TCC Podcast #110: Going deeper on money mindset with Colleen Arneil

There’s a lot of talk lately about money mindset and “blocks” that keep you from achieving the success you want. In this episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, Kira and Rob talk with the Queen of Passive Income, Colleen Arneil, about money mindset and how to discover the mind trash that is holding us back. We talked about: •  her path from psychology to money mindset coach •  why we don’t finish the majority of training programs we start •  why money mindset is important even if you think it’s woo-woo •  a few of the most common “money blocks” and why we get stuck in them •  some of the questions to ask to figure out your money blocks •  how to move past negative feelings from pressing financial needs •  how Colleen became the passive income queen •  how to build passive income into our businesses •  what she would say to people who think passive income is “easy” •  selling the transformation that a client gets •  how to you earn your authority (it helps to have a niche) •  the importance of “self care” and how Colleen approaches it Some pretty good advice in this one. To listen, click the play button below or download it to your favorite podcast app. Want to read it instead? Scroll down for a full transcript.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Colleen’s website Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group Intro: Content (for now) Outro: Gravity   Full Transcript: Kira:   What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters and other experts, ask them about their successes and failures, their work process, and their habits? Then, steal an idea or two to inspire your own work. That's what Rob and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast. Rob:   You're invited to join the club for episode 110 as we chat with course creation expert and money mindset coach, Colleen Arneil about how she became the passive income queen, why money mindset is so important, even if you think that it's a little woo-woo, building passive income into our businesses, and how copywriters can build their authority and expertise. Kira:   Colleen, welcome. Colleen:        Thank you so much for having me. Kira:   We’re glad you're here. It's a pleasure to have you here. We've worked together in the past. I know so many copywriters really are working on their money mindset. Even if they don't know they need it, we know that they need it based on the questions they're asking us on a regular basis. Let's just jump into your story. How did you end up as a money mindset coach? Colleen:        It's actually a roundabout way. When I was younger, I always thought I was going to be a psychologist, so I went to university, I did my undergrad, went onto grad school, did my Master’s in clinical. As I was almost done with my PhD, I had this awakening, at least in the traditional sense of being a psychologist, it wasn't the right path for me. I'd come so far, I just finished out my degree. Then, I launched an e-commerce program online and love customer service, passionate about it. That's where I started in the online field. What I noticed as I was taking courses to learn how to market and grow my e-commerce business was there was some people who could teach programs in an amazing way and other people who had so much knowledge, but they just didn't know how to share that information to actually get people results and help get them transformation. I had spent a lot of years at the university level lecturing and teaching. I just got really inspired to be like, ‘Okay, I need to help people better understand how they can create their curriculums and develop their programs and share their information so that it's a really positive experience and people get results.’ I transitioned out of my e-com business and that's how I first came online and was teaching a strategy part. What I noticed was happening was a lot of my students weren't getting to the end result. Either they were going down a rabbit hole and never finishing their courses or they had a course or they were just not getting out there and selling it. For a long time, I took that on personally as I think a lot of us tend to do. Then, I realized, ‘Oh, this actually isn't about the program. It's not about me not showing up and supporting them. It's that they're getting in their own way and there's a lot of fears and beliefs that are tripping up their journey.’ That was when I created my first money mindset program and started to really incorporate a lot more of it in the work that I do. Rob:   Colleen, I've heard the statistic that only 4% of people who buy courses actually finish globally. That probably includes a lot of those free courses and that kind of thing. That is a minuscule number of people given how much money people pay for courses. What are those fears and beliefs that are getting in the way of us completing a course or training or university class or whatever that thing is that's keeping us from doing our work? Colleen:        Yeah, absolutely. What happens is consciously we have this desire for some kind of transformation. Whatever area of our life it happens to be in, right? We know we have a goal. There's something we want to create. It's one thing when we set that intention one day and it doesn't have to appear in three seconds obviously. If we've been working towards it for a while, and it's still not happening, or we're not able to create consistent progress in that, right? Maybe we step forward, but then we take 10 steps back. That kind of thing. What that usually means is there's some kind of resistance that's there. We often talk about money blocks. Money blocks are basically these subconscious ... They don't hang out in our conscious awareness, but these subconscious beliefs and fears that are tripping up our process of actually making things happen. To give you a few examples of like super common ones. One might be, ‘I have to work hard to make money.’ It's a really simple one. We're often taught that as kids. It's really important to have this strong work ethic and to hustle and apply yourself. On a lot of levels, it sounds like a really positive quality, but you can see how holding that belief could, at the same time, then create this incredible sense of overwhelms and things have to be difficult and you have to be pouring hours and hours and hours in for any money you're making to be aligned with that belief. That's one really common belief. I think another one that comes up for people is people won't pay for that is another really common one. ‘People won't pay for that.’ Would anyone really pay for this? That's also a belief that's tripping you up, because if you don't believe that people are going to pay for it, then guess what? You're going to have that mirrored back to you and people are going to look at you sideways and think, ‘Well, I could just get this information for free.’ The truth is people don't pay for information. They never do. They pay for a transformation. When you create programs or done-for-you services or coach, or whatever your modality happens to be, what you're doing is presenting information in a systematic way that is actually designed to support them in taking action to create transformation. That packaged system, people are always going to pay to have them fast-track towards it. If people aren't willing to pay, then usually it's a question of how much have you shown them value around that. It's not, ‘Therefore, I can't do this because I offered it once and no one wants to buy it.’ That's a belief that can drive. There's a ton. Another last common one is, ‘There's somebody else doing that so there's no point in me doing it.’ We might not normally think of that as a money block, but it is. It's something that trips us up. It gets in our way of confidently taking action to share our message and share our offers, when the reality is there's room for everyone in this world. We all need to hear a message. Or we all connect differently with different people saying that message so that we can ultimately get to where we want to go. Kira:   These are hitting home for me already, especially the first one. I have to work hard to make money.This is what I'm currently struggling with. What would you say to a copywriter listening who may be struggling with one of those beliefs that you shared? Or maybe all of them, like me. Once we're aware that we have this belief and it's hurting us potentially, what can we do to change it? Colleen:        One of the first things I like to go towards is looking at the story that you're telling yourself. There's always going to be some kind of reason. When I say it, completely honestly, an excuse. There are often excuses that we make. Some kind of excuse we're making about why our reality is the way it happens to be. That's the first place to start is going, ‘Okay. What exactly is it that I'm telling myself about why I feel like I have to work so hard?’ Okay. ‘What evidence do I have in life of maybe when was I rewarded for working hard?’ ‘When was I told that this was a good thing?’ ‘Do I judge people who don't work hard?’ How are you feeling about people who aren't working as hard and earning? Because that's important. Because whatever we judge, we cannot welcome back into our own world. Super, super important. You want to watch, not because judgements make you a bad person. Just that they're a golden source of information and you want to take that and leverage that. The other thing I always say and this is so powerful, but when we're stuck on a belief or we're stuck in a pattern ... It shows up, those beliefs just show up as usually behavioral patterns is how we can start to recognize them in our day-to-day life because beliefs are intangible, right? When you see yourself in a pattern like that, and you know for example, that you're overworking, you want to ask yourself what the payoff is.