Let’s talk about money + your worth. In this week’s episode Blair + Theresa dive into the relationship with money, how it ties into your self- worth, business practices and capacity. Tune into this juicy conversation, as we get raw and real about money stories l, trauma and how it may impact your entrepreneurial journey.

About the Hosts:

Blair Kaplan Venables is an expert in social media marketing and the president of Blair Kaplan Communications, a British Columbia-based PR agency. She brings fifteen years of experience to her clients which include global wellness, entertainment and lifestyle brands. She is the creator of the Social Media Empowerment Pillars, has helped her customers grow their followers into the tens of thousands in just one month, win integrative marketing awards and more. 

Blair is listed in USA Today as one of the top 10 conscious female leaders to watch in 2022 and Yahoo! listed Blair as a top ten social media expert to watch in 2021. She has spoken on national stages and her expertise has been featured in media outlets including Forbes, CBC Radio, Entrepreneur and Thrive Global. Blair is an international bestselling author and has recently published her second book, ‘The Global Resilience Project.’ She is the co-host of the Dissecting Success podcast and in her free time, you can find Blair growing The Global Resilience Project’s community where users share their stories of overcoming life’s most difficult moments.

www.blairkaplan.ca

You ever wonder what success actually means?

How do you get it?

And how do you keep it?

We all want it yet sometimes it feels only some of us get to have it.

Hi, Teresa and Blair here we are to badass entrepreneurs, best selling authors, coaches and business mentors who have had success, built success, questioned our own success and reclaimed it. Let's be real for a hot minute. 2020 has been a roller coaster ride, and many of us a start to wonder if the loser things that made them successful. So we got curious, Ron real about what success is truly about?

Can you put it in a box?

How can you get it?

Can people take it away? Or are you the one with the power?

Does it mean the same to all of us? Or are we the ones that create it?

From PGA golf pros to doctors, CEOs, entrepreneurs and spiritual mentors, we get together to meet with successful people from around the globe to dissect success for vibrant conversations and interviews. Make sure you click the subscribe button on the app store because each week we will drop a new episode to bust through the myths around success and dissect its true meaning.

Hello, hello, and welcome back to another episode of dissecting success. I am your co host, Teresa Lambert, I am here with the fab Blair Kaplan Venables. And we wanted to have a juicy conversation with you today that I think is really at the heart of creating your success of being on this journey of success of feeling successful. And it's around your worth. And it's about money, worth and money. And I've recently joined a program called profit and worth. So I've been thinking a lot about money and my work, and it's brought up all sorts of really interesting things. For me, as I'm on this epic journey that I'm on and so bland, I have had a lot of conversations recently around money and our wealth and our programs and pricing and, and making changes and playing a bigger game and stepping it up and changing the experiences that we provide for clients and, and making big changes in our businesses and streamlining and Systemising. Like both Blair and I do a tremendous amount of work in the background that you do not see on our businesses, on our own healing journeys to stand in our own worth. And, you know, I want to actually start by acknowledging and celebrating both black and IFA for continuing to always choose to do this work. And if you are somebody who chooses to do this work, I'm going to acknowledge and celebrate you too, because I fucking know and blend knows that this ain't always easy. And if you've been on this podcast for as long as you have, you know that, you know Blair has has been very resilient throughout the last year of a lot of things happening in her life and a lot of grief and, and I am going through a tremendous amount of change and really embodying my resilience to be able to navigate to point to 2.20 that we spoke about in the last episode that we had out. So let's talk money and worth let's dive into that and how that shows up in our business and how it helps us with our success. I think that's a cool combo bluff.

I think I think this is such a great topic. Okay, so something I want to acknowledge. And it took me a while to understand and the fact that I'm publicly admitting it has been something that's really helped me, but I have money trauma. I have money trauma. I had parents who were very successful my dad was a diamond dealer in the 80s a jewelry appraiser we did very well but he developed an addiction. And that addiction room the family room the business like sold everything and beyond any left our family and then my mother was a single mother who wants to give us a specific life us as in me and my sister and worked very hard to put us through private school and give us lessons and we had a lot of support from the community and our pillars. But my mother had money trauma because she was living a certain life and wanted to give my sister and I a certain experience in this lifetime. And so her she worked beyond full time she worked like sometimes six, six and a half days a week. Like to offices as a dental hygienist, and they do well, dental hygienists do well, she worked very hard to give us this life in the way where she sacrificed doing things for herself, going, like, you know, we'd go out for dinner, but we had to order certain things on the menu or only had to drink water. We did things in a way. But my mother had such money trauma, and was so careful about where she spent her money that I was surrounded by it. And I never really understood properly, how to save how to invest. And so I had this issue with not wanting to make too much money, like I didn't know this, but I felt like I just need enough money to survive. And what do I want to do to survive? I never set goals in my adult life on how much money do I want to make, to live the life I want to live? Right? It was me doing math, but what are my bills, how much your groceries and like, a little bit extra spending money in that to that. And I thought, Okay, well, then then then that's all I can make. And as an entrepreneur, and as a business owner for 14 years, over the last few years, I've actually acknowledged my money, trauma, and I'm doing the work to understand money and making money. And being comfortable with making money and being comfortable even talking about money, and understanding my worth, because all the time and energy I've put into building my systems and my business and my process, and strengthening my resilience muscle and becoming the thought leader that I am is very valuable, and I am worth it. And that I don't have a nine to five, and I don't have a salary and that I am in control of my money. And I'm in control of not only how much I charge, but how many clients I bring on, and where I spend my money and how to save my money. And if I want to take money from savings and invest in something that's going to further my career. But I was so scared of that. And I think that's the first place to start is that a lot of us have money trauma, a lot of us aren't trained like I remember in grade seven or seven or eight, we did a class we had a budget and we had to like look for an apartment a job. And like all these things, I remember using the classified paper and but I think that's all I remember about like learning about money in school. And there wasn't a lot of talk about that especially no emphasis on the entrepreneurial world. So I just want to know, I know I have money, trauma and continuously working through it. And I don't know if I'm ever going to be fully healed. But I'm on this learning journey about money, about not being scared of money, not being scared to make it not being scared to spend it. Because I know it is this thing that can always be made. Money can always be made. It can always be spent. It's like this resource. That before was very scary. But now it's just a tool so I can live the life I want to live. So I want to start by saying that. And if this is resonating with you, there are a lot of resources out there. And maybe that's a whole nother conversation about resources. But I started reading a book because of my one of my PR mentors. And it really just changed the way I perceive everything. So that's one thing. And as soon as I understood my money, trauma, and I understood my experience, as an expert, I realized I wasn't charging enough, I wasn't offering the right services. That's where I made a big shift into offering done for you services versus being a coach being a mentor, because I was capping out. I was having a capacity issue and I think a lot of your worth, and money has to do with capacity. Would you agree like capacity and, and money and worth all has to do with each other?

Yeah, 100% And also, like, I totally agree with you around, you know, like our relationship with money is something that is not talked about enough. And so many of us have severe trauma around our money and our money stories and our upbringing. And that story continues as we are in adult life and new trauma continues as as we are, you know, sort of building our businesses and, you know, like, I think that it's like all of this like melts together and we really have to be doing the work ourselves around understanding what are all the stories we tell ourselves about money, what what is the money story that we grew up with what stories have and beliefs have we taken on from our parents around money and really building a new relationship with money where it's a positive supportive relationship like I remember quite a few years ago now. When I was studying, transformational coaching, we had a beautiful training and we we dove into our relationship with money and writing money a letter but like writing money, a letter on on like saying all the things you wanted to say to money as if you are talking to another person and so that was A really cool experience. So, you know, you could put pen to paper, if you feel inspired and start writing a letter to money. And from that to, you know, really think about like, if you would be in the most loving, caring, kind, compassionate, honest, authentic, supported and safe relationship with money, what would that energetic exchange be like, because really, money is an energetic exchange, above an all, all the things. So this can be a really cool like piece of exploration work that you can do that that I found like this is years ago when I started working on my money stories, and I continuously work on it. And bringing that back into capacity. And what you said, bless that I totally agree, I think, you know, we, so many of us, we make decisions based on how much money you know, as entrepreneurs, like, let's keep it an entrepreneurship, like, we sort of feel like, okay, I need this much money, right, and then we're like, I need this much money. So I'm gonna sell this thing or this program for that price. And then that is the money that I get, but often, we don't look at our capacity. And when we are not fully in our worth, we might not be charging our worth and setting our standards fairly low, because we believe that people are only going to be doing that or that it's safe for them to pay that. And so what ends up happening is that we, we are required to take on a lot of work for less money. So we have a lot of energetic output, but not the equal amount of energetic input, when we're looking at money and capacity just in terms of energetic exchange. And so this can create resistance, and this can lead to burn out. And fuck, here's the thing, when you're burnt out, when you're stressed out and stretched when you when you are over, you know giving and not charging, you're like not standing in your work, not charging the value of your work not being clear and owning the value of your work. What ends up happening is that you can turn the taps off, and clients stopped coming in. And people don't have the experiences that you want them to have, because you're fucking burned out. And you can't show up the way you want to show up. And ultimately, the taps turn off and you start to put yourself in another situation where you create new trauma around money because now you don't have money coming in as an entrepreneur. And then we're dealing with all sorts of other things, fun things that are coming with that. So. So there's so many layers to this conversation, and to this topic of money and wealth. But really, it comes down to doing that inner work, and also daring to even admit that there's pieces around your self worth.

There's areas that you might feel or think very poorly of yourself, and there is some healing to be done from whatever is coming up for you. And I can tell you a lot of things come up for me all the time. And I I adjust and I do the work and I don't avoid it anymore, I don't hesitate doing it anymore, I just do it because I see the benefit in shining light on anything that is is holding you back. And then the second you know you have light on it. The second you create awareness and clarity, you can make better choices and realign and step back into your worth and own your worth and adjust and then be like okay, what is my capacity actually, like, in order to honor my own capacity? And my worth? What are the prices? Right? Like, what's the standards I'm going to set and consequently what's the prices I'm going to charge for my services in exchange for my services at and then it's about going out there and standing in your fucking power around charging those prices and holding that standard for yourself. Even when that might also mean that not everybody is going to be willing to pay those prices.

But you can't serve everybody

And it's interesting because like Teresa and I have this conversation because we both have coaches, I have multiple coaches, I have a business coach, will Teresa's just like my best friend. And also like I learned from her, but I also have a PR coach, they helped me with publicity partnerships and, and sales, and structuring out my business. So I have a few coaches, but I don't like if there is someone or a group of people who are going to up level me, and I'm paying a certain amount, I started saying to myself, I'm willing to spend this amount of money on me, than other people are willing to spend that amount of money on them. And they can spend that with me. Because I'm getting that premium coaching. I am that premium provider of a service, and advice and guidance. And people are working with me because they want that premium experience. And, you know, there's lots of conversations about like, you know, it's kind of like not this hierarchy. But in like the coaching world, like there is like the source like there's coaches who come up with their own programs, their own methodology, their own systems, like you have a deputy, Teresa has this corporate background of taking a business from a seven figure business and eight figure business. She has strategic, she has these brilliant programs she's created. And from that she takes her corporate experience, but also layering in things that have worked for her things that have worked for her clients, things that she has learned from the various coaches she's worked with. And I can tell you, she's invested heavily in getting to where she is today. And I've seen her build a business, I've seen her do something in under two years that most businesses can't do in 10. Like in two years, you cleared over like you started making six figures, a lot of businesses don't even do that in the whole duration of their career. Teresa knows what's up. So she is worth spending the money. But then there's people out there, there's coaches out there who literally learn from a coach, and they take everything that the coach creates, and they just teach it to their clients at a lesser price. And I think there's a place for that for people who don't have an arm, you know, they don't have a budget, or they don't have like the, you know, the income to invest heavily. But where do you want your business to be? Who do you want to be in this world? What type of thought leader do you want to be if your dream publication put you on the cover of that magazine, and wrote a five page article about you? What do you want them to say? And what do you need to do in order to get there, because ultimately, we're all trying to be thought leaders, we all working to be thought leaders. In fact, we all are thought leaders, we're all working towards becoming recognized thought leaders, but you can't do it on your own, you really can't. You need support from mentors and coaches, you need a peer group, you can't do it on your own, you need customers, you need people who are willing to invest in you. And you know, I started my business 14 years ago, and I was charging like $250 to $500 a month for something now I charge between 30 505 grand a month for

Yeah, I love that Blair and I feel like first of all, thank you for acknowledging me and my wife and the work that I do. And I really appreciate that and I actually appreciate that about each other is that you and I really value each other's work. And what we do, and we learn from each other as much as we learn from other coaches and then we help each other based on what we learn. And then we bring it back together and and that is such a cool synergy to be in and like me, you're super creative, you come up with your own, you know, programs and and guidance, you make changes to your business all the time. Like I think there is something to be said about, you know, leaders that are really at the edge and always striving for for excellence and delivering these premium products and also the ability to take what you've learned and to integrate it into your own practices and then to to do that and bring in like melted all together and create something new and methodologies and systems and strategy and ways of being that then you can reflect back as a mirror to the people that are ready to receive that experience and receive that exchange is huge. And and I feel like there's a place for all of us right like I feel like you and I have a lot of very like like a high level of Mount of of specific specialized knowledge and And at the same time, we also are creating new ways of showing up and being in the world, which is really cool too. So very different experience than just learning the five step system to, you know, make better offers, and you know, that specialized knowledge to and, and, you know, there's teachable things. And like you said, there was people that are really great at taking what they learned. And then, and then creating, like taking that and basically teaching that to people. And that's really important too. And that's a type of specialized knowledge. But I feel like when you are an entrepreneur that is a creator. And that is avant garde, and that sense, and that comes up with new things and cool things, you really will get an I have found this, you will get challenged, both in your work off and with your money stories, for the mere fact that you are creating things that are new and experiences that are different, which means that you're daring to go first and stand behind your work behind your services, behind your knowledge behind your methodologies behind you wisdom behind your capacity to hold space for your clients and activate them and move with them and help them and support them in ways that they have not experienced before. Which means you're attaching value, and a price tag. That's what the world sees to something that people will not be able to fully maybe understand what it is until they're in it. So talking about having to do the fucking work to be able to stand in that. And that is why both you and I have multiple different coaches, and we take deep dives. And my deep dive yesterday with my coach uncovered that the program that I'm coming to have coming up strategic, that's about playing big to accelerate your growth as a coach, I was playing it small. When I set the prices, and then not up to my standards, they're not a representation of the value of my work. Nor am I standing in my worth. And, dang, that is hard to admit. But here I am raising my standards on how I'm going to deliver the program, raising my standards around my own worth, and adjusting my prices by doubling the before I launch. And now I'm gonna have to own that. And so, you know, that's a lot. It's,

it's honestly, Theresa part of the process, like, you've had your business with a job. And now you're, you know, for the past couple years, your full time, I'm always changing my prices, and it's uncomfortable. But then I thought to myself, if I'm willing to spend a certain amount of money with someone else, then why am I so scared to charge that? Why am I so yeah, like, like, Why? Why am I scared to charge what I just spent with my coach, and I realized, you know what, I'm actually like, at that same level as the coach, they just know different things than I know. And that's why I'm working with them. And sometimes they know a lot more. But sometimes I no more worried about certain things. And I was like, You know what, I'm just as good as the people I'm spending the money with, they just have, like, I have a reason for working with each of my coaches. For example, my business coach, I, I met through my PR mentor, and I watched him. I mean, I didn't watch him. I didn't want you to do anything. But he built multiple people that I follow and that I look up to built multiple seven figure launches for them. I've seen him do it. So I want to work with the source who made the people I follow who inspired me what they are today. And so knowing what he charges, he's coaching me and my pricing and we've had this conversation, it's like, why am I not charging, and I recently changed my pricing. And yeah, it was scary, going from a certain amount, pretty much doubling it, but also knowing I have that wiggle room because I'm not like a store with an MSRP where like, you know, I have a bottom line. I know exactly what my minimum is. And I think the worst you're gonna have is no. And then you say why not? And they might say I can't afford that. Well, what about if we go down and you negotiate? But I think knowing your worth is so important.

Yeah, and also something that you just said that I want to add here as well wrapping up this conversation. And because I think it's really important is that you know Whoever you're paying whatever you're paying them is really irrelevant in terms of, you know, their relation between you and them. And I think it's really important to not put people on a pedestal. And to, you know, bring this back to your worth, to see that, yes, like you have hired this coach for very specialized knowledge, I have hired my coach for specialized knowledge, specifically to where I want to go scaling my business to $50,000 months, like that is my goal. And the thing is, you and I have invested a set amount of money each month to be all on one time payment, I mean, we might have invested differently, but we've invested it not based on I'm spending this money. So I'm gonna I spent this money, so I make this money back, we are investing in it from I'm spending this money so that I can go from 10,000 to $50,000 a month or from from you know, maybe if you're in a different place in your entrepreneurship, maybe you want to go from $5,000 to $15,000 months, or from zero to $10,000 months, like really like your investment is from this place off, off. Ya like knowing and believing that this investment will help you severely up level and it's not about, you know, somebody being better than you, and you're lesser than them, because fact is you all equal unless you put people on pedestals. And then you can just take them down from the pad of stolen and just level again. But ultimately, the investment is about believing that investing in what you're investing in, will help you get you to where you really desire to go. And you believe that you can have that. And by putting skin in the game, you're also going to be highly invested to show up and do the work because the thing is, no coach or mentor is going to do the work for you. Like you got to do the fucking work, right? Like you got to show up for it, you got to integrate it, you got to implement it, you got to walk through the things and and so this is just some of the things that came through just a conversation I had with my coach yesterday. And and when he said like, you know, what's the what's the place that you're investing from? Like what you know, like, it's not a place of scarcity of like, Oh, now I have to make the $5,000 every month to be able to pay this? No, it's like I'm investing this money because it's going to help me make $50,000 a month.

Yes. Okay. Wow. Oh my god, this episode, I can't wait to re listen to it. You know, what I often do out there listeners. I often like really well, first of all, Spotify. If you're on Spotify, you know, every year they do like the Spotify wrapped at the end of the year. Well, this year, I was so sad because I didn't my dissecting success was not in my top podcast because I was listening on Apple. So now I refuse to add not be in my top five for Spotify. So I make sure I listen to every episode on Spotify. But and I always listen to it. I'm like, fuck, this is such a good episode. And like, I forgot, I'm listening to us. This is so important. So I will I think we should end this with a question. If you are like a assignment. Let's see if you understand the assignment. If you've been thinking about raising your prices, but you've been on the fence, just do it. What would happen if you increase your prices by like 50%? Or if you double them? The worst that's gonna happen is a no. But we invite you to increase your prices. Because there's a really good chance you're not charging enough. And let us know how that goes. Let us know when you sign on that client at your new rate because we want to fucking celebrate you tag us on social media. Send us an email, let one of us or both of us know that you listen to this episode. We inspired you you increase your prices and now you're making more money because you know your worth. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of dissecting success. Super Rad to dissect it with you talk about your worth. And until next time, my friends peace

that's a wrap for another episode of dissecting success. enjoyed this episode. Make sure to subscribe to Blair Kaplan Venables and Teresa Lambert's podcast dissecting success on the App Store.