Shifting to Abundance for Financial Success with Sarah Brill | EP210

When it comes to shaping our financial destiny, few things are as powerful as mastering the money mindset, and that's exactly what we delve into with the incredible Sarah Brill, a seasoned money mindset mentor. We ignite this discussion by peeling back the layers of our often complex relationship with money, and Sarah offers transformative insights for women entrepreneurs eager to amplify their earning potential. From her own evolution as a life coach to a financial coaching virtuoso, Sarah expertly navigates the connection between our personal histories and our current financial scripts, providing a roadmap to rewriting those narratives for abundance and success.

Embark on a journey with us as we confront the lurking shadow of 'comparisonitis' and learn how to align our financial goals with personal values, sidestepping the traps of external benchmarks. Alongside these enriching conversations, I weave in glimpses of my own life beyond the spreadsheets, sharing cherished reads like 'The Alchemist', my go-to podcasts, and the leisure pursuits that recharge my batteries, including the tranquil world of scuba diving. This episode isn't just a guide to financial acumen; it's a holistic look at how embracing a healthy money mindset is instrumental in crafting a life replete with satisfaction and prosperity.

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Transcript

Donna: 0:51

You're listening to the Mindset and Action podcast, the place to be to grow and streamline your business. I'm your host, Donna Eade. Let's jump into the show. ["money is Only a Tool"]. Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you. As the driver, Iron Rand. Welcome back to the podcast. Everyone. I have a guest with me today, which is always a fantastic episode. Sarah Brill is with me. She is an amazing woman who knows a lot about money, and we all know that if you're in business, you need to know about money. We need to know our numbers, guys. So I'm gonna let her introduce herself. Welcome to the podcast, Sarah. I am so happy to have you here today, Hi.

Sarah Brill: 1:42

Donna, thanks so much for having me how you doing.

Donna: 1:45

All good, all good. So tell everybody a little bit about who you are and what it is that you do and how you got into what you do.

Sarah Brill: 1:53

Yeah, so my name's Sarah. Obviously, I'm a money mindset mentor, which means that I help particularly women entrepreneurs to unlock and achieve their greatest earning potential, and I do that through transforming their relationship with money.

Donna: 2:09

I love it. I love it. And how did you get into that area? Because that's not something that we can't fall into out of high school.

Sarah Brill: 2:16

Yeah, do you know what it's the most of all the questions I get asked? That is the most common and, to be honest with you, I actually started my journey as a coach as a transformative coach, so really sort of a life coach, helping people figure out their life path and, like a lot of coaches, who get taught perhaps a framework of how to coach, I then decided I wanted to set up a business and probably like a lot of entrepreneurs, the question that comes up is how do I get clients right? And I went out into the big, wide business world. I have been an entrepreneur in a past life.

Sarah Brill: 2:58

I used to be a social media consultant and I really struggled to get consistency of clients and I knew I wanted a thriving business. I knew I wanted to help people to figure out their best life and how to achieve it, and it kind of sent me down a spiral of learning about money and I was one of the first coaches to join a cohort in the UK for financial coaching certification and since then, which was about five, six years ago, things have just spiralled and In a good way, but even better of course, of course, yes, they've evolved, should I say.

Donna: 3:40

Yeah, that's good, the spiral is going down, yeah we've evolved.

Sarah Brill: 3:44

We've evolved. Yes, there's now layers to it. So, as I've learned more about money, more about how to manage money, more about my mindset with money, it's empowered me to help other people thrive as well.

Donna: 3:55

I love that I love that so good. I always think it's interesting to see how people have got to where they are, especially in this entrepreneurial space, because you usually find out that they've had a previous life as an entrepreneur. I think you'll call ourselves serial entrepreneurs, but I started off when I was 18 in a multi-level marketing company, then did some odd jobs and then went self-employed as a nail technician, did my beauty therapy course and everything else, and then I went back to uni to be a teacher Never was a teacher, came out of uni as a photographer and went and did weddings and portraits and whatnot, and then found a day job that was paying me better than my portraits were, because I did know my worth and I charged it and there was probably a lot of blocks around it. However, and yeah, I just wasn't making ends meet. So a part-time, no-brainer job came up and I thought, oh, I can do both at the same time. Well, this part-time job was 30 hours a week, and those 30 hours were the 30 hours that my daughter was at school, so outside of that, there wasn't really much time for the business, so it kind of went by the wayside.

Donna: 5:03

And then, 2020, I ended up back in the entrepreneur space. So I think, yeah, I think once you've dipped your toes in, it's where you always want to get back to. It's interesting, it's interesting. Okay. So we're going to be talking about mindset today, a particularly money mindset, which is, of course, your expertise. I think a lot of times business owners are sort of given the the idea that they need to get their mindset right, and we hear a lot about it. It's out there all over the place that your mindset needs to be in the right place. But many mindset is a specific section of the mindset world that I think a lot of people are much more willing to work on every other piece of mindset, but many is the sticking point and they don't wanna go there. So can you talk to us about what many mindset is and how that can show up for people in their businesses?

Sarah Brill: 5:57

Yeah, so money is something that we don't shine a light on enough. Of all the relationships that we have in our life, money is one of those things that kind of goes under the radar. We focus maybe a lot of our time and energy on our personal relationships. We might focus a lot of our energy on our relationship with ourselves and money is a relationship with ourselves but it's a lot of focus around, let's say, mental health and wellbeing.

Sarah Brill: 6:22

And as society has progressed and money has become more invisible, literally, right, we're moving towards a cashless society.

Sarah Brill: 6:32

Things are just paid for on credit card, we don't see them, and so it's become this taboo not even a taboo it's become a topic that people don't become scared of. Right, we're literally hiding it in society right now, and I think that's one of the biggest challenges that we face, because people really want to be empowered with money. They want to be at choice with money. Right, they wanna earn good money in their business and not carry the debt around, but also maybe they wanna retire early, support their family, and money is the vehicle that's gonna help people to achieve their greatest life. Right, we talk about health and wellbeing, and the thing is, in today's society, you can't live a healthy life without having money. The most expensive things in the supermarket are healthy products, and so, in order to look after ourselves and pay for yoga sessions, and pay for personal trainers and all of those lovely things personal development, whatever's important to you money is the driving force behind that, and I think that's why it's so important to shine a light on this conversation.

Donna: 7:42

It is, it really is. And so when we're looking at you know, and you're talking about, talking about how money is sort of disappearing from our eyes at the moment, it's so true. I remember when I was a kid, having my piggy bank, and I would tip it upside down and I would sit there and count it all the time, like it doesn't even matter if I hadn't got any money in it. If I encountered it for a couple of days, I wanted to sit there and count it. I was fascinated with it and I've always been that way. You know, I've still got a jar upstairs that's got money in it, which I will go and count every now and then See if I can.

Sarah Brill: 8:14

I can't remember your archetypes.

Donna: 8:18

I can't remember what the archetypes are, but if you said them I could tell you which one I was Like Collector as well, yeah.

Donna: 8:25

I can't remember off the top of my head, I'm an accumulator. I know that one. So, whatever that was, I was definitely in there accumulating, yeah, absolutely Counting it up. I want to know how much I've got. So that's who I am and I'm very much a numbers person. But I know that I have blocks around receiving money. So, as much as I love counting it, I love budgeting, I love projecting and all of that stuff, when it comes to the actual exchange it's a lot harder for me and I think a lot of people are like that. But other than just that clear cut, you know, I've got an issue with people paying me money and that's not great as a business owner. What other types of things? How does it manifest this money mindset issue? How can it manifest what types of things? Will you see your clients coming to you going, yeah, no, it's not really a money issue, it's this. And then, when it boils down to it, you're like ah no, actually it is a money issue.

Sarah Brill: 9:29

Yeah, and this is a really interesting point, because I think, even before I became a financial coach, what I thought I needed was a business coach. Right, I thought I have a business problem, and the truth is that what I teach is a framework around money. I don't have a cookie cutter approach, which wouldn't work on me anyway, because I'm a maverick and I love to rebel. If someone tells me to do something, I don't listen and mavericks will worry about taking high risk. So what I teach is a framework, right, and there are strategies within finance that people need to understand 100%. So that's things like budgeting, it's things like investing, it's things like understanding paying off your mortgage and your bills and all that kind of practical stuff. But how it might show up for people is as you said.

Sarah Brill: 10:24

People might tell themselves I love what I'm doing, but it's not about the money. I'm not doing this for the money. Or if I want to make more, I'm going to have to work harder. And so what people do is they work harder and harder and harder, and then they get to burn out right, and then the target moves and we keep chasing this moving target and what happens is we never feel fulfilled because we're always searching for more. We want the latest iPhone, the latest trainers, the new laptop, we want to go on holiday, and there's this feeling of just not enoughness. I don't have enough, and I even have it myself right, and particularly as an accumulator, scarcity if I'm not in alignment shows up for me, and as a ruler as well. I'm always moving the goalpost, I'm always chasing something, and so that can create this energy of I've got to work harder and what I have right now is enough.

Sarah Brill: 11:18

The other thing that maybe show up for people is they might think to themselves well, you know and this might be a deep-rooted belief that they think they can't make more than when they had a job right. Maybe you think, well, you know, there's some kind of security or stability there, or a value that you offer to a specific company, and then a lot of people might even have the fear of not thinking they can handle it if it actually gets bigger. Right, we have all these big dreams and it feels so far away from where we are right now that it becomes this huge thing. We start telling ourselves all these stories and all these things. I grew up and I don't know about maths and I don't know how to price my strategy properly and I need a business coach and I need to start posting on this channel.

Sarah Brill: 12:05

But the truth is there's so many ways of doing business right. There are successful businesses that aren't on social media. There are successful businesses that just do advertising. So my belief is there is not a single set strategy that is going to help people get to success. What it is is a framework of understanding and noticing how you operate with money so that you can overcome those challenges. So I think it shows up for people in different ways and that depends on your relationship with money, how you're brought up with money and your inherent nature. Right with money.

Donna: 12:41

Yeah, it's a fascinating topic and I wish more people were sort of as fascinated as I am about it, because the more you know, the better you can do it. And that's not to say you know. I know that I have issues and I certainly you know Sarah's got a masterclass coming up and I think it's probably going to have happened by the time this episode goes out. But I am on it because I know that I have issues. But I am always putting money in front of myself in some way. So I watch Remete Sateys podcast all the time and listen to those people and hearing those stories where you might think, oh no, I haven't got any money.

Donna: 13:18

Mindset problems. My childhood was fine, you know my parents did their thing and we didn't really talk about money, but you know, so I have nothing either way. And then when you really dig into it, actually our subconscious is so, so powerful and that's something that's really come out over the last 12 months for me is realizing how powerful it can be that something as simple as one sentence that somebody said to you when you were a child can actually have had an impact on how you are now, because we're so impressionable as children. So, yeah, it all kind of starts back then and it's really interesting to look at.

Sarah Brill: 13:54

I was going to say I said something the other day. Right, even as a money mindset mentor, I have a very active social life and I went out a lot and I was over the last couple of months right, it's been Christmas, new Year, etc. And I love to go on holiday. Last year I went to go see the pyramids, I went diving, you know. I did a lot of stuff and I thought to myself, you know, I said to a friend I'm broke. I said to a friend I'm broke and she turned around and said to me I'm broke. So you call yourself a money mindset Vintor.

Sarah Brill: 14:31

But that's the thing. Sometimes we catch ourselves saying things even though I'm not broke. Right, and I know I'm not broke, and actually, you know I'm very successful in what I do. But it's that tape that pushes me forward to keep earning more. But that doesn't necessarily mean I'm broke. But it's the story that we keep telling ourselves and that story changes over time. Right, there's a season to look at your money mindset. There's a season to look at your health and wellbeing or to look at your relationship. Now someone's ringing on my door. Yeah, so it can show up in different ways. And just a little tidbit there about how it showed up for me when I said it recently.

Donna: 15:10

Yeah, it is so, so true, and I've just actually got my quiz up and I am number one alchemist, and then accumulator is my second. So that's, those are my many archetypes, and I'm sure we'll give everybody a link to this quiz because that was fascinating and I love the way your quiz works. I think it's magic. So, yeah, we'll do that. But what I wanted to talk about next was you know, I'm one of these people who I know it was somebody I think it was a podcast I was listening to recently where they were talking about comparison and how, you know, we sit here in business and we're comparing ourselves to other people and how can they have it all together. And actually it was on the Fatou Fabulous podcast by Catherine and Julie, two of my students, whose podcast went live this morning as we're recording this and she was saying how, you know, they were looking around and their health was crumbling and they were juggling all these plates and they were looking around at social media and you know, in the real world as well, because it was more real world back then than social media. But how is everybody else got it together? And I'm falling apart here and I feel like a lot of us do that.

Donna: 16:27

When it comes to money. It's like how are they making all that money? And I'm struggling here and what I'm doing the work and they just seem to be sailing by Now. Obviously, we can't ever know what somebody else is going through or what they've worked on and whatnot, but it can often seem like there are people out there that just haven't got a care in the world when it comes to money mindset issues. It's not a problem for them, or you even hear it when they're talking. They'll talk with what we would think are limiting beliefs about money. Yet they've got a really successful business and I'm over here going no, it's abundant, it's coming from everywhere and struggling. So how does that happen? Like, how is it that some people seem to just kind of fly by without having to do the work and there are others of us that really sort of need to sit down and unpack it. Where do you think that comes from?

Sarah Brill: 17:23

Oh, we could be here for hours.

Donna: 17:24

I know we haven't got hours.

Sarah Brill: 17:26

So right, so there are different archetypes. I teach the secret money archetypes, which is a framework that was set out by Kendall Summerhawk. It's fascinating to understand how different people operate with money. That's the first thing. Some people naturally will be better at making money than others. Some people will naturally be better at saving money than others, and some people will naturally be better at taking risks with money, ie making, let's say, sound investments. The thing with comparisonitis is that we are all nosy and we all want to know what's inside someone's wallet, and so we look at this perception and nobody wants to tell us Right, and even when they do, we question whether it's authentic 100%.

Sarah Brill: 18:22

When someone says I've made six figures in my business, we might say to ourselves first, how do they get there? But also, is that actually their bottom line? Or have they spent 900,000 pounds in advertising, which means they actually didn't make that amount? And are they actually paying themselves? And all of these questions we actually don't have the answers to. So when we go into that state of comparisonitis, it's important to notice for ourselves what we're asking, because subconsciously we all carry opinions, judgments, beliefs around money.

Sarah Brill: 18:58

And I think that plays into then how we see and how we perceive other people, because success is not that, and I posted about this today. Success is not directly linked to a financial metric. Is someone who's earning a billion pounds as happy as someone who's earning 40,000 pounds and has time to go on holiday and time to spend with their kids? For different people, success, happiness, freedom, financial freedom they are different things. So I think it's important, when we look at this comparisonitis, to understand our own values and what's important to us when it comes to financial freedom. Everyone wants financial freedom, but it looks different for everyone, and I think it's important to detach ourselves. Even though we're talking about money, it's important to detach ourselves from, maybe, a specific number. Sometimes there is a time and a place to look at the numbers, but when we're talking more generally about things like comparisonitis and getting in our own way, those types of thoughts around, what is success is our version of success and that's a reflection of us, and so we need to recognize that.

Donna: 20:13

Yeah, yeah, 100%, 100%. It's difficult and I think that's another one of the things that I like watching Remi's show for, because it's just fascinating, because you do get the numbers. He shows you the exact numbers that they have given you of exactly what their net worth is, exactly what they're spending their money on, and he wants everybody to live their rich life now and later. It's not about saving up for retirement and squirreling away and living like a pauper right now. It's about what you love doing.

Donna: 20:48

And if you're on 40,000 a year and you're able to go on an annual holiday that you really enjoy and you get to completely splurge on that in a way that makes you happy, and then you've got time in your week to go and see friends and do your social activities, that is going to bring you a much better sense of wellness within you than somebody who is earning a lot more but doesn't have time to tuck their kids in at night, hasn't got time to see their friends during the week, it's maybe going on holiday, but they're constantly on their devices, they can't switch off from work because it's all going to crumble if they step away and all of that jazz. So you've really got to pick your poison.

Sarah Brill: 21:31

Yeah, and it's. Even research has shown that once you start earning in pounds over £75,000, you don't get happier.

Donna: 21:39

Yes, I see that, so money doesn't buy happiness, although it empowers us Up to £75,000. It does.

Sarah Brill: 21:51

Well, there's an idea that when we are generous and when we are giving back to a bigger cause whatever cause it is that you believe in, whether there's a specific charity that you donate to, whether you take a day off, work in the afternoon or to go and volunteer, how we spend our time, how we give back, is very important to our sense of fulfilment. And so there is an idea that once we get past a certain point financially in our income, it doesn't bring happiness because we've already bought, so to speak, what will bring us the happiness? Once we've prioritised our own needs our retirement, maybe our partner's retirement, maybe our kids' education, paying off the mortgage, the practical, lovely things then we can start shifting and looking at the lens of how can we give back. And that's not to say if you earn less than £75,000, you can't give back in some way, right. But it's about understanding what purpose and what's driving you so that you can give back in a certain way, because there is a sense of fulfilment that comes with that for sure, absolutely.

Donna: 22:58

Love it. Ok. So when we're looking at our money mindset and we haven't got a money mindset coach yet and I would highly recommend you connecting with Sarah if you're listening to this, we will link all of her stuff in the show notes for you. But what are three things that we could potentially sort of start doing now to work on our money mindset? That's going to help set us on the right path to discovering where our blocks are.

Sarah Brill: 23:26

So the first thing that you would need to do is to set yourself a tangible goal. Set yourself a tangible goal and not just a number, not just a vision. Right, we all want a dream big, but we want to attach a number to that. But we also want to be aware of how we're going to feel when we have that thing right Earlier retirement, going on holiday to Bali, whatever that looks like. Buying the nice car For me. I love scuba diving. Scuba diving for me. I'm very passionate about the oceans and sustainability, so for me, working on conservation projects is something that I love to do, and I know that I'm helping the environment in some way to do that. So for me, that's something that's very important. So understanding your goal and why you're doing what you're doing is very important, because what happens is we get told all these things about money, as we've said, when we grow up, and it's not that we don't have the ability to get there, it's that we're taught that we can't get there, and so we have to rewire ourselves. So the second thing is to start noticing.

Sarah Brill: 24:38

Once we've set the goal is to start noticing what's getting in our way and what's coming up for us, and this might be like really, really subtle things. It might be like the tiniest thing that goes under the radar, that we don't notice. We're human. We all have blind spots. We don't think about our money mindset. So we say, ok, I'm going to up my fees this year. And then the next thing we're going oh, no, oh no.

Sarah Brill: 25:02

Everyone said no, everyone said that they can't afford it, so I'm going to discount my fees and we put the price back down. But really we should be holding our value and keeping our set fees and then saying to ourselves, well, what's coming up for me? That's stopping me from charging that amount, rather than saying, well, I'm going to drop it for everyone else, because that's when we lose our power with money. So when we start noticing the actions that we're then taking, we can then say, right, ok, there's a block here, I'm discounting my fees because something's coming up for me. So noticing is very, very important. And the third thing is to take clear, concise action. Is to take clear and concise action towards your goals and focusing on the one thing that's going to move the needle for you in your business, in your personal financial life it's acknowledging that stuff is actually very, very important and it's going to help you get to point one which was your goals.

Donna: 26:06

Yeah, yeah, love that. Thank you so much. Oh, we could have talked for hours.

Sarah Brill: 26:12

We could talk for hours. I also could have said seven different things. That happened yeah.

Donna: 26:15

Yeah Well, absolutely, which is why it's important to actually have a conversation with somebody who works in Money Mindset if you want to dive deeper, because there is so much you can do, those are a couple of things that you can start doing right this minute as we're talking, and then you can go and connect with Sarah and go deeper, because there is so much to unpack with Mindset in general, but with Money Mindset especially. I think it's one that we don't give enough time for. So thank you so much for that, sarah. Before we hop off, I want to do my quick fire round with you, which I like to do with all of my guests. Just give them a little bit of a little bit more about you as a person rather than you as your business. So, if you're up for that, I've got three little questions for you. Ok, it's supposed to be four little questions, but I haven't written the last one down. So, ok, surprise, it's a surprise one. So what book has made the most impact on your life thus far?

Sarah Brill: 27:20

So I actually don't read a lot. I'm not even going to hide that I don't read a lot. I listen to a lot of podcasts and I do a lot of courses, but I struggle to stay focused. So one of the books that I really enjoyed reading and this was a long, long time ago was the Alchemist by Paola.

Donna: 27:38

Cahlin, you're the second person to say that, so yeah, yeah, that's a good one, okay, cool. Well, if you are a podcast listener, then the fourth question was actually what's your favourite podcast to listen to? So you'll probably be able to answer that without me sort of feeling like I've rung you under the bus.

Sarah Brill: 27:57

For me, it's the Diary of a CEO. I've listened to that on and off consistently ever since it launched. Yeah, I do. I love a bit of a studio partner and obviously I listen to this one too, but yeah, that's my. Yeah, no, you don't have to say mine, and there's another one I listen to as well, which is the Money School podcast, which is a podcast for money coaches.

Donna: 28:18

So if anyone's interested in being a money coach.

Sarah Brill: 28:21

I listen to the OG of money coaches.

Donna: 28:24

Fabulous. Okay, we'll pop those in the show notes for you guys to go and check out. What's your favourite go-to snack when you're in a hurry Salt and vinegar crisps oh, love it.

Sarah Brill: 28:36

Give me all the salt and vinegar crisps.

Donna: 28:40

See, I'm not a savoury person and I think I used to eat salt and vinegar crisps like they were going out of fashion when I was a kid, but I'm not so into them now, maybe that's why. Crawling cocktails my favourite. I overdid it on the salt and vinegar. Yeah, I think I OD'd on it, really did when I was a kid, because there was only Because. What did the multipacks come in? You got ready salted salt and vinegar, cheese and onion.

Sarah Brill: 28:59

I'm sure there was another one Maybe there was one no one eats the cheese and onion. Nobody eats the cheese and onion.

Donna: 29:06

And so obviously I would eat the ready salted and the salt and vinegar. So I kind of OD'd on them as a kid, but yeah.

Sarah Brill: 29:13

Someone in the comments is going to be like what have you got against cheese and onion crisps?

Donna: 29:18

That's true, it would be my dad if he was actually ever listening to the show. He would have me take them off to work with him. So that's all good. What is your ultimate me time thing to do?

Sarah Brill: 29:31

Do you know what I was thinking to myself? That it would probably be to go for a massage, but I actually think it's scuba diving. It's got to be scuba diving.

Donna: 29:41

I think that would be amazing, because it's almost like forced meditation, I think, because you literally can't hear anything. It's just got to be so quiet and the visuals that you're getting while you're down there so beautiful, and I would suggest, like I just imagine, it being very serene, yeah.

Sarah Brill: 30:01

I think for me, scuba diving is one of those things that maybe after I scuba dived I realized the impact I had on my life because it helped me create a great resilience. It helped me be comfortable in my own head. You can't talk to anyone on your underground and sometimes I'm a dive master. Sometimes I've been in very uncomfortable situations where I've got in my own head and it really teaches you that discipline and that focus. But also, as you said, you get to see the natural beauty. So, yeah, I go to really cool spots as well.

Donna: 30:32

Beautiful. I love that. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show today. Let everybody know how they can connect with you and work with you.

Sarah Brill: 30:41

Yeah, so I mostly hang about LinkedIn. I'm Sarah Brill on. Linkedin. I also, as you said, have the Sacred Money archetypes quiz which can help you understand your money personality, and that's I believe it's sarahbrillcoachingcouk forward stars Sacred Money archetypes but we can.

Donna: 31:01

It'll be in the show notes. It'll be in the show notes. We'll have a good link for you guys, so do head over to the show notes so that you can take that yeah.

Sarah Brill: 31:08

I'm on Instagram as well Fabulous.

Donna: 31:10

Okay. Well, that is it for today, guys. Thank you so much for your time today. Sarah, thank you for listening, and we will see you in the next one. Bye for now.