Ep #418: Attitude and Money

You are listening to The Life Coach School Podcast with Brooke Castillo episode number 418.

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, my friends, and welcome to the podcast. I’m about to go on a rant. Incoming… we have an uncensored rant coming your way. And I just want to let you in on something that I’ve been noticing and it’s important that you understand this because it’s real.

I have noticed a direct correlation between your attitude and your money. And at first, I thought it might be coincidental. And now, I know it’s not because I haven’t found an exception to this rule recently. And the only exception that I’ve made is if somebody had money before they had a bad attitude. We can’t change that.

So, what I’ve discovered is that those of you with bad attitudes probably have a bad attitude about money, which means you probably don’t have a lot of it. And I really want to encourage you to, if you want to make more money, you need to check your attitude.

Here’s how I know. I was very protected from this knowing before because I had always been exposed to the likes of you; people who were working on their attitude, people who wanted coaching, people that were in my immediate family that couldn’t help but be coached by me, people I chose to spend time with who were positive.

I was very sheltered from the world until I got a divorce and started dating in the real world and started meeting people that were outside of the self-help world, outside of the coaching world. And it has been extraordinary, to me, to meet people.

These aren’t just people I’m dating. This is people I’m dating and their friends and their groups of friends and their acquaintances. And what I have noticed is that negative attitudes towards life, towards self, towards other people typically translate into negative attitudes towards earning money, which seems to always predict a low income.

Now, I am not saying everyone with a low income has a bad attitude. But I am noticing that most people with a bad attitude don’t have as much money as they want.

So, if I’m right, you might just need to change your attitude to get richer. I really want to recommend that you give it a try.

So, because I spend most of my life looking at my own thoughts and the thoughts of everyone around me and encouraging myself to think in a way that serves me and encouraging my clients to think in a way that serves them and redirecting my friends’ thoughts, I’m on a very positive vibration.

I really look at the world in a very positive way and I have a very positive attitude about money. And so, when I’m with someone on a lower vibration, a lower emotional stance because of negative thoughts around money, it is jarring to me.

I’ll give you an example. I recently met someone that I was very excited about, very excited to date. We had so much. It was so great.

And then, I got an acronym text message, which was FML, which I didn’t know what it meant. And then I found out it means, “Eff my life…” which I can’t imagine why anyone would ever say that about their own life. Like, it was like, “What? Why would you say that?”

And then it was like, “Everything sucks. I suck. My job sucks. These people I’m trying to sell to suck.” I was like, “Whoa, okay, where do I go from here, Brooke the life coach?” I was just trying to have a fun date, right?

I said, “Well, okay, what’s great about today? Redirect, I don’t know, I don’t have permission to coach here. I’m just trying to have a good time. What is going on?” How is someone that negative about their own life? It was so jarring to me, and then to be with it in person…

Now, here’s what’s crazy about it. People who are this negative about their own lives don’t realize that they’re negative. And so, I said to him, “Yo, I think maybe your attitude is a little negative.” He’s like, “What are you talking about? I don’t have a negative attitude. I just have a horrible life.”

Like, what? I didn’t even know where to go, y’all, I was like, “Okay, so where do we begin? Let’s start with thoughts. Let’s start with what an attitude is. Let’s start with how it affects…” this person genuinely doesn’t know how much their attitude affects their feelings, which affects their results.

And so, I said to this person – he was like, “I’m just quitting.” I said, “On life?” He said, “Yes.” I said, “Really? So when you’re in the middle of the game and you’re down by a certain amount of points, you’re just going to walk off the field?” He’s like, “Yeah.”

I was like, “What is happening? How is this happening?” The contrast was crazy to me. I’m like, he can’t even imagine saying, “I’d want to quit if there’s still a chance to win.” I can’t imagine saying negative things to myself when they’re so blatantly negative.

My brain is, like, super sneaky with the negative stuff, but like, just to be so blatantly jarringly negative towards yourself and your life… And I see this as a theme with people who are struggling financially.

I was talking to another friend, an acquaintance friend about their financial situation. And she was like, “It just sucks. I just can’t win. There’s just not opportunity. It’s just because of COVID,” like negative, negative, negative, negative, “Nothing ever works for me. I just can’t figure this out.”

And I said – I mean, you know I had so much to say. I was like, “You should listen to my podcast. It’s actually pretty good. If ever you miss me, just turn it on.” But there’s so much to cover. There’s so much to say to someone like that.

And I know that many of you listening to this struggle with this, because you tell me. It’s like you want to share the goodness, share the positive energy, share the positive results that you’re experiencing from listening to this podcast or being in Scholars or being a coach. But it seems like there’s such a big hill to climb with the people that we’re talking to.

And so, I am escaping from it by coming here and talking to you on the podcast and kind of venting about it in the hopes that some of you will hear me if this is you. But also, to really talk out loud about, how can I – in a situation where I’m not coaching someone, I don’t have permission to coach them – present them with ideas and concepts that will help them in their lives?

Because the alternative is, “This person has a terrible attitude. I don’t want to be around it. I’m going to leave.” And also, I just fall in love with the people. I just love people. And I want to help them. And I know that I can sprinkle some of what I know and give them hope.

One of the things that I’ve struggled with a lot as I’ve gotten more successful is that people will often use me as a reason to feel bad. They will often say, “Well I just could never do it like you,” or, “You make me feel inadequate in my current job,” or, “You make me feel like I just am not good enough.”

And I’m like, “Whoa, okay, slow down. Me living my life isn’t making you feel anything. You thinking about my life is making you feel something.” And nobody’s going to feel sorry for me, and they shouldn’t because of the situation. And also, if me living in a way that’s very abundant brings up emotions in other people, I want to have some kind of way to not diminish myself to make them feel better, but to offer some insight.

And one of the things that I’ve noticed – and this is so crazy – is that when I say to people who aren’t my students, who aren’t listening to the podcast, who aren’t in Scholars, when I say to them, “You know, you really could have more. You really could have a life like mine. You really could do this too.”

I have had feedback from three different people that that feels like I’m diminishing them, like somehow they’re not good enough. Even when they’re complaining about their life and saying that they don’t want their life, and I say something like, “Hey, you could have a better life,” they feel like I’m confirming that their life isn’t any good.

And so, that’s been a real education for me, to how to show up in relationships where I see, in my kind of vision, how they could live in a happier way. Which of course, I don’t know that at all.

I don’t know that they would choose to do that or live in a happier way. And so, I get to the point where it’s like, “Okay, you have a negative attitude about money and I can see that that’s causing you to make less money. And I can give you advice and I can give you input and I can tell you to do some things.” But does that actually mean that that’s a positive thing to be doing, that’s a positive experience? And if I don’t do that, does that mean the alternative?

And so, what’s happened for me is I’ll offer all this advice, you know, “you can do this and you can do this and this would be great and I have all these things.” And then, when they don’t do it and then they bring it up again and ask for my help, I’m kind of like, “Well, I kind of already gave you my advice and you didn’t really take it. And so, now we’re here again and I don’t really know what to say or where to go with this.”

And so, my solution so far is to come on this podcast and tell you all, fix your attitude about money. Because I can’t tell it to them. But at least you’re open to listening.

Fix your attitude about your life. That will fix your attitude about money. If you’re negative about your life, if you’re negative about yourself, it’s going to be very hard to be positive about money.

If you believe that the world is amazing and that you’re amazing and that you’re worthy and that there’s opportunity for everyone and there’s so much abundance that everyone can be millionaires, you’re going to be walking around in the world feeling much better than if you’re walking around saying, “FML. Everything sucks. Everything’s terrible. I hate my life. I hate all the people in it. I hate all the people I work for. I hate my boss.”

Now, listen, there are temporary times when we need to indulge in negative emotion. I feel that. I understand that. But I’m talking about a pervasive negativity, “I can’t catch a break. This isn’t working for me.”

Now, I don’t take it personally when people are negative. Like, even if I’m included in that, I understand that that’s a habit, actually. People are in the negative spiral of that habit. But the pervasiveness of it – I feel like because we’re all together having conversations when I’m coaching you or we’re on the podcast or we’re, like, talking, I feel sheltered from it.

And then, I go out into the world where people aren’t exposed to our work and I feel literally bombarded with the negativity that is perpetuation people’s suffering.

And so, maybe this is your first time listening to this podcast. Maybe you don’t know that you have a negative attitude. And I just want to give you a heads up that the way that you find out if you do is by how you approach your life. And how does it feel when you approach your life?

What are you looking for? Are you looking for things to confirm your negative bias? Are you looking for how things don’t work? Are you looking for how there isn’t any money? Are you looking for how people don’t respond the way that you want them to? Do you look at how your life is terrible?

Because what you’re looking for, you’re going to find evidence for. And that’s why, when I bring this up to people and I’m like, “Hey, maybe it’s your attitude…”

“I don’t have a bad attitude. I’m just telling you the facts. I’m just conveying the news. I’m just telling you what it’s like out there.”

One of the first guys that I dated after I got divorced, we were actually on a date and he had said something like, “Well, you know, the world’s a terrible place,” as if it was just facts. And I said, “What? What do you mean? No, it’s not.” And he’s like, “No, it really is. You don’t know that?”

I was like, “Actually, no I don’t know that. I think the world’s a wonderful place. It’s amazing. I love being in the world.” He’s like, “You don’t watch the news?” I was like, “Actually, no.” He was like, “Well, if you did, then you would know the world’s a terrible place.”

And I just kind of had to giggle, like, “Okay, but why are you letting the news tell you that the world’s a terrible place when you could live and see that the world’s a wonderful place, and a terrible place, but focus on the wonderfulness of it?”

And yes, you could focus on yourself and find all the ways you’re terrible. Focus on money and how much you don’t have of it. And I’m not even talking about doing thought work. I’m not even talking about doing a Model. I am talking about the simple choice to try and have a positive attitude.

I am not talking about pretending, at all. I don’t want you to pretend things are good when you don’t think that they are. I’m asking you to consider that they may be good and to look for evidence that they are.

One of the things that we’re doing in the reinvention program is kind of seeing how other people view us. And so, one of the things that I would recommend that if you suspect that you might have a negative attitude, ask people around you, “Hey, do you think I have a negative attitude about things? Do you think I have negativity? Do you think that it affects how much money I make?”

And if you’re brave, you’ll ask that question. And if you’re even braver, you’ll listen to the answer. And if someone tells you, “Yes…” listen to them because when you are in it, it is very hard to see.

This person that I went on this date with could not see it. He just didn’t think I understood his life. Because if I understood his life, I would have a very negative attitude about it as well and I would want to quit as well.

Like, no, I promise you, I wouldn’t. I would never choose to think and approach my life that way. I choose to have a positive mental attitude. It seems like one of the most basic suggestions in the world. And yet, we don’t know how to do it.

So, here’s what I’ve learned. We have a long, long way to go, my friends. People always like to tell me that the life coaching industry is saturated. And I just giggle. I’m like, “Listen, all you’ve got to do is date for six months and you’ll see that we need way more coaches. We need way more people to help more people to get out of the approach that they currently have in their lives. Because we don’t teach this.” I know it because I was attracted to it when I was younger. And I studied it.’

I just hired a new assistant. Fantastic assistant. It’s amazing to me – Emily and I, my assistant, Emily and I hired a new assistant. Because you have to have multiple assistants when you start growing so fast.

And one of the things that’s so interesting is we feel like we’re raising her, literally. She’s very young. We’re raising her into the Model, into being able to manage her mind, being able to work, being able to have a positive attitude. Nobody has ever taught her any of this before. None of it. She’s like brand new.

It's like she’s a brand-new baby just born. She doesn’t have the exposure to generating a positive mental attitude about her life. And so, she doesn’t understand that when she’s being negative, that that is a choice. She thinks she’s just responding to the world.

And we told her, “Hey, if you want to work for us and make all this money, you’ve got to have a positive menta attitude. They do go together. You have to stay committed. You can’t quit in the middle of the game. There’s going to be so many times that you fail. You’ve got to be ready to rally.”

And it’s so great. She’s so hungry and so willing and so excited to learn all of it and to hear about it and to know more. How many other people do we need to get ahold of that wouldn’t normally come to us, that wouldn’t normally show up? I just happen to be finding them. I found Tori on a golf course while I was watching my son play golf.

But listen, if you are listening to me, I want you to check your attitude. I want you to tell yourself the truth about it. I want you to see if it’s maybe being reflected in your money.

There is something about a higher vibration of attitude attracting a higher vibration of money. I know it sounds woo-woo. I know it sounds law-of-attraction-ish. I know it sounds out there. And it is and it isn’t.

Your positive energy going out towards the world and releasing resistance will allow the flow of abundance to come to you. And maybe it’s not money right away. Maybe it’s ideas. Maybe it’s the right people. Maybe it’s opportunities.

But you will feel like you’re on a different highway when you adjust your attitude to be positive. So, listen, if you’re like, “I know she’s talking about me. I’ve been told I have a bad attitude. I know it’s true,” here’s my suggestion; just give yourself a week.

Take a week and try to improve your attitude about everything. Don’t pretend. Maybe you can’t go to, “My wife is an amazing blessing.” Maybe you can’t get there. But maybe you could get to the place where, “My wife is a human being who’s doing the best she can.” Shift your attitude.

Maybe is a great word, a great qualifier to put in front of optional thoughts, “Maybe I could have more money. Maybe I could have a better attitude. Maybe the world isn’t so bad. Maybe I’m not so bad. Maybe these people aren’t so bad. Maybe this is a little bit fantastic.

I’m telling you, it’s the simplest thing in the world, and it can make the biggest difference. I look around and I see you, your bad attitude is affecting your life. Do not think you’re getting away with it.

If you want more in your life, change your attitude. Have a beautiful, amazing week, everybody, and have a great attitude the whole time. Your goal this week is to have someone go, “Wow, you have a great attitude this week. Well done.”

And it doesn’t even have to be your authority figures. Just have it b anyone in your life feeling your positive attitude. Because the one thing I do know is that a positive attitude can be contagious too. So, enjoy that.

Okay, rant over. Have a beautiful week. Talk to you soon. Bye-bye.

Hey, if you enjoy listening to this podcast, you have to come check out Self-Coaching Scholars. It's my monthly coaching program where we take all this material and we apply it. We take it to the next level and we study it. Join me over at the TheLifeCoachSchool.com/join. Make sure you type in the TheLifeCoachSchool.com/join. I'd love to have you join me in Self-Coaching Scholars. See you there.