Broke Ass Decisions

A little note before we begin…

If you’ve just found your way to my Substack, welcome! If you’re having a moment of déjà vu, no, you’re not seeing things.

The behind-the-scenes reality check

There’s one thing that’s annoyed me about launching this Substack: I don’t have a bank of content sitting here yet. So when I point people this way, I’m painfully aware they land on a page that’s giving… crickets (not the vibe I was going for tbh)

So I’ve decided to fix that the honest way. Over the next week or so I’m uploading some of my favourite editions of A Letter to My Readers. It’s my monthly series where I basically use this newsletter as free therapy and take you behind the scenes of the highs, the lows, the wins and the losses of working for myself.

If you’ve never read these, you’re about to see them pop up (enjoy!) If you’ve read them before, then no, you’re not going mad, they’re repeat editions. I just want to bulk this place out a little so it feels like the home it’s going to be.

Right, let’s get on with it. 🖤

When broke-ass-thoughts lead to broke-ass-decisions

Let me set the scene: it was early spring (which, let’s face it, is basically a less harsh winter in the UK). I was on my morning walk, wearing 1,000+ layers of clothing, listening to the Hello 7 podcast by Rachel Rodgers, when suddenly, I felt like I’d been slapped in the face.

Rachel was explaining a concept that resonated with me on such a personal level that I felt like she was quite literally talking about me.

She was asking her listeners if we’d been making what she called “broke-ass decisions” — decisions rooted in scarcity, fear, and lack, rather than in confidence, abundance, and self-worth.

Here’s how Rachel describes a B.A.D. (Broke-Ass Decision): it’s a decision that:

Steals your time and energy

Makes you feel weak, insecure, and trapped

Eliminates options rather than creating them

Basically, a broke-ass decision is any choice that leaves you feeling broke, whether financially, emotionally, or both.

Now, it’s worth noting that, leading up to this “wake-up call” moment, I’d had a few tough months in business.

The first quarter of 2024 (Q1) was, in a word, AWFUL.

I’d just closed down my coaching programmes and was focused on building my new flagship product, The Collective, from the ground up. I was working 14+ hours a day to make it happen.

Meanwhile, my husband was also overloaded with work (never helpful when both adults are barely managing to hold it all together under one roof), and on top of that, I was owed thousands of pounds in payments from clients and brands. Nightmare.

Being this snowed under meant I hadn’t been able to zoom out and see the bigger picture for quite a while. In my mind, all I saw was a mountain of daily tasks, looming deadlines, and bills to pay. But the reality was that I was building something I’d eventually be proud of.

The money I was owed would come through (even though it felt painfully slow), and I had so many exciting plans for the business for the remainder of the year. I just couldn’t see through the fog.

The thing is, when you’re that deep in the weeds of your business and everything feels like it’s barely hanging together, you can find yourself slipping into broke-ass thoughts — and they can lead to broke-ass decisions.

The worst part? You won’t even notice you’re having them because these decisions often feel like survival instincts in the moment.

The truth is, looking back, I can see clearly that I should have hired freelancers to help me with The Collective from the start. Trying to shoulder every single task myself was neither smart nor clever. Working 14-hour days every day isn’t sustainable for anyone, and it was unsustainable for me.

I should’ve also pushed back The Collective’s launch date. After all, I set my own deadlines, and there was no real reason for me to push myself to the breaking point just to meet a launch date that could have been rescheduled.

So, what held me back from making these decisions?

I realised I’d been operating from a place of scarcity.

The money I was owed had thrown off my business’s monthly income, and I was feeling uncertain in a way I hadn’t felt in a long time. I was in this rare but very real state of financial stress, and I became VERY nervous about spending money on new hires or pushing back my launch (and therefore delaying a new income stream).

These nerves started colouring my decision-making process in subtle ways. Because I didn’t want to increase expenses, I held off on hiring the support I needed. I kept that initial launch date fixed, even though it meant putting myself through a marathon of long days and missed weekends.

As a result, I found myself making a lot of broke-ass decisions that ultimately left me feeling broke, both emotionally and financially.

Listening to Rachel describe this concept on her podcast was like a light bulb going off for me. It made me realise just how easy it is to fall into these patterns without even noticing. And even though it stung to admit it, she was right — I’d been making broke-ass decisions left and right.

After hearing Rachel call me out on her podcast (or at least, that’s what it felt like!), I made a conscious decision to turn things around.

I’d love to tell you that I snapped my fingers, and suddenly all my broke-ass thoughts vanished. That I started investing in my business again and instantly made only “million-dollar decisions.” But in truth, it was a gradual shift. This new mindset took months to take root.

And in the spirit of transparency, it became a lot easier to have fewer broke-ass thoughts once my clients finally paid me, and my revenue went back to normal. Having that safety net again made it much easier to stop worrying and to make decisions from a more positive, abundant mindset. But even before the money came through, I made a few changes that helped me out of the scarcity rut I was stuck in.

Here’s what I did to pull myself out of this slump:

I wrote down every broke-ass decision I’d made in my journal. This wasn’t easy to do, and I’ll be honest: some of those entries made me cringe. But writing them down forced me to face the ways in which I’d been holding myself back and gave me a starting point for changing my habits.

I asked myself what decisions I would have made if I’d approached each challenge from a place of abundance. Instead of seeing each problem as a huge, unmanageable mountain, I started breaking them down and asking, “If I felt secure and supported right now, how would I approach this?”

I made a new list of decisions and tasks I was going to tackle from this new mindset. This became my “million-dollar list,” and it included hiring freelancers, shifting my launch date, and restructuring my work days so that I wasn’t chained to my desk from dawn until dusk.

Since then, I’ve taken real steps to stop making those broke-ass decisions. I recently hired a freelancer to help me revamp my marketing funnel, I brought on a new thumbnail designer to up my YouTube game, and I even hired a full production team for a new project I’m working on. I can say with confidence that, right now, I’m not making broke-ass decisions.

That said, I’m also fully aware that this might not always be the case. The real test will come when I hit a financial or emotional rough patch in the future. Will I be self-aware enough to recognise those broke-ass thoughts before they spiral into decisions that don’t serve me or my business? I’d like to think I will, but I guess we’ll see, right?

If any of this sounds familiar, I highly recommend checking out this video where Rachel Rodgers’ explains the difference between broke-ass thoughts and million-dollar decisions.

Thanks for sticking with me through this reflection. It’s not easy to share the behind-the-scenes struggles, but I hope that by opening up about my experience, I can inspire you to look at your own decisions a bit more closely.

Here’s to making fewer broke-ass decisions and more million-dollar ones 🤑.

Speak soon 🖤

Jade x