Self Trust Fund

Build your legacy.

It’s so easy to get caught up in the external measures of success our society surrounds us with.

Big house. Check.

Fancy car. Check.

Exotic vacation. CHECK.

But often these are not the dreams that still over our eyes in moments of wild abandon. We don’t dream of beaches, we dream of change, of hope, of transformation.

Our dreams tell us what we want our life to feel like.

Yet does your Pinterest board feel like your dreams or does it feel like a #instalife?

Allow yourself to shift your focus from the appearance of what you want your life to look like and to explore what you want it to FEEL like.

Surround yourself with the images, sensations, sounds, and tastes & smells that evoke those emotions in you.

Build the life you are seeking one sensual experience at a time and watch the castle of your dreams spring up in its wake.

It’s MONEY magic.

The cost of misunderstanding

Relationships are your currency.

It’s sometimes hard, when you are just starting out, to see how the people you meet might one day translate into MONEY but trust me, that’s where the good stuff lies.

The on-going, enduring MONEY comes from strong relationships with great people.

So it can be a painful time in your business when a spark of misunderstanding arises within an otherwise valuable relationship and it feels like a breach neither party can broach.

It’s important in those moments to do some practical reckoning on the relationships. What is it worth to you?

How much MONEY does it draw into your life?

How much joy (worth more than MONEY) does this person also bring to you?

What is the value of the loss you are suffering in this moment and what is the value of the future loss of the potential loss of this relationship?

Heart stuff should not always be measured with numbers. But it is a helpful thing to consider when you are mulling over a financial disagreement with someone you otherwise adore.

So ask yourself, what is the cost of this misunderstanding, now and in the future?

In times of change or transition, it’s important to remind yourself that budgets aren’t carved in stone and sent by the gods. They are living, breathing documents that are meant to bend with the times.

In simple months, perhaps this means you spent a little more on vacation (remember those?) than you meant to. So you tighten the spending in other areas for a little while to balance out the spurge. No harm, no foul.

In times of greater transition, such as an unexpected move or cash flow change, it’s important to take a good look at where your money is going and if it is still the best use of those resources.

That’s all money is, right? Resources.

Do you need to spend that much on that purchase or spending category?

This might mean pausing or canceling a gym membership as soon as you move. Yes, you love it but will you really drive across town to work out there? Maybe, maybe not.

This could mean a shift in how you prepare your meals. Maybe grocery stores are farther away in your new location so ordering a mailed grocery service is a timesaver as well as a convenient option. Time can be money.

This could be how certain expenses are classified within your budget. Suddenly a storage unit or a moving service goes from a nice to have option to a necessity, seemingly overnight. Embrace the change and allow your budget to grow.

With change comes abundance and the universe will reward you in time for your bravery.

Just don’t be afraid to be proactive with your budget in the meantime.

Throw MONEY at the problem.

Sometimes when you hit a roadblock, it may be easier to throw MONEY at the problem.

Yes, it is good to save.

Yes, it is good to keep expenses low.

Yes, it’s good to be mindful with your MONEY.

But sometimes the only way out is through and a solid dose of cash will help make the trip a smoother ride.

Invest in ease.

Besides, you’re worth it.

Protect your ass(ets)

In money and business, you are building a foundation to secure yourself for the long haul. You want a financial cushion that endures.

That means you need to be active in taking great care of it, both in the maintenance tasks of money, like checking your bank statement for any charges that aren’t right, and in the protection part, where you make sure that your MONEY boat is tightly sealed to survive the storms ahead.

This can mean getting contracts in writing, rather than trusting the good will of both people. It can mean finally figuring out what the APR is on your credit card and negotiating a better rate. It also might mean increasing the insurance you have on yourself, your home, or your belongings.

It’s not always the best, most fun part of the money equation but it’s one of the most important. If you can weather whatever comes, how can you take the creative risks you need to push your career forward?

Bravery is important but unprotected risks can lead to hard consequences.

Where can you shore up the protections around the MONEY castle you are building for yourself?

Buy what you love.

So much of value is the experience of it. White glove service feels so money. Economy class can feel bare bones.

Yet the experience is not the offering.

A meal is a meal, whether it is served on bone china or paper plates. A travel ticket takes where you want to go despite which section you sit in.

Understanding the experience you want to have before you buy is an important step for creating a life that feels abundant in the right ways for you.

Not because you are keeping up with the Jones’ or because your mother would approve.

Because you feel amazing when you experience it. That’s reason enough.

What’s worth more than gold?

It can be tempting to weigh your abundance by the numbers in your bank account (or the negative balance on your credit card). The way the numbers line up on the account statements feels like a measure of your worth.

Yet there is often more in your cup than you realize.

Do you have someone you can call who will help?

Do you have contacts who can provide answers to your pressing questions?

Do you have people who will sit with you, no matter how loudly the storm rages outside your window?

This is the stuff of true wealth. A community of like-minded people who can support, sustain, and slake your loneliness.

How else can the inevitable challenges of life be faced?

Only together can hardship be spun into gold.

Hard work leads to receiving.

When welcoming abundance, one of the best approaches is to work on receiving. Not the continual hustle of supply and demand, transactions and tasks.

You release control and surrender to the experience at hand.

Triggering, I know.

But sometimes there are tasks in surrender. You might need to focus on maintenance tasks for awhile, the stuff that keeps tapas at bay as we might say in yoga. You might need to head into your dream space and allow the fresh idea to emerge fully formed from your mind like Athena from Zeus’ head. Or you might need to keep on keepin’ on as all the stuff that you are doing builds up like interest in your high-yield savings account.

So before you decide to stop everything and wait for the universe to answer your prayers, ask yourself, ‘Where I can practice receiving through small efforts to co-create with the larger ones the Universe is implementing on my behalf?‘

Pick your poison.

When it comes to business, there’s always stuff that’s not as fun as the other stuff. It’s different for everyone but there’s always the emotional equivalent of cleaning out the drain, no matter how much you love what you do.

However, as my brilliant friend and guide Aliza Rose once told me, suffering is optional.

But that doesn’t mean you don’t have to pay your taxes simply because it doesn’t spark joy.

You do.

(Please pay your taxes. It’s just better that way. Trust me.)

Mostly you have two options when it comes to these not-so-fun tasks:

*don’t do them, suffer the consequences, die alone in a box somewhere without a friend in the world.

*do them, be miserable, hate on life, and spread the gospel of how unfair life is.

Do you see how extreme the thinking is here? Those are your MONEY MONSTERS roaring in your head. Both options are extreme outcomes for the minor inconvenience of maintenance tasks in your business.

So what are your two REAL options to make this part of your business flow like butter?

*get someone else to do it (aka outsource).

*find joy in the doing of the task.

So take a moment and make a list of the stuff that feels like YUCK in your business. Sort the tasks into two neat piles as outlined above. Smile. You are on your way to a more joy-filled business, hoo-freaking-ray!