Not that long ago, the idea of investing felt like a wonderful concept (money making money while I sleep) but it also felt impossible. I had savings. I was responsible. But whenever I thought about opening my app, or actually did, I froze. I didn’t really know where to begin.

I would tell myself things like, I’ll deal with this later or I’ll just learn a little bit more and plan a little bit better. In the meantime, my money sat in my savings account or was spent on other things (slowly losing value) while I kept working

A couple of Sundays ago, I did a three-month check-in and noticed that the value of my investments had increased by 15%.

This episode is for you if you want that possibility — if you want your money to work better than you think it can.

Inside we explore: 

• How financial shame can mimic burnout 
• What self-trust has to do with stocks, portfolios, and everyday decisions 
• Tangible first steps to begin investing as an act of self-respect

Explore Investing School HERE

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This podcast explores the intersection of sales, money, and business success, offering entrepreneurial insights on overcoming the inner critic, burnout, and the unique challenges of ADHD and autoimmune conditions, while integrating polyvagal theory, Ayurveda, coaching, resilience, regulation, and trauma healing to support holistic growth and thriving in both life and business.

  📍 Not that long ago. The idea of investing felt like a wonderful idea. You know, money, making money while I sleep, but it also felt impossible. I had savings. I was responsible that I would think about opening my app, or I would open my app, or I would go to learn about it and I froze. I didn't really know where to begin.

I would tell myself things like, I'll deal with this later, or I'll just learn a little bit more and organize and plan a little bit more. Um, and in the meantime, my money was sitting in my savings account or being spent on, I don't know. Other things, um, depreciating, so losing its value. While I was working really well, I wanna say really hard.

There were different phases in my life. Sometimes I was working really hard, sometimes I was not working really hard. Um. Couple of Sundays ago, I did a little three month check-in, uh, just check like my stocks every day, my investment portfolio, and I found that the value of those investments has increased by 15%.

The average market return is about five to 10%, meaning that if you were to go and invest your money today, you would make five to 10% on it, most likely mine hasn't ha It has consistently increased its value by about 14 or 15%. Because I've been using my body-based intelligence, my somatic intelligence to know how to invest.

But I've also been learning about it, but I've also taken action. There's a lot of, um, and of course, you know, that being true for me, my investments will probably decrease in value at some point. And we don't know what yours will do, but when I'm, when I share this number, what I wanna do is highlight that.

Maybe things could be easier with your money and your money could make more money than you think. Maybe it, maybe it could work out really well anyway. This episode is for you. If you want it to work out better than you think it can. It's for the woman who is good with money. You have your savings, you have your spreadsheets, um, but it's just kind of sitting there and you haven't.

Done anything with it. You haven't started investing, you're probably telling yourself that you'll get to it, but somehow years keep passing and underneath that delay is probably not a lack of knowledge or an inability to go and get knowledge. It's actually, it's fear or self doubt. By the end of this episode, you'll know how financial shame mimics burnout and what it actually takes to feel really confident in your money.

What self-trust has to do with stocks, portfolios, and financial decisions, and then tangible steps to begin investing using it as a form of self-respect. I am speaking with Francesca. She has created an amazing space called Investing School. Uh, I'm actually coaching inside of her program and it's. Uh, one of my, it's really, really cool, um, to be seeing women feel so financially empowered.

Women of all ages. We have people who are really young. We have people who are really, um, maybe a little bit older past retirement, working towards retirement. Um, and go from, I don't even know what I'm doing and I don't understand it to, oh my God, I'm able to ask some really. Deep, deep questions to a really deep analysis and I feel really confident in myself.

And you know, of course, more money in, in the hands of good women is always a really good thing. So I. As you're listening, while you're listening to Francesca and I speak about investing, if you're curious about it, there is a link below in the show notes about investing school. It is an affiliate link of mine.

I get like a little, you know, like 5% back when 📍 you invest through that link. If you, if you choose to do so. Um, if not, if you don't wanna use that link, you can just type investing school into Google and you'll find us. 📍 Francesca, for somebody who is listening and thinking, I'm actually not good with money, what is the very first step they need to take to change that belief? I think, uh, that's a very normal, uh, and I mean, everyone thinks about it. Even I, you know, thought about that, uh, a few years ago.

Several years ago. And I think it's absolutely normal because, you know, it's kind of like society doesn't expect us women to take good care of money. I mean, they, that society expect us to be good savers, to be able to budget for our families, for ourselves. But if you think about it, most of the times, nobody expects really you to be able to invest right.

And, um, and I, for example, I can tell you what happened to me, uh, during a dinner potty. Um, we, I was there with a few other couples and my husband as well, and, uh, we were sitting at very long rectangular table, like a men on one side. We went on the other side. Uh, we were just having a casual conversation, like very funny, uh, evening and.

At a certain point, uh, finance topic came out and like you could literally see like the women immediately changed topics. They were not visibly feeling comfortable with that topic, what the man, like, they were jumping in so easily. And, and, and then afterwards, um, one of the guys asked my husband, um, you know, what did you decide to do with a gold thing?

I mean, that was like a random investment. And Eddie said, oh, honestly, I have no clue about it, because usually Francesca takes care of it. And they were like, what? Wait, not why we are a partner and you know, like I really, uh, realized there was something wrong in there because why us women are not able to take care of investing.

I mean, uh, you know, we are so autonomous and independent in so many other. Uh, you know, like ask us of our life. You know, uh, we, we have a good job. Uh, we can take good care of ourselves or our families. Uh, we can drive a car. Uh, we have a bank account, we have everything, but we are not supposed to be able to manage our family's finances.

We're even to be able to invest. And that's when I decided to, for example, charity them to, uh, fund, um, my company, sensational women. Uh, and it's interesting, I think as well because there's kind of this, uh, story that we carry with women. We have these expectations. I know a lot of women who have an expectation on themselves to have a, a lot of money saved or, you know, maybe they expect themselves to earn a certain amount, but they don't expect themselves to invest necessarily.

Not everyone. But I think there's also something around. Uh, because it's not clear and because we're not used to it and because it's not a girl thing, you know, to talk about what stocks did you invest in and stuff, and we're not taught it. I've noticed that it becomes this kind of avoidance and I've noticed in my clients that there's this pattern that occurs where we.

Avoid dealing with the money stuff, but it actually ends up draining a lot of our energy and kind of leaking out into avoiding other things and decreasing other important things as well as decreasing their capacity for important things. And I think that it's really difficult for the individual to see, so like listener, it's hard, like the way that you're relating to your money.

There could be a lot of things that you're doing that are actually creating burnout or limiting your opportunities to have more money, more ease, more success in your life. I'm curious, Francesca, if you've seen the same type of thing or how you would see it. Yeah, I always like to mention a very powerful STA here, Sheridan, if I may, that like 92% of women feel confident managing everyday expenses, but less than half feel confident investing.

And that's not a capability issue. It's, in my opinion, it's a conditioning issue. Uh, like. What I see with my students is that like they say, oh, where do I start? I'm not good with numbers, or I'm too late, and like most of the time, so I feel like they say, okay, I'm already 55 years old. I'm too late to start, or I mess it up.

Or you know, my personal favorite is like, let me read three more books fast. Yeah, I know. Yeah. And what I always tell them is, you're not bad with money. You're just unsupported. You, you, you, you've never been sure how to do this in a way that feels safe for you. So like what we try to do is like, we bring emotional safety into the conversation.

So sometimes we also cry, um, and that actually happens sometimes during our, our program live calls that. You know, among, you know, because you know, our programs are run for women, they feel like so understood. They open up themselves and they, sometimes they start to cry because it's very important if you name your emotions and, and I think, for example, I was feeling shame and.

If you feeling shame, that's a sign that you care that you wanna do better. And you know what we try to do is helping students move through it by creating a space for it. We, because it's important, if you name it, we have to normalize it. And money is like super normal topic that you deal with as other aspects of your life.

And the more you are used to it, the more you're used to like see it as a friend. It's like a companion. Like any, any other things in your life. Then you move into a clarity stages and, and, and there where you can even start learning about it because you don't feel behind. Yeah. 'cause this is what I see where.

People feel financial uncertainty and financial insecurity, which makes them stress, which makes them burnt out. And a lot of it is it because they're not getting the clarity and the certainty and the confidence with their money. So sometimes people will come to me and some of it is emotional and some of it is trauma, and we have to address that.

Also sometimes it's like, no, no, no, you need practice. You need somebody to come with you and say, okay, log into this account. This is how you look at a stock. This is how you understand if a stock is good. Nobody's taught you this before, but you're completely capable of doing it. Sometimes you actually need, I.

Someone like you to come in and teach you, because once you have that and you pair that with the emotional side of things, like you are un, you're unstoppable. I remember when I started doing this, it was a couple of years ago when I started investing and I had money and, but I felt like, like objectively I had money.

I don't know why I was so anxious about it. I, I mean, I do know why I was so anxious about it. I was. Coming from a trauma response, but I was really anxious about it anyway, I decided that, you know, I was getting older so I should start investing. And

what has been really cool and was really affirming and validating to see was actually. I kind of did that in secret, like I would choose my stocks in secret and I would do it because I was committed to myself. But I will be honest and say like a part of me really believed that I wasn't doing a good job.

A part of me was like, this is the best that you can do. Like, but I didn't really believe that I was doing a good job, and it wasn't until two different things. Number one, I actually spoke with. Somebody just like you, who here in Australia, who they happen to be a friend. And I kind of started speaking with them and they're like, oh, you know, actually a lot.

And I listened to this podcast and I was able to follow it and it was quite advanced. And I was like, oh, I actually do know quite a lot of things. But then. My, um, who was my boyfriend at the time, he studied accounting and finance and he's worked in accounting and finance his whole life. And I was like, yeah, like I'll just show you like the stocks that I have and like some of my savings.

I'll just kind of share that information with you. And he looked at it and he was like, Sheridan, you've done an amazing job. This is such a great portfolio. And I was like, but it was so curious that. This whole time I thought that because he was a man who had studied accounting and finance, he would be able to do a better job at me than picking my, my socks in my portfolio.

It's absolutely not true when you can look at it with emotional clarity and you have the education. It's, it's not hard. You can, like, I get to see my money grow every single month. I don't do anything. I made some decisions. I check in on it. I keep myself calm, especially when the marketing, the market goes up and down.

I do my emotional kind of regulation and it works. And you would see this all of the time with everyone that you're working with. Like, it's so possible. Absolutely. And um, I also do think that it's important for women to be independent and able to take care of this matters because you never know life what may happen.

Maybe you're married, maybe you're gonna get a divorce, or maybe you know, you, you get to be single or you're a single mom. You never know what happens. It's super important for you to understand what you're doing. And I think that. Um, you know, part of my mission is to really empower women to feel confident and in order to feel confident, I want them to, it's, I mean, we're not just passing them education, like proper knowledge, like this is a stuff, this is the reason why you do X, Y, Z, and so on and so forth.

But also, as you said, I mean, I had to speak to two different people and one of them was my partner that. Really like addressed how prepared I was, the good job that I made. Because otherwise I wasn't like, like, um, like you were not a fan of yourself in the first place. Mm. And you only became a fan of yourself because someone else trusted you and then like, gave you like that confident.

Um, and I think what most of the times what we, we tell them, it's like the. It's not their fault. I mean, they, they were not just taught about this. Um, but this is something, it's a skill. It's like learning how to ride a bike. Uh, it's, it's not like, uh, becoming an astronaut. I mean, you can learn and then, and, and it's never too late.

And, um, and you know, nobody has to do it alone. I mean, you were never meant to. So what we try to do is like accompany them hands by hand because they need support. But it, it's, it's, it's so like, uh, even myself, even myself, you know, when I started several years ago, I was like, okay, I got the knowledge, but sometimes the knowledge is not enough because you don't feel, maybe you're like doubting yourself.

You keep on dumping yourself and saying, oh, maybe I'm not good enough, or maybe you're not. And I was terrified, you know, what was happening to me. You know, usually people ask you, how was your weekend, uh, on a Monday? And then you say, oh, it was a very great weekend. Thank you. How was your weekend? Um, but I was like surprised.

Like people were asking, what's your portfolio? How's your portfolio? How's your portfolio going? And so I was like, what portfolio? What's that portfolio? And then I understood after, you know, a few seconds, okay. Oh wow. They're referring to their stock investments. Oh my God, I even don't have a portfolio of mine.

What should I answer to that question that I was panicking. I was really panick and feeling ashamed. Maybe I'm lagging behind and you know, if someone like me who's like even got a degree in finance felt like that, you can imagine like people don't have any clue about finance at all because maybe the, the study is something else.

So they do something else in their life how they could feel. So I think this is absolutely normal. We, we just have to accept this. And being open to make a next step and, you know, like educate ourselves. Yeah. And while you're speaking, I'm thinking a lot about the way that it feels very loving. And I know that I've, I've heard you speak about this before on the other episodes of the podcast about how.

Investing is a form of self-love. I completely agree. Um, I like to think of it as supporting my future self and my future self supporting that future self. But I'm curious if, I wonder if you could get more specific when you talk about self-love and kind of choosing yourself and advocating for yourself and be really tangible because I.

I don't know. I feel like this self-love idea is a bit fluffy sometimes, and some people can have a lot of, I've definitely had so much resistance to it. Can you speak to tangibly what that looks like to kind of choose yourself, care for yourself, be kind to yourself, invest for yourself. Yeah, basically I can make several examples, like maybe you find yourself in a toxic relationship and you're not able to leave because you cannot afford a rent to pay.

Somewhere else and you are like stuck in that toxic relationship with that man, you really don't love it yet. If you are financially independent, you are able to leave that toxic relationship and being able to afford a place to live in, or you are in, you've got a toxic boss at the same time, right? Or maybe you're returning from maternity leave.

You just basically feel that place doesn't fit you anymore. And, but because you made your money grow for you, you are now free to choose something else. And I think, you know, when you invest, you're not just growing money, you're saying to yourself, I believe in my future. And I think it a steady declaration that matters.

Because you have to set goals that really matter for you. It's not like a fluffy, generic status. You have to say, my goals in my life are I want to have a decent income. I want to not, you know, when I wake up in the morning, don't stress about my money. I don't want to like feel I don't have enough money to buy my food or take care of my family, of my kids, or whatsoever I would like to spend.

I don't know, one month I hear like traveling without feeling guilty. Um, so I really would like to feel that peace of mind. So I think it's not just about getting, getting rich quick, it's about feeling con rooted, confident, because, you know, investing is how high care for my future self. Uh, or like even in my case, I could have never, um.

Like quit my investment banking job. That was a very well paid job, and then start my own business because I was really fed up about that environment, to be honest. And when I came back from maternity leave, but I have three kids and after my first maternity leave, I was feeling like they were expecting to from me something that I was not able to give them anymore.

Right. And my mind was somewhere else. Because I have my investments on my side and my portfolio and everything that I built since I was very young, um, I could, you know, I made a leap. So basically I, I left that job and now I'm, you know, free to like jump in the middle of the afternoon. Three 3:00 PM. Who okays just go and I want to see my kids that day.

That's it. I just go and pick them up from school. I want to work that afternoon. I don't have time to go pick up my kids. I have a nanny taking care of them. Uh, you know, it's also the support, uh, of people that are around you that feels, you know, gives you that peace of mind. Okay, that's a tick. I've done it, or maybe another one.

I have three little kids and I know someday maybe they were gonna go to university and I'm reading, like making a part a part for them that will grow up by the time they were 18. So I think I, I'm not sure if I was able to answer your question, but I think this specific things is very, very important.

Every one of you think about your specific goals. If someone else, goals are not your goals. So you have to think about your life, what you want from your life, what let you feel safe and calm. And for example, in my case was like, because I come from very simple family and when I was eight, my dad's, uh, business went bankrupt.

Um, we basically lost everything. So we, I I, I, I saw how you can quickly move up from a state of comfort to a state of, oh my God, we have to be very careful of how we spend our money because otherwise we're not gonna be, um, make the hand of the monk. Um, and one of the things that I really wanted to give back to my parents for what they allowed me to do.

Even if, even in those difficult times was like being able, in this case to buy them a house. I bought them a house, I, I bought them a car. And those things really were so powerful for me because I was really able finally to give back to them. I. You know, everyone is different. So my story is different from your story, but it's super important that, you know, people listening to us today, like start asking themselves what really makes me feel calm, confident, and in peace.

Um, and of course, one is not everything, but is a good component of our life. That's just so beautifully said. It is about giving yourself belief and choosing future you and giving yourself options and giving yourself freedom and power. I am. I love it. What is the next best step for our listeners to take a product of resource?

The next thing for them to do? Uh, well, um, uh, first of all, I think that. You get to that state of mind when you can check up your banking app or your brokerage up and you don't feel terrified to open it. Um, like it's like checking the weather and the shift. That shift is everything. So once you get to that point, that means you're ready to go.

But anyway, my resources, I have a podcast, um, that is called Invest. It's simple for European women. It's, uh, like voice noise from your. Honest Italian best friend. You used the work in finance a few, uh, a few years ago. And, uh, and also if you want the fastest way to shift your money, we also want a, a free investing workshop that I think it's a good starting point, uh, to really understand at least the basics and understand what your money can do for you and what they instead is not doing for you at the moment.