Tania's passion is empowering women around the world to think bigger, dream bigger and manifest more than they ever dreamed possible all while creating a better relationship with money.

Tania is the founder of “The Courage To Be Happy”, a community of independent, ambitious women entrepreneurs who want to become financially empowered so that they DON’T depend on anyone else.

Since the launch of her business, with a baby in hand and working only 20 hours per week, she was able to reach the 6 figure revenue by her 4th year.

Tania is on a mission to support, inspire and teach all ambitious women entrepreneurs the mindset, tools and strategies to grow their money from an easy, practical and spiritual perspective. This way they can break away from financial dependence and instead create an empowered life of freedom.

To find out from from Tania please use the following links:

Women’s Top Money Mistakes and how to fix them: https://bit.ly/3MZClvm

Youtube, The Courage To Be Happy: https://bit.ly/3P9KMWV

FB Group: Increase Your Income and Impact: https://bit.ly/3w0rhZi

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Vanessa xx

Women In Confidence with Tania Vasallo

Every week. I introduce you to amazing women who have interesting stories to tell about confidence through those stories, insights, hints, and tips. You realize that a lack of self-belief or low self-esteem is common and also very human, but by listening to them, you'll take away what they have done to show up confidently on the.

You want to become financially empowered, so they don't have to depend on anyone else. So some launch of her business, she has been able to achieve. Six figure revenue by her fourth year and only working 20 hours a week. Tanya is on a mission to support, inspire and teach all ambitious women entrepreneurs, the mindset, tools, and strategy to grow their money from an easy, practical and spiritual perspective.

This way they can break away from financial dependence and in-state create an empowered life before. All right, Tanya. Hello and welcome to women and confidence. Thank you for being here today. How are you doing? I'm doing great. Thank you for having me. Oh, you're welcome. And thanks for being on the show.

Tania: Um, that you're resourceful enough to come up with those answers. So it kinda like that you can, you can acquire the knowledge or the answers in some way or other, you know, because I might not feel comfort. I dunno speaking Chinese, but I might feel very confident, you know, with women

related topics. I know that even though I don't speak that language, that I have the ability and that I have the resourcefulness, and then I have the courage of that's what I want to do.

You've got courage and you are resourceful. Yeah, I definitely, I feel confident in that answer. Absolutely. Yes. I did feel like things show up for me and they can be very scary and I still do them no matter what, you know, it's like, okay, just do it and see what the next step is. And then the next step gets revealed.

Talk to the right person and ask the right questions or estimate people and the answers we end up coming to me, like they're brought to me in one way or another and being courageous.

Vanessa: , do you feel like you've been courageous all your life?

Tania: Hm. I want to say. And these, my adult hood. Yes. And I'm trying to go back even further, like teenagers.

He tells that I'm disappointed with. So I'm going back and I'm like, wow. Yeah, I guess I don't know how many five-year-olds would be like, oh my God, don't leave me by myself or whatever scifi. Yeah. That that's always been there for me. And one way or another,

Vanessa: you mentioned that as part of being courageous is that you feel a fear, but you will go on and do it, whatever it is.

Anyway, when you talk about fear, how does that show up for you?

Tania: To me, fear is. Excitement. And this guys, somehow, you know, it's like your ex it's the same feeling and the body like I, for some people they might blush for me. It's I get sweaty palms get sweaty and my feet get sweaty. I might get even a little bit shaky on the hands.

And usually there's, I always say that the universe favors the brave and you take that action. And then on the other side of that breakthrough is that reward of like, oh my God, I did it. You know, and I never thought in a million years that I'd be able to do that.

Vanessa: I love that you are saying, you know, if you can convince your brain or you have a path, you can go down, it's either it is fear and that's how your, your body reacts to it.

Or you can decide this is exciting. And then you get a different reaction or you get a different response, perhaps. And I was watching a Ted talk, I think a couple of days ago. And it had a very similar message, is that, you know, the actual sort of, I guess the chemical. Movement in your body is the same, whether it's a genuine fear or it's an excitement, and it's about your brain telling you which one it is.

Tania: And that's how I try to take it that way, because I do feel like, I mean, like one of the big, biggest fears that's out there is public speaking.

Like let's, let's just take that one, for example. And I love speaking in public, like I've done many, you know, speaking engagements, you know, on stages, big stages, smaller stages. And there's always a fear there when you're about to get on stage it's it's like that, that body reaction, like you're saying, you know, it's like the sweat.

Your hands might be a little bit shaky. I tend to start speaking really fast at first, you know, like in those first 10 seconds maybe, but then you start learning some techniques about, you know, like, okay, how can I control that look? And I do for the sweaty hands, what can I do for, uh, you know, grounding myself.

Let's just do all we have to do. That's okay. You know, there's just no way around that, you know, it's, it's gonna show up because it's your body, your brain, actually, your reptilian brain is trying to keep you safe. It's like, oh, there's change something big is happening. I don't like change. Whether that changes.

And so it sends all those reactions of fear, but if you can shift. And just turn it in the, oh, wait, I'm feeling the fear reaction, but I know it's, I can turn it in fixed site. Let's just turn it into excitement.

Vanessa: I've always sort of been told that the rep Telium, so you're right there. That reptilian brain is keeping you alive and surviving.

W, you know, hundreds of thousands of years ago, but it still exists. But I heard that it can take about 10 seconds for your, I didn't know what the part of the brain is that taught that is very rational. It takes about 10 seconds for that to sort of override the reptilian brain, a new mentioning, you just taking a deep breath and grounding yourself while your public speaking.

Tania: I, I don't, I've never measured it. I don't know like the exact numbers, but it sounds like it could be, but I'm sure even if it were 10 seconds or 20 or five, five might seem like three minutes or like an eternity to you.

And the best thing to do is that is figuring out, like, what are your best coping mechanisms and, and understanding it for that period of time. It's like, okay, I know I'm going to go through that. And sometimes it can last more than 10 seconds. Like I remember a client not tomorrow. That she was driving a car that was falling apart, basically.

I remember it took her about a month. You know, we were working through that because there were several layers to that fear. I was, I don't want to go to that car dealership. They're going to take advantage of a woman. And I just recently got divorced. So we had to overcome that fear. Like what things do we put in place to help her get over that?

So she ended up going with another friend that knew about cars and it was another woman. Then she had. Once she did sign the papers and she had to make the first couple payments. I, okay. I made it this month. It will. I be able to make it the next month. And then the third month, give them a ride and will I have money for the third month?

And now I'm happy to say it's been over three years and she's been making her car payments fine. But that fear that. For a couple months for her, you know? So whether it's a pen second, because you're getting up into public speaking or it's, I have to buy a car and I feel insecure cause I've never done this in my life, you know?

To calm it down because it's going to show up there's and

Vanessa: 10 seconds, like you said, feels like a lifetime. It's not, but it does feel like a very long time. Well, when talking about your client then is really nice, but it's a good segue into what you do and your business. And one of the reasons why we're talking today and tell everybody then what you do and what's your main business.

Tania: So yeah, I'm the founder of the courage to be happy. It started out where I was teaching women about branding. That was my background. I used to be on park director in New York city, big agencies working for multimillion dollar accounts like Starbucks and SAMHSA and Nabisco, but it just wasn't the right thing.

He's a creative tool. And so here we have two creatives trying to figure out how to run a business. So I launched the courage to be happy. I have a ton of degrees and certifications. I've worked as a professional photographer. I've worked as an art director. I was certified as a life coach in the early two thousands before anyone was a life coach.

And within four years only working 20 hours a week, I was able to get to the six-figure revenue. A lot of women around me were like, well, what are you doing? How are you doing that? You know, you're working 20 hours a week. So then I started teaching about business and business strategies and how to, how to optimize that and how to take your gift and your passion and turn it into business and monetize it.

And so now, uh, within my business, I had a year long program where we teach once a week, we teach business strategies. And once, I mean, once a month, we do a business strategies. Once a month, we do money mindset. And I became fascinated with that because I feel like as women, we have so much programming in, tell us about money and abundance and.

And we need to just be programmed, all that. And my opinion before you even want to do anything with business and strategy, you need to work on that asset. It's the business won't work out. It'll just fail or it'll drag out. Well, you know, if you don't deal with those things. So it's funny because if you would've told me.

So that's a little bit of where I'm at right now and where the path has taken.

Vanessa: Do you think then that the mindset money mindset is different between the genders? Cause you talked about a lot. Women have a lot of programming, so what's different for a woman then and her money mind.

Tania: I do think it's different.

I do also believe that we all come with programming because here's how it works. Our conscious mind does not get developed until age six, seven or eight. That's what the psychologists say. So everything that you are experiencing, everything that you are getting them through, all your senses, what you see, what you hear from ages zero to seven.

The culture, the media, you know, I was born and raised in stain. That's a very different. Message. That's been given to us about everything. You know, it could be about your culture, about religion, about gender, about money, about health. No one really teaches us how to detangle that or question it as we grow up.

And so what happens is with money programming. Cause that's what we're focused on right now. You've been programmed with all of these beliefs from a zero to seven. If you haven't worked on it, if you haven't, detangled it, if you haven't questioned it, because the majority of us as adults just go around thinking and believing what we believe, and we're very righteous about it because that's, what's been passed out to us.

What? And so it's the same thing with money. And when it comes to women and men, yes, I think there is distinctions for me. I became very clear. Uh, growing up and staying at the end of a dictatorship because Franco died and mid seventies and we still didn't get into like a socialist country until the eighties.

I mean, this is what's fascinating. I interpret that moment. Okay. Oh, my dad's disappointed. You know, he wanted a boy. So let me act like a bull, you know, like, let me be love. Let me give him what he wants. So I started acting like a boy from age three on, up until like my teenage years and then it was added to it, you know, not only because I wanted to please my dad and the love, but you start learning from that unspoken language.

And your country, you know, like everyone has different perspectives, you know, again, the culture or your own family, because I could speak with other Spanish women that they don't have this same programming or upbringing, but for me in particular was. Don't worry. You're always going to be taken care of by a man financially.

So you'll grow up and you'll find the right man. You'll marry a man and still take care of you financially. And if you're not lucky enough to find a man to marry, then don't worry. Your brother will take care of you. If you don't have a brother, then your dad will take care of you. And if you're that's none of the picture anymore, it'll be an uncle, you know, like that was, and maybe it was also because it was a very patriarchal family for me.

At some point in our life. We can't keep abdicating this power to other people. I don't care if it's your style. So I don't care if it's a financial advisor. You need to learn about it because part of the programming is don't worry. Someone else will take care of you, women. Aren't good with numbers. Women are, that's not a woman's thing.

A man is a financial plan, you know? And so it's oldest message that's been given to us that we're not good enough. This is not something that we need to concern ourselves. We just need to take care of them. Men in our lives they'll take care of us and exchange. And it's a little bit unfair of a programming for women as well as for men, you know, because some men might not know.

And it's pretty much in general, the tragal world, you know, there might be some exceptions of certain cultures that, yes, that was a long sanded, uh, answer to that one, Vanessa, but I become very passionate about, so in terms of money, mindset and there's programming, which is layers and layers and years and years potentially through your parents who, you know, peers, families around, whatever.

Vanessa: Where'd you start with your clients to unpack some of that and to perhaps take the noise and the sting out of some of that programming where you start

The invitation is to content from curiosity and say, you know what? I'm not bad. I'm not to start taking away that guilt, that shame. It's just becoming aware and be curious and saying, yeah, we're done that belief come from. And then I start going back into our past. You really have to go back into your past and, and see, you know, what were your first money experiences?

You know, like that is a big, big money block that I see for a lot of people. But you have to keep reminding yourself that money is not good or bad. It's the meaning you. So if your parents are constantly arguing and they ended up divorcing and their arguments are always about money, then you have to question that and say, wow, no wonder.

I'm constantly thinking the money's bad. I can't hold on to it because. I've always thought that money is evil. Money is bad. So why would I hold on for money? You know, as soon as I make it, and I've seen this with six, seven figure entrepreneurs making a ton of money, but they lose it right away. Or maybe someone inherits a ton of money.

It's either a verbal, you know, like they said, the money doesn't grow on trees. People with money are evil. Look at the neighbors. They are always flashing their cars or the new item that they bought, you know? There's a verbal, what, what did you hear as you were growing up? The second one is modeling. You start modeling what your parents or those close to you, your teacher, your caretakers, your, your church, your everything, the culture, you know, it's, you start modeling what everyone else did around you.

One of the money blocks you have is. Yeah, you have to work hard for money, you know? And so then from age seven on, on you start looking for evidence of why you have to work hard for money. So something will happen and you'll get paid for it, but you'll be like, oh man, I really worked hard for that. You know, I worked a whole weekend.

A hundred bucks or whatever. And so it's like, see, it's, it's not that you're doing it consciously. All of this is happening on your subconscious mind. So it really, the most important place to start is just awareness and curiosity. What is my money story? What has been passed on to me through my ancestors?

And that gets backed. It's ingrained an imprint that in yourselves, you know, it just, you really have to work at it. And so that you can break those patterns, those generational patterns, and it doesn't get passed on to the next generation. Things we'll still see through because even all the work that I've done and I'm trying to be really conscious with my own daughter.

Well, by that point, hopefully we're just making the next generation better and better, but it really starts with. And trying to detangle and, and look into our past, go into that, have awareness, have curiosity, and have compassion for yourself as well as for your loved ones, you know, and whoever you grew up with, you know, whether it was your parents or your teachers that pass that down to you because they I'm a big believer and it's not that it justifies bad behavior.

What are they did, they did the best. They caught what, the knowledge that they had. And we have to understand that they had their own experiences. But if we can do that for ourselves, instead of thinking of like our own ancestors, like what kind of things am I doing that I could shift a little bit, so it doesn't get passed on to the next generation.

Tania: And even when you were talking, I was like, oh yeah, I remember my grandfather. So sneaking a power. I think it was a count. It might've even been less night, 20 Pence or something to my hands and my grandma wouldn't see it. And it just stuff like that keeps cropping up and I write it all down and I just think, what does this, what does this mean?

And how is this showing up in my life so that I don't pass it onto my kids. One thing I deliberately do now is when my kids say, oh, you know, my mate has got the latest iPad or the latest iPhone or what, which costs thousands and thousands. I genuinely said, that's great. You should celebrate that. They've got these amazing things.

And so it is really deliberately shifting that language. And so now, as a result of doing that, I genuinely don't feel jealousy for people's money. I just don't have that. Oh, look. If you make choices in your life, you know, you choose to do X, Y, and Z. Then you can have the rewards and it's not through hard work.

As one thing I'm saying, it's not about them working harder or longer or. People have choices and they can, they can buy things and they can have lovely holidays, whatever. But they're seeing now that it's their choice to do that. And I think that's where I'm inheriting them. It's people can choose to either have, or have not.

Start paying attention to how, how are we handling it? When my daughter goes into the, the same thing, you know, she's at a, she's in a private school here. And so of course there's the comparison and so-and-so has this and that. And there's a part of you. That's like, oh, well I want to get it for her.

Another part of me is like, I've chosen that. Will you, if that's what you really want, how are you going to make the money for it? You know, like w and that's where you're teaching them resourcefulness confidence, you know? So her big dream now is to have a horse. And so I was like, and she's like, how much money would it cost to have a horse?

So she's like, no, I need to buy land because I'm going to build the stables to house the horse. Wow. I never would've thought of it that way, you know? And so it creates this back and forth and then trying to be resourceful of how they can acquire that thing that they truly want. And then to ask themselves the question, do I truly want that?

I think she thinks that it like a money tree, you know, like you just put the money there. Multiplies itself. It'll be funny to talk to her when she becomes older of like this idea. I think planting those seeds already at a young age with kids, whether it's, you know, 9, 10, 7 teenagers where they have an option, you know, Oh, do I want the immediate impulse and immediate gratification of getting the latest iPhone?

Or do I sit with the one I have, but I'm going to take a little bit of this other money and I want to learn, how can I multiply it? How can I make that money grow and, and putting that concept that the kids had and see, you know, because that was never explained to me as a kid, you know, like I had never understood.

How do we tackle this comparison thing and that bit about, you're saying about becoming educated about money and we're doing it with our kids. I'm sure there are plenty of women who even in the sort of late forties, Uh, or educating themselves about that and compounding and pensions, you know, it becomes a little bit more into focus when you get older.

Is it 401k? And in America, I think is the case here and there. The education should never, never stop. And I suppose it comes back to some of the stuff you do about money mindset is that if you've never. Had conversations about money you have as a woman, you've never had being educated about it. And then suddenly you get to your whatever stage in life and you now having to learn it, you should, it should start when it starts, essentially.

So patriarchy, just kind of, you know, like you don't need to learn about stuff. Don't worry then, then I'll take care of that. And so that's where these thoughts and these beliefs. I'm not good with money. I'm not good with numbers. I don't understand the financial jargon. I made that mistake. You know, when I rolled over here in the states, it's a 401k your pension plan.

When you work in corporate, I went into Citibank in New York city. I will never forget. And they assigned me whatever age, you know, was there. Who I gave my money to because we had our whole, this over an educated woman, post graduate degrees. You know, like I mentioned before I have all the certifications.

And the four years that I went back the same and it wasn't until I came back to the us that my husband recommended. So want to learn about finances, but statistically it's proven that women are better investors than men. We are much better at investing than men are. So if we can get ourselves educated and empower, but anyway, when I came back, my husband recommended contacting his family financial advisor and learn about investing in the stock market.

So that goes back down to having courage. Up until this year and educate yourself and surround yourself with people where you feel safe talking about these things. Like I felt safe talking to my husband. He explained what that was. So that gave me the confidence to ask the financial advisor for a list with dividends.

Then I made my pitch. And then I saw my money grow and then I'm feeling all empowered, you know? So that's where our real starts is getting educated. And if all the financial jargon is too much for you, you know, if you're listening to this right now and you're like, well, where do I even start? Start with books or podcasts like this that are a little bit more palatable.

It's better to start getting educated and get curious. Then when a tragedy happens because 90% of women are going to have to deal with their finances at some point of their life, because one 50% of marriages end up in divorce. And if you are one of the Lucky's that stays in the marriage, 80% of women will outlive their spouses 80%.

I repeat, you know, You are going to have to handle finances at some point. So why not learn it while you're in a good state of mind and surrounding yourself with the right communities, places where you feel say money is just such a terrible and isolating subject. So I really do encourage listen to these kinds of podcasts.

What are you? You know, like these kinds of conversations are a lot more exciting to me. Yeah, I was listening to a podcast the other day. I can't remember it's called now something like a little shrimp or something really old. And the two women on edge, we're talking about. What they spend their money on.

And I mean, we're talking big money. So one of the guests was talking, you know, she just bought an apartment in New York or something, you know, like big, big money, but it was just such a, for me, I was a bit of a like, oh, wow, I'm a bit taken aback because. I don't think I've really listened to those conversations when somebody is like, I've just bought a three, $4 million apartments, but those are the sort of things are accessible.

Look, Tanya, we've been talking now for about actually quite a while, about 45 minutes, nearly 50 minutes. So we are going to have to bring this to a close. So what's your one piece of advice for women who are listening and they just want to get confident either as a person or around their money, mind. I think you hit it on the nail.

It's the start be curious. So be OpenTech started getting curious about your, how you interact, what are your beliefs with money? So just be curious about it. And then the second, uh, piece of advice I would give. Get educated, start learning about money, you know, like, and it could be money as well as abundance, prosperity, richness, you know, living a rich life.

I'm like our hall. I ever buy that, but when you're in those kinds of conversations, even though they feel very distant to you, you'll start shortening that distance. The more you educate yourself and surround yourself with that type of conversation

Vanessa: and Tonya, how can people find you and what resources have you got available to people?

Tania: I think the best place for a women to start since we're talking about getting ourselves educated, I have a free guide that anyone that's listening can download. It's called women's top money, mistakes, and you can find that on Google, just type in a women's top money, mistakes.com. And it's a free guide.

What the top eight mistakes a women make regarding money, you know, and how to fix them. So it's not just like pinpointing at everything you're doing wrong. It's the other way around. That's like get curious and say, Ooh, let me look out of those eight mistakes. What am I doing? Right. And which ones can I make better?

Vanessa: Tanya, thank you so much for being on women in confidence. It's been a real pleasure and thank you so much for talking about money mindset. And for also talking about your journey to. For through, you know, your growing up in Spain and moving to the U S and then your creative director role, and now where you are today and how that even has evolved in the last five, six years.

So thank you so much for being on the show.

Tania: Thank you, Vanessa. I appreciate it. And thanks to everyone listening. Thank you. Thank you.

That's contact@vanessahyphenmurphy.com until next time .