Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Denise Duffield-Thomas where we chat all about money mindset, how to earn more and help people too.
Denise is a Money Mindset Mentor and Author who helps entrepreneurs charge premium prices, release the fear of money, and create First Class lives.
Her books ‘Lucky Bitch', ‘Get Rich, Lucky Bitch', and ‘Chill & Prosper ‘ give a fresh and funny roadmap to living a life of abundance without burnout.
KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST:
- How to unravel your feelings around money and asking for money
- Why repetition shapes the way you think and behave
- How to tell your brain a different story
- The importance of showing ourselves compassion
THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE:
There is enough money for everybody, so don’t get caught up in the guilt and scarcity that is happening in the world but be part of the solution instead!
HIGHLIGHT YOU SIMPLY CAN’T MISS:
- The questions you can ask yourself to help understand your money mindset
- The 3-step process to improving your money mindset
- Why there’s no better time than now to start your own business
RESOURCES MENTIONED:
Chill and Prosper by Denise Duffield-Thomas
TRANSCRIPT
Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. So I have a really, really exciting episode for you today. I had the pleasure of being contacted by Denise Duffield-Thomas' team. And to ask if I would like to interview her, which I was like, Well, like SO obvious.
That's not a call. I was very much like OMG. Yes, please. So I am assuming, you know who Denise Duffield-Thomas is. If you don't, then you can thank me later. She is an amazing money mindset coach from Australia. She has had three books out already and another one's just come out and I've read her books and I've ordered the new one.
I pre-ordered it, uh, which I will have by the time this episode comes out, I'm actually only recording this a week before it comes out, which is normally. We normally have a much wider window for our podcast, but obviously we wanted to get it out as quick as possible because she's got this new, amazing book out, had so much fun talking to her.
She was so lovely and so much of her morals and ethics and the way she does business is in line with mine. She is also very anti sleazy, bro marketing tactics. And. She does really quality stuff. In fact, she talked me through, after the call, we carried on chatting for about half an hour, which was lovely.
And she showed me her new course and like, she's put so much effort into it. And it was just so reassuring to see that someone at her level cares as much as I care at my level, that, you know, we deliver a quality service and that people get genuine transformations outta the work we do. So that was really, really ACE.
Uh, I really think you're gonna love this episode, please, please, please share it. I would love you to tag us in I'd love Denise to see what an amazing audience I have and brilliant community. And I really, really appreciate it. So yeah, here is the amazing Denise Duffield-Thomas. Okay. It is with a much excitement that today I welcome to the podcast, the amazing Denise Duffield-Thomas. Denise, welcome to the podcast.
Denise: Thank you so much for having me. I just so appreciate it. It was funny. I'm in winter and you're in having a massive summer.
Teresa: Yeah. Yeah. Which is funny, cuz at one of my team members. Left the UK recently and finished working with me because she's gone to live in Australia for 18 months. And she's literally posting beaches and it's horrible here, and you are having a heat wave and I've moved to Australia. It's ironic.
Denise: You know what? It's so funny. I actually have to check the temperature for today because you you'll just laugh. I was freezing today and I think it was about 15 degrees. Yeah. It was something like that. And I was walking along the beach and I was just like, it's so cold, but yeah. And then soon we'll have heat waves and you'll be freezing.
Teresa: What's the heat. What temperature does it get there? Like what's the hottest?
Denise: We do have a couple of 40 degree days, at least every summer, which can be just so hot. It. Yeah, it'd be crazy, but I, I live near the beach, so I have a nice beach breeze, which is good. I can see the oceans from here. So it's that's nice.
Teresa: So cool. Isn't this the most British way to start a podcast talking about the weather? Like could I be any more start typical.
Denise: Nice cup of tea.
Teresa: And talk about the weather. I love it. I love it. Denise. I start the podcast the same every single time where you tell my amazing audience who you are and what you do. Now I'm sure they know who you are. But we'll human them anyway. And we'll go ahead as normal. Please introduce yourself.
Denise: Of course, I'm Denise Duffield-Thomas and I'm a money mindset mentor. And by that, I mean, I help people with the mindset around charging, around having conversations around money and specifically dealing with your past and your stories and beliefs about money that stop you from living a beautiful first class life.
And I do that through my books and courses called money bootcamp. And I live in Australia. If you can't tell by my accent. I'm married to a British man though from he's, from, uh, Crewe.
Teresa: Nice.
Denise: Yeah, and I have three kids and two doggies.
Teresa: Nice. How old are your children?
Denise: I thought you were gonna say, how old are your dogs? Cause I always talk dogs more than my kids.
Teresa: Not interested with the kids, we talk about the dog.
Denise: Um, 8, 6, and 4.
Teresa: Man.
Denise: And we, yeah, it's intense. And you know, my hubby went away for the weekend. On a boys' weekend and left me with them. And I was just like.
Teresa: So much hard work. Honestly. I have one that I, I learned my lesson very quickly. One was enough for me. That's all I could manage.
Denise: That would be plenty. Our eight year old, she goes, “I told you not to have any more kids.” That's what she was saying after that, when I was trying to get them all to bed, she goes, “Should have listened to me. I told you to have no more children after me.”
Teresa: That is hilarious.
Denise: Indeed.
Teresa: And I think as well, like we were just talking because your new book is about to come out called Chill and Prosper. And we were just talking about the fact of, you know, it's hard work sometimes and having children and juggling families and working and doing all the things as much as you really do, uh, you know, demonstrate what you teach. There's still times where it gets crazy busy.
Denise: Absolutely. And I'm, I'm totally in it now. And it's always of my own making. And this is what I talk about in the book is, you know, being a chillpreneur is a practice and nobody's perfect at it. And I I'm someone who is very delusional about how long things take. And my capacity to do work.
So I tend to say yes to a lot of things. So what I talk about in the book is, you know, you have to sometimes develop systems. Because behavior change is actually really hard. And if you can do things in spite of having to, to change it, and I'll give you an example, my Calendly account to do, um, interviews, it used to just book things back to back.
And I would just be again, so delusional about time and space and oh, I don't, I don't need to pee or eat.
Teresa: Yeah. Who on earth would do those things?
Denise: So, but I've set up the system in spite of myself that it could, you know, there can only be a certain amount of interviews per day. They have to have half an hour in between. So it's not about being perfect.
It's about finding the easier path for you. And, and sometimes you have to do that in spite of yourself, which I, I often have to do to.
Teresa: And that's what I love actually about you and your books. And I think probably your books are probably some of the ones I first read about money mindset. Cause if you'd asked me four or five years ago, what money mindset would I, I wouldn't have had a clue and I don't think I could have told you.
And I don't know that I would've understood the importance of it. And I think it took a bit of time. But. What I love about the books is not only are we talking a mindset side, so we're talking a lot of stuff that some people might find it hard to get their head around to begin with. But you talk about a very practical side.
And I remember in one of the books, you talk about how obviously you have electronic keys to cars and you talk to having electronic keys to your house. And how else could you make it easy? And I love that. I love that practical element of. One with the calendar. No, actually. And I'm exactly the same as you. I will literally book back to back, or even when I do leave a gap, I know what I'm like.
I will be on a call, a coaching call and I'll stay on longer. Cause I'll think, oh no, I've got actually my next call. Isn't till this time. Instead of thinking, no, you need to get off and get a drink and have a wee and, you know, get ready for the next call. So I love the fact of sort of practical and the, the more mindset stuff.
So when did the mindset stuff really? When did you kind of go, oh, hang on a minute. This is important.
Denise: The mindset piece for me, I think is actually where I started from because I started reading personal development books at a really young age and started, you know, watching Oprah after school. So I always knew that mindset was important and I knew that work was important, but for some reason, I didn't know how to put that together with money.
It was kind of like, cool. You can do your woo woo practices over here, and then there's like money and they're just that they just had to be separate, I think, in my mind. And so it wasn't probably until my late twenties that I just sort of went, wow. I've been doing all of these things for a long time, but it hasn't moved the needle of my finances.
What if I kind of combine them a little bit? So I started looking at the work of Louise Hay, for example, you know, so much self-love work and things like that. And I was like, well, what if I did that kind of work with my money and, and treated my money, like a spiritual practice. And so. And I also think it came from the other side of me.
When I, when I started learning about the law of attraction, I was like, but what do you do? I, I really thought it was about just becoming perfect in your thoughts. You know, I was like, oh, I just, I guess I have to meditate every day and just become like a really nice, good person. Because we, we are so caught up in this deservingness piece of what we have to do to deserve money instead of realizing, well, sometimes you just have to put yourself in the path and just ask for it.
And that's hard because of all the mindset stuff. So it becomes this chicken or egg kind of scenario where you just go round and round. You have to do both all the time.
Teresa: Yeah. Yeah. And like you said, it's a practice. I, I found that all the mindset stuff I've done, I think people, you know, meditation's a great example.
I meditate every day and people think, you know, oh, once you've got it, you've got it. And I just can't get it. And it's like, no, I will still sit down. And I've been doing this for a couple of years now. I will still sit down in the morning and go, yeah, it's not working today. I could not get this to work.
So I think it's that constant practice and that constant reminder. So if someone was sat listening, thinking, okay, but what sort of things, what is it that I'm meant to be doing? How can I be trying to improve this? Because our brain is insanely powerful and we have the most like possible critical side of us ever.
You know, we'll say these affirmations or whatever, and then immediately we'll go. Yeah, really though. So what kind of things can we be doing to think about this money mindset?
Denise: Yeah, so I like to reverse engineer sometimes things, right? And because sometimes in the personal development world, we think really big woo woo spiritual stuff. It's like, I can, I'm willing to receive money. I'm willing to receive, universe I'm open to receive a million dollars and then someone offers you a compliment and you say, “No, no, Nope.” Or are you friends? That's can I buy you a coffee and you go, “No, no, no, no.” And so it's those small things sometimes that are so symbolic.
And I talk about in my money bootcamp about incrementally upgrading your life. Looking around and seeing what makes me feel poor. What makes me feel inconvenienced, but really what you're looking for is those symbolic things that, uh, well, that. A symbol of how you treat yourself, how much you think you're willing to have, how much comfort you're allowed to have.
And so sometimes it is the small things that make the biggest difference. So here's an example. If you really struggle to ask for money, you know, as in you struggle to invoice, you struggle to set your prices, things like that. You might have to go back and unravel this deep, fundamental feeling that it's impolite to ask for what you want.
And you might have been told you, get what you get. You don't get upset. You might have been told that it's greedy to ask for some another thing, you know, or, and, and so you might have to practice and go to a cafe and say, do you mind if I have a little bit more milk for my tea?
And that might take everything that you have. But if you can't do that, You know, it's just putting a band aid on the top to go “Universe I'm ready for my millions.” It's like, well, you're actually not. So that's what you do. You do those tiny, tiny little things. So I teach a, a three step process in money boot camp and we just, we go over it again and again and again.
And we look at it from a million different ways. So it's OCP. O- Origin stories. you know, and this is where sometimes people start here and I just say, make an inventory of everything you think of you remember about money, and then you could say, tell me about, you know, Christmas. Tell me about birthdays.
Tell me about your birth order. Who got, who, who got what they wanted and who got hand me downs in your family? So there's a million different prompts of ways that we could figure out some of our stories. What did your family talk about when it came to money? How did they talk about rich people? How did they talk about poor people?
How did they talk about what did, what did, what was a real job in your family? What was not a real job. What was your unofficial family motto? If you had a, a crest sometimes it's, you know, Jones has never quit. So we look at all of those things, but we don't just stay there because sometimes we don't remember, or we don't see the nuances.
So that's O of OCP C is Connect the Dots to how this is showing up in your life right now. And actually some people start there because they come to me and they, they have a problem. I, I can't charge, or I can't send out invoices or I just hate talking about money. Sometimes it's specific. Sometimes it's just this vague feeling of I'm just not meant to be successful or money seems to allude me.
So then we would go, what are the origin stories? So if you were told. You know, all the time growing up, it's really impolite to talk about money. Well, that's a really big understanding and a compassion for yourself. Of course you struggle to put a price. Because it's against every fiber of your being.
So that's the C- Connecting the Dots. So we've got Origin Stories, Connecting the Dots and then P is for Patent Interrupt. And this is where we, we change either the thought the behavior, we can do it incrementally. We can do it like straight away. And so a pattern interrupt in a moment could be. Oh, I always say things like there's not enough money or we can't afford it.
So in that moment, I'm gonna say there's always more money. Something like that. So you can do patent interrupters in the moment you can do long term stuff where it's maybe do Tappy. Yeah. You know, things that kind of change you from a, you know, like a, a brain point of view. Or long term stuff could be working with a coach surrounding yourself with other people who talk about money.
Because it rubs off on you. And so you can see how you can just go around and around. Cause I, I still come up and realize new origin stories, or I'm always coming across the same money blocks and you know, you have to kind of go back and do it. So. Anyone can kind of start to dig into that. It's an excavation.
Teresa: Yeah. Yeah.
Denise: You know, and yeah.
Teresa: Sorry, go on.
Denise: Oh, I was gonna say it's not a one and done thing and you don't have to wait for it all to clear before you make money. You can excavate a little bit and go, oh, okay. That makes sense. Now I can do something different because sometimes the awareness is enough to shift it.
Teresa: Yeah. Yeah. There's so much good stuff you said there. The origin story thing is really interesting and actually. When we sit and think about our childhood and our parents, for me in particular, we, I had all the things I had the, you know, we can't afford this. People like us don't have stuff like this. My mom used to have this phrase called, uh, fur coat, no nickers.
I'm not even entirely sure what she meant by it, but I think it was like, you're pretending to be wealthy and you're not really.
Denise: Yeah. Like in Texas they say big hat, no cattle.
Teresa: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. so like, But all these things that, that are so subtly ingrained in your brain. And I think we underestimate it. As a parent now I was talking to my daughter actually. And she admitted to me that one of her friends, uh, is actually a lesbian and she's only 12. And I was like, okay, cool. You know? And has she spoken to her parents? No. And I said, why not? And she said, because she wants her to her dad say something that wasn't very.
Uh, not that he wasn't very kind, but just a sweeping statement about someone who was a lesbian. And that one tiny fleeting thing that this person said is now sat in his daughter's head and his daughter now doesn't wanna tell them because of that. It's starting to like impact on her thoughts. So imagine that, but on a way bigger scale of being bought up and told, this is the thing, this is the thing.
So I totally understand that. And one thing I wanted to bring up, which, uh, I watched the video in research for this interview. I was looking at your stuff when I found this fascinating video on YouTube that you did about UK and our money mindset in the UK and the values that we have, and it was really funny, like restraint being one of the values.
And, and, and again, so it's on so many levels. It's not just a parent level. It's a friend level. It's almost nation level. The world, the time you live in, it's huge. Isn't it?
Denise: Well, exactly. It's the era you grow up in and what was. On TV and movies, because if you've never seen examples of, I mean, we are, we couldn't have seen examples of what we do growing up because it didn't exist.
Teresa: No, no. Yeah.
Denise: But even just the concept of women earning their own money was pretty rare in the eighties and nineties, or it was seen as, oh, she's got a cute little flower shop that's failing, you know, or she's, you know, she's a penniless author or she's a rich bitch and there wasn't anything in between.
Um, and so we don't realize that how that rep repetition builds up over time to create this impenetrable layer. And that's, my job is to help people just like just excavate that little bit. Oh, that's oh, that's a little interesting nugget of gold and it's so much fun when you see it like that. Come at it from a place of curiosity instead of internalizing it, that there must just be something wrong with me.
That's where everyone goes to. They just go, well, I guess there's just something wrong with me instead of going. No, no. You've had millions of examples of why you are not allowed to make money. And, and it takes some time.
Teresa: And we've told ourself that story over and over. And do you think, know what? I still tell myself the story that I hate selling and I'm no good at selling.
And it, funnily enough, that the point we're recording to, which is just a week before it goes out, I've been running a bootcamp, uh, a challenge over the week. And tonight we have a call that wraps up the challenge. And tonight is when I say, do you wanna buy this thing? Now the course is flipping unbelievable. Okay.
Like I have so much confidence. It's a list building course and it shows 'em the tech, it shows 'em everything. I literally hold their hand, including calls with me to go, okay, where are you at? What should we do? So I have full faith in the course, and I'm very proud of it. And I'm very proud of people's results, but still I've not even considered what I'm gonna say later on because that, that point of, well, I hate the selling bit. I'm no good at selling bit, but that's just the story I'm telling myself.
Denise: Oh, absolutely. And that could have come from a million different things. Mm-hmm even just, I mean, patriarchy , you know, you know, girls aren't good with numbers or you know, women aren't good at business. You could have heard that in a million different, subtle or explicit ways.
And it's, it's like a lifetime of work to undo. And also it's just, it's also very new for a lot of us to you know, make our own money in general. Because our moms, our grandmothers weren't able to do it. And there comes some interesting power dynamics sometimes in families, in relationships that come with that, you know, still discrimination and things like that exist as well.
So it's. I just want people to have compassion for themselves that, yeah, it's not, it's not easy to look at this stuff, but if you can come at from a place of curiosity and make it fun and, you know, be around other people who are in the conversation, then that's, that's great. Why not you?
Teresa: Yeah, absolutely. And again, the whole, you know, you talk about the, the black sheep of the family, uh, which again, depending on where you came from being a success is not necessarily something that people are comfortable with. Having money is not something people are comfortable with. And I know, you know, my mom passed away a couple of years back now, but, you know, she would call me a snob and she would say I was a terrible snob because I liked nice things.
And I used. Really in my head fight against this going, but I've created it. I didn't ask anybody for it. I didn't borrow it. I didn't have it from a husband. I did this like, and it was a real story. Like you said, when, when those things are so ingrained, it's really hard to kind of break out to them. But also I love the fact that you talk about the tiny, incremental things.
Actually one thing I'd love to get your thoughts on is we're in the online world. Uh, you've been in mm-hmm the online world longer than I have considerably more successful than I am, but I've really struggled with the way that some people, and this is definitely not, you. Conduct themselves in the online world and the way that some people sell and the way that, you know, I've, I've heard many horror stories and I've seen, and I've been on the other side of them where people are almost saying that if you are not buying the thing, then you are not investing and you are not doing this.
And almost. Not duping people, but yeah, a little bit duping people. And it comes to a point where it's a little bit irresponsible because the last thing I wanna do is get anybody in debt to work with me. That would be ludicrous. So what I like, and I'd be interesting on your thoughts on that. But what I like about you is, is that you've talked about little small things.
So what's that one little upgrade that you can do not go crazy, buy a real expensive car, and then be forever in debt. Like those tiny things, but. There is in my mind. And I am trying to rail against this hugely. And we are basically, you know, with my coach going, okay, what does the online world do?
What if he flipped on his head? How would that look? But I think sometimes. When it comes to the money mindset tricks, I think there is some irresponsible actions out there that some people take to get you to buy things.
Denise: Well, absolutely. And I experienced that a lot in my twenties, especially, I didn't know any other entrepreneurs.
So anytime there was like one of those free events, you know, like entrepreneur events, I'd be like, oh my God. Yes, please. And you know, I would go just the sleazy. You know, run to the back of the room, you know, they spend an hour sort of saying winners, say yes and losers say, no, you know, are you gonna say yes?
And I would sit there and I'd feel sick because it's not that I'm a very suggestible person, but I think there's something in me that just, you know, I want to do a good job and I want to please, and I want to, you know. And so I was sitting there going, I really wanna do this. I don't wanna do your course, but I feel like a loser for not wanting to do your course.
And so I saw, I just saw that and I was just so always so graced out by it. The other thing is that I started to do sort of sales training stuff, and I was like, I think this doesn't feel good in my body, even if it was kind of authentic. So I've always just been like, work on yourself, work on your own self-love, and self-acceptance, and then just tell people what you have to offer, but without weirdness around it, without weirdness of like, please, and also.
Like entangle, energetic entanglements. And I think that actually can be quite attractive to people because then it's just like, well, she must have something that's really good. Like she seems, you know, like really confident and I've always just been like, I'm okay if you don't buy. You are okay if you don't buy.
We're good. But if you want to, here's where it is. And I've never, I don't even have really complicated funnels or anything like that because I've always just gone. Oh, well, here's this thing. If you want it you go for it, but I see people check it so personally when they don't get the results that they want from launches.
And I think the other benefit for me is I learned really early on in my entrepreneurial career about sales conversions. And I knew that if you get 1% of people to buy. That's good. And I think sometimes I do it myself. When I launch you kind of just go, but I want everybody to join. Why aren't they joining?
Or you don't get enough people to see what you're doing. It's just not gonna get the results. And you know, it's not that they're numbers, but it is a numbers game.
Teresa: And again, exactly what you said in your book. And I remember reading this being like, thank God someone is being honest about this stuff about the fact of this is roughly what it converts at.
It converted at that when I had like 500 people on my email list and it converts at that when I have 500,000 people on my email list. And like you said, it's a really hard conversation to have in the fact. It is a numbers game, even though we don't look at our communities like numbers, obviously this is not a, you know, great as many as I can get in just to churn through so I can get 1% I genuinely.
And do you want people to succeed and engage and do old stuff. So let's talk about the new book. I am very excited to read the new book. I've got it on pre-order already. So tell me what was the thought for it? What's the premise of it? Why should we all run out and buy it tomorrow?
Denise: Yeah. So Chill and Prosper is an updated version of my book, Chillpreneur which came out a couple of years ago.
And the reason why we wanted to do a new edition is because one pandemic happened and the world's different. Like, it just is, it's really different. But two people would contact me and say, that's great, but not for my industry. I'm not allowed, you know, or, but it doesn't, you know, I'm not allowed to charge more or I can't make things easier for myself, for X, Y, Z reasons.
And so we wanted to put in more content, more chapters, but a lot more case studies as well. So people can see how it can work for them. And the premise of the book is to find your passive least resistance, find the ease for you. And the problem is so many of us because we wanna be good students.
We see someone that we admire and we buy their course, or we coach with them and it doesn't work for us. And we don't know why. So you really have to do that inner work, to know who you are, know your sabotages, your recurring sabotages, and find the path to ease for those. And you mentioned at the start of the call that I have electronic keypads on my house. So in the self-improvement world, I should have taken a course on how to remember my keys. I could have bought, you know, a key ring that sat on my thing. You know, I could have done all these things like, but instead I found the path of least resistance put electronic key pads on my doors. And then I eliminated the problem of even having to remember.
And it's having that discernment to know what is worth really like improving and what is, what's just find that ease and that's where the Chill and Prosper comes in. It's not about not working cuz you and I both know.
Teresa: That is not the case.
Denise: The businesses don't run themselves, but it's about finding what is the easier way that you wanna run your business, your business model? Who would be easier for you to work with? What would be the most easy delivery method for you?
And I think the big mindset piece around all of that is permission. Giving yourself commission to make it easier because that's honestly the hardest thing cuz we've been taught. you know, uh, another day, another dollar work hard. And we know that the hardest working people don't automatically get rewards.
It doesn't happen. It's not it's. But if, if you wanna build a big business, it's you sell X amount of things at X amount of dollars, and you can do that. And burn yourself out or you can find a way to do it in an easier way. And that's why I say effort, um, effortless, not effort none.
Teresa: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I love that. So what's, uh, really interesting again, about all this is it's that. We know that we could coach people or people could work incredibly hard, have no life, not see their children, not have a marriage anymore. Cuz they never see the partner and become successful from a money point of view.
But actually what I love about you and the stuff you talk about, which is really in line with me. And what I teach is the fact of it's got to fit with you and your life. It's got to, who wants to work a job where they are literally working, you know, every hour of every day, cuz that's not a life. Yeah. You might earn the money, but you're not enjoying it as you do it.
Denise: And the opportunities that we have. Right now a huge, you know, there's never been a better time to start your own business. Doesn't mean it's going to be easy every single day. It doesn't mean you'll never feel scared cuz that's just not true at all. But the opportunities are huge. And so some people will say to me, you know, well not everyone can do it.
Can do that. And I go. Well, that's probably true. Not everyone is going to do it. Not everybody, you know, ha has the desire to do it. But the people who are usually listening to things like this and seeking out business books are the ones with the desire to have freedom. To create something. And you know, if I was born in my grandmother's era, wouldn't have been able to do it.
She was, she was as creative as me, you know, she was as smart as me, but she lived in a time where she didn't have the opportunities. And now we're here, the technology has allowed us to open up to the whole world. So it doesn't matter if you know, there are people in your town who think coaching is weird.
Doesn't matter. There are, there are opportunities and there's clients for everybody too. But that's the, I guess the children are philosophy that there's always more. That there's enough for everybody. And that can be really tricky when there is genuine scarcity in the world at the moment, you know, there's there scarcity in your country.
Where literally families don't have enough to eat. But that's the frustrating part. There's not scarcity of food. Is there?
Teresa: No, no.
Denise: There's no scarcity of money it's just that we still live in a time of inequality and unfairness. And so if you can earn your own money and create freedom for yourself, everybody listening, you know, you're not gonna be a horrible, rich, greedy person with it.
Teresa: Of course you're not.
Denise: Never. All the people I know who are in my community, your community, we care very deeply about other people's children. We care deeply about the planet and what's happening. We care deeply that there's fairness. We, you know, we're not gonna be setting up an offshore account to hire taxes.
You know, don't be afraid. Don't be afraid of that power that money can bring. And, you know, sometimes it's easy to get caught up in the guilt or the scarcity or the fear that's happening, but be part of the solution and do whatever you can to create that financial abundance for yourself and the ripple effect for others as well.
Teresa: And it's so good to hear you say that because especially in the UK and we are, you know, we love a bit of a downer story. And at the moment it's a lot of conversations around the cost livings going up there's food crisis. There's this there's that. And. People are scared because of all the stuff they're hearing in the news.
And what's really interesting is I would really kind of challenge people to look at what, what is actually changed for them personally, because yes, granted, you know, we were literally working, doing something the other day and they've told us how much our electric is gonna go up by. Is it gonna bankrupt us? No.
Is it gonna be a bit annoying? Yeah, it is annoying because we used to paying less, but, but actually when you look at, you know, what someone is actually paying and what's happening in their world right now, it's probably nowhere near as bad as they, as, as the news and the world is saying, but the problem is you're getting all these stories all the time of God, it's awful.
This is dreadful. This is da da, da. And that is having such a huge impact on your mind and how you show up and how you do things. So to hear you say, and I think we all need to remind ourselves actually of this, that there is no better time and has been no better time than that I think is so important.
Denise: And depending on what you do as well, like I'll give an example of graphic designers, web designers. You know, the last three years. There might have been fewer, you know, maybe they were used to serving entrepreneurs who got a new website every year, every two years, you know? And so the fact that maybe people were waiting a little bit longer for a website might have made people feel very nervous, you know, like, oh my God, the industry's dead.
I've heard that from people going, oh, you know, longer the days of, you know, female entrepreneurs getting these fancy websites, but. That might be true. That might be not true. I've had lots of friends who have had new websites recently, but I was talking to my local shed guy because he was building a cubby house for our kids last year. And he said he's never, ever been busier. And he has this crappy website that's not mobile responsive. That's not linked on Google. He has no social media presence, anything. So you think there in any economy, there's always somebody who is really busy and needs you and they need your work.
And so it's not just like going, okay, well, that's a dead end. It's like, okay, well, who else can I help here? And it might be people in a different country. It might be people in a different life stage. It could be pivoting a little bit, but before we do any of that, don't assume. Don't assume that there aren't people who are willing to spend that money because we all value things in a different way.
You know, some people coped in the pandemic by buying heaps of books and some people, you know, bought whatever, you know?
Teresa: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Denise: Dogs. There's like a huge boom in dogs in Australia where, you know, then it's like, who are the behavioral specialists that can help you and, you know, courses about training your dog and stuff like that.
There's always. There's always more money is where I always come back to. And yes, I feel the pain of the world very deeply is I'm sure you do as well. And it makes me really sad, especially, you know, having such a connection to England to see the suffering. Because I know it is so unnecessary and I know it's because there are shitty people in power who don't care.
And so we can get caught up in that and we can be so empathetic that we lie down with them. Instead of going, hang on, I've got some energy, I've got some skills, I've got opportunity. I'm gonna make some money. And then, then you can spend from your overflow and then go, okay. Which, which causes do I want to fund?
How can I solve some of these problems with money. And you know, and even just like hiring other people as well.
Teresa: Especially that I think when, when I've got a team and I think there's about six of us at the moment. And one of them's full time. Other, all the others are freelance, but it's like, I don't wanna put that, that full-time person in a risk of, you know, they don't have a job because of me and because exactly what you said, you know, I listen to ours, trouble government and all the horror stories and it does make you go well, why do I bother, must give up now. You know, whereas if we hadn't have heard those stories, if we hadn't have heard those conversations.
We wouldn't be thinking like that we'd be getting on and doing our thing or on the reverse if they were saying there's so much money, it's amazing. Like we would be acting differently. So it's almost like. That is proof alone. That if you start telling your brain something else and you start, and it's not, so that you go be irresponsible and that you spend money that you haven't got, but it's so that you allow that to motivate you and get you excited and get you fired up to go.
Yeah. Great. And like you said in, in the pandemic, my business flew, you know, and it's quieting down a lot now, but so I'm looking at this going, okay. That's cool. What else can I do? How can I change? What can I offer? But you're exactly right. I did a VIP retreat, uh, back in June and it was a, it was a fairly expensive event.
It was about a grand and a half pounds. And. But it was stunning and the place was stunning and the food was stunning and it was two full days and it was just beautiful. So there was a good reason for the cost. It was not just my time. In fact, actually it was not my time. It was for the venue. And I remember thinking when I first started, this is gonna be really hard and some other stuff were happening and things are feeling hard.
And then suddenly someone just dropped the full amount on me and bought a place. And it's like, I'm telling myself all the time. There's no money. No, one's got any money. No, one's spend any money. And that one person just dropped that money without even thinking, because their business is doing really well.
So there is always people that this won't affect that the cost of living increases will not affect or will not, you know, cause a bigger concern than others.
Denise: Absolutely. Or they've prioritized that in their life. And that's important to them to spend money on. And so we just, we can't assume we just, all we can do is show up and keep on telling people how we can help them and, you know, and continue that flow of money as much as possible.
And it's not, it's not gonna make you uncompassionate is it? It's the end of the, the day here. I think that's where people worry. It's like I can help people or make money, but I can't do both and still be a good person. And you absolutely can. And it's, it's hard for those who are empathetic, cuz sometimes we can be so overly empathetic that we just think.
We feel as helpless as people who genuinely are struggling. We feel as helpless as they do, even though we could go, okay, cool. I can care. And I can, you know, donate and I can, you know, care as much as okay. But let's get to business and let's do something about it. And, but, you know, I'll say too at this, the very, um, the first year of the pandemic, I can't believe how quickly it hit me, where I.
I was just trying to be like everything's okay guys. Everything's fine. And I was, I was like the air hostess. Yes. It's just a bit of turbulence. It's totally fine. It's totally fine. And I didn't make sure that I had space to talk about my fears with people too. I was just holding the space and just being like, it's fine. Everything's fine. Everything's fine. It's all good.
Teresa: Look behind the scenes. You are having a complete breakdown.
Denise: Yeah. Six months into it. I was just like, I had the most anxiety I've ever had in my life, you know, I really got, and I think it was just because we're at home. We were all online. We were, you know, and it is, you know, some horrific things have happened and people have died.
All of those things. But yet it was still, you know, I was just glued to my phone, you know, I had to kind of snap out of it and, and just be like, okay, back, like back to business, who can I help? And, you know, like you, I've had an incredible couple of years in business and I still think business has changed.
You know, I, I remember even thinking before the pandemic, how much I never just had enough buffer between projects because everything just worked out perfectly on time. And now I'm like well, my video guy's son was sick and in the hospital. And so then we had to move the filming and then we had to move the editing and then we had to move this and then my nanny got sick and then I got sick and then my kid got sick and then no one could go to school and, you know, and that sort of stuff is, is still happening.
And so we have to have compassion for ourselves and remember that we need a little bit more spaciousness. We need a little bit more grace because the world is still unpredictable. And whatever that means for everyone individually, for me, that meant last year, I was just feeling so anxious about travel. And, you know, I'd had speaking events that I was supposed to speak at, kept on getting pushed.
I had my events kept on getting pushed, had speaking requests and I just needed to make some certainty in an uncertain world for myself. And I just said, no, travel in, in 2022, nothing as in no overseas travel. And it was just like, huh. Okay. I've made the decision. And so sometimes we just need to go, okay, I'm not taking on X, almost like just boundaries for ourselves.
Because we really just still do not know what can happen. Everything's unpredictable.
Teresa: Yeah. No, I love that. And I love the, they gotta do what you've gotta do for you and, and controlling what you can control in a world that is very uncontrollable at the moment, with things that have. That do impact us, but are so much bigger than us that we can't even start to think about. My husband and I have this running joke.
My husband used to be in the military and did 25 years and left about three years ago, but he's still working. He works away and they're still part of the military or the work he does is still part of the military. So he knows a lot about the world and stuff that happens. And we have this running joke that, uh, until he actually says to me, to panic.
I literally won't even watch the news. It's like, I don't want to, I don't wanna see it. I know you are on top of it. You will tell me if there's anything to be concerned about on occasions. You'll come and go such as, and I'm like, I don't wanna know that actually, you know, do I need to do something that me personally then no, I'll just stay quietly at my little box and, and keep my head down.
So, yeah, but I love it. Denise you have been as wonderful as I thought you were going to be. Uh, thank you so much. I can't wait to read the new book. I'm a big fan of your other books. I love the way that you are very straight talking. You're very honest, but you're very inspiring at the same time, which I think is a, a bit of a superpower.
Thank you so so much. I will obviously link up to everything including the book.
Denise: Yes. Oh yeah. Can I just tell people the URL real quick?
Teresa: Of course you can.
Denise: Yes. Thank you. It's denisedt.com/proser, and there's links to where you can buy it. But if you wanna buy it from your local book bookstore, they can just order it in.
It's no problem. We can get it on audible or, you know, Kindle all of those places. But if you go to that URL again, denisedt.com/prosper there's some special gifts as well to people who buy the book and they're things like audio, meditations and visualization.
Teresa: Amazing. And one of the things I love about your books is that you read them.
And I love that. I love when people read their own books. I just think it like, it just makes it so much better. So, uh, yes.
Denise: It's super fun. I always dread it to be honest, because you have to just sit there and, oh, I can, like, you can't do it in dribs and drabs. You have to do like two full days in the studio from like nine till four, just talking.
But it is, it is fun to be able to do it because I really sit there. And I just, I think of myself when I was, you know, starting business and just having that little hope and dream in my heart, you know, commuting to work and thinking, when's it gonna be my time. So when I sit and record my audio books, I always just think of that person.
Who's sitting there in their cubicle, sitting there on the tube, sitting there in their car. Going to a job that they don't like, or, you know, just thinking dreaming about the possibilities. And I know it's possible for you as well.
Teresa: I love it. Denise Thank you so very much. It's been an absolute pleasure.
Denise: Thanks.
Teresa: I really hope you enjoyed that. I hope it motivated you and inspired you, which it did me. I woke up at seven. Well, I actually, I recorded it at seven o'clock this morning and I have to say, I felt really good coming off that call. Really positive, really inspired and ready to carry on going out there and building what I want and the life I want.
So I hope it did the same for you. I really hope you enjoyed it. Please do go check her out. If you haven't read in for books, you can head over to my site and I've got them all linked in my book bit, which is obviously the technical word for that page. I think it's under the resources page, but yeah, she was so good.
I loved it to bit, so I really hope you enjoyed today's interview and I will see you next week. Have a good week.
