Anxiety is a common emotion that most of us have experienced at some stage, if not on a regular basis.
Do you ever feel worried or anxious about money?
Do you worry that you don't have enough?
Do you ever dream about starting a new business or asking for a raise, but your anxiety about that holds you back?
Well, the good news is that the feeling anxiety and worry about money is optional. Today on the show, I have the lovely Vikki Yaffe from Vikki Louise coaching.
Vikki is a life coach and host of the F*ck Anxiety and Get Sh*t Done podcast.
Listen to the episode above or read the transcript below to learn a thing or two about how to stop feeling anxious and worried about money.
Transcript
Meaghan Smith 00:20
Today, we're going to be talking all about anxiety and worry, yay. Anxiety is a common emotion that most of us have experienced at some stage, if not on a regular basis. Do you ever feel worried or anxious about money? Do you worry that you don't have enough? Do you ever dream about starting a new business or asking for a raise, but your anxiety about that holds you back? Well, the good news is that the feeling anxiety and worry about money is optional. Today on the show, I have the lovely Vikki Yaffe from Vikki Louise coaching ViKki is a life coach and host of the Fuck Anxiety and Get Shit Done podcast. I'm very pleased to have her. Join us on the show today to help us learn a thing or two about how to stop feeling anxious and worried about money. Vikki, welcome to the show.
Vikki Louise 01:41
Thank you so much for having me. So happy to be here.
Meaghan Smith 01:45
I'm, I'm thrilled to have you here and can we just let the audience know where you are Vikki because you're not in Sydney, you're not just down the road.
Vikki Louise 01:56
Well, I did live in Sydney about 10 years ago. So Same we didn't meet them. But now I'm in England so it's actually sunny here but yeah, Sunny England.
Meaghan Smith 02:07
Yeah, it, it always, I love that when I interview people who are overseas because right now I'm sitting here with my jumper on from being bushwalking today it's night time. And it's beautiful and sunny where you are. But that's the beauty of technology and the internet.
Vikki Louise 02:26
I really think it is and especially when it comes to what we're going to be speaking about today and being able to connect like your listeners to different experts not even just in the same facinity but literally all over the world. I think it's very exciting.
Meaghan Smith 02:39
Yeah, well perhaps we could start Vicki and also I must say I hope I got your surname correct. I didn't even check if I pronounce it You better correct me if I'm wrong, Vikki.
Vikki Louise 02:51
We pronounced it yesterday, but it is spelt Y A F F E so I know that. Like it doesn't spell how it sounds. I
Meaghan Smith 02:59
Typical typical of me that is to stuff somebody's name up, but that's all okay. Am I feeling anxiety? Or maybe I am, we can talk about that. Alright, so Vikki, let's start by, can you tell us a little bit about you like, because I think I heard on a podcast, one of your podcast episodes that you actually have a background in finance. Is that right?
Vikki Louise 03:29
Yes, I actually. So I went to school, I studied economics at university, I went to finance I was doing all these certifications and qualifications and doing all these things on paper that were like, you know, successful and what I should be doing and kept having this resistance of like, is this everything is this what I really want to do? And I always wanted to work with people and help people and I remember looking at psychiatry and realising I had to do medicine and thinking, I don't think I'm going to do that. Now. At the time, I didn't know anything about coaching. And so I ended up in finance. And I actually left for a bit to go into tech and then went back to finance. And then I just decided for 2016. I was like, this is it. I had no one to help people I'd heard about coaching was not a big thing in England, my family thought I was bonkers. And friends are like, but what does that mean? And I was like, I'm going to be a coach I'm going to figure it out. It sounds amazing. And I just really went all in on what was I guess, a personal development hobby, and stepped into like, I'm gonna make a career out of this. And actually, interestingly enough, I also a year later found myself involved in like a tech startup. And that's when I started waking up with panic attacks. And that's when I started solving for my own anxiety and realising that there were no solutions out there. For someone like me, which I'm sure will speak about today how I help people with anxiety. I was really like, wait, it's like there's so many people in the world that have anxiety do what I did and go to Dr. Google read all the terrible things. I think there's something wrong with them think that medicine and doctors is the only thing and just put things on pause, which is why my whole work is like fuck anxiety and gets shit done the idea being like, master anxiety and pursue the things that you really want to pursue at the same time. And in fact, when we step out of our comfort zone, we are supposed to have anxiety. So yeah, that's my story in a nutshell.
Meaghan Smith 05:34
Yeah, that's a really interesting point about that. We're supposed to have anxiety when we're out of our comfort zone. I'd love it if you could talk more to that. But perhaps we could start by just giving us a sort of summary what exactly is anxiety and worry?
Vikki Louise 05:53
Right, I love this question because I literally googled it and there's so much comfort and misinformation to the point where when I, when you Google the definition of anxiety, it comes up with a sentence that says, anxiety is a feeling of worry, overwhelm or unease. And that doesn't mean anything. Like it's a feeling of feelings. How do I know when I'm worried or when I'm anxious? Or when I'm overwhelmed when I'm anxious? Like there's no differentiation out there? Like literally what does it mean? And no one's really giving any clarification on it. So one of the things I do with my clients is we define what anxiety is for them. And what I mean by that is where they feel it. So for example, for one client, it might be that anxiety for her is a pounding chest, a feeling of nervousness and a spinning in her head. Once she knows exactly what's happening, then when it happens, it's less confusing and overwhelming and, you know, anxiety inducing, because it's like, oh, I know exactly what's going to happen. It's not to say it's pleasant. It's not fun, but it's very different to go into this like oh, I'm experiencing anxiety and that means that my heart is going to pound a head is going to spin. And I'm going to be feeling nauseous. So really like everyone experiences anxiety can be experienced different. So for anyone listening that experiences anxiety, I really recommend you, like, define exactly what it is for you. So when you feel it coming on, instead of spinning in the like, oh, now I'm going to be feeling anxious. This is terrible. You're like, I know exactly what's going to happen. This is the part where, you know, I need to make sure I'm sat down, I need to put my head between my legs. I need to make sure I'm breathing out like I know what's going to happen. So you still feel in control with the anxiety, but I think it's really important. And a really good question you've asked because it is confusing, and it is vague, and it kind of feeds off that for all of us. So we don't really know what it is everyone speaks about anxiety, but we don't know if what I experienced is the same as what you experience. And then there's also a scale of like intensity. So really empowering people to do understand what their anxiety is is part of the work I do. Yeah.
Meaghan Smith 08:04
Yeah. And what I'm hearing you say and what we learn in the coaching world is that it's a it's like a sensation in our body. Because can we feel it in different places like so? That's what your saying. Like someone might feel it in their chest, whereas somebody else might feel it. I don't know. Like, maybe a whoosh in there. down their arms or,
Vikki Louise 08:26
Yeah, tingles and people get tingles. Some people also actually do throw up. Some people also need to go to the bathroom. Some people pass out. I mean, some people feel very, very hot. I used to wake up sweats when I was having panic attacks. And so it really is, I think this is one of the things that we just forget a feeling is something we feel. So anxiety is something that we feel and we feel it in our body in a different way to how we feel joy or how we feel anger or how we feel any of these things. And now obviously, the science behind it is okay, so hormones are released, our body goes into fight or flight thinks it's like keeping us alive. And it's giving us you know, higher alertness typically the ability to run faster for longer and feel less pain, because a reason why certain things are happening in your body. And it's kind of what kept our predecessors alive like all these like skills and tools that were highly useful when we were faced with a lion. And now we're, you know, sent we've sent an email with sat in our office and we're experiencing anxiety or maybe your clients, you know, they've got a bill or they've just paid a bill and that I mean, the anxiety and the ability to run faster, longer, feel less pain and be more on high alert is not helpful in paying a bill. So then we spin into like, what's wrong with me, there's something wrong with me, versus like understanding the science of why anxiety exists and why those hormones are released, and how our body's built this amazingly affect safe and efficient system when it thinks we're going to die.
Meaghan Smith 09:59
I know brain, can you just catch up with the modern world, please? helpful for all of us wouldn't it?
Vikki Louise 10:09
Really would but it's, I guess it's been refined for so long we will actually here's the thing we can we have to teach our brain but teaching our brain is very scary because we have to go against our brain. And most often we walk around in our lives like believing our brain, I call it believing our brains, BS our brains like we can't like what you said, we can't ask for this raise. They're gonna say no, they're gonna think we're greedy. And we're like, oh, that's true. Instead of like, of course, my brain is going to say that it doesn't want me to get rejected or fail or hear now and it thinks we're literally gonna die, things happen, because that that is what caused death for 40,000 years in the wild and longer, okay. And so our brains that we can't fail at something we can't hear. No, we can't step out of that comfort versus like, my brain thinks something terrible is gonna happen. If I asked for a raise, and I get told no, we have to ask for the raise anyway. Even if we get told no, we're teaching our brain that we can ask that question. Right? So it's like scary, but, and the anxiety is there, but we have to do it anyway.
Meaghan Smith 11:15
And so are there any common triggers? Or like, why do we feel so worried? Or why do we get so anxious?
Vikki Louise 11:24
Yeah, our brains one job is not to be happy all the time. Our brains one job is to keep us alive. That's its job. It's like, it's like a like, it's like a Mac computer, like a high, not even a Mac computer like a high speed, NASA level, technology, operational things going on inside our brains. And it just wants to keep us alive. I'll give you an example of I was going to speak on stage. This is like a few years ago, and I knew I was gonna say and I love to I was gonna say and I was already a coach. So I'd like done all my thought work and I was like, Yeah, I feel great. And then as I stood up for literally walking to the stage, my brain was like, What are you doing? We're gonna die, what are you doing? We're gonna die. And I was like, What? Like, I can't, and I could feel, you know, the heat in my body, my feet and I was like, well, this isn't supposed to be happening. And I literally didn't have time to recoach myself. But you know, to stop and pause, I was walking on the stage. And so instead of resisting it, I was like, okay, my brain thinks I'm gonna die. It's kind of amazing. I could feel all the sensations in my body instead of resisting them. And like all the tingles and everything and instead of it being something negative, it was something like actually quite positive. But it was so quick. It had it made me just realise like how powerful our brains are and how committed they are to keeping us alive, which is a great thing that our brains are programmed to keep us alive. That's really clever of them. But it can be very quick in terms of like the zero to 100 but anytime you brain thinks Or perceive any potential danger which can come in exposure in that case public speaking and or you know, putting your hand up in a in a boardroom meeting or asking for a raise anything like that. Also failure and rejection like all these things our brains are like, why would we do that when we just like chill in the cave just chill in the cave safe here, make a little fire hang out.
Meaghan Smith 13:25
So from what you're saying it makes total sense when you know sometimes I see a big bill coming in and my first reaction sometimes is to feel a little bit of concern like do you know if it's if there's a lot at the one time or this kind of feeling of I've got to put that on the credit card or something like that. But in actual fact, yeah, that's not going to kill me but how do how do we manage that? How do we manage that when that happens when we have this worry about you know, there's lots of people I know, I have quite a few listeners in the US and I know that over there, it's very common to have student loans like big student loans and credit card debt and consumer debt is really common. And so what do we do? I mean, it's makes sense, in my mind to feel worried about being in debt. So how do we manage it?
Vikki Louise 14:24
Was two things one is experiencing the emotion like I did with the anxiety just like allowing it to be there and not making it mean anything's gone wrong, but really just allowing it like, okay, I know why I'm worried and I'm okay with it. And the other is really, it's so interesting, because let's say 100 people have student debt in the US, not 100 people experience the same anxiety and worry about it. Because the the anxiety and the worry isn't coming from the student debt it's probably coming from, how much you believe you are going to be able to pay it back how much you believe you're going to be able to buy a home and pay it back how much you believe you're going to use put your kids in school, um, pay it back. Right? So it's not even about the loan, because we know that they're very common. I mean, all over the world debt is very real. It's really about, like how much you believe that you are able to pay it back. Otherwise, I think that's the main thing. And one of the things that we spoke about earlier that maybe you can mention now is, you know, I, myself, put myself in $25,000 of debt to invest in a master mind programme. And it was like, of course, I experienced some anxiety and some, like, while I did, but really in my core, I just had this belief of I'm gonna make that money back, even if I don't make it back through coaching, which I was like I am. But even if I didn't, I was like, I trust myself to make money in my life. Like I will always do what's necessary to make money, which meant that yes, there was still some, because our brains are wired so quickly to have that reaction. There was still some of that, and even throughout the two months, it took me two months to pay it back. So within the two months, I was like highs and lows and but really underneath it all was this like deep belief of I will do whatever it takes like this is not going to consume me for the rest of my life. So I'm sure like it's a very different amount to US student loans for sure. But the same principle applies, like do you believe you can pay it back? Do you believe you can get work? Do you believe you can cover your costs? And if you do, then the amount of debt is is just something that exists in our lives and often and I was having this conversation with someone like debt can literally create opportunities for us that maybe our bank account can't right now, what if it's not a bad thing because I was raised that debt was a bad thing. So even for me to to this, my, my husband, is a full time student. It wasn't like an easy way to live off him. We were moving countries. We were living in Austin, we were moving back to England like we have a lot. I had a lot of reasons to say no, to this. I had to really believe in it, because I really believed in that as you know through coaching like my beliefs showed up in my work, and I just kept stepping out of that comfort zone, kept creating opportunities kept, you know, refining my programme and all these things and making more offers and it just really didn't allow me to stay in the cave. I was like, Oh, I can't stay in the cave. My body's like, let's chill. I'm like, let's not chill, let's, let's figure this out. So it can also be a motivator, if you believe in yourself and your ability to pay it off, basically.
Meaghan Smith 17:25
Yeah, I, I can really relate to the story because and this might surprise some of the listeners actually, because I've never kind of mentioned this before, but I too went into debt to create an opportunity for myself. And it was a really eye opening experience because I had to really look at all my beliefs that I had about debt, and I got coaching on this too, which was really interesting, because I wanted to do some training and I didn't have all the money upfront to do the training. And so part of it, I felt like to do it when I wanted to do it, I needed to go into some debt. And I had so much anxiety over it, like I really just did not want to go in debt and I felt so resistant to it. And, you know, I only had to go into debt like it was around five to 10 grand, I think not even know I think I only ended up using about five grand, which I'll elaborate on in a minute. But you know, my coach, while she was talking to me, we ended um because I have investment properties. So I've got hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of debt, investment properties, and I don't have any anxiety about that at all. And it was so interesting that because I was using this money for something different to invest in myself. I started having all these thoughts about that this is wrong and feeling very anxious about it. And it's so fascinating to examine the way that you think about it because the debt that was much, much greater that I have for investing in a property, I have no thoughts about, like no negativity about it all and don't feel any anxiety about it. But to spend some money on training, which, you know, easily over time, I'll pay that money off no problem, like actually no problem at all. There was just, yes, so much stress and worry that because it wasn't, it was investing in myself, and I had to think about it in a in a new way. But in the end, I think it was the thoughts that changed. I don't know if I actually processed the feelings of anxiety. Maybe I might have just sidestep them. But do you do something with your with your clients like how to manage that on a day to day like if I came to you with this same sort of issue? What, how would you? You know, how would you work through this with me?
Vikki Louise 20:16
Yeah, so we definitely process the feeling and the emotions of it, but we also definitely uncover I mean, even as you're speaking, I'm like, yeah, debt on properties is normalised. We know, yeah. Why we don't have the same anxiety around it. It's kind of like, encouraged and then there's this other debt. We really think of it as different and even especially when it's like investing in ourselves. I think it just shows you how we've been socialised to think about things so really, on the one hand, it's feeling the feelings on the other hand, it's uncovering, I call it your inner crazy. Let's spend time uncovering all of your inner crazy because we spent so long resisting it we're like, I should be thinking good. I should be thinking positive. I should do an all of that is like putting you know, some rose petals on a pile of something terrible. And pretending like it's all pretty and it's like now underneath that is everything that we need to clean up. I'm just gonna say it I thought of vomit, vomit, it's like no, you need to clean up the vomit, right like the rose petals aren't going to do it. And really in so often, this is why I love coaching and because when we are left to our own devices with our own brain, we're more likely to do the rose petals, I'm just gonna put the rose petals on top, everything's fine. Everything's good instead of going into the inner crazy and giving it time to speak because what an amazing thing happens when we spend time uncovering our inner crazy and that's like so that's like our cavewoman brain. And then our prefrontal cortex brain gets exposed to all the crazy chatter in our primitive brain and we stopped believing it. But we have to be brave enough because so often people will come to me and be like, I don't want to let it out in case it makes it true. Like no you aren't letting it out, you are making it true, we need to do the opposite. And so really uncovering all of your thoughts and all of your fears and everything that was really like stopping you and blocking you, and what you're making it mean about yourself what you're making it mean about the training and about your future and what you are capable of. Because really the $5,000 debt is, as you know, it's something neutral in the world that we take on debt or we don't, but really underneath are all the stories that you carry around about yourself. Anyway, maybe it's about like, Am I worth investing in myself? Do I do nice things myself? Or it can be? Am I going to get a return on this training? Do I you know, some people will say to me, I don't trust myself, to do all the to do all the work, things like that. Like do you have that underneath it so really uncovering for you what's the flavour of self talk, that we want to clean up and shift not just to pay off that debt, but it's going to try and that's what I love about coaching is also not just to pay off that debt, but fixing all of that is going to allow you to grow as a person?
Meaghan Smith 23:01
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And that was exactly what I found in this situation, because, because that's the thing. I mean, the training was a lot more than $5,000. But I had, you know, earned money to pay for it. And but because I didn't have the full amount upfront, just the way that you're describing, it's exactly what happened. It's like my primitive brains going warning, warning danger. Don't do this. Don't get yourself into debt. You know, for goodness sake, you've got a podcast about money. But at the same time, like when I kind of dropped all that and just looked at it deliberately, it's like, well, let's look at the facts here. In actual fact, I've paid for almost all of it. Going into a small amount of debt means that I can do the training now, not in another 12 months time, like right when it's totally suitable for myself and my family with everything that's happening. Just in our lives. And also, I just will never forget one conversation I had with my partner where I was saying, Yeah, but I don't want to use that. I don't want to go into debt for it, you know, because what if we just run out of money and, and he sort of looked at me and he's like, Meaghan, we earn money every fortnight I we can easily pay that off. I mean, it's always like your what do you think's going to happen? We're going to die and be destitute on the street, but, but that's the inner crazy, that's where my brain goes when I let it just run wild. And it's um, yeah, I think it's really relevant to talk about this because I think that in the, you know, I'm in a lot of sort of groups and follow people on Instagram who are all in what's it called the FIRE movement and all these sort of things where it's like debt is bad, but in actual fact, I don't believe that in in a sense, you know, it's debt helps me earn an income every year, like I earn this big income every year from the properties that we own. And we're in debt from that. And then, I mean, I'm not suggesting that I'm just going to go out and buy some $5,000 handbag. I mean, but you know, maybe I could do that. But when it's, it's really interesting to point out because I think that this is something that people face when they hold themselves back because they're so scared to go into some debt, but there's so many things in our life, like you said that are normalised like when we go to university, and we studied to get a degree, so most of us are in debt. Yeah. And we're paying it off for a long time and we don't think anything of it. So many people have car loans or house loans or, but it's all the way that you look at it, I think and because I've had this conditioning in my mind that it's like no, the credit card gets paid off every month. And so if it didn't get paid off one month, oh my gosh, yeah, I'm gonna die.
Vikki Louise 26:09
Yeah. And it's even interesting that your brain went through I have this money podcast, so I can't get into debt. Because that shows you that in your your brain is like debt is bad. Versus I have this money podcast, I want to be an example of going into debt, like in a smart way, making a conscious choice, believing that I was capable of doing it and going through the discomfort instead of like, and I think we do this a lot as coaches like I have to be perfect all the time. Versus like, I still get to be human. And actually you going through that whole experience probably gave you so much knowledge and valuable experience and tools and understanding that like now you're able to serve your clients even better.
Meaghan Smith 26:46
Well, that's the thing and it's about overcoming that anxiety and really standing in mature adulthood and not being in a drama about it and just being able to go yeah, I can use that money and I can't actually pay it back. And, and that was the irony of it is I thought that I would probably have to go into about $15,000 worth of debt. But just because I approached it in a matter of fact way, I only ended up using having to use $5000 because I just created the money. You know, because I
Vikki Louise 27:19
Right, feel empowered because even exactly like what I spoke about in my example, you feel like empowered, like oh, I'm going to do this half the time the indecision unless you've got this a lot of my podcast, the indecision is what's costing us like, should I shouldn't I don't know, this is bad, this is good. This is like, I'm gonna do this no matter what. And then I'm going to figure out the money. And even that shift in that commitment stops you from being like, Oh, I'm gonna like spend three hours on Facebook today, scrolling around and messing around because you're like, Oh, we've got work to do. We're gonna have money to invest in ourselves. Like we're committed to this. It puts you on like, it puts you to work in the best way and I'm not saying and I can overwork stressed out way, but really like you've got a very clean, clear mission, our brain loves very clean, clear missions, it likes direction and knowing exactly what to do, which is why you were probably able to, you know, make that from the 15 to the five.
Meaghan Smith 28:14
And I think too that, that, under the worry is some self doubt that can you can you are you actually going to be able to put the work in to pull it off, you know that it's like you can actually create it and that you can go and invest in yourself to do something because you have the confidence in yourself that you're going to make it back or you also back yourself enough that you're not going to beat yourself up if you if you don't make it back.
Vikki Louise 28:48
Yeah, completely. That's it completely. Really. Like if you knew 100% oh, I'm going to make the money back cuz it's gonna be easy, then it wouldn't even be a thing. Our brain is wired with a negativity bias. Again, it kept us alive in the wild to think about the worst case scenarios. And now it's showing up in our modern day lives and it's not no longer needed. It's no longer valid to be like, oh, like, as you said, your brain goes to like, if I put this $5,000 in debt, then my brains out, we're literally gonna die, we're gonna end up on the streets, everything's gonna be terrible. And, and that thinking about the worst case scenario isn't really not only just not useful, but not even factual at all. Our brain doesn't care about the truth. It's not like, hey, I'm going to just speak about the facts. It really is dramatic cuts. I call it crazy. It really is dramatic in the thoughts it will give you and it's just about taking that pause and being like, do I even believe that? Is that literally what's going to happen if I was to spend this $5,000 on debt, like, what's actually the worst case scenario? Okay, I could, I would pay it off, right? Even if I didn't earn anything for the next year, and I just paid off interest. Like it's not going to be, you know, could get any job and probably pay off interest. So keep your life exactly as it is.
Meaghan Smith 30:03
I can just hear someone listening in the car now going, I can't believe she's gone into debt. I'm just imagining it.
Vikki Louise 30:14
I hope so. I hope that's the messaging. Listen, I'm not saying I don't think either of us are saying, go into debt is so fun. I just like you said, like, buy a handbag and just do whatever and that's free money. But I think if you know what you want, and you are committed to making it happen, and the only thing standing in your way is the money that you have right now. And, and, and the money that you need and you're able to access that and you're committed to making that money back. Even when it's gonna be difficult. Then Then money. I remember for me at that point, I was like, after I was invested. Once I started in the mastermind that I was in, I was like, Oh, that was like free money. Because I made I already made the money back before I even got there. And I wouldn't this date, the mastermind was like this specific day, I literally didn't have the money, so I wasn't gonna be able to do it. So it literally gave me the freedom to go and join something I really wanted to join at a time and I couldn't. And I made that I committed to making the money back. And I'm saying this because it's not comfortable to make that money back. Like there was a reason why I hadn't made that money yet. And it was because my brain was picking my comfort zone, over my growth, even like, the extra maybe 30%. That was the shift that did it, right. Because like there's so much discomfort that you can take in this forced me to be like, what I'm going to just take it all. I'm going to have all the conversations, I'm going to make all the offers. I'm going to show up as the expert I'm going to like whatever it takes, I was like, yeah, I'm all in for all the discomfort, all the growth. And then I got so much more back than just paying off my debt. And by the time I've invested in the mastermind a second time I was paying for in cash before like it was just, I was I Oh, cool. Amazing. Like, it was It was a completely different experience, because of how I showed up that first time, and the discomfort that I was willing to feel and the habit I built of choosing discomfort and choosing growth. And now I've got that benefit for the rest of my life. It's not just like, oh, that was one experience. It's like, really, I feel that all the time in my business.
Meaghan Smith 32:20
Yeah. And I think that's so crucial that by stepping out and making that decision that you're going to do it you have to be it's, what is it? It's like, you have to become the person who can do that. It's like you're thinking bigger, you're operating bigger and you're creating bigger for yourself, but at the same time, I think you also have to feel be willing to feel more discomfort, and worry or whatever other feelings come up.
Vikki Louise 32:50
Yeah your brains gonna freak out. It's gonna be like, it's gonna be mean sometimes it's going to be me and it's going to be like, you shouldn't have done this. You did. You made the wrong choice. I mean, I, at one point, I think I said to my, to my husband, like, I was like, he's a student and I was like, maybe you need to, I think you need to get a job. So he went and he got a job. I was like, why have you got a job? And he was like, because he told me I was like, No, I was just feeling stressed one day, he'll take me literally, what, no, he's studying full time. Like, I'm supporting us, you know, like, this is what and he like, went and got this job and we laugh about it now you know, to him, he doesn't know thought work and you know, he hears me chat about it, but not really so he was you know, I was saying to him what we're gonna do about money and that's not maybe you should get a job and he just went off and got one. I was like, no. So it was very funny but you know, I think people might be thinking oh, it's easy for us now to speak on the other side of it and no, was a great idea. That does not mean it was easy during it and it shouldn't be easy during it otherwise you're not gonna grow and literally is. whenever anything uncomfortable comes up when you do lean into it. You are going to grow. And you are also going to teach your anxious brain that you can survive the scary things and the unknown and stepping out of the comfort zone, that tool and that skill is already worth probably whatever investment you're making, literally teaching your brain that you can do scary things and you can move forward. And that like once you feed that kind of habit, you're going to grow and grow and grow and grow until you're like, Whoa, this is amazing.
Meaghan Smith 34:27
Yeah, and I wonder if you could talk about how do we separate if we could talk about how we separate fact from fiction. So somebody who's listening who has never had a coach before or being coached and they're currently feeling anxiety about something about money or worry about a particular issue with money. What's the starting point there? Can you talk to that about the facts and
Vikki Louise 34:54
Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. I guess this is where my background came in useful in finance. When it comes to money, anxiety, it's really a matter of maths and numbers, like you know your expenses. That's even at your minimum expenses. It's the number that you need to pay. Everything else is just noise. I really, I mean it, like, you know what you need to pay to survive that month, and every once like, and then you can fit. It's like a solution. It's like a formula. This is the output I need to create how like this is output I need to pay like, what what does my input need to be? I think that there's no, there's no denying the maths around it as the basis and literally everything else is just noise. And I see this because I also, you know, one of the big things I think with money, but also with everything is like this word enough, I don't have enough, I'm not good enough. And it's such clever on our brain gives us because enough isn't quantitative, and it's always going to be an opinion. And as long as we're spinning in, this is not enough. It's not enough and I've literally coach clients that were earning $15,000 year too, a six figure business and, and still at some point that I'm not, you know, it's not enough and I'd like to remember when you were earning $15,000 a year and now you're, you know you're heading up to in a month. And it's still not enough to realise that your brain isn't, is always going to keep thinking that you have to like let it go and focus on the maths at some point and be like there's the maths, and then there's the story around it. And our brain doesn't think in the facts thinks in the fiction. We have like 60, 70, 80000 thoughts a day we don't walk around thinking, I live in Sydney I live in England we think so beautiful and sunny today in England or why does it always rain in England, the weather's terrible. And so everything that's going on in any of the listeners brains is the story. I think that's really important to remember.
Meaghan Smith 36:51
Yeah, and this is where all the mindset work comes in and where it's gives you so much agency over what you want to create because once you learn how to be deliberate about what you actually want to create on purpose and how you want to think about your situation. You bring all the power back to yourself instead of reacting to whatever thoughts that you happen to be having about your situation at the time. For example, you know, when I was talking about getting a big bill, it's like, I can get a big bill and choose to think, Oh, my God, I didn't expect the electricity bill to be that much this month. Or I can just look at the bill and go, Ah, that's I'm so glad that I've got this money in my savings account that I can just pay that no problem. I mean,
Vikki Louise 37:38
even if you don't have the money in the savings account, it's like our brain and this is what our brain likes to do. It likes to sit in the problem. It's like, Oh, my God, this is a problem. This is a problem. Let me tell my friends about this problem. Let me tell my partner about this problem. Let me think about this problem. Let me eat because of this problem. Let me not sleep because of this problem. What are we going to do about this problem? And it's like, we think we're doing something towards it, but really, we're just spinning in it. And it's consuming us and it's spreading into our work and our relationships, and all this stuff and our brains like so in the problem, and it's justifying how big a problem is. And then what we want to do is really be in the solution. Exactly what happened to you, right? With the 15 to the five. But with anyone, it's like, okay, what what actually is the solution? Like, if there was a solution, what would it be? If this bill is really high, and you don't have savings? Like, what is the solution? Is it to pay off a certain amount every month? Is it to? I mean, is it to speak to someone that you know, is it to ask for a raise or ask for an early pay on something? Is it to sell some things like there's so many solutions, and when we are in the problem, we don't see any of them? There's no solutions? We're helpless. We're powerless, and our brain loves that. Not because it's safe. It's like, oh, but then we can just like spinning the problem. We're not going to fail. We're not going to risk exposure. We're not going to get rejected by anything. Like it. It's scary. For a raise. It's scary to ask to borrow money from a loved one. It's scary to pull out your savings. It's scary to sell something, maybe that you love. One of these things are stepping out of the comfort zone. So as we said right at the beginning, like anxiety is part of the ride. But we need to consciously step out of the problem and sit in the solution. Even if it doesn't come straight away. Our brains are insanely smart, and they will create solutions once the the dust has settled and then everything's calmer and all of our triggers and their red alerts and their hormones and everything has calmed down, we can really like start getting into solution mode. And everyone listening like think about it like this. Probably someone else in the world has experienced the exact same problem that you are having like a big bill is probably something that every single person has experienced at some point in their life. Like it's solvable, we know that it's solvable. Our brain wants to spin out and we kind of need to pause, you know, allow the inner crazy pause and then on purpose go into the solution mode.
Meaghan Smith 40:11
Yeah, that's right. And for those of you who listen regularly, you would know a few weeks back. No, maybe I'm going a month back now, so but I had that episode about not saying, I don't know, not letting yourself go to that place where you tell yourself I don't know. You have to ask your brain well, if I didn't know, what would it be? And that just seems so simple, like does that really work? But it totally works. It absolutely works. And if you haven't tried it, you must because your brain really does. Do what it's told when you when you speak up and tell it what to do. It will look for solutions for you.
Vikki Louise 40:56
Yeah, I also have an episode called I don't know land, our brain loves it. Because we're very safe there, again, avoiding exposure and rejection and failure. And yeah, it's just like, well, what if we did know or even think about someone you really admire? Like, what would they do in this situation? is such a good one because our brains, Iike, they would know exactly what to do and they would do X, Y and Zed. But hey, the answer cell came from your brain, not their brain. They're not there. They're just teaching our brain like stopping exactly what we said to stop believing it's excuses. stop believing it's BS, and start getting it to work for you. And this is obviously what coaching is all about.
Meaghan Smith 41:33
Yes, I love that. Okay, so I always end with asking, when I have guests on, is there a ritual or habit or a practice that you do around money that you would be happy to share with us?
Vikki Louise 41:51
Um, I don't really spend a lot of money and finding about if there's like a ritual or habit around it. I don't really have a ritual I habit around money, but I don't spend a lot of money I don't like to spend on my development and things like that. But otherwise, I'm quite like minimalistic. I mean,I lovesecondhand clothes, even really nice ones. And, and I always have my parents laugh at me about it. But in terms of money in a ritual, not really, I think, aside from paying my bills every month on time, but I do have like a nice morning ritual I could speak about, which I think is really helpful for anxiety. Because I think when we start our day with some kind of ritual, and maybe this is why it works for people with money. And when we start when we have some ritual and organisation around things and plan structure, we really feel like we are in control. So for me, it's all about my mornings waking up having a big glass of cold water next to my bed before I leave the bed. Maybe 5, 10 minutes Meditation and then I mean I had vertigo recently so I stopped with a yoga but I normally would do 15 minutes Yoga 15 minutes self coaching and then it just means that like mat and all tech free right then it means my morning has started with me, nourishing myself being kind to myself moving my body a little bit like nothing too stressful so that it's really easy to do every single morning and our brain loves routine. It loves predictability, right? It's like loves that comfort zone, but building comfort and routine around things that are serving you. Such a game changer so that's probably the best routine that I could share.
Meaghan Smith 43:37
I love that and you know what you just talking about, Hey, don't spend money I mean, this topic is probably a whole nother episode in itself but you are somebody who is an expert around anxiety and feelings and being able to experience your feelings and I find that that is something the people that I know who know how to be uncomfortable and experience discomfort on purpose are the ones who don't spend a lot of money. In my experience, it's because you don't need to go out and spend money on things to fulfil either a feeling of feeling lack, like you need something because you don't want to feel that feeling of lack or that you don't want to feel something. So you go out and buy things because then you get that nice little hit of well now I've got this nice new jumper I feel better about myself, instead of just feeling whatever that was that you're feeling and not getting the jumper because it's not actually the jumper that makes you feel better.
Vikki Louise 44:42
Right and we end up with like 20 jumpers, same one different colours. and we still don't feel better.
Meaghan Smith 44:47
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, Vicki, I am sure there are people listening who are thinking Vicki's awesome I need more of her. So tell us where can we find you and I think I did say at the start didn't I that you have a podcast. Tell us about that tell us all the things where can we find?
Vikki Louise 45:08
Yeah, I have a podcast called F*ck Anxiety and get Sh*t Done spelt the polite way. So it's f Asterix ck anxiety and get sh Asterix t done. And it's like weekly episodes around 10, 15 minutes giving simple actionable tools around anything related to anxiety, procrastination, perfectionism, people pleasing, like all the things that culminate together and stop us from living the life that we want to live and moving forward in what we want to create in the world. And I also you can find me on Instagram, Vicki Louise is that's VI KKIOU ISE underscore, underscore underscore, because I was already a Vikki Louise and same as my website vikkilouise.com
Meaghan Smith 45:55
Fantastic. Well Vicki, thank you so much for joining us today. On the show.
Vikki Louise 46:01
Thanks so much for having me. It's so fun to be here.
Meaghan Smith 46:05
You're welcome. So there have it. Vicki shared a lot of information about how to manage our feelings. In particular, of course anxiety and worry. I hope this has inspired you to take this work further. Being in control of how we feel about money is totally available to us right now. If you want to change your money mindset, and basically start creating the results you want in your life on purpose, reach out to me wherever you are following me in a DM or a message or get in touch by email and we can tee up a consult. As always, if you want to stay in touch between episodes and stay up to date with all things money mindful, get on the mailing list and follow me on Instagram and Facebook. Have a beautiful week. Until next time, bye bye.
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