How to Brainwash Yourself Into Being Good With Money

Hey team,

I’ve been thinking about something Sarah Robb said to me, for a couple of weeks now.

“Your brain doesn’t care about what’s true. It cares about what’s repeated.”

We were talking about the trap of burnout, and how often ambitious people get there through self-sabotage loops.

(Skip straight to listening to her episode of the Making Cents podcast on YouTube here, or Spotify and Apple Podcasts, if you’d like. It’s a good one!)

Now, her point was that we often accidentally brainwash ourselves into being stressed, or having negative self-talk, or even being bad with money just by constantly telling ourselves that we are.

We tell ourselves a story often enough, and it doesn’t need to have any evidence behind it.

We simply repeat it enough, and our brains accept that repeated mantra as true.

But what if… we take that, and flip it?

What if we take that understanding of how our brains work, and use it to brainwash ourselves into achieving what we DO want, instead?

Here’s something that took me too long to work out, but was a gamechanger when I did.

Your weakness is your biggest strength.

Your biggest strength is also your weakness.

So, for me, I have a great strength in that I am not at all afraid to give things a crack.

Have an idea, let’s go, it’s in motion by that afternoon.

It has brought me so many opportunities, and challenges, and meant I started things like this here business. And man, do I love my working life, all thanks to me saying “ok, let’s give it a shot!”

My weakness?

Uhhhm I’m really bad at finishing things. Or, I end up starting too many things at once, and then get overwhelmed, panic, and stress myself to the max because I don’t want to let anyone down by abandoning the new projects.

That’s ok! Because now I understand the two sides of that coin.

I make sure I talk things through with someone I trust, before I start, just to get a sense check of whether it’s a project that is valuable enough to give my time to it.

I also have people who work for me who are wonderful at keeping me on track, and helping me stay organised enough to get over that finish line.

There are systems in place to manage my weaknesses, so that I can embrace my strengths.

And frankly, all of that has helped me brainwash myself into saying “I’m a successful business owner!”

Which is a wild thing to say, from someone who never considered herself the entrepreneurial type.

But I focused on my strengths, reminded myself of them often enough, and didn’t repeat my weaknesses to myself so much that I crippled myself with overthinking.

Several things can be true at once, and we have to choose the stories we tell ourselves.

“I’m just bad with money.”

“I’ll never get ahead.”

“I’m not a numbers person.”

You’ve probably said at least one of those to yourself at various times.

Actually, I still don’t consider myself a numbers person. But I have forced myself to embrace them, even though I run them very carefully, and triple check my results.

But how do we flip those scripts?

“I’m just bad with money” - “I’m still learning”.

“I’ll never get ahead” - “I don’t have much to lose, so have the freedom to try”.

“I’m not a numbers person” - “I’m great with words, and can choose the learning style that works for me”.

So many of the things we tell ourselves aren’t true to begin with. Even the things that have a kernel of truth to them, don’t have to stay true.

But repeat them often enough, and we’ll put ourselves in a cage of our own making.

And Sarah Robb? Well, she’s a mindset coach that has seen this in action so many times.

With her clients, who are successful, hard-working people, but are also struggling to turn their success into a life they actually enjoy living.

Because if you tell yourself that you only have worth when you’re working yourself into the ground, there’s no amount of work that will ever feel enough to you.

And if you tell yourself that you need to be spinning 20 different plates in order to be productive, you’ll also find a way to start spinning 25 different plates.

Sarah helps people change the way they operate within the world, so that the same actions create a very different way of feeling about their job, and their own success.

And it means you can stay ambitious, and work hard, without putting yourself through the wringer constantly.

The ambition without the burnout - it’s on the latest Making Cents podcast on YouTube here, or get it in your ears through all the podcast apps, including Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

The unexpected smash hit of my podcast so far this year?

Me telling you about how I spent an insane amount of money, $89,000, on solar power and an electric car. And then telling you how to do it for a quarter of the price.

Turns out a LOT of people are thinking about solar, and really appreciated the guide of what worked, and what didn’t.

You also asked for a follow up on how to know if solar would be right for you, and how to run the numbers for your own situation.

You want it, you go it!

First up, catch up with the previous episode if you missed it, for how I installed solar 18 months ago, and am now getting a return that’s higher than the sharemarket.

Then, make sure you’re subscribed for the follow up, that drops on Thursday.

When is solar a good idea, when will it simply NOT work, the simplest ways to run the numbers for your situation, and then where is solar generation going in the future?

It’s out on Thursday, so make sure you’re subscribed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.

Until next time.

- Frances

P.S. I’m a financial journalist of over 10 years, and qualified as a financial advisor, specialising in investments.

However, please remember that this newsletter is general educational information, and not individualised financial advice. If you’d like to talk to a financial advisor, I have a podcast on how to find a good one.