Webinar Replay — Mind Your Money Story: Stop the Scarcity Spiral and Confidently Ask for What You Want
Rachael Sampson (00:00:00):
Hello, everyone. I am Rachel Sampson, Director of our Key4Women and Key@Work programs here at KeyBank, and I want to welcome you to our program today. Before we get started, I'd first like to take a moment to celebrate women business owners. It takes courage and tenacity to start your own business, and we know it is not for the faint of heart. Women-owned businesses have seen tremendous growth in the past 35 years since the passing of the [00:00:30] Women's Business Ownership Act in 1988. Today, there are more than 13 million businesses owned by women in the United States, and yes, we have made tremendous strides, but there is always more work we need to do to level the playing field in business.
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Sunday is the start of National Women's Small Business Month, and I want to encourage all of you to help us celebrate and support women-owned businesses throughout [00:01:00] the month of October by patronizing their businesses. I encourage you to shop women-owned businesses and help us to celebrate them on social media using #Key4Women, and let's not make this a one-month event. Let's be purposeful about showing our support throughout the year. In addition to that support, Key4Women is on a mission to support the financial success of women in business. We are passionate [00:01:30] about helping the community to gain access to the experts, solutions, and advice they need to achieve their financial goals and feel confident in their path forward.
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We often talk about the solutions, but not always the why behind them and what that is exactly what we're going to do today. We know that when our money's not right, it can have an adverse impact on everything else in our life, relationships, health, careers, [00:02:00] business, everything, but it doesn't have to be that way. I want to start off our program as we get in and introduce you to our speaker today, four things that you can do today to get yourself on a better path. First, know where your money's going, track your spending and expenses, whether your personal or business finances. It's the first step in gaining control over your money. Two, establish [00:02:30] a budget. Here's the thing, stick to it. Use what you've learned about spending to identify areas you can improve on.
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Three, craft a plan. Put your pride aside and fears aside, do not go it alone. Regularly meet with a financial services professional to review your finances and help you make up your own personalized plan to get you where you want to be, but don't just set it and forget it. Make sure you go in for [00:03:00] regular checkups to make sure you're staying on track. You'd be amazed at how much and how quickly your financial confidence can grow. Four, understand and control your relationship with money.
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This is a big one, because we often go to the budget, we go to the plans and all of those things, but I'm really excited to have Zovig Garboushian here with us today to share ways we can understand relationships with money, where [00:03:30] it began, and how you can change it to stop holding yourself back and go after the money you want and deserve. Zovig is a speaker, executive coach, and organizational consultant that focuses on advancing women in business by helping them lead with their heads, hearts, and intuition.
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She's a former marketing leader in management consultant and in 2019 left the corporate world to launch Boldness Ablaze [00:04:00] Coaching. Since then, she's worked with leaders at companies like Google, Microsoft, Accenture, and Lululemon, and often speaks to women-focused communities like the Washington Society of CPAs, Advancing Women in Tech, and the CFO Leadership Council. With that, it is my pleasure to introduce Zovig Garboushian. Zovig, thank you so much for being here today and I'm going to turn it over to you.
Zovig Garboushian (00:04:29):
Thank [00:04:30] you so much, Rachel. Well, I want to say to everybody, if you ever need a confidence boost, have someone read your bio back to you, because it's like, "Wow, are they talking about me?" Sometimes we just need that boost, so that's a pro tip right there, everybody. Have somebody read your bio back to you when you need a little boost. So, thank you, Rachel. It's a pleasure to be here with all of you. I'm so excited. This is my favorite topic, talking about women and our money. So, I'm not going to waste any time. Let's kick this off and get right down to business.
Rachael Sampson (00:05:00):
[00:05:00] Love it.
Zovig Garboushian (00:05:01):
Okay, Rachel, you can see my screen? Yes. Give me a yes.
Rachael Sampson (00:05:05):
We sure can.
Zovig Garboushian (00:05:06):
Great. Okay, everybody. Today, we are talking mind your money story, stop the scarcity spiral, and confidently ask for more. Well, we already started, but before we get into it, I want you to think... You don't have to put this in the chat. You can if you want, but you don't have to. I want you to think about this question. On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being not at [00:05:30] all, 10 being like unicorns on clouds wearing diamond tiaras, how confident do you feel in your personal and professional money conversations? I'm talking about negotiations, proposing client fees, raising client fees, having conversations with your accountant or your bookkeeper or your financial advisor. On a scale of 1 to 10, how confident do you feel?
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Now, get that number in your head and some of you are sharing it in the chat, which is awesome. Thank you for that candor [00:06:00] and openness, get that number in your head. Now I want to know second question, who would like to up that number by one point or two points or three points or even more? I'm asking you this question not just for fun, but because there's a reason, so that we can start to become more aware of our relationships with money. So, that you can start to feel more in charge [00:06:30] of your money. This matters, because the more aware you are about anything, the more access you have to change the things that aren't working for you.
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Now, there are so many variables that contribute to a woman's ability to effectively talk about her money, and many of them are not ours. The gender pay gap, we did not invent that. That was not on us. Bias toward women in the workplace, we didn't create that either. [00:07:00] A lot of the examples that we were shown as children, also not ours, and many women weren't taught, I was not taught how to have empowered conversations around money early on in life.
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Now, while most of this is not on us, I will tell you what is. There is something that is ours and that is your relationship to your money because your relationship to money is everything. [00:07:30] It directly impacts your desire, your motivation, and your ability to freely and easily pursue it and receive it, which is why we're focusing on it today. Because if you were anything less than a 10, when we're done here, you'll have some new ways of thinking, some new language that will give you opportunity to get more clear, more confident, and begin to feel more in charge of your money. Our relationships [00:08:00] to money get formed very early on. Like many of the beliefs that we have in our lives, they get formed early on.
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We are taught or given or shown a set of core beliefs about money and we carry those beliefs into our lives with us. Now, some of these beliefs are very conscious. They're like in the front of the brain, we know them, we operate from them, and some of them are in the back of the brain. They're unconscious. They're in the background. There are some supportive beliefs about money, and then there are some [00:08:30] not so supportive beliefs. Here is just a smattering of some of the beliefs that we can get mixed up in that don't help us. Money is evil. It's the root of all bad things. Money is a secret or private. That was one for my family. You don't talk about it. It's greedy to want money. Women should take what they get and be grateful.
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Money is about status. Money's meant to be saved, and people who spend money are irresponsible. One of the hardest things that I've heard in my [00:09:00] life is that women aren't as valuable as men. These beliefs, they can get imprinted on our bones usually before we've realized they've even happened. Then we make up stories based on these beliefs, and voila, there you are in a salary negotiation and you feel paralyzed. I was 17 years old. It was 1994 and I started working for my parents. My parents gave me a job, bless them. They owned a floor covering [00:09:30] store, so they sold some carpet and tile and hardwood. I was doing very simple stuff like answering phones and doing data entry and filing paperwork. Not very great at it. Things were misfiled for years after I left.
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After I got my first few paychecks, I think I had 200 or 300 bucks in my cute little checking account and I thought, "Hmm, I'd like to start saving some money." I felt very responsible. So, I went to my dad and I said, "Dad, how much money should I save?" His response was, "What [00:10:00] do you need to save money for? I give you everything you need." Then he waved me away. Now, I felt very foolish and embarrassed, which I don't think was his intention, but he was operating from a core belief and his belief was not unlike that of many men of his generation and our culture. I'm first generation Armenian and that belief was that women can work.
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Sure, my mom worked, she worked in the business with him, but they don't need to worry about making real money, [00:10:30] because that comes from the men. That experience with him imprinted on my bones. The story that I had was, well, I guess because I'm a girl, I don't need to plan for my money. There was one other piece to this story. Remember when I said I had a cute little checking account? I didn't understand that I needed to leave money in the account to cover the checks. So, I was just out there writing my little [00:11:00] checks, buying CDs and iced coffee at my favorite coffee shop thinking, "This is the best thing ever. Why do people worry about money? Just get yourself some checks. It's so easy." But all of those checks bounced, because I didn't know how it worked.
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That moment with my dad was the reason I didn't ask. That shaped how I entered the workforce. It wasn't until I overheard a colleague who was excitedly talking about her 401K that I stopped to think, "Huh, maybe [00:11:30] I should start thinking about my money like that." Now, there's also an interesting theme with these beliefs. It's that we can often attach money to morality. If we want it, particularly as women, if we want it, it makes us bad, which brings me to my next point that many women are not taught to want. A woman who has [00:12:00] desire is often seen as scary. You just turn on the news. You can look at what's happening here and around the world. The world panics and lashes out when women ask for too much.
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We get admonished, we get silenced, we get waved away like I was and sometimes even punished. The message that we often can get is that we should be nice, polite. We get conditioned at an early age to be polite and say, please and thank you, and don't push back. We get taught that niceness [00:12:30] is more important than assertiveness, and then for some of us, like me, we can buy into that story. If you've ever bought into the idea that you have to be nice and polite about money, put a yes in the chat. Let us know because I certainly did for a very long time. Yeah, we buy into the story. Yeah, I'm seeing yes, yes, definitely yes in all caps. Yeah, I've been working for almost 25 years. Before [00:13:00] I went into business for myself, I had 15 different jobs at eight different companies.
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That is easily 100, maybe 200 interviews plus countless informational chats and exploratory conversations. You would think that after that many interviews, I would be amazing at talking about my compensation, but I was not. I was at best okay and I rarely initiated the conversation. I'd usually wait until they brought it up because it made me [00:13:30] so uncomfortable. I didn't want to seem over eager and I didn't want them to laugh in my face about my request. So, I stayed polite and I followed the rules. I had a former client tell me recently that she is the only insurance agent in her community that doesn't charge a broker's fee. Her clients love her and many of them have been around for years, some for over a decade.
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So, I asked her, "How much do you want to charge?" She said, "500 bucks annually." Then we did [00:14:00] the math and we realized that she was missing out on over $20,000 more a year, because she wasn't charging that money. So, I asked her, "Why don't you charge the broker's fee?" Her response was because I'm afraid they'll get mad and walk away and I will lose them as a client. What exists in her relationship with money is fear and that fear holds her back, costing her not just money, but a feeling of being in charge [00:14:30] about the money that she makes. Our relationship directly impacts our desire, our motivation, and our ability to freely and easily pursue money and receive it.
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Every one of us on an individual level has the responsibility to look how you relate to your income and be honest about whether or not it is an accurate representation of the value that you create in the world. [00:15:00] Also, does it make you happy? Do you feel excited? Do you look in your books and go, "Damn, I have arrived"? We should be asking ourselves these questions all the time, because we deserve to feel good and free and excited about the money we make because guess what? Money is emotional. It is totally emotional. When we hear it's not personal, it's just business, oh, no, no. It's personal. [00:15:30] Money is tied to success and failure and surprises and our families. It allows us to have lives that feel safe and secure.
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When we make it and when we lose it, we feel stuff. I have never lost money even in a nickel slot machine and not felt something. Money is emotional. If anyone here has seen the show, Billions, you might know what I'm talking about when I say money is emotional. If you haven't seen it, no worries. I'm going to give you the CliffsNotes. [00:16:00] It focuses on a character named Bobby Axelrod. That's this gentleman here. He's the CEO of his own billion dollar hedge fund, Axe Capital. He grew up poor with an abusive father. Very young, he discovered that he was brilliant with numbers and he turned that into his very successful business. Through the whole show though, all of the money he made was never about the amount.
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It was about winning. It was about avenging his childhood, [00:16:30] making him feel safe, and it was about feeling like he was top dog. It was pure emotion. Money is emotional and money can feel great. There are some emotions around money that we might want to pay attention to. The most common emotions that show up for people around money are fear, guilt, shame, and anger. [00:17:00] So, what do we fear? Well, I know for me, my biggest fear for a long time was that if I didn't have it, then I didn't compare. I didn't measure up. What would people think? I would even go so far as to tell you that for a time, I thought that if I didn't have money, I didn't matter. Now, you might fear that you could lose money at any moment.
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That's that scarcity factor, the idea that there's only so much to go around, [00:17:30] so I have to take what I can get when it shows up. Or you might feel that money will change you for the worst. If your belief is that money is bad, that money ruins things, then you might stop yourself from going after big ticket clients or high paying jobs. You might feel really uncomfortable charging high fees. Sometimes our current fears around money are a reaction to an earlier life experience, a time when we didn't have money. [00:18:00] We have that constant fear running in the background that at any minute it could happen again.
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So, all of our decisions and behaviors revolve around that fear, and then there's guilt. This is one where I think women can do a real number on ourselves because we can feel guilty about everything. We feel guilt when we have money. Oh, I make too much and I can't celebrate it or be excited because I might make someone feel bad, my spouse or my parents or my sister, and I should keep it quiet. Then there's [00:18:30] shame. Now, shame is an emotion that can sink us like a stone. Shame and money are often thick as thieves. We can feel shame when we have it and we can feel shame when we don't, but here's the thing about shame. It perpetuates itself. See, it stops us from talking about it. So, then we don't face it and then we don't ask for it and then we feel more shame for not having it.
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[00:19:00] Then there's anger. Anger is a manifestation of one or more of these other emotions. Anger is usually the outward expression of these deeper inner emotions like guilt or fear or shame and anger can be easier to feel than some of these other emotions because it feels powerful. It feels less vulnerable. Now, anger has its place and purpose. It is a motivator and a firestarter. I have achieved some things in my life out of anger [00:19:30] and sometimes we need that fire and that push, but it's not sustainable. So, it's always good to notice when you're angry, because there's usually another emotion that's coming up right behind it, and that's the one that we want to deal with. All of these emotions, they create a negative relationship with money. It's unproductive.
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Instead, we want to nurture our relationship with money, because it is a relationship. It's the longest running [00:20:00] relationship I've had in my life. If we're nurturing it, we can be intentional about it. If we're aware of it, we can evolve it. So, if you're recognizing any of these emotions in yourself, well, congratulations. You are human. But now with this awareness, you can choose to recalibrate. So, how do you recalibrate? In a word, awareness. We build our awareness so we can make conscious [00:20:30] choices rather than making decisions based on old beliefs that are no longer relevant. We build our awareness so we can make conscious choices rather than making decisions based on old beliefs that are no longer relevant. So, I want to share some distinctions with you. These are comparisons.
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They give you a way to think about your relationship with money and they can help you build your awareness. So, if you were anything less than a 10 in that question that I asked [00:21:00] the beginning, you can start to raise that number. So, put in the chat, give me a heck yes, a thumbs up, a heart if you're ready to hear some of these distinctions and feel more empowered about your money. Let me see it in the chat. Thumbs up, a heart, heck yes, yes. Thank you, Dion. Love it. Okay, the first distinction is scarcity versus abundance. You may have heard these terms. Many of us are business owners here, and it's a wild ride [00:21:30] to own a business.
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Let's say you just secured the biggest client of your business's life, one that feels like it could make or break your career, and you are so excited, but there's one problem. The client is taking forever to sign their contract, and it feels like it's been months since you sent out that DocuSign, even though it might've only been a few days. I have been there. In that time though, while you're waiting, you start thinking about all the things that could have gone wrong. Did I say something? Are they going to change their mind? What if they change [00:22:00] their mind? I put everything on this. What if I lose them? What if I lose all of my clients? What if other clients never walk through the door again? That's called a scarcity spiral.
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You can also do this when you are interviewing for a job. You put all your eggs in that one basket and you're like, "I've got to get this job. I've got to get this job. It's the only job. I said the salary that I wanted and I haven't heard back from them yet. What am I going to do?" That is another version of the scarcity spiral. It's the [00:22:30] fear that we get that we will lose something and never ever get it back, because it's the only one. There's a limited amount of big clients and there's a limited amount of high paying jobs. I have to take what I can get. I have experienced a scarcity spiral. If you have experienced anything like that, that's scarcity talking. Fun fact, scarcity literally has the word scare in it. So, if you've experienced scarcity [00:23:00] at some point, you've probably felt scared.
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Being in scarcity is worrying that at any moment it could all go away. It's being in a state where you believe that there's a finite amount and there's never enough. But scarcity and abundance are mindsets and they have nothing to do with how much you have or don't have. There was a terrific quote on a show I watched recently called Poker Face, and I do more than just watch TV, I promise, [00:23:30] but I want to share this with you, because I think it was a really great quote. This woman, her name was Charlie. She plays a casino cocktail server who has this wild ability to tell when someone is lying just by looking at their faces. For a time, she used to use that ability to make money. It was like an under the table hustle, and she made a lot of money doing that.
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Over time, her conscience eventually got the best of her and she gave it up. One day, the casino owner [00:24:00] asked her why she would give it up. He said, "Don't you want to be rich?" She goes, "Eh, I've been rich." He said, "Yeah, how was it?" She said, "Easier than being broke, harder than doing just fine." She was not rich, but she was not scarce. In fact, she spent most of the show in a beat up car driving down dusty highways, doing odd jobs under the table for enough cash just for some food and a place to sleep, but [00:24:30] she was not in scarcity. She trusted that she had what she needed. Having a ton of money isn't always the answer to our scarcity. If you ask a person who lives in scarcity, well, what amount would be enough for you? There's usually not an answer.
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Scarcity comes from old fears and a lack of trust that we are enough, so we can create what we need when we need it. When we don't feel [00:25:00] like we're enough, we can often try to fill those holes with things like love or attention or validation and money. Scarcity is like constantly playing defense. You're just trying to prevent bad things from happening, and that is exhausting. But an abundant mindset happens when we believe we are enough, which means we will always have enough. When I first started my coaching business, I did some [00:25:30] contract coaching with a mega coaching organization and they paid a very low fee. At one point, I had more than 20 clients, which for executive coaching is a lot of individual clients to have.
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One day I was talking to a friend and telling him that I was exhausted, and he asked me just out of curiosity, "How many of your own private clients would you need to have to replace that monthly contract income?" My face did a little bit of math and I realized it was one client. [00:26:00] It was in that moment that I realized I was hoarding my clients and holding onto volume while simultaneously really messing it up for myself and taking away the opportunity of the money I could make because I was feeling scarcity. I wasn't trusting that I was enough and I could go and create higher paying clients because of the value that I offered as a coach. I had to trust it first. That day, I committed to myself that when those client engagements ended, I would not renew them.
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It was [00:26:30] a risky move and it required something of me that I trust, but I needed to be willing to believe that I was enough to create what I needed when I needed it. Abundance believes that we are enough and therefore we will always have enough. Now, I always like a little disclaimer. An abundant mindset takes work because we live in a world that feeds on scarcity. Hurry up and get this item. You don't want to miss out. There's only three days left. This sale is only 12 hours this weekend. Forty-six [00:27:00] people have this in your cart and you will never see it again if it's gone off the shelves. So, to live in an abundant mindset means we have to have some fortitude and some resolve and trust that we'll be able to create what we need when we need it. That's scarcity versus abundance.
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The second distinction is niceness versus clarity. One of the habits of underearners, according to a book called Secrets of a Six-Figure Woman, [00:27:30] is a lack of specificity and clarity. If we are not clear on where we're going, we probably won't end up there. Now, earlier I mentioned that we can buy into the idea of being nice and polite. So, what this might look like at work is I don't want to push them to get back to me about the salary. I don't want to push the client to sign the contract. They already said they can't afford it, so I don't want to push them. I'm just starting, so I can't ask for this much. I'm really early in my career, [00:28:00] so I shouldn't ask for too much.
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All of these stories that we tell ourselves that keep us contained, keep us polite, keep us nice, that niceness that's rooted in the conditioning, that will be rejected if we ask for too much. So, we don't want to offend them, so we sacrifice ourselves, but the truth is we need to be clear. We don't need to be nice. We need to be clear. Get clear on what you want to make. [00:28:30] If you're a business owner, you do it through your business. What's that number per month, per year? If you are going after a higher paying role, a leadership role, what is that number that you have? Do some research. Find out what the market can bear and what you want. What is that dream number that says, "Now I have arrived"? Not that'll do number or the safe number or you've done it before number.
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Those are easy goals. [00:29:00] The number that when you write it down gets you so excited, you feel uncomfortable writing it down. In fact, we're going to do this right now together. Get out a piece of paper and a pen, or if you want, you can use your phone or type this out, but either way, we're going to put this in writing. Complete this sentence, and you don't need to share this with anybody. I want you to have this for yourself. Write down my unabashed, unapologetic, bold and clear number is, and then fill in the blank. [00:29:30] If the number is too easy for you to write down, it's probably not the real number, but every time you move into a new client meeting or if you're going after a promotion or a pay raise with your current role or after a new one, you'll have this number in your head.
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Clarity is power. When you're clear on what you want, you can own your side of the conversation. That's [00:30:00] clarity versus niceness, scarcity versus abundance. The third distinction is getting paid versus being a creator. There is no easy way to say this. Many people are passive about their goals. Eventually, I'd love to own a bigger home. Someday I'd like to have my own business. At some point, I'll splurge and take that trip. That's passive thinking. It's the same as getting paid, just getting paid. [00:30:30] I do a thing, I get paid. I do a thing, I get paid. I do a thing, I get paid. Getting paid is also a mindset. It's one that is reactive. It keeps us in waiting. If we're just doing a thing and getting paid, we are waiting.
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On the flip side, being a creator of your money, that means taking an active role, because a creator sees themselves as someone who adds value to the world, [00:31:00] even in the smallest ways. Beyond the tactical product or service or job that you do, you offer distinct value, support, understanding, plans and strategies, solutions others couldn't come up with. You can change people's lives through the work that you do. You create an experience for your colleagues and your clients and your customers that they can't get anywhere else. They come to you for what you can do, but they stay [00:31:30] because they trust you. A creator chooses what they want to make and then they intentionally do things to work toward that goal and create that money.
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They intentionally say yes and they courageously say no when someone isn't willing to meet them where their value is. Now, I want to be clear about something, my little disclaimer. Being a creator of your money doesn't mean you're fearless all the time and [00:32:00] you never have anxiety. It just means you're not living in that full time. It's not driving you. What can you do to be in creation about your money right now? Well, for those business owners who are here with us, you can take a look at your current client list and see who's due to give you a raise and then take every one of them out for a fancy cup of coffee or a lunch and say, "Hey, I love you. I can't wait to keep working with you. By the way, as of October 1st, my fees are increasing [00:32:30] by 15%."
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If you are working for a larger company, maybe you can take a look at how your 401K is going. Maybe you can take a look at how long it's been since you've gotten that promotion and what you have done in that time to warrant it. Those are ways to be in creation. If you see yourself as a creator, the scarcity becomes more and more quiet. If you see yourself as a creator, you believe you can create what you need [00:33:00] when you need it. So, we've talked about scarcity versus abundance, niceness versus clarity, getting paid versus being a creator. The fourth distinction is wanting money versus being ready to receive it. It's not enough to just want more money.
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I have to be ready to receive it, which means believing that who we are and what we do not only deserves it and has worked [00:33:30] for it, but we unblock anything that might get in the way of it coming to us. I'll give you an example. Earlier this year, I hosted a leadership development event and I hired some vendors to help me with the event. When the time came to pay them, I had to chase one of them down, because they sent me an invoice with no payment information. It just included their name and the amount and the date of service, but not how to actually get them the money. Well, when I finally got them on the phone, [00:34:00] I told them I wanted to pay them, but I didn't know how and they nervously threw out their Venmo handle.
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That is not a behavior that says, "I am ready to receive" because the door to receiving the money was actually closed. There was a block there. It could look like procrastination on billing or procrastination on responding to clients or procrastination on a promotion that you had your eye on for a long time, [00:34:30] but you haven't put together a list of all the reasons why you deserve it and are ready for it. If you can relate to not being ready to receive, it's okay, because it's just another opportunity to recalibrate your thinking. Because again, the more aware we are of anything, the more access we have to change what's not working. So, let's look at these distinctions [00:35:00] together and consider where you might fall. If you fall more often in the yellow than in the pink, there's nothing wrong.
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Perfectly happy lives can live in the yellow, but if you're curious about what it's like to be in the pink, well, that's a new awareness coming through. These distinctions along with your understanding of your core beliefs about money are new tools for awareness. It means you can catch yourself in a scarcity spiral. You can interrupt [00:35:30] your tendency to be nice and polite. You can confront procrastination. Having new awareness can work to change our choices, because everybody, once we see it, we can't unsee it. Once we know something about ourselves, we can't unknow it. We can only move forward. Now, you'll notice that I'm not giving you a one, two, three step-by-step to feel more confident about your money, and that's because there isn't one.
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This is a process and [00:36:00] it looks different for everyone. Challenging our old beliefs that we've held dear for so long is our own personal journey. It's not linear and it's not perfect. But I can tell you one place you might want to start, and that is how do you want to feel about your money? What's the emotion you want to feel about making the money, charging the money, about expecting money for the work that you do? You [00:36:30] get to choose how you want to feel. I say choose very intentionally. I'm going to give you one more distinction. Choose versus decide. What's the difference? I'm going to tell you. The word decide includes the suffix C-I-D-E. That means to kill off or cut away like pesticide or herbicide, or if you're a former New [00:37:00] Yorker like me in the subways, rodenticide.
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When we decide, we're focused on what we're trying to get rid of or prevent or avoid. Deciding is very reactive, but choice, choosing, conscious choice is choosing something in the moment, free and clear of influences based on what you want to create. When you choose, you're moving towards something, not away. [00:37:30] This isn't about pretending like nothing bad can happen. We should always be on the lookout for possible bad outcomes. Conscious choice doesn't disregard possible bad outcomes, because life has risk, but what it does do is it reprioritizes those bad outcomes. So, they're not driving the car. They're in the mix, but they come after what you want to create. So, think about what choices have you been making lately that were actually decisions?
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[00:38:00] Here's my disclaimer, choosing isn't always the easy option. When we choose based on what we want, it means we might take a bit of a risk. It means we might tick someone off and we might feel uncomfortable for a time. Now, it's up to you to determine if and when your life can handle that risk and discomfort, because sometimes in life we just have responsibility and things have to get taken care of. [00:38:30] Sometimes we have a little more space to take risk and take more time, but when you do choose, you get to see yourself rising to the occasion. You get to mount evidence that you can handle things even when they don't go your way. When we choose, we take actions that back up our choices. When you make a choice, everything else [00:39:00] falls in line to support that choice.
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Think of it like dominoes. The first choice you make, the small choice is the first domino and everything else cascades after it. It's like when you finally commit to taking that two-week vacation and you go and you buy the tickets and you make the reservations, then all the choices that you make after that support your choice to go on vacation. So, you don't take meetings. You don't start new projects right before and you don't spend extra money before because you want to be able to [00:39:30] really enjoy that trip. Your actions back up your choices. When we choose, we take actions to back up our choices. A wonderful coach that I worked with said to me once, "Zovig, the universe needs to know that you're serious."
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What he meant by that was that for me to feel differently about anything, my money, my relationships, my body, my home, anything. I needed to take action, [00:40:00] even in my thoughts. Sometimes action isn't about doing stuff out there. Sometimes it's about choosing differently in here, and that's what starts our dominoes falling. So, I want to leave this with you. What is one small action you can take the moment you leave this Zoom call to get your dominoes falling and let the universe know that you are serious about your money over time and maybe not even that much time? [00:40:30] This is how we can go from feeling hesitant to stopping the scarcity spiral and confidently going after what we want.
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Thank you, everybody. Before we move into questions, I just wanted to share really quickly my contact information for anybody, zovig@boldnessofblaze.com. You can reach at my website, you can find me on LinkedIn. I would love to connect with all of you and [00:41:00] talk more about this anytime. So, that is my contact info and I believe we have some questions now.
Rachael Sampson (00:41:06):
Yes, that would be great. Well, we do have some questions. We got several that came in before we actually even launched our program as well as some that came throughout today. So, we're going to move into that. But before we do that, thank you everyone for being here. We enjoy the questions. Please keep them coming. We'll get to as many as we can today. For those that are [00:41:30] not members of Key4Women, use the QR code that's about to come up on your screen or visit us at key.com/women.
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We want to make sure that you get the latest events and insights and updates directly into your inbox. We will not spam you, but we do have local and national events and opportunities and information that we want to make sure that are in your hands, so that you can leverage it to build your financial confidence leadership in your businesses. [00:42:00] So, with that, without further ado, thank you so much, Zovig. We got some great questions in.
Zovig Garboushian (00:42:05):
Good.
Rachael Sampson (00:42:06):
So a couple came in on this one topic and you talked about the side that with that C-I-D-E and cutting off versus choosing and being very more proactive, making a conscious choice versus not. Can you revisit that and dive a little deeper? We got a whole bunch of folks. I need to record that and press rewind. So, if we can go back to that, that [00:42:30] would be fantastic.
Zovig Garboushian (00:42:31):
Yes, this is a subtle nuance, everyone. We interchange the words choose and decide regularly. We just do that. I do that too sometimes, but when we are choosing, it means we are as aware as possible of, okay, right now, I'm feeling anxiety and I'm feeling some fear and I'm feeling some pressure. That would typically push me to make a snap decision or to take the first thing that comes my way, but I'm going to pause. Because if we were to decide [00:43:00] in that moment, it would mean we take an action that helps us stop feeling those things. I want to stop these feelings of discomfort. I want to stop the pressure. I want to just get rid of this experience that's uncomfortable for me right now. When we choose, we recognize I'm feeling these things.
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We are human beings. It's not about never feeling these things, right? It's about being able to recognize and name them and say, "Okay, I'm feeling anxious. I'm feeling some fear. It's clear why, because this happened and this happened and this [00:43:30] is going on. But if I set this aside, if this wasn't happening for me right now, what would I choose?" It's about not allowing those experiences to overwhelm us, so that it's not us that's driving the choice. It's something else. Again, I always add a disclaimer, because I recognize that in our lives there are times when we have to just do the thing. We [00:44:00] have to put food on the table, we have to put our kid through school, we got laid off. There are things where we just have to move through and make the responsible practical choice.
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Then there are times when we have more space and freedom. So, we get to recognize when our lives can handle a choice. But choice is about recognizing what's happening and naming it for yourself in the moment, and then whether or not you're going to allow the fear or the concern or the anxiety or the discomfort or the scarcity [00:44:30] make the choice for you. Does it clarify, Rachel?
Rachael Sampson (00:44:36):
I think so. I think so. I think to your point, understanding what stage you're in and knowing when to pursue one thing versus another. It's one of those things. I talk about money all the time of money, not being money as in value, but money being a tool. Whether that creates, to your point, a choice of, "Is that choice McDonald's?" Nothing against McDonald's. They [00:45:00] do have the best fries. We're not going to get into that debate though.
Zovig Garboushian (00:45:02):
Thank you.
Rachael Sampson (00:45:05):
Am I going to Ruth's Chris tonight? It is used as a tool to create choices versus I have to eat McDonald's because that's all I have.
Zovig Garboushian (00:45:15):
Right, thank you for that.
Rachael Sampson (00:45:17):
Yes, and I think it goes along with, it was interesting. I was in Albany last week talking with Fran Hauser and a book she just released, Myth of the Nice Girl. We got a question from the audience that relates so much [00:45:30] to another question we got here in terms of business and that idea that you brought up around creation and wanting to create additional streams of income, whether it's turning something into a hobby or growing your business, whether it's creating a new product or service and expanding what you have. How do you get over that anxiety and fear that we talked about to jump into try some of those things? It's a little bit different in that I need [00:46:00] to do this and make this money, but I want to move to the creation space, but I'm not sure how to get there.
Zovig Garboushian (00:46:06):
Yeah, I think it depends on who you are and what your life circumstances. For me, I had a lot of fear about going on to business for myself. A lot of it was driven by I need health insurance and I know what it costs in this world to pay out of pocket for that. So, I created a plan. First, I gathered information, I got clarity. I didn't just [00:46:30] float around. Oh, no, I can't pay for insurance. It's going to cost too much. Just fall into that belief and let it block me. I got information. How much is it going to cost me out of pocket? What kind of client work would that take from me to make sure that that was paid every month? So you have to gather your data and then I created a plan.
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My plan was not tomorrow, I quit and I'm starting my business. My plan was I'm going to work myself out of a job. I'm going to take on clients and balance what I'm doing for work [00:47:00] with my private clients until I get to the point where the balance has tipped and I now see that the flywheel is moving and that clients are showing up and I can now leave my job comfortably. I didn't make the same amount of money I made when I left my job. It takes time to build that up if you start a business, but I had a plan. I gave myself a timeline. I did what I call responsible waiting.
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So, there's reasonable procrastination where we procrastinate and we have all these reasons [00:47:30] why we can't, right? And then we create these reasonable committees that oh, yeah, Rachel, you're so smart. You should definitely wait. You always make the best decision and people validate us, but if we're responsibly waiting, it's because we have a plan. I'm waiting until X time and I'm doing X, Y, and Z in between to make sure that I can make that happen.
Rachael Sampson (00:47:51):
I like that. When you think about that and how you set those prices and got that dollar amount that you needed to hit in your mind, we got a [00:48:00] question from the audience. Any advice for those clients that they may work with who are creatives and makers because they have a hard time valuing their creations?
Zovig Garboushian (00:48:11):
Yeah, that is tough. I have, in my time in marketing, worked with a lot of different freelancers and self-employed creators. Your work creates feeling. Your work changes people's opinions. Your [00:48:30] ability to do the work quickly is a result of how long you've been doing the work and the fact that you have craft, not just a skill set. You have craft. I have an eye for fashion and color and design, but I'm not a designer. I'm not an interior. I don't have craft around that. I have preferences and tastes, right? If you are in the creative field, you create something out of nothing. Oftentimes people like here, it's purple and use these words, or I want a video [00:49:00] and here's what I think I want. You have to create something out of nothing. That is not something everyone can do.
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So, I think we have to first connect to ourselves and remember and understand why distinctly we are different, which is why it's good to have someone read your bio back to you the way you did for me at the beginning, that you've created this, you've designed this, you wrote this, and have a list and get connected to it. Then at a certain point, [00:49:30] we got to just take a leap. There have been a few times where I said, "I'm going to put this in a proposal and let's see what comes back," because I don't have scarcity around it. It's not if this doesn't happen, it's over. If this doesn't happen, it wasn't for me and now I turn to something else. These are mindset shifts that take practice, but creatives, oh man, thank goodness for creatives. What you do is brilliant.
Rachael Sampson (00:49:57):
Absolutely. I think it goes back to what you talked about, about [00:50:00] that abundant mindset that sometimes we have this thought of this is how big the world is. Even when we talked about women-owned businesses alone, 13 million, that's a huge number.
Zovig Garboushian (00:50:11):
Huge.
Rachael Sampson (00:50:12):
You just marketed to that. There's still a tremendous amount of opportunity out there. I think sometimes it's that to your point of shifting that mindset. What's that worst that can happen? They say no.
Zovig Garboushian (00:50:26):
They say no.
Rachael Sampson (00:50:27):
We get on the next train.
Zovig Garboushian (00:50:28):
Then you're open to something else.
Rachael Sampson (00:50:30):
[00:50:30] Exactly. So, I love the exercise of writing down your number and getting very clear of your unabashed unapologetic. I guess my question is, should that number be, if you're in a career, your ideal position or how much you should make? If you're a business owner, an annual revenue, or is this my final? If I were financially [00:51:00] independent and even if I am already and I want to be at a certain place to leave a legacy, is it that short-term number, long-term? Should we have two? How does that work?
Zovig Garboushian (00:51:11):
It could be any of them, because we're all in different places. If it motivates you and it makes you a little uncomfortable, then it's the right number to write down. You know what? As you evolve, as I evolve, as we evolve, the number will change. What we wrote down today, Rachel, is just [00:51:30] for you to start thinking bigger and gets outside of the box for yourself. But once you start moving toward that number, you'll go, "Oh, wait a second. I can actually kick that up."
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As we get better, we evolve. That number should always be changing. So, if you want to think short-term and the next six months, this is what I want to make as a business owner, great. If you want to think about in one year in my career working in corporate, I would like to be in ex-role and I want to be making between this and this. There's no [00:52:00] wrong answer here. It is designed to motivate you and make you just a little uncomfortable.
Rachael Sampson (00:52:07):
Just a bit. Just a bit. So, we got a couple more questions. I'm going to try and get to as many as I can. This might be a two-part question. What career and financial advice can you share for a 55-year-old single woman who's trying to build retirement income but also advance her career? What three areas would you recommend she study and act upon?
Zovig Garboushian (00:52:29):
Well, I can tell you [00:52:30] that this is why it's so beautiful that you have Key4Women, because Key4Women has amazing resources for this to help you understand how to build your retirement income, what sorts of things to think about. I'm 45, and that came like that, right? It was like, "Wow, where did this go?" So the time for when we want to retire is always closer than we think. So, I would say start talking to someone [00:53:00] like a true financial advisor that understands the long-term and the short-term goals and the types of things that are most important for you, because for every woman, it's going to be different. Your goals, your desires, your values, they're all different. A person with expertise can help you start to plan and incorporate those elements. So, the plan is right for you, because what's right for me is not what's right for you.
Rachael Sampson (00:53:27):
Absolutely. One of the great things, I know I got a couple questions [00:53:30] in regards to if this information will be sent out. Yes, we do plan on sending this recording out to all of our registrants, and then in our last newsletter, we will continue that and post that there as well for our entire Key4Women audience to view and record, which is awesome, because I think as you talked about, Zovig, in terms of talking with a financial advisor on that with the financial institution, is to take all of this that you've learned today. Before you have that meeting, revisit [00:54:00] all of these topics that we talked about. So, that when you sit down, you're clear about what it is that you want and you can ask those questions to make sure that you've got a great partner by your side that's in this with you.
Zovig Garboushian (00:54:14):
Clarity. Don't let anyone, even an expert, tell you what you should do. We need to understand what we want and what will help make us feel how we want to feel about our money.
Rachael Sampson (00:54:27):
Yes. So, another [00:54:30] topic which is interesting, especially I learned as I took over Key4Women, that it wasn't until the 1970s that a married woman could open a checking account without her husband. Now I'm going to date myself and say I'm a '70s baby myself. So, that's just unfathomable that you're not that far away from that point. So, can you share some of the impact of women being underpaid and some of the numbers that have [00:55:00] impacted their retirement and how does that play a role in some of those things that we're talking about, the passage of many of these laws still just in our lifetime right now?
Zovig Garboushian (00:55:11):
Yeah. I think generationally speaking, having it be that, I don't even think I knew it was that close, Rachel, that's really wild to think about that. But having that time period be so close, the ripple effects are still with us. The idea of managing our money can [00:55:30] still feel new or uncomfortable for us. I still have some of the echoes of what I was taught as a kid that I have to put into their place, to have them not affect me. I think the latest stats on what women make compared to men, were still 81, 82 cents on the dollar for every man.
(00:55:50):
I mean, that means that there are still a lot of bias and a lot of stuff working against us, but the thing to remember is that we [00:56:00] can go find out information and be prepared for those conversations to try and close up the gap at an individual level. I can't affect the gender pay gap on my own, but I can't affect when I have conversations like this, when I do it myself and model this for those around me, for even my clients, I can model that. We can model it for our children. It affects how we talk to our children. It affects the next generation if we don't work to interrupt it at an individual level.
Rachael Sampson (00:56:30):
[00:56:30] Yes, I love that. Children, that is the question. For some folks that now may be in that corporate world or first or second gen student or maybe underrepresented immigrant and you may move out of that scarcity mindset to abundance, but how do you create now for the next generation good money habits and thoughts and some of the other things to prevent them from being overly abundant?
Zovig Garboushian (00:56:58):
Yeah, yeah. The old adage, [00:57:00] money doesn't grow on trees, I think, is still relevant, because to me, it means it doesn't just show up for you. There needs to be work done for it. My parents were wonderful providers for us, but I am first generation. They always told me, "You need to work for what you get. Don't think this is just coming to you." My father came to the states from Beirut with nothing and built a lot from nothing, and [00:57:30] he understood what that took. While we were so lucky to have them provide for us, we also understood it's not for free. You have to show up for this. The universe needs to know you're serious.
Rachael Sampson (00:57:45):
I love that. I love that.
Zovig Garboushian (00:57:46):
So when we're modeling for the younger generation or if you're a parent and you have children, provide for your children, that's a beautiful thing to be able to do and find ways. So, that they understand there's something behind this [00:58:00] and it doesn't always look this way in life. As a non-parent, that's the best response I can give from my experience of being a child that was told, "Uh-uh." We got that a lot. Uh-uh. You have this, but this isn't how it always looks.
Rachael Sampson (00:58:19):
Yes. This is such a great conversation. I don't want to end, but I'm going to ask you two more really fast round questions about the children and talking about money and money [00:58:30] being a secret, being very different. What are your thoughts on that? The last one, parting thoughts for our audience today?
Zovig Garboushian (00:58:38):
The money being a secret, I mean, that showed up in my house. We don't talk about it. Don't say it. Don't tell anybody what we have. None of that. Don't talk about it. So, that made me think I couldn't ask about it, which made me think I couldn't talk about it in my adult life, that I had to wait until the third or the fourth or the fifth interview for my jobs before I was allowed to bring up money. So, [00:59:00] I should have been talking about it way sooner than that. So, the secret, you don't need to tell your children what you make.
(00:59:06):
I mean, you'd be discerning about what information you share with young people, but teaching them about leaving money in a checking account to cover the checks. Let's tell them about how that works and give them some functional and tactical understanding of where money comes from and how they might be able to save for themselves, five bucks a week or $3 a week allowance [00:59:30] and make it mean something for them. It meant something for me as a kid.
Rachael Sampson (00:59:35):
Awesome. Any parting thoughts for our audience? Thank everyone for joining. I will give Zovig the last word. We appreciate each and every one of you. Go to key.com/women take us home. Zovig, take us home.
Zovig Garboushian (00:59:47):
Yes, I would say the more aware you are about this and anything in your life, the more ability you have to change what's not working. So, get curious about yourself. Figure out what your fears are, what your beliefs are, your hesitancy [01:00:00] is around money and start to have conversations about it, so that you can break through it and make more empowered choices.
Rachael Sampson (01:00:07):
Awesome. Thanks so much. There you have it. Have a great day, everyone. Thanks for joining.
Zovig Garboushian (01:00:11):
Thank you, everyone. Bye-bye.
Rachael Sampson (01:00:12):
Bye-bye.
As women, we face blocks that prevent us from feeling free and confident around our money. Most of the time these blocks are out of our control, but what we can control is our relationship with money. This one-hour webinar delves into a woman's relationship with her money.
It will give participants ways to understand their own relationships, where they began, and how to change them so they can stop holding back and go after the money they want and deserve.
In this webinar, participants will learn:
- About their own beliefs and stories about money that might hold them back (and how to face them)
- 4 mindset distinctions to help them understand their relationships with money: Scarcity versus. Abundance; Niceness versus. Clarity; Getting Paid versus. Being a Creator; and Wanting Money versus. Being Ready to Receive It
- Small steps they can take to begin to shift their thinking and behavior with money.
Speaker
Zovig Garboushian
CEO of Boldness Ablaze Coaching
Speaker, Executive Coach, Organizational Development
Let’s Work Together to Achieve Your Goals.
For more Key4Women resources to help you reach your goals, visit key.com/women or email us to learn more.