BUSINESS UNVEILED

How to Use Your Creative Business to Fund Your Personal Wealth

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Think about it… How would you like to be able to use your creative business as a means of funding your personal wealth? As a money management and mindset coach, our guest, Erinn Bridgman empowers female entrepreneurs to design a business that is not just ‘profitable’, but actually grows their personal wealth.

MAIN TOPICS

  • The difference between profitability in your creative business and growing your personal wealth
  • The financial challenges that keep creative women from building wealth
  • Ways can listeners use their creative business to become more personally wealthy

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Feeling more open to managing their business finances

Managing business finances in a way that aligns with their creative spirit and future goals

MORE ABOUT OUR GUEST

As a money management and mindset coach, Erinn Bridgman empowers female entrepreneurs to design a business that is not just ‘profitable’, but actually grows their personal wealth. Born with an entrepreneurial spirit, Erinn cut her chops by scaling her photography business to over six figures in under two years, affording her the capital to begin funding the real estate empire she and her husband now run. Ever passionate about supporting women as they uncover their own potential and earning power, Erinn supports female business owners to not just ‘scale their business’ but to use it as a means for building personal wealth. When she’s not working with clients or finding her next investment property, Erinn can likely be found vacationing around the world and spending quality time with friends, her husband and daughter, Ava.

EPISODE TRANSCRIBED

Hey, y'all, it's Angela, I'm back for another episode of business unveiled. I'm so excited for today's guest, for a lot of reasons. She's awesome. But the main thing is, she has really learned how to exit a company, do something completely different, but still use the foundation of what you build in her company. And women don't like to talk about building wealth and building personal wealth, and how do you really build a business and you scale it to where you're not burnt out?

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Or you go start something else? And then how do you build a lifestyle and build a business around personal wealth and what you want? And a lot of us, nobody asked me what I wanted. I mean, even when when I was a woman in my 20s owning a business, like what do you really want. And then when someone actually asked me, I was like, oh, that's what that means. And so I really want you to think about as you listen today, put yourself in the headspace of thinking like, what do I really want? And how can I build personal wealth because it does exist? We're walking poster children of it. And we're going to talk about that today. So Erin, welcome to the show. Yay. Thanks
so much for having me. I'm excited for you to be here. Before we
dive in, and talk all about the business stuff. And really, I mean, you're a creative to you, I know that you were a photographer and used to shoot weddings, and you did video and you and your husband did it together and but even before that, like just let our listeners in a little bit on like your journey and how you've gotten to where you are today. And now she's doing real estate you also, this is gonna be really fun. Yeah,
I am definitely a Creative At Heart. And so I, as I do this work, this nerdy work and convincing creatives that spreadsheets are sexy, you know, I know, I'm speaking to like, the creative, you know that I have that creative side and that nerdy side. And now, you know, inside of real estate, I do interior design, I run all of our staging. So I'm still very much a creative, but just a nerdy one. And yeah, okay, so my journey, you know, photography was the beginning of what I would say, you know, started my business empire. But even before that, I was selling books door to door to pay for college. And so I was yes, I was hitting the streets of Iowa, knocking on doors, I love him to 13 hours a day, doing the hardest part of sales you can possibly imagine cold calling door to door and learned so much about myself about mindset about sales. And I finished top 10 in the nation of first years and did again because I was crazy enough. And so you know. Yeah, so that's like, you know, I've kind of had it in my blood since I was a child of like, hey, you know, I want to do work that based on my effort I get paid for. And I was always coming up with little businesses. And my husband also is an entrepreneur. I think he started his first company was eight. And so we had we went the higher ed route, we both have master's degrees, he was halfway through a Ph. D degree. And we like kind of really decided, like, what do we want for our life or our lifestyle? What lights us up and entrepreneurship has just been our journey for like the past decade. And photography was something that we started right after we graduated. And we had like, no money, and we use our graduation money to pay for a first camera, oh my God and that. And we scaled that to a six figure brand within about two years and roll that into real estate and have just evolved that into my coaching business once I left my full time job. And it's just been a wild, crazy, beautiful journey.
That's so awesome, though. But I'm so interested to know along this way, in your journey, you love you like you really love helping women and teaching women about money and numbers and so on. I love it sucks. I can like see a tick tock in my head right now like sexy spreadsheets. Like a dance. But it used
to be in my Insta Bio, like, spreadsheets are sexy.
I love that. But it's like, it's not. But if you're never if you don't take the time to learn your numbers, you're never going to be able to get off the hamster wheel and like, understand. So before we just like, really, really like jump into it. Like, can you just share the there's a difference between like the profitability? Well, let's just go back to being creatives. We're both creatives. And most people on here are creatives that listen and watch. And so how are the two connected? Like, how are they? How is profitability? And then personal wealth? Like how can those two directly connect each other, like for creative business owners?
Wow, I mean, this is the case for any business owner. But I think, you know, as creatives we're up against, we choose to put limitations on ourselves, that are different than maybe other types of business owners. And also, particularly as with men, so I just want to say that kind of gonna go on a little round, we're gonna come back to that in just a second. But you know, as women, I just like to put in perspective, like, not only are you up against your own story, your own money journey, the, you know, subconscious programming that you've been up against, based on your upbringing, and what what people told you about yourself, but you're up against a history of, you know, money being something that women have been, you know, discriminated against disempowered around. And I just love to bring that into the forefront of this conversation to say, as you step into shutting your fear around money, and owning your money management, it's not just a shift for you, it's a shift that you're like on the frontlines of a societal change. I say wealthy women will change the world. And this is a real movement. If you think about history, in the past 100 years, you know, less than 100 years ago, a woman could open a bank account, like without just they couldn't without a man, they needed a man to open a bank account 100 years ago, less than 100 years ago,
I didn't even know that I'm like putting this down.
What so this is like 1960s 1970s, this is when women could actually have a bank account open in their name, less than I. So that's less than 100 years ago, less than 100 years ago, a woman could not get a credit card without a man. Okay. So this, I mean, it was you know, it wasn't until the 70s, I think that we were, there was actual laws for gender equality, in, you know, wages, and we still know, like, 2021, the average, like, you know, man's ways to a woman's wage. And I'm not talking about like, different types of careers or anything, I'm talking about similar. On average, women made 82 cents of the dollar of a man. So like, this stuff is so close to, like, you know, this is about past 100 years. And so, I believe that as entrepreneurs, we are on the very front lines, because we have the ability to generate our own revenue, we have the ability to increase our income, we're gutsy enough to come into the, into the world and say, whatever I offer as a service or as a product, I'm going to ask money for it. So this makes us really powerful women in this movement. And so just wanted to say that as a creative who's maybe given themselves labels, like I'm just not good with numbers, I don't know how to do it. And all these things, there's common and we can talk about that if you want like common limiting beliefs, I hear creative say, Yeah, remember that this is bigger than you This is bigger than, you know. And it's going to be hugely impactful for you. But I just really like to put that into perspective. So I know I would add a row there, but
no, no, it's okay. It's important. And like, I've never even thought about that. Like, be I'm not a history person. And I'm not great with numbers, like all the things the limiting beliefs, but I've learned and surround yourself with people that can do those things. And you're going to have some people that I've been stolen from I've been lied to. I had the same accountant for a long time, and then something fell through the cracks. And then I got a new one. You know, it's like, you just have to keep up and educate yourself. But also find the right people who can help you get to where you need to go. And if you know, you're not good at numbers, you can't use the excuse of, I can't afford to hire a bookkeeper or hire an accountant, like you can't afford not to not have that. Like, it's just you can't be everything to everybody. So I know that, you know, aside from the limiting beliefs of women thinking, I'm not good at this, or you know, whatever. I know that there are some challenges, and especially what you just said, we couldn't go to the bank and get a checking account or an account or credit card without American. Yeah. Yeah, like, what the actual hell? But it's like, I mean, we I can't imagine that because we don't live in that time. But what are some of the financial challenges that are like keeping women and creatives? Like, is it ourselves, we need to just get out of our own way, or we just don't know, or we need a framework? What do you see are the biggest challenges?
Well, I would say, you know, back to what we were just talking about. So it for me and my, like my methodology that I use with women, it's a blend of both mindset and management, the money mindset, working through those things, working through habits, working through our thinking, upgrading our awareness, and our belief in money, all those things. And we do it in in coinciding with managing the money. And so right there by empowering yourself to manage money and do things you've never done with numbers before, you are going to break through lots of limiting beliefs. But then you also have to have the data and the numbers and all that. So my system and the way I work with people is to do both. And I think that's really important. But particularly with creatives, you know, I hear many times, we get into business, and it's by accident, we didn't mean to, we didn't mean to start a photography business. We wish I did, because I but most creatives don't. We love to take photos, and then all of a sudden, this thing that is a hobby that we love becomes a business. And by definition, if you're moving from hobby to business, this now becomes about money, it becomes about numbers. And it's almost like sneaks up on people and they they kind of forget and you know, there's a lot that goes into that. And so I think, you know, a common thing for creatives is a worthiness of like, can I charge for something I love to do. And you know, feeling like they're worth the money. And then what we just talked about is another common one for creatives is that they, you know, say I'm not good with numbers. And by saying that, you're just reinforcing your subconscious, that you're not good with numbers. And so you can change that language, just be like, you know, I'm not naturally but I'm learning, I'm evolving, you can change how you speak about this. And I think Emily King even talked a little bit about that in her podcast with you. But, you know, I want to remind everybody who's listening, that nobody is born into the world knowing that nobody is great at spreadsheets when they're born. Okay, so this is a skill you can attain. So let's stop saying like, I'm just not good with numbers, it's an excuse. And you know, it's a skill you can learn. And I say that, you know, you can all you can outsource certain things like to a bookkeeper to accountant, like your p&l sheets, all that but you cannot outsource being the CFO of your life and business. And so So, you know, inside of my money matrix system, we have certain parts of the program as CFO spreadsheet in our personal money master sheet and all that stuff. Those are things that cannot be outsourced. Somebody cannot determine for you what it is you're forecasting in your business or they cannot tell you how much to pay yourself or how much to increase that or what your personal budget is, what your personal goals are. Those are things you have to know and you have to dial in and like know that number. And so yes, it's so wise for many of us to have a bookkeeper have accountants we should at a certain level Well in our business, but still, we must be the CFO of our lives in our business. So I think those are the Commoning, common limiting beliefs in creative. And then when it comes to management high level, what I see is that many of us do not pay ourselves a salary, we don't pay ourselves consistently. And that's partially because we don't know the numbers. And partially because we have this belief that it's better to just keep it in the bank account or reinvest it in our business. And we don't have an urgency and clarity around why we should pay ourselves what we should pay yourself, what will that will do for our personal wealth and our personal lifestyle. And so that is a real consistent thing. I see. And a lot of times with creative businesses, we have such seasonality in our business revenue, like if you're in the wedding industry, a lot of your listeners probably are, you know, six months of the year, you're bringing in a majority of your cash. And but if you know your numbers, and you understand the cash flow of your business, you can still pay yourself a consistent salary every month, as long as you've got that dialed in. So those are some of the common things I see with creatives.
And you don't have to do it alone. Like, you can get people to help you. And that's okay. It's okay.
I wouldn't have I wouldn't have a business if people didn't realize that they needed help. And right, you know, when they come to me, I like oh, my gosh, I have no idea this or that, or this, dammit, that's what you're in this program. That's where you're using these tools. Yeah. And I created this whole thing out of, after working with women for about five years in business coaching, I was seeing the same patterns, the same things. And I'm like, Well, if we don't get to the root of this, if we don't figure out our money management and mindset, like, who cares if I help you double your revenue, triple your revenue, or whatever, which is a lot of the language on the line is about becoming a six figure brand and all that. And I do that I believe in that. But more important is like, how do you make sure you're profitable, and you're paying yourself? And so it's just been an evolution of really seeing what, what's common with women and create, I created all these tools and its whole matrix, and people were having breakthroughs. And I'm like, Yeah, this is it, you know, and I just want to say, for those listening, and like, oh, cool, Aaron, she's like, whatever. I mean, my dad, when I was a little girl, and I was teaching you budgeting, he was just like, oh my gosh, here, and I just like, he's my biggest fan, too. I love him, we're super tight. He's like, I give up on you, you will do this budgeting thing, like, forget it, like, you know, you know, so like I said, I was like, of all things in my life that I'm now doing this, it's kind of funny. But just to say, like, we can all wherever we are, we can grow, we can evolve, we can step into that.
Yeah. And it's so funny. Because if I think of myself, like in the past, and then people have said, like, Oh, you're never gonna get this, like, how do you how do you even get up? In fact, there's some times I've worked with people, and I'm like, how do you function? Like, I don't know, because there's just so much going on around us. If you don't push the noise out, and focus on what your needs are, and being like the CFO of your life, then it's just again, it's like going back to a hamster on our will. So how, like, you have you have done it, like you guys stepped out a photo video, and you've gone over to real estate. So I'm assuming where your time is spent is what is going to grow? And so but how do you have like the energy and the motivation to and I mean, you have to you have to have money to make money. But there's this whole thing about like, talking about it and putting it up on a vision board and manifest it and but what does that really mean?
So my evolution, you know, I it is I'm a visionary. And I like to get really clear too. And so as I work with people, and they have these crazy goals, they say oh, you know this these kind of the ambiguous goals like hear people saying, I want to make six figures. I'm like, Why? Why does that matter? Why do you want to make six figures? Oh, because that's the trendy cool thing to see online or whatever. But I guarantee you and this is what we do with our work in my program is like, Let's Get really clear. Like I want to pay myself this much money because if I do that, it means that I can afford this lifestyle with this budget. You know, I can have these date nights I can have this housekeeper I I can have whatever I can pay off my debt. And we get we're like, okay, what is your debt? Okay, you have $10,928 on your credit card, let's figure out exactly how your business is profitable and how exactly how we can create your salary and your bonuses to directly go. And we will create a plan down to the dollar down to the date of how you're going to pay off that debt. And so I think, yeah, cool, like manifest vision, all that Sure. But like, the power in that I believe, is getting really clear on your motivation behind the money, what will what will happen, if you make, you know, if you start to give yourself an $8,000 a month salary, a $10,000 a month salary, and you know, because I always say piles of green cash are not inspiring. Like, that's like, you don't have any attachment to that. But all of a sudden, that means I can, you know, pay for my kids private school, I can retire my partner, and you know, the exact number, I know that that's going to change how you show up in your business. And so I think that's huge. And hopefully that kind of answers that like, manifestation visioning thing. And for me, my evolution has been with moving from company to company and conflict flowing through is we kind of always had one, I had a business that was like profitable, that was keeping things going. And then I would start the new thing, and give the new thing time to grow until it was sustainable. And then you know, you close down the thing that if it's not aligned anymore, and you can't do it all, and so you really can't. And so, as much as I wanted to continue just a little bit in photography, you know, I'm a mama. Now, I don't want to give up my evenings and weekends, we have two other very busy companies with real estate and my coaching business in so we've learned from like an actual numbers standpoint, what we need in order to, and this is huge outsourcing in our business and personal life so that we can truly be showing up for less stuff that matters the most, like you said, like, I'm here to buy my feet, I'm recording the podcast, your team is doing everything, right, because they you don't need to do that. And that's how Brett and I have been able to scale a lot and grow a lot is really understanding what is it that is important for us to do? And what else can we delegate out. But you can't delegate out if you don't have money to delegate it out. And so you've got to know all those numbers and what will happen if I pay somebody $20 an hour to do household stuff, to fold my laundry to do all those things. What happens for me, when I get three hours back in my day, and I'm doing that and zone of genius, right? Yep. And how much money can I create or not just money, sanity, how much friendships family, like Can I pour into.
And so money can be so liberating in that fact. And that has been for me a big change in the past year. Because I think many times as women, we're fine out, we get finally over outsourcing in our business, which is a big leap to do. And then you're challenged with a piece of what about your personal life. And that becomes a whole nother mindset and big leap to be able to say, I'm worthy of this, oh my gosh, I'm paying someone to do my dishes every day in my laundry, you know, all these things. But, you know, when you look at it, like, what could you do for that $20 An hour work and to make better impact in the world? And so yeah, that's been a huge evolution for brands and I is really pushing ourselves to figure out what does scaling and delegation and putting ourselves in the most essential places in our companies.
It's so important. And I know like, there's things that I do and even before the pandemic, you know, my mother would say, it's just the generation you all are spoiled, and I cut coupons and go to five different grocery stores or she doesn't understand why we get a blowout or why would I take an Uber to a meeting when I own a car. And it's like, I don't even try to have the conversation with people who aren't going to ever understand it because it's just not worth it. But for other business owners and leaders. I'm like, Okay, if you make X amount, this is where knowing what your time is worth per hour, not that you have to put you can't put a price on your time. Your time is effing priceless. Okay? Everyone should note that mostly a valuable resource we have, yes, you know, money's not going to bring it back. Okay? Now money may make you look younger, you know, depending on if you have a great plastics office you go to, it's cannot buy your top back. And so you really have to think about before you say yes, like, what is worth it? And you don't know if you should say no, or say yes. If you don't know your numbers, like you just you can't actually, I'd love for you to share a little bit about how you transition. Because it's hard. You know, like, if you build something up, especially in the emotional Money, Money industry, I'm sure you still have people ask or try to bend your arm, well, can you just go shoot already? Or, you know, can you just come do this? Can you just pick up your camera and I'm like, we have an internal joke of like, all you got to do, just pick it up all you got to do like, it's just so flippin easy. And it's not, you don't understand the time and the energy, the commitment, it takes not just go shooting a video, it is the time and the storyboarding out and getting everything set up and then editing it and then color correcting it and then putting the audio to it. And then you start at $5,000 for a video and it's like, well, you don't know video, not you. But you know, in general, I'm like, understand the value. But no, we're not going to put anything out without getting compensated for our time. And no, finish office sales is not going to be enough. And no, a percentage of affiliate link is not going to be enough. Like, we have to cover our time enough to pay my people period, the end, right? So it is it's liberating to be able to say that with confidence. And then then No, people can't say anything, you know, because you know your numbers. But I would love for you to share. How did you guys go from that industry over into real estate? And like, how do you tell people No, like from your past life? Like,
that's hard? Yeah, it is. I always say to myself, to my husband to my clients. When ever you say yes to something, you're saying no to something else? Yep, we are limited beings with limited time limited energy, limited resources. And somehow we trick ourselves into this belief that I can just say yes, I can just say yes, I can just say yes. And so pause, I encourage your audience to pause and say before I say yes, what does this mean? I'm saying no to, it could mean I'm saying no to a night with myself by myself Saturday, it could mean I'm saying no to a job that could pay me more, because I'm just eager to put it on my books and get it down. Like, what is the potential that you are saying no to in saying yes. And really like, pausing in and evaluating that. For us the evolution and you know, I, it's, you're always you're always evolving, what I'm doing now might not be what I'm doing in five years, probably won't be won't look the same. So on on a more emotional side, it's really important to listen to your intuition. And that's a lesson I have learned. Over the past year, I was wanting to scale I wanted to, you know, I want to reach more people, I'm just passionate about this work this my soul work and I my my angle. And what I worked on was a little bit different and and I was hiring the strategist, you know, I was paying for the Facebook ads, I was doing all the things that you're supposed to do to scale in the industry, and abandoning my intuition. And so if I could say one thing, you know, in all of this transitioning, it's take time to allow yourself to listen to your intuition. Because she's really wise. And that is been my one of my big things is pausing, slowing down enough to really listen. And last year, I put my business kind of on hold. I had scaled I had coaches working on underneath me I had created this whole 10s of 1000s of dollars in scaling and curriculum and I was like, I don't like this and this isn't working. And what the hell am I supposed to do now? You know, and I just stopped and I don't stop many you know, that's my you know, my my weakness. Sometimes it's not stopping and I said, I have to pause I have to tune in I have to, like, if this isn't aligned, and out of that came such beautiful alignment and what I'm doing and who I'm working with and dialing it into money and money man for all these things, and deciding, you know what I'm relational. Like, I'm not going to pay for all these Facebook ads. I'm just gonna like serve people and meet people and grow my network and be on podcasts and you know, just show up I've been serve. And so intuition is so important. So, I want to say that before I say all the other stuff, because that's really been a huge lesson for me. And then, you know, practically when it comes to making that switch, you know, yeah, you got to I say, I'm retired, when people ask her friends ask us a favorite could you just do like, we're retired? No. And if you can't honor your boundary there, I mean, which has happened, it's challenging. But we, that doesn't mean we change our response. And I want to say to like, you know, if you're inspired, and you want to pick up the camera, do it. But don't, don't, don't don't do it and like, make it a big, you know, charge. Just like, do it because you love it. Don't, you know, and so I still pick up my camera sometimes, because it's fun, you know? Very Yeah.
And then for us, it's always been, you know, like I said, there's like this overlap. So for us, I maybe like the firt, we saved up $18,000 from photography. And, for us, that was so much money. I mean, my salary was $20,000 a year, in my first job. And plus, I remembered I was living in a residence hall and in a dorm. And so like, you know, $18,000 was a significant amount of money. And we were like, well, we could just like, you know, have it in the bank account and make it feels really good and, or, you know, my husband, and I both kind of fluctuate on risk taking and who's the one had to push, and he was really wanting to push us into real estate. And that's a whole funny story we could talk about, but we said we could pay off one student loan with $18,000, we had close to 100,000 in debt, or we could buy an asset that perform for us, and basically paid off all of our student debt. And so we did that. And we bought our first rental property. And that was in 2014. And then, you know, we learned and we grew and we bought a few more houses, and we, you know, it, we learned a lot, and we made a lot of mistakes. And we had some wins, and we kept, you know, it was a few houses at a time. And then it was like, Oh, wow, like this is working now. So photography is not a needed revenue stream, and Brian can quit his full time job. And, you know, we can lean in on real estate, and then we can start to hire people and employ people full time. And you know, what we do now buying 12 to 15 homes a month? You know, that was 2014. And it's 2022. So like, you know, 22. So that's been seven years. So I think it's awesome. Yeah, it's so I think it's like, really, you got to know the numbers. Yeah, in order to like, know, when to leap? When can you close down that business? When do you not need that revenue stream anymore? When is another revenue stream? outperforming that one, and not just money, but in passion and impact? And, you know, then you make the switch to? Hey, okay, time to leave, it's time to go for it. But hopefully, that helps. Yeah,
I think the most, one of the really big things that you said there, though, is to make sure that you know, and understand the business that you're in before you go and like start something else. So I mentor multiple people at a time through the entrepreneurs center and Austria organization. And so I was meeting with one of my mentees the other night, and he, we have this form, you know, everybody fills out and it's like, here's our the top 5% of like, here's our challengers Who here's our wins. And so, I mean, they're they're a newer company, meaning they're under five years old. They don't have all the right people, they don't have enough people in place, which is a huge struggle, everywhere in the world right now. I don't know what people are doing. Well, somebody told me the other day, I'm like, what are people doing? They're like, a lot of people move back in with their parents. And they're not working because they don't worry that like there was a study done and I'm like, Oh my God, if I know that that would ever happen. You know, it's just like, yeah, what the hell? So it's like, it's almost like the parents are disabled disabling people to go out and like get a job and like start a life for themselves, which to me can be a little bit selfish when you have the means. To do it, it's different if you're sick, or ill, it's a completely different story. But you guys were able to have that foundation first, before you go start another business. And so this guy was like, you know, I have this other business and Baba, Baba Baba, and I'm like, Whoa, I'm out. I'm like, I have entrepreneur itis too. But you don't even have enough people in your current business, like you're flying all over the country doing all these things that you actually don't like doing because you tell me. And so we have to make sure that there's enough people in place, and the right people. And he's like, but you fly all over the place. And I see you on social media, I was like, I've been in business for 22 years, you're on your for. Don't compare your today to my today, like, but if that's what you do, you're gonna have to build it up and train people for at least the next two to three years. Like, unless you can recreate yourself, like, it's just not that easy. And so I think, go transitioning from one to another, knowing that that one already works, you know, the numbers, you know what you're doing, and then go on, but trying to have a full time job and do a side hustle, and then start another thing. It's like, nothing's ever gonna grow or go where you want it to go. Because you're not putting energy, you're splitting your energy up too much to where you can't see absolutely outcome. I don't know, do you find that people do that a lot. I was
just talking with somebody that's in my intensive, and you know, this about something very similar around this. And, you know, she has these goals for her personal wealth. And yet she has, she's kind of all over the place with what she wants to do in entrepreneurship. And so I'm like, Okay, we gotta get really clear. So what are your personal wealth goals? And so obviously, in the program, we figure that out, we figure out or what's your current budget? What's your upgraded lifestyle? Budget? What is What are the big financial goals that you are working towards? So, you know, I have I teach, like, you know, debts, debt payoff, savings, investing, large lifestyle improvements, and generosity are sort of the five buckets that we make our wealth goals around. And, okay, let's tap into that, because we need to make get clear on our personal goals. And then what, okay, so what is currently in your life that isn't maximized in generating revenue? And, you know, if you're not at your personal goals, then what do we do about it? And, you know, she's like, I really want to read a book, I'm like, Okay, you're gonna make no money from writing a book? Nope, you know, and, yeah, and if you do, it's gonna take forever, and I guarantee you, you have something that will scale faster and produce more revenue for you quicker than writing a book. So you can do write a book, if you want to write a book, when you have time to write a book, and do it for fun, don't do it for money. And, you know, so I guess my methodology, my first thing is, where are you out with your personal wealth? And where do you want to be okay, and tap into that clarity into that motivation to help drive your decisions that you're making on the other side, because if you're just like, me, this app will hop around, hop around, hop around, you are potentially, like, making your personal wealth stall out, or your personal goals because you're not doing the stuff you're not even where you want to be there, and you're not doing the things in your business to produce the revenue to bring it over. And so that's really important. Start with understanding that side of things, so you can really get attached to those numbers to what you need to do, and then start to make decisions right now, then, what does that mean for me? And what do I need to do to generate more revenue to pay myself more of a salary? And so we got really clear on that for her and I was like, Are you completely tapped out in your revenue? You know, right now in what you're doing? No, I could double it. Okay, what do you need to do to double it? That's your, you know, right now that's needs to be the focus. And, you know, I think that you we do see people so oh my gosh, you know, we I'm such a multi passionate entrepreneur, and I get it I am to obviously look at my wife, but I didn't build a photography business, a coaching business, a real estate business, a staging business, all that stuff at once. And, you know, so don't try to you know, don't try to do that, you know, in the span of a year when I didn't intend
so I think that you is so key and so important and really like figuring out that personal stuff and diving into getting the money set there before you know, if you've got debt to pay down, if you have no savings, you need to figure out how to budget your debt and get savings before you are starting a new company. Because it's all starting something new is always gonna take money and take energy and take time. And those types of things in your personal life matter, you know, and so that I think that's really key for people to remember. And that goes back to when you say yes to something, you're saying no to something out. So if you say yes, to splitting your time and starting this other business, are you saying no, to paying off debt to doing things in your personal life, and I know, we're really money focused, and we're talking about money. And I just want to say like, a concept I teach is called the entrepreneur sweet spot. And so when you're making these decisions, money is one of the components of making sure that you're like, totally in your sweet spot, but so is passion, and impact. Those are, you know, I love what I do, I love, you know, really, I love, I feel like I'm making the most impact on the world. And then lifestyle, I feel like, my business is at a place where, you know, it's supporting the lifestyle I want. It's giving me the flexibility. And so making sure that you're not just looking through the lens of money, we're looking through all those different components just to get ourselves dialed up in the zone before we go create something new, I think is really important.
Everything you're saying I'm like, yes, yes, yes. Yay. If I could just tell my younger self that when I would like start new projects, or I would say, Yeah, let's start a pet product line. And let's do this. And let's do it. Now we have something like the parking lot. And so we're like that i dia for perhaps next year, as just because you think it's a good idea doesn't mean it's always a good idea. At least that's what I've learned. It's
Yes. And not everything has to be a business as entrepreneurs or like that could make money that's gonna make money. Or you could just like, learn to do macro May and not make it a business and just have fun with it, you know? So I think we have to remind I love the parking lot idea. I'm a straight spiders coach as well, that assessments, I'm curious if you have activator in your top versus one of those really big Executing strengths, that influencing that just wants you to jump right into the action. So having a parking lot is so key to help leverage that in your life. Yep, it's so important.
I don't I need to go back. And look, I think activator was in my top five, but I can tell you, what my bottom like number 36. And on the lowest Listen, it was empathy. Like whenever I did, like, in this business class I was in my teacher was like, well, Angela has zero empathy
is not true. I wasn't like that.
I'm like, It's not that I don't, it's just that I'm not an excuse person. Like, if I say I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it. Now. Does that mean that it's the right thing to do when the moment arrives? No. But if I committed I'm going to do it. And so now, you know, saying yes, to this to things requires time. And so if it doesn't make sense, then or if it's not like in our buckets, then it's like, it's not. I hate saying no, but somebody else helps me with it. And it's like no right now. No. Like, when you know your numbers. It's real friggin easy to say nice. It is like, yeah, it just no way. But yeah, I love string finders, and I love I love Enneagram I love all of this. Like it's awesome. So I know that you have a quiz on your website. So we're gonna put the link to that. And it's awesome y'all it's super easy. It's just answer the questions into seven questions, answer them honestly, like, what is your relationship with money and what is your I like, what is my money IQ? It's, it's so needed, that you just you need to know and don't be embarrassed, like, please because I had to learn all this from from scratch. I mean, out of business for 10 years before I understood any of this. So if anything, like don't wait that long before you're just so burnt out that you know you need help or you know, you need somebody like that's the main reason I love doing these podcasts is because we talk about what we did and it's like don't do what I did. It's exactly
where where's your favorite place to connect with? People,
Instagram, I'm on the gram. So I love that I'm in my DMs. So as people are listening to this podcast, connect with me send me an IMS audio message. We'd love to hear about maybe the result from your quiz or what your financial goals are. And that quiz I'm very practical as a coach. And so, you're gonna figure out where you are in the journey. There's different stages and it gives you practical tips of what to do next to move along your wealth journey. And so, yeah, Instagram is the place to Hey, follow me there. My name is spelt weird. So make sure you put two Ns on Aaron Bridgman with no E, I'm sure you'll connect that in the show notes.
We will it's like my last name is like two F's and TJ is like, you know, we just, yeah, like saying it. This is awesome. Thank you so much for your tab. Yes, it's been a joy. Thank you. Awesome. And if you're listening or watching today, thank you so much for your time. And be sure to tune in next week to another episode of business unveiled by Yeah, that's it for this week's episode of business and veiled. Now that you have all the tools that you need to conquer the world and GSD get shit done. Would you share this with your friends and fellow business leaders? One thing that would really really help us and help new listeners is for you to rate the show, and leave a comment and Apple podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you tune in and listen to business unveiled. You can check out the show notes at Angela proffitt.com/podcast and link up with us on social media so you can share your biggest insights. And I want to know your aha moments. Until next week, remember the profitable shifts and structures you're creating in your business, help you be more present in your life. So get out there and GSD

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