Ep #340: “I Don’t Care About the Money” (and Other Nonsense)

You are listening to The Life Coach School Podcast with Brooke Castillo, episode number 340.

Welcome to The Life Coach School Podcast, where it’s all about real clients, real problems and real coaching. And now your host, Master Coach Instructor, Brooke Castillo.

Well hello there, my friends. Episode 340. Let’s go. So, I wanted to give you an update. I just got back from a three-day golfing tournament. Actually, it was a whole week of golfing. I wasn’t golfing. My son Christian was golfing. Two golf tournaments.

I flew out and spent the whole week with him in Arizona. We went to two different tournaments. He played so well. He is on his game, my friends. Some of you had asked about – he had been sick a couple of months ago, or maybe six weeks ago. And he totally recovered, is totally fine. He’s doing really well.

It was 106 degrees in Arizona. He golfed 36 holes in one day. I walked the course with him. We had just amazing mom-son time. It was so fun.

I am back in Austin because it’s starting to get cold in Colorado and it’s cooling off here, so I have a beautiful view and I’m excited to be here with you to talk with you about money.

I have a little bit of a rant to do. So, I’m just preparing you, we’re going to do a little rant today because I am so tired of listening to people tell me that they don’t care about the money, they don’t care about money. Really successful, really hugely successful people that I have been talking to will say to me, “Well I’m not in this for the money. This isn’t about the money for me,” as kind of like this qualifier to the work that they’re doing.

And it just makes me want to cry. I’m like, “Why would you say you don’t care about…” it’s like, to me, it’s like, “I don’t care about my health.” What? Why don’t you care about your health? And it’s all of this socialization, this brainwashing that we have around what it means if you care about money.

And so, I literally, when people say that to me, “I’m not in this for the money. I don’t care about money.” I cringe a little bit inside. And I met kind of one my heroes recently, I went to a mastermind and he was there. very successful. Makes lots of money. Amazing person.

And he just kept saying, “Well just so you know, I’m not in it for the money.” And I looked at him and I said, “Please stop saying that because why don’t you just give all the money away then? If you don’t care about it, why don’t you just throw it all away in the garbage?”

If you don’t care about it just give it to people. Just throw it out the window. Yes, you care about the money and you need to care about the money, especially if you’re a business owner and you’re trying to run a business. The money matters. You need to care for it. You need to care about it.

And if you’re running a business, you need to be in it for the money. A business is defined as, you know, a company that makes a profit. The goal of the company is to make a profit. So, if you don’t care about money, don’t start a business. If you’re not in it for the money, don’t start – a business is about creating revenue, creating profit.

So, I think it’s a well-intended statement. I think it’s a qualifier that people say because they want you to be clear that money isn’t more important than people to them. And so, if they just say, “I don’t care about the money,” then it’s very clear that the reason that you’re in business is not because of money.

And even this guy, when I was talking to him, he’s like, “For me, it’s about the game.” And I’m like, “But the game is money. Money is how you keep score of the game.” It’s like saying, “well, I love sports but I don’t care about the score.” What? Yes, you care about the score. Yes, we care about the money.

So, I want to give everyone permission to care about the money, to care and make it about making a profit, and to not make that mean that you don’t care about people or that you care about money more than you care about people, because that is not the case. That’s not the case for me. That’s not the case with most of the people that I discuss business with. It’s always people first; always.

And in fact, the more you take care of your people, the more you honor your customer, the more you take care of the people around you that you love, the more money that you will make. So, let me just rant and say it is nonsense to say you’re not in it for the money or you don’t care about the money.

Now, another reason why people might say it is they want to make money in their business, they want to keep score with the revenue. They want to have that matter. But they don’t care about spending the money. And I think that’s a really valid point.

I have talked extensively on this podcast about the capacity to have money. Not necessarily to spend money, but to have money. And so, the same guy that I was having this conversation with, he’s like, “There’s nothing I want to buy. I have so much money but there’s nothing I want to buy with it. So, that’s why I feel like I’m not in it for the money.”

And I said, “It’s not about buying things. It’s not about spending it. It’s about having it and being able to use money to help other people, to help your family, to take care of yourself, to invest in other companies, even if it’s through the stock market, to invest in real estate, to contribute to our economy. Money is very important and it’s very important to care about.

And so, when you say you’re not in it for the money, if what you mean is, “I’m not in it to spend money on frivolous things,” then say that. Because that’s a very valid point. So, I somebody says, “Hey, I’m so excited that you’re making so much money in your business,” don’t say, “Well I’m not in it for the money.” Say, “Well, I’m not in it to spend the money on frivolous things.” You are in business for the money, my friends. That is what we do.

So, I want you to know that when I hear you say, “I don’t care about money,” it’s like saying, “I don’t care about health. I don’t care about sunshine. I don’t care about growth.” It’s not a useful statement. It’s not serving you in any way and it’s having a lot of negative effect, especially if you really do want to make money and you’re pretending like you don’t because you don’t want someone to think that you’re a bad person.

How do you know if this is a lie? Because most of you who say this are lying. I was talking to someone wo hadn’t made a lot of money yet and they said, “I want to have a business but I’m not in it for the money.” And I said, “Okay, this is the deal that we’ll make then. Start your business, make a lot of money, and then just give it to me, if you don’t care about it.”

If you’re in it for just the growth opportunity, to grow yourself because business is a huge growth opportunity for you and you will develop yourself and you don’t care about the money, then I’ll take it. Just give it to me. Or give it to your friend. Or give it to a person on the street.

But they’re never going to do that, are they? Because it’s a lie. They do care about the money. They want to keep the money, or they want to use it the way they use it. and as they should. They earned it.

Now, when you hear me say, “I love money.” Some of you freak out when I say that. I love money, y’all. When I say that, I feel this sense of connection and abundance and generosity with it. It’s very powerful. It’s very powerful for me to say that.

But the interpretation is that somehow, I love money at the expense of something else more important than money. And that’s not what I’m saying. I love other things much more than money. And I, more than anyone, know the limitations of what money can do for a human life.

But what I do know is that me having that relationship of love with money has brought me more abundance than I ever could have imagined. And if you are someone who wants to experience that level of abundance, you’re going to have to change the way you think. You’re going to have to change your relationship with how you converse when it comes to money.

And if you want to have a successful business, you’re going to have to come to terms with being in it for the money. Because that is the definition of a successful business. It makes money.

So, practice saying out loud, “I care about the money. I want to make more money. I love the money part.” And notice if you can say it out loud in front of other people and feel confident. It’s interesting because when I say it, sometimes I go, “I love money,” and some people will delight in me saying that and laugh and think it’s so great and like, “Me too.”

And other people will be like, “Whoa.” And the people that go, “Whoa,” usually don’t have a lot of money, or they have money that they’re ashamed of and that they hide.

So, if nothing else, if that seems impossible for you to do, to say that you love money or that you’re in it for the money or whatever, just don’t say anything. Don’t say you don’t care about it because you will create a relationship with it where it doesn’t care about you and you won’t ever have it.

Think about what would be attracted to you if you were like, “I love money. I care for money. I want money.” That’s the attractive energy of bringing more to you. “I’m not interested in it. It’s not important. That’s not my focus,” will deflect it away from you.

Most people who say they’re not in it for the money have huge hearts. They want to contribute. They want to donate. They want to help other people. And the best way to do that is with money. And if you care more about the money, you’ll be able to care more about helping people that need financial help.

And these little comments that we make, these little bombs that we drop, we don’t really realize the full effect of that on our emotions. So, if you think about it, there’s a thought you have in your head that causes you to feel an emotion. All your thoughts in your head, those sentences in your mind cause you to feel emotions.

Now, if you say that thought out loud, the effect of that energy and that vibration is even more, it’s going to cause even more of an emotional response. So, I want you to think about, “I don’t care about the money,” I want you to say, “I don’t care about the money,” and then check in with how that statement feels in your body. It feels dismissive.

Like, for me, it actually feels neglectful. I’m like, “No, I don’t really mean it. I’m just doing this for a podcast, sweetheart. Don’t take it personally.” See what I’m saying? My relationship with it is so abundant and so loving and there’s so much generosity and so much gratitude there that it’s actually stymieing me. It feels resistant to me to say anything otherwise.

What does it mean to you to care about making money and to care about the money that you have? And one of the ways that I think about it is I am careful with my money because I care about my money. And I’m in it for the money so I can provide what money can provide.

And what money can provide, in my world, is for me and my life, for my employees and their lives and their families lives, for my suppliers and their businesses, for my children and their lives. When I’m careful and I take care of and I’m in it for the money, I’m able to have a much bigger effect on the world. I’m able to direct the energy of that money that’s going to be in the world anyway.

So, if there’s $100,000 that’s going to be in the world, I want to be the steward of it because I am the one that I know will care for it. and I will treat it well and I will use it wisely and carefully. And that may include purchasing something from a store that will then benefit that store and the employees that work at that store. Or it may be hiring a new employee and benefitting my company and the employee that works for my company. But that choice will be up to me on how I contribute and use the money because I care about it.

The other piece that I want to share in this podcast, and I think this is important to talk about, it’s something that I experience quite a bit and I know that a lot of you listening to this podcast have become very successful, many of you because you’ve listened to it, which is fun, and become coaches and become very successful.

So, one of the things that comes up for us as we start making money in the top 1% of people and women that make money is that you start having a disparity sometimes between you and the other people around you and the amount of money that other people have.

And because I talk about how much money I make all the time, as to be an example of what is possible to my students, people know. I mean, strangers know. My friends know. My family knows. Everybody knows how much money I make.

So, for example, when we go out to dinner, it can sometimes be awkward because, for me, paying for dinner, it will never affect me financially in a negative way because the cost of a dinner is very small compared to my net worth. Whereas someone else that I’m at dinner with, if they were going to pay for dinner, it could have a significant impact on their budget.

So, how do you navigate that? How do you deal with that if, in that situation, we’re in it just to be connected? We’re in it just to go to dinner together. And we kind of come back to the theme, “I don’t care about the money. It’s not about the money.”

And so, instead of being dismissive about it instead of saying, “Well I don’t care about it,” I really do care about it, but how do I pay for dinner, or offer to pay for dinner or offer to pay for many things that I’ve offered to pay and not create this disparity between me and my friends or the people that I’m with?

And I was recently talking to my girlfriend Kris Plachy about this because I’m trying to navigate this more and more in my life as I become more and more wealthy. And Kris is someone who I’m able to be incredibly generous with and I spend – I spent I should say – a lot of money recently on us doing a vacation for her 50th birthday.

And one of the things that I love about her is I was able to gift her that very generously and from my heart and there was no weirdness and no awkwardness to it. And I was asking her, why do you think that is? Because sometimes, when I pay for things, I feel like it affects the relationship. There’s some weird energy around it. Like some sense of obligation, some sense of guilt about it. and it affects how I’m able to show up and be generous.

And so, what Kris said to me, and it was so beautifully said and I think she completely nailed it, is she said, “I’m just in so much gratitude around it. I’m in such a positive feeling of gratitude that that’s why there’s no awkwardness.” And I had this moment of, like, “That’s exactly what it is.”

It’s when generosity meets gratitude. That’s when that relationship, where we’re not caring about the money, that’s not the most important part, but we’re utilizing the money to create so much more abundance in the world through generosity and gratitude.

And so, I told her, I said, “I’m so glad that we understand this because then when I want to be generous, I just need to know that I can be generous with people who are able and have the capacity to match that with gratitude.

It seems like a crazy thing to struggle with, a crazy thing for me, as a woman who has a lot of wealth, to really struggle with affecting relationships in a negative way by offering to pay because I feel very generous and I feel very excited and abundant and I want to pay for dinner, I’m happy to pay for dinner.

But I don’t offer sometimes because I’m trying to manage the other people’s emotions at the table who may feel uncomfortable or inadequate or resentful or guilty or obligated after I was to pay for something like that. So, I think it’s kind of an interesting thing on everyone’s level. You don’t have to be at the financial level that I am to be considering this. It could be at a much lower level.

If you have friends that don’t make as much money as you or you know can’t afford certain things and yet you want to share amazing experiences with them, one of the discussions that you could have with them that you could talk to them about would be, “What can I do to be able to give to you in a generous way which what that looks like is there are no strings attached, there are no expectations of you to do anything because I’m paying for this, there is no resentment on my part that I’m having to pay, this is simply a choice that I’m making to pay? It’s not in any intention to create a feeling of inequality or diminishing or pretense. It’s to connect, to include, to create, and to share?”

And the way that it can work is if you are willing to receive this gift, this offering with a match or gratitude. So, depending on how big the generosity, that’s how big the gratitude can be. And what can happen there when you do that is you create this opening in the world that allows for more generosity and gratitude, which are very positive, beautiful connecting emotions between people.

And it takes the inequality out of it. The person making more money, having more money, it takes that out of it because we’re matching on an energetic level. And I think it’s such a beautiful way to look at it and to discuss it and to connect around it instead of having it be this awkward, weird thing where, “Brooke’s picking up the bill again, I feel bad about that.”

And I feel bad about it too, not because I mind paying at all, because I don’t. I want to. I feel that generosity. But that disconnect that’s happening there is because the emotions aren’t matching on a positive level.

And so, I wanted to offer this to any of you who may have had this same struggle because, being in a position where you want to be generous but not at the expense of connection can be challenging. And I think that’s one way to do it.

I also wanted to do it for those of you who have a hard time receiving, who have a hard time being the one that someone is paying for or offering to help or contributing to. And I want to offer that from your perspective, you may be able to answer that generosity with gratitude and make it a really connecting powerful, wonderful experience instead of one that feels inequal or diminishing or disconnecting.

So, if I’m in that position – and a meal is a really good example – and someone has offered to pay for my meal, if I’ve gone out with a friend and I have a very generous friend in my life who always wants to pay for my meal. We’ll have lunch and she’ll say, “I would really like to pay.” And I will say, “Well, I’m happy to pay as well.” And so, we both double-down on the generosity. And then she’s like, “No, I insist, I want to pay.” And then if I can come back with that and say, “You know, I really appreciate that. I really appreciate your generosity. I really love that you want to pay for my mean and it means a lot to me and thank you so much for doing that.”

And it really is genuine. Even as I’m saying it, it’s true. And from there, we’ve created this connection instead of having it be something that isn’t there.

Now, if you’re with my family of origin, there’s always – it’s a game on who can get the credit card to the waiter first and pay the bill first. So, that is completely off the books. That is a whole other podcast. If my children are listening, it’s all about who gets to pay and who’s the winner of who gets to pay the bill. I’m sure some of you all can relate to this, trying to slip the card to the waiter ahead of time.

But if you lose that game, I guess, if someone else slips the card to the water before you’re able to slip them yours, just really holding space for the gratitude and really not just saying the words but really feeling the words and being in that space will allow for more generosity and gratitude to be in all of your relationships.

So, I want to end this podcast by just saying, please stop talking about money in a way that doesn’t feel good, especially if you want more of it, especially if you want to dance with it, you want to see what you can create.

I have to say that my relationship with money has changed my relationship with myself. I bought a penthouse in Austin and it’s beautiful and it is on a very high floor with a very amazing view. And every time I walk into it, it takes my breath away.

And I honor the work that I have done to be able to purchase this place that is a representation of the work that I have done and the value that I have created and the money that I have earned. And I high-five myself.

If you’re one of my friends, you’ll know, one of my newest things to do with my wine glass of sparkling water is to cheers my own forehead. Like, “Good for you, sister,” give myself a little cheer. Because I am proud of myself. I do honor the work that I’ve done. I do seriously commend myself for grinding it out, for being willing to fail and to have a physical representation of that in my surroundings is even more powerful.

And it is, I think, a reflection of me caring about myself enough to care about the money and my ability to use it for myself and also to give it to others. I want to invite you to do the same. If that resonates with you, if it sounds like it’s right to you, it is. And I want you to consider that for yourself.

And so, notice even just the little things that you say about money. I want you to think of money as something that can have its feelings hurt. What are you saying about it? Would it like what it was hearing? An di promise you, saying, “I don’t care about it,” or, “I’m not in it for it,” is not what is going to create a positive relationship in your life with it.

Have a beautiful week my friends. I’ll talk to you soon. Bye-bye.

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