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Welcome to Make More Money Without Selling Your Soul. The podcast for bold entrepreneurs ready to simplify scale and reclaim their time. I’m Polly Lavarello, Evergreen scaling strategist and cushy business pioneer. Join me and my occasional guests as we explore the themes of wealth, selling and well-being, because building a business that works for you changes everything. Let’s dive in.

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Hello and welcome to the show. So let’s get into it. Shall we? Okay? Here’s what you need to know. You can have the most brilliant strategy, the sleekest offers, the most gorgeously curated brand. But if your money mindset is clogged with old stories, fear, guilt, or that sneaky little voice whispering, who am I to charge that? Guess what? You’ll keep hitting invisible ceilings, because here’s the truth that no one likes to talk about your business can only grow as far as your nervous system and beliefs about money will let it. Yeah, listen to that again. Your business can only grow as far as your nervous system and beliefs about money will let it. In this episode, I am sitting down with the phenomenal Lindsay grace to crack open what’s really behind those money blocks, the quiet ways they show up, how they mess with your momentum, and, most importantly, how to move through them so you can start making money like the cushy CEO, you actually are ready to shift some stuff. Let’s get into it. Hello, Lindsay, and welcome to the show. We’ve already been cackling before we even gotten started. So that’s always a good sign for anyone Lindsay, Lindsay grace, who’s meeting you for the first time, please introduce yourself. Who are you and what do you do?

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Hi, yes, we have been cackling. We’ve had a good laugh there. So my name is Lindsay. I am a mindset coach, and I love working with women, female entrepreneurs, and helping them get out of their own way, helping them become unstuck. And one of the topics that I absolutely love to talk about is money. So hence me being here today on your beautiful podcast.

02:08

I mean, yes, I mean, it’s called, make more money without selling your soul. And I shared with Lindsay before we got started, that there’s never actually been an episode on money blocks. So I’m really, really excited to have Lindsay on the show to talk about that, because I often talk about on the show how strategy is one thing, but if our kind of mind and body isn’t on board, we ain’t go nowhere. But I’ve never had anyone on who can talk about that with a level of expertise that I definitely do not have. So tell me, Lindsay, what got you into the world of money and money blocks and subconscious transformation and all the good stuff that

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comes with that. My own story, really, because I’ve never I started my entrepreneur, my entrepreneurship, my own business, three years ago as a coach, on the back of having quite a pivotal year in my life of breast cancer in 2019 and then the following year, just had this real awakening of, oh my god, it’s coaching that I want to do, and I’d always been stuck. So that was like an amazing kind of twist of fate, and a bit of a sliding doors moment for me. So it led me into coaching, which therefore then led me into making my own money, having my own money, managing my own money, and all that goes with being a freelancer entrepreneur. And there was a few blocks, and there was a few like, high cash months, then I’d spend it all high cash months, and suddenly it was got, you know, and just like, hang on a minute, there’s got to be something going on here. I’d always class myself as somebody that was quite good with money, but getting a set wage each month through corporate work, as you do, it was different, and it is different to kind of managing the highs and lows of being an entrepreneur that

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makes so much sense. There’s nothing like self employment to shine a light on the fact that we just do not know what we’re doing with our money, and any toxic habits we may have will definitely come to light, particularly because most forms of self employment are you know that your money is going to peak and trough and so there will be, you know, noticeable differences. Okay, so tell me more about that. What, how did you then, kind of dive into the space. What was the kind of, was there a particular person or a book or kind of, yeah,

04:07

this one book which I always reference, because I just quite like her. Now, you and I have started off giggling and swearing and being quite down to earth. So this book is pretty much that she’s called Jen Sincero, and you’re a badass at making money. So she’s just really easy to read. She talks about the subconscious mind. She talks about like makes you go, Aha. You know, there’s aha moments where penny dropped, literally, mine. Pardon the pun, the penny drops, and it all makes sense. So really enjoyed reading that she started me, and then, if I’m honest, I’ve just never stopped. I’m constantly reading and taking stuff in around money mindset, because I love the I love the energetic side of it. I love the subconscious side of it. I just find it very fascinating, and I also I’m just a bit of an advocate, because we’re not taught it in school. Yeah, we’re not taught it as kids. And I’ve got a 14 year old daughter, and I really try to, although sometimes she rejects that, Mom just leave, you know, but I do try to teach it. I just think, God, we’re not, we’re not taught to save or to spend it, or we’re not, you know. And again, when we were growing up, how many phrases, phrases did you have? Like, money is the root of all evil. Money doesn’t grow on trees. Oh,

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my goodness, yeah. No, I grew up with a mum who, even to this day, when I see her in a nice top, I’m like, Oh, that’s really nice top. Mom, she’s like, Oh, well, I found it on the floor of the charity shop, and it was like, 60% off. And it’s a really nice brand, but there’s always a story that goes with it. She can never just own it. And she was actually quite triggered when I once owned her saying, I look nice. I was like, Oh, thanks. She’s like, Is that all you’re gonna say? Thanks? I was like, yes. So you’re so right. Like, whether it’s between parents or society or school, there’s just, yeah, there’s so many toxic things that can come in. Aren’t there? And

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from zero to seven, that’s when we create all our beliefs and all our foundations of what the world is. You know, we our understanding of the world around us. We form most of our beliefs from the age of zero to seven. So if our caregivers, let’s say, were really bad with money, or they were very tight with money, or they were worried about money, or they had five jobs and then never just seemed enough to go around. We then model that then in our old adult life, in our older life, because that’s what we learn, and that’s the behaviors that we think, Well, that’s the norm. And again, why I find it so fascinating is, once you start uncovering and looking at you, I call it your money story, your money blueprint. Once you start looking at that, you’re like, Jesus Christ. Like, yeah, I’m being what my dad used to do. I’m doing what my granddad used to do. And then you’ve got that awareness then and now you can start to change, because work from awareness becomes that opportunity to change and to grow and to be somebody different, or to be the version of you with money that you want to be that suits you and serve you better. So

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what would you say, like, how does your money story impact how you show up in business? I know you briefly touched on the kind of holding on to money or but I’d love to delve into that a bit more, because I love for the kind of anyone listening right now, if you could share anything that would help them maybe identify where they may be at in terms of their money story, which maybe isn’t serving them or helping them right now. Are there any kind of key pointers you could share?

07:06

Yeah. So, exactly so. So, for instance, you grew up and it was a case of that money, or say, your mum and dad, Mrs. Jones, was up the road, and she had a nice Jaguar and a flash car. But your dad or your mum would always say, Who the hell does she think she is? Look at her up the road, Miss Jones, and they’d really bad mouth her and tear into her. Now, you’ve got a belief that having a lot of money isn’t that great, because people just judge you and think that you’re a shit person and like, Who the hell do you think you are? Get off your pedestal. So now in business, when it comes to making that 10k a month, or having an extra client that month, or charging maybe five figures, you know, high ticket in your subconscious, you’ve got a belief, yeah, but if I get rich, I’ll get disowned, or my dad really won’t like me, or I’ll get judged. So everything will always come back to the beliefs that we hold in our subconscious mind. And that’s why I call it a story or a blueprint, because it’s buried in there until we start unearthing it. But everything, if you look out on your life, if there’s something happening that you don’t like and something happening that you do, you’ve created it from your set of beliefs that you’ve got. So if, at the moment, for instance, you’re struggling with money, it will be down to a belief system that you have. Yeah,

08:13

okay, well, that’ll be confronting for some people, but yeah, okay, so with that in mind, if somebody’s listening and they’re thinking, okay, I can see parts of myself in this story. I can I can resonate with this. There is definitely work to be done around money. What does that actually look like as a process when they come to work with you? So awareness would

08:34

be the first thing that we’ll look at with my clients and really understanding like, what what was your childhood like? What do you believe? What are your beliefs about money right now? And even that in itself can be a massive like turning point, because a lot of us are just on autopilot, and a lot of us don’t challenge our beliefs or even question it. My dad used to say money grow. Money doesn’t grow on trees. So I carried that with me into an adulthood. I would say that now, now I don’t say it, because to me, that’s reflection of scarcity, and also, like, a bit of fear, of like, well, you don’t grow on trees, hold on to it, whereas now I want to live in an abundant world, so I don’t want to be saying things like that, because I’m like, yeah, there’s loads of abundance. Abundance is everywhere. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s there for the taking. So I just have to change my way of thinking, and that’s what we start to do with my clients. So yeah, awareness would be the first one I do something called belief coding, which is working with the subconscious. So again, we go in and kind of rearrange the beliefs that you’ve got and coding more empowering beliefs. And you also, I also work with energies as well. So EFT tapping is something that I like to do as well to help with shifting stuck energy.

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And I’ve done work like this before, but knowing that not every listener will have done and I imagine they’ll have, I remember one of my hesitations around doing this kind of work was, will it be like therapy where you’re kind of spilling your life story out? Yeah, and yeah, would you like to expand on that? Because I think it’s a really relevant piece. Yeah,

09:56

no, it’s not so coaching for me is very different. To therapy in the sense of, if you want to sit in front of me and you want to talk about your life and kind of hash over in that way, then obviously I’m open and I’m a safe space to do that. But for me, coaching is really pinpointing where the block is. Because most people come to me when they’ve hit a ceiling, whether that’s a financial ceiling or a success ceiling, they just can’t get past it. I don’t know what it is. Lindsay, I’m hugely ambitious. I know what I want. I just can’t seem to get it. It’s like an invisible block. That’s where I step in. Then, because that is a subconscious programming that’s going on, we spend 95% of our day from the subconscious mind. So if 95% of your day is working from the subconscious, then guess what? What we’ve got in the subconscious? Do you even know what’s in there? Do you know what beliefs you’re holding on to? Do you know what beliefs make up? Your ideals about money, about success, about women having money. You know, it was only in the 1980s that women were allowed to have their own mortgage without the husband signing it, isn’t it?

10:52

Yeah, I know. So society is, you know, we’re still catching up. So there is a lot of conditioning that we have as women, which means that we’re almost, as I say, running off an old computer program, or in a robotic state of just, well, this is what I’ve been told. This is what I do. Hang on a minute. Let’s stop we’re going to just tear things up a little bit here and do it how you want to do it. Yeah,

11:12

yeah. And it is amazing, like you say, having that awareness of the stories we tell ourselves, because what you were sharing earlier on about beliefs and how they influence our kind of behavior. For example, if you don’t feel you ever have enough money or that you won’t hold on to money, it will then influence your actions around money when you receive it, even if you I guess, what a good example of that is, is lottery winners, right? How many lottery winners end up worse off than they were before their lottery wins. Because

11:43

the feeling, the reason for that is the money is unfamiliar. So the brain loves familiarity. So if you’ve always earned 40k now, all of a sudden, you’ve got 2 million pounds, your brain is going, Holy shit. What is this like? This isn’t safe. You know, then all those deeper beliefs of judgment, of fear, of rejection, of, you know, losing it all, etc. There’s lots of fears that come into play there. So just get rid of it. So that’s why I think it is like 80% of lottery winners just end up losing it all. They make bad, bad investments, They gamble it away, they spend it rapidly. Give Yeah, give it away. Basically, get rid of it.

12:16

And I’d love to hear speaking of kind of people’s experiences with money and doing this work. Are there any kind of stories you’re able to share around the kind of way you’ve supported clients in terms of where they arrived at and where they came to in the process of working through those money

12:33

mindset blocks? Yeah, one client that just jumped out as you asked me there, she came to me and she already had a successful business. Because I love working with female entrepreneurs. And as we were going through our sessions, it came to light that she had this business idea that she’d basically been sat on for two two years. And once we started uncovering it, I was like, this is genius. Like, why aren’t you doing that? And it came down to a set of belief systems about, like, having her limit of money, like the money she was earning right now, that was her limit. Her she I call it a thermostat as well. She couldn’t move past it because of the beliefs that she’s got. You know, she wasn’t worthy of any more, or she might lose it if she had more of it. So once we did the work around that of feeling safe to have more money, and feeling safe to not be judged with this business idea and taking a risk maybe as well, and the failure that’s possibly involved in it, but also flipping it around and going, Yeah, but what’s the best that could happen? You know? And we visualize, and we work on that as well. But she’s now stepped out into her industry with this business idea, and honestly, she is flying like, you know, I don’t we stopped working together about four weeks after this revelation, but we’re still in contact Anna Sierra on social media. And it’s she’s doing so, so well, but she’d sat on this business idea, this gold mine mind, for about two years, and it was simply because she was so, you know, she had so many limitations around launch, at birth in it, you know, bringing

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out to the world. I mean, that’s a really delicious example of, like, the whole premise that strategy can only get you so far if your mind and body’s on, not on board, you’re not going to go there. And I believe a lot of people, most likely are sat on gold mines, if they could unlock those parts of their minds and that resistance, right? And I think I heard you share on a different platform that you need to kind of almost be a bit delusional when you step into what you’re looking to take more of, right?

14:26

You can’t create from what you’ve already got. You can’t create from past, you know, past experiences and your current reality as well. Your current reality is only the thoughts that you had yesterday, the thoughts that you had last year. So to create, like a million pound business, you have to step into the identity of that woman that has that business already. How does she show up? What beliefs does she have? What attitude does she have? What habits does she have? She goes to the gym at six o’clock every morning. She drinks this she you know, she has a belief that money is easy to make. You have to embody that version of and this is a lot of the work that I do in my client’s identity. To work is you step into the identity of that successful self, because creating from her vision is going to be more powerful than creating from your current limitations and what you can only see in your reality. And that’s why delusion kind of steps in there

15:13

a little bit. Yeah, and having kind of done similar work, as in being on the receiving end myself in the past, I know energetic work is amazing and exhilarating, and it tinkles all my dopamine bells, and sometimes it can almost get a little bit like tiring, particularly when the reality isn’t immediately matching up. But I’ve heard you talk about in the past about how you balance that with nervous system work to kind of be able to sustain what we’re carrying energetically would could you share more about that?

15:43

Yeah, definitely. So I personally, really like this breath work. So nervous system regulation, the mind, body, soul, is all connected. So if your body doesn’t feel safe to have that visibility, have that success, then again, that’s where the limitation comes from. So you want to, you know, you’ve heard of fight or flight. It’s basically not being in the fight sense or the faune. You want to be in a nice, neutral state where the body feels safe to do that. And there’s lots of ways you can do that. There’s breath work, there’s cold water immersion, there’s exercising. But I really like EFT tapping. So it’s where you tap on energy points of the body and the meridian points, I find it super quick. I’m quite an impatient person, so I don’t do long sequences, but I find that they ground me, they bring me into my body and into my mind, and they also help me rewire and shift any kind of beliefs that are just like that’s not serving me today. You know, I

16:39

love that. I love that, because I think it’s so important to balance the two. Because certainly when I first kind of went into kind of the whole manifesting energetic space, that’s why I went a bit wrong. And I kind of almost went so high into the sky with all these kind of exciting beliefs that I almost burned myself. It was almost like Icarus getting too close to the sun. But then when I discovered nervous system regulation work, I was like, Ah, that was a piece I was missing. I needed to kind of feel safe in my body to receive this. And when you combine the two, it’s amazing. So I love to hear that you’re kind of balancing the two and EFT, for anyone who doesn’t know. So it’s the modality that Boy George made famous on TV. Was it two years ago or something? It was on, I’m a celebrity tapping, and had everyone saying, what is EFT? It’s amazing. I love to hear that. So if someone’s listening and thinking, Okay, I’m at a stage where I want to grow my business. I love the concept of sitting on a gold mine that I could be unlocking. But, you know, should I be diving into that? Or should I be writing a book? Or should I be, you know, you know what I mean. We’re always thinking about, what’s that next thing we should be investing in? How would you help somebody recognize why now might be the right time to focus, you know, and lean into support like your own, to help them through this kind of work. And is this kind of work they need to be doing for a long time, or is it kind of a six week transformation, like, what does it look like to kind of, really, truly become a master of money? So

18:06

my transformations are around three to six months that I try to stay with my clients a little bit longer. In the sense of, when you’re working with the subconscious mind, you can take 10 steps forward and then five steps back. You know, it’s a bit of a process, because you’re basically reprogramming, rewiring, training the brain in a different way to think. And there can be resistance to that, because the brain is like, no, no, I don’t want to be rich because it’s scary over there. I might get rejected, so I’ll stay over here, and I’ll stay in my comfort zone. And I think that’s really what I’m hearing between the lines here is a lot of women, especially, can fear judgment or juggling too many plates. You know, a lot of us are mums and households, and so there’s a lot going on, but it’s about, are you fulfilling your potential? And something that I love to say, and I’ll leave with your your listeners here, is, if you’re on your death bed as 109 year old woman, what is going to be the highlights and what are going to be the regrets? And what are you going to look back on and say, I’m so glad I took that risk. I’m so glad I worked with Lindsay and we got this done. Shameless plug, but no, no, it is really a great visual to have that and go, Oh my God, I don’t want to be in this corporate job for another 40 years. Oh gosh, I can’t think of anything worse. Okay, then, so you don’t want that. So a great way of moving towards something is, what are you moving away from? So yeah, my motivation is, I never want to go back to corporate. Please don’t send me back there. Please don’t, you know. So my motivation is, how can I make my business sustainable, successful and abundant in all the ways which means I don’t have to go back. So I’m not actually running towards the money and the success personally. I’m running away from, if you like, not going back to that. So there’s two drivers and motivations that people can

19:50

have, yeah, yeah. And I love what you talked about when you mentioned, like, long term support, because my experience of it is you’re I don’t want to compare myself to an onion, because they’re a bit sting. You. But I do feel like there’s an element, again, maybe a nicer analogy is going to the gym, that every time you achieve one thing, you’re kind of pushing yourself into the next stretchier space, right? So it’s kind of like you never just settle with one thing. You’re kind of constantly getting a bit outside your comfort zone. And I think that kind of work is similar in that every time you progress, like the version of you that’s never done the thing before, has triggers you don’t even know about yet, and has stories that you perhaps even have forgotten about for years, because you’ve not been confronted in that way, because you’ve not been acting and being in that way before. And I think that’s where having somebody you trust, supporting you through that process is invaluable, and somebody in your corner, and someone who’s seen you from day dot, who understands that difference in change? Because I think I’ve shared so many times on this podcast. I’m not a believer in like coach or mentor like hopping, and I always say, yes, it could be self serving to share this, but honestly, from my own personal experience, there’s a real value in who knows you, who knows your bullshit, and can call you out on it when they see it in you. And somebody brand new, a won’t necessarily have that confidence, and B won’t, more importantly, because most people probably will have the confidence, but they probably just won’t see it because they don’t know you well enough yet. So I love that you support people through that, because also growth is infinite, right? Like when once you unleash your new level of a Money Story, there’s just so, I mean, it’s exciting. I’m jealous of what you do. It sounds so freaking exciting. So basically, there’s never a bad time to start working on this stuff, right? Like, as soon as you’re self employed, if you want more money, start here. Yeah, these are your foundations, right? Yeah.

21:36

I mean, for me, I’m a mindset coach, so I love everything that covers the mind and that that is your potential, that is the limiting beliefs that you’ve got. You know, money is just one element of that, but money is quite a powerful element, because we all want it, you know, we all need it to a degree of having freedom. You’ll find a lot of entrepreneurs, their biggest value is freedom, and that’s a lot of the reasons why we start entrepreneurship, our own business, is to have more freedom in the beginning. It can be a little bit like, I’m not juggling this well. But again, we can look at mindsets around that, because mindsets around strategy, about time management, there’s all sorts, again, that I can help with. Really,

22:12

yeah, 100% Oh, I love to hear that, because, yeah, like you say, mindset from that I never have enough time, or I can’t do this. And, you know, recognizing how we get to choose, and people can get quite intimidated or triggered by how much choice we actually have and how much, like you say, accountability and responsibility we have for our own existence. Like of course, there’s some things further afield, I won’t mention, Mr. Tanned face, that we have very limited control over, but certainly, there is so much within our immediate life that we have so much control over. I’ve so enjoyed chatting with you today, Lindsay, I feel like you’re an absolute. Like I just I could talk to you all afternoon, but if anyone’s listening and or equally kind of girl crushing on you and thinking, how can they work with you, please share more. Like, I love

22:58

the girl crushing element. I’m like, oh, that sounds fancy, doesn’t it? That sounds cool. So come and find me over on Instagram. That’s my biggest kind of home, home from home, old IG Lindsay Grace coaching my Mac house, taking off over there at the moment, which is great, but yeah, come over and support me. Come over and say hello. I’ve got a free secret money mindset podcast launching very soon as well. So and I’ve got some group stuff and one to one happening in the immediate as well. So yeah, if anything has sparked your interest, then I’m, as you can tell, I’m an open down to earth Mancunian that likes to talk, and just come and give me a nudge and say hello. It’d be great, amazing.

23:34

My only regret with this conversation is there was way less swearing than I was hoping for. But you know, we thank you so much for your time today, Lindsay. I will be dropping all of everything that Lindsay just spoke about. There will be links in the show notes, so you can go check those out. Do go over and have a look at Lindsay’s account. It’s freaking epic, absolute kind of masterpiece in terms of how to create community over on Instagram. So do go check it out. And thank you. Finally, to you, Lindsay, for joining me today. Thank you. My love. Thank you. Well, that was a cracking conversation. I always, always love exploring everything around energetic, subconscious and nervous system, because who we are being in our business. I mean, that’s why I talk about being a cushy CEO. It’s not just about what we do, it’s how we think, it’s how we act in the world. It’s how we allow ourselves to take up space, and what we allow ourselves to receive beautiful, beautiful stuff. Next week, I’m going to be back in your ears with a solo episode where I’m going to be talking to you about how we’ve been incorporating AI into our business. So whether you’ve been thinking about how you can use AI in your own business, or whether you’ve been thinking about what it looks like when you have AI tools at your disposal. I mean, I’m curious to know. What questions do you have about AI? Please do reach out to me in my DMs and drop any questions you have. It’s something I’ve been. Quietly using in the background, and only recently started sharing the toolkit that I’ve been developing with my clients, and the response has been phenomenal. So there’s no more gatekeeping. I’m going to be sharing all but let me know what questions you have. I’ll be in your ears next week talking about AI, because not only can it improve your sales, it can improve your efficiency, it can improve your business on so many different levels. I believe my like running subscription with chat GBT is as essential as my running subscription with Canva. I believe both of them enable you to do everything about a minimum, 10 times as fast as you would be usually, and similar to Canva, there are so many ways you can get it wrong with AI. So we’ll be exploring all of that in next week’s episode. As always, if you enjoyed today’s episode, please subscribe. Please share. Please do. Just give the podcast all the love you can. It means so so much to me, and really helps these really valuable words reach more ears, which is what I’m here to do. I’m here to help as many people as possible. Thanks for listening, and I’ll be in your ears again next week.