. There's probably a lot of people right now who are a little bit stressed out about money and are probably not in their best money mindset at the moment.
What’s your advice for people who are a little bit fearful or stressed out when it comes to cash flow and money?
Denise: I don't want to discount any of that. I think sometimes manifesting work or personal development work and feel really trite and superficial at times like this. Even though the work that I do doesn't necessarily get your job back. It doesn't necessarily solve all the problems. What it can do, however, is calm your nervous system down, so you feel like your brain can come up with the ideas.
For people listening, you have got so much creativity. You can come up with solutions. But when you're in the space, even the idea of calling your bank to ask for an extension feels way too much or sending an invoice out to a client feels way too much. Or someone actually says to you hang on, I need your help in blah, blah, blah, and no, you send me an invoice, that feels like way too much.
At the moment, if you're focusing on is survival, then it's more important than ever to calm down your nervous system so you don't get stuck in that fight or flight response. One thing that's really helpful is affirmations. Which again, sounds really trite at times like these but it can be amazing. It could be a really simple one and I want everyone to do this with me now. Put your hand on your heart, which is really comforting and grounding to touch yourself. Take a deep breath. And it might be the first deep breath you've taken all day. And just say, all is well.
“Put your hand on your heart, which is really comforting and grounding to touch yourself. Take a deep breath. And it might be the first deep breath you’ve taken all day. And just say, all is well.”
The first of these is a five-year note like everything is a disaster, and then you have to go back again. Because each time you do that you might go, you know what, maybe I could do this, maybe I could do that. Or maybe I can do that. And it's okay to be in, like the shit of it for a little while to be honest. But that's not going to help you. It's not going to help you come up with any solutions. So if you can just try something really simple like that of all is well, all is well, then it'll give you a little bit more energy to take action on something that might help you. That will help shift that mindset.
Meggie: What if people can get from that fight or flight mode into a more productive headspace? What do you think people should be doing from there? Like, once they see the opportunity and they can work out how to get through this hurdle.
What do you think are the best next steps that people can kind of put into practice from there?
Denise: I think it totally depends on where people are at. Some people are employed. Some people have just started their business, some people have big businesses with employees that they have to deal with. So, you know, the action is so different for everybody. But I think there's a real pressure at the moment for people to be super productive right now.
Write down all things you should be doing
One thing that can help is to write down all the things that you think he should be doing. And I would even suggest writing them in a couple of columns. So one could be things that you could do now, things you could do next, things you could do later and things that you're probably never going to do, but you just need to get them out of your head. Because it's all of the shoulds at the moment that are keeping people awake at three o'clock in the morning.
There's this pressure that we're all going to write the great American, a great Australian novel, or that we're going to learn to play the ukulele perfectly in the current age. And the impression is that this is just a jolly holiday where you know, we're all in. And finally getting that silence retreat that we've been wanting to do on our to-do list for five years. And so sometimes it's the uncertainty, it's the lack of clarity that's driving so many of us crazy. So get everything down on paper to get it out of your head. That's the most important thing.
And then you know what, I'm a path of least resistance girls. So if all you do each day is one thing on your to-do list, you could wake up and go, Oh, my god, there are so many things to do. What would be the easiest for me at the moment would be to update my resume on LinkedIn, I could handle that. Then just do one thing. And then you work your way up on the list of anything, the thing that you can face doing the most out of everything and don't beat yourself up. You know, when people say you've got to Eat That Frog first.
Yeah, do the bad thing. I'm like the opposite. I'm like, look at everything and go I cannot face all of those things. Know what I can do this one little thing. It's like having a to-do list.
So it's like you can procrastinate by doing something that's still useful. But not giving yourself the pressure that you're suddenly going to turn into this productive ninja because, to be honest, a lot of people, the feeling is really bad right now and feeling really down.
Meggie: The first chapter of your book Get Rich Lucky Bitch is called “Becoming an Amazing Money Manifester”. So I've got to be honest with you, I don't really consider myself like a woo-woo person. Like, I'm open to some of that stuff, but then actually, when I read your book, a lot of what you say really makes a lot of sense to me. Can you just talk people through what manifesting means in practice?
Can you debunk this idea of manifesting and whether it is woo-woo or whether it's practical?
Denise: Oh, totally. This is my favorite thing to talk about. And so I'm a Virgo. I'm into astrology, but I'm also like, super practical. And when I first found out about manifesting, I was like, “What do you do? Do we need that information?” Because it felt so out of my reach too? I was like, “Oh, do I have to be a really good person?” Like, do I have to just meditate all the time and be perfect. And it just, it didn't work for me. So I like looking at manifesting from the point of what is manifesting actually mean, right?
What would be the dictionary definition? And it is to make real, to make real. That's all that manifesting means is to make real, it doesn't mean that you have to chant naked under the full moon, which is pretty cool, too. That'd be really fun to be worthy of making things real in your life. And so by making things real, you can actually you can co-create that, which means that you have to take action to but there's no doubt in my mind when people have their mindset, right. So they believe that they deserve the thing. They are taking action towards the thing, and I love some woo-woo practices. I love it.
I don't think a dream board super woo-woo but you know, a dream board or crystals or whatever. If you want to think of it placebo to strengthen your belief that it's coming true. With all of those things in place and taking action, there's no doubt that synchronicity starts to happen. And there's no big deal if you feel like you've engineered those synchronicities, or that you're stretching and reaching for meaning within synchronicities. Because it's all in service of making your dreams real, making your dreams a reality.
And we know from brain science that our brain works in interesting ways when we give it a task. If you give it a task at night, you're probably going to wake up in the morning with more of a solution because you've given your brain a task to try and find the problem. And we know that when we put our attention on something like, “Oh, I want to buy this new car”, we know that our brain is searching for patterns. It's not that suddenly everyone in your neighborhood has bought that dream car. It's just that you're more aware of it. So we know this, we know our brain works in that way anyway, so why not reverse engineer that and do a dream board and train our brain to look for those opportunities. Because when we do that, we're more likely to take action on them when things come, when opportunities come to us because we believe that they are for us.
That's a really simple kind of view on my aspect. You know, my kind of philosophy on manifesting is, it's making it real, and you can do so many practical things to make it real for you in your brain before it's real for you in reality.
What's a good first thing that someone can do who wants to work towards manifesting more money? What's something that people can kind of start to do today?
Admit to the universe
Denise: Super, super, super simple. Everyone can do this, like literally today. Think about the amount of money that you want to either manifest or make in a year. This actually could be a really hard step for somebody I said it like, Oh, it's really easy. That might be a set where people go, I don't even like to say that out loud. Right? I don't even want to tell my brain that I want that. And there's a really, really simple reason for this. You think of every single birthday party you've ever gone to in your life? It keeps blowing out the candle. And then everyone says, make a wish, but don't tell anyone or it won't come true.
So, many of us don't even want to admit to the universe, even not even to someone else. But admit to the universe. That's how much we want to make. So if you're even stuck on that first step, go and read my book to figure out some of the reasons why you might be scared to even pick a number.
Set your goal as your password
The second thing to do which is super important is to change your password on anything that you use on a daily basis to your income goal, to your income goal. So you really do but you're going to be typing that in so many times. Today and the first couple of weeks that you do that you're going to be like, this is so unrealistic. Yuck. That's so unrealistic. Oh, yeah. Be like, hang on that sounds okay. Hang on. That sounds okay. That sounds okay. Maybe I could do that. And you might think it's such a small little thing, why would it make any type of difference at all.
But, you know, if I said she had to meditate 100 times a day, you wouldn't be able to do it. If I said to you had to sit and think about your goal for 17 seconds. That's what I've heard in a personal development book. If I said you had to sit down and think about your goal really hard for 17 seconds, 50 times a day, you wouldn't be able to do it. But you doing that action anyway. So why not layer in something that is going to train your brain to believe something is different for you.
Meggie: I love that and I actually changed my passwords a couple of years ago, not to my money goal, actually, but to a positive affirmation rather than just like, dog123. You know, I changed it to be like a favorite quote or whatever. But I love this idea of changing it to be money. A goal that you're subconsciously telling your brain regularly that that's relevant to your life. I love that. That's really cool.
Denise: Sounds so silly, but I just want everyone to do it. And I remember thinking one time, I had a new income goal, and my friend was like, What are you going to do first to manifest this goal? And I was like, I'm going to update my password. What? And I said, honestly, that is something that, you can just do so easily. And it doesn't hurt you to do it. So why not try it? And then you layer in other stuff as well.
Meggie: And what other stuff is useful? I love that tip. That's a really tangible one, making your password related to money.
Is there any other kind of like baby steps that people can take in everyday life?
Change your phone screens
Denise: Absolutely. So think about other things that you look at a million times a day, your phone screen, right so what's on your phone screen, and people can type that in if you're commenting on what's on your phone screen at the moment and some of you you've got useless pictures of your kids or your pets. Ideally jakey but for manifesting point of view, that's really valuable real estate because you're picking up your phone like 200 times a day, right? Easy, right? So that's really super valuable real estate to train your brain to believe something about yourself.
At the moment, mine has a goal, a particular goal for me about selling my next book, who I want to sell it to you how much you want to sell it for, and I've got a picture. It could be that you have a beautiful picture of your kids. There's nothing wrong with that. But you could overlay some text on it. Now that could be your income goal, or it could be a family goal. You know, you might have a goal to take your kids to Disneyland. Or you might have a goal to start a business or for your partner to come work in your business with you or you know, whatever it is.
Change your computer or TV screens
But if you're picking up your phone every day, you may as well have your goal on there and you can do the same thing with your computer screen as well. A lot of people have a lot of smart TVs at the moment where you can choose what the screensaver is on your TV. So you can change your screen savers on your desktop or on your TV.
You know, you can have your laptop screen say something differently login versus when it's on sleep, there are so many different things that you can do. Back in the day, when I was starting this work, I didn't have a fancy phone and I didn't have a fancy laptop. So I actually did old school. I created a dream board and printed it out as I created it on on you know whatever software I was using at the time, printed it out and I would put it in unexpected places. So on the inside of my kitchen cabinets, you know I would open the kitchen cabinet and go oh my god my dream board. I would have it when I had a job at the time I printed out and put it on my desk drawer. So every time I opened my desk drawer It'd be looked like I was looking for like pencils or something. But I was just like, I'll be there soon.
Dream boards
Dream boards were really popular probably about four or five years ago, people were talking about them a lot. And then I found that recently people haven't been mentioning them that much. And I think it is because we have so much visual stuff coming at us all the time that we can actually use technology for dream boards instead. An Instagram collection is just pictures of things that inspire you. But if you print them out, there's something different about seeing them in unexpected places. Yeah, you can have a Pinterest board that is purely about one of your dreams. There are so many different ways we can use technology at the moment, but don't forget about the old school ones as well.
I love that and actually one of my English teachers from high school, she used to tell us to print out our speeches and put it in like a plastic envelope and stick it to the wall in the shower so that while you were showering, you could see it and learn your speech and I can say something like that being applicable here. As well like printing the vision board, putting it in a plastic shape, sticking it to the wall in the shower as well, when you're washing your hair or whatever, it's kind of again, sending you that subliminal message.
I actually like to draw my goals in the shower theme, too. On your glass of the shower, well, you can use soap to do it. But I think what the point we're trying to get across is that you have to kind of bombard yourself with positive messages. Especially if you've got a really big goal that you want to manifest particularly now when we have so many negative messages coming towards us and you know, I'm there as well scrolling on Twitter and getting freaked out and then I have to remind myself, no, it's really important for me to protect myself and protect my energy.
So think about what you're listening to in your car. You know, have some positive podcasts that make you feel good. And then still listen to the new stuff, but just limit your exposure to it because, at the moment, a lot of us are watching it in real-time. Whereas really, we could catch up even once every couple of hours and we wouldn't miss a thing. But it's trying to have as many touchpoints as possible. And I like to have them as automatic as possible as well. So I don't have to think about them. I have pop-ups that come up on my calendar that say, “Congratulations, you've sold a million copies of your book”, you know, things like that. You can do once and it will just pop up again and again. And it will really really help you know, I love that.
Meggie: What's the best way to learn about the money boot camp and hear about all the amazing books that you're keeping on publishing?
Oh, thank you. So I’m @denisedt on Instagram and it's the same for all my social handles. I'm on Instagram probably the most rather than Twitter and Facebook. And I love hearing from what you guys are doing. I love it when people screenshot my book and send me the chapter that they're reading. I love seeing people's books with highlighted, post-it notes, and all the things, and I love seeing people's beautiful faces too. Oftentimes, people send me a picture of like my book, and I want to see a picture of you in my book, too. That makes me happy.
Meggie: Oh, that's awesome. Denise, we’re so grateful that you could join us to talk about those amazing practical tips that people can take to kind of help grow their money mindset, especially at the moment. We're really grateful for you taking the time.
“When we have money in the hands of more women, it’s been proven that we spend it in ways that really enrich our communities and raise the GDP of our countries. And really, we can change the world with that.”
For top tips and help on how to make money online or tips on how to maintain an abundant mindset, you can find free resources on our blog.
You can check out Denise’s awesome work here on Instagram & website.
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