😘😘😘

 

Ok, picture this, First name / friend

 

It’s 2013. I’ve just graduated from Syracuse Uni with a 3.98 GPA. Which is quite good.

 

I’ve just completed a fact-checking assignment on Chipotle burritos for Fast Company magazine.

 

AND I GET THE JOB!

 

Except it isn’t a job. It’s a $12/h internship.

 

Which is about $23,040 a year.

 

But, whatever. I’m moving into a $600 apparent in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, biking over the Brooklyn Bridge every morning to 7 World Trade Center, and eating 4 hard boiled eggs with chunks of chopped up Kerrygold butter for breakfast because that’s what CrossFitters who do Paleo eat.

 

I’m at Fast Company for 5ish months.

 

Then one day I get an email saying “Want To Work At Google?”

 

And the answer to that for a Broke Girl desperate for a green card is, I WILL LITERALLY DO ANYTHING.

 

The first interview is with Mike. He’s wearing Google Glass.

 

And I have this thing where older men love me and kind of wish I was their daughter.

 

So I nail that interview.

 

And the next one, too.

 

And now I’m moving to Austin, TX.

 

And I’m making $74,000.

 

Which felt MADE UP, because deep down I’m still the girl whose mum didn’t buy new underwear for a decade so she could afford to send me to Kelvinside Academy.

 

And I’m surrounded by rich private school girls who buy a new outfit from Miss Sixty every weekend, wear FCUK t-shirts and don’t die inside when they drop their vanilla frappuccino on the pavement on Sauchiehall Street and can’t afford to buy another one.

 

That’s a tangent. But that identity of being The Poor One is an identity I’ve had to let DIE building Brave Thing (more on that in a bit).

 

I didn’t realize it then, but I see it so clearly now.

 

The only difference between the $12/h burrito fact-checker and $74k Googler was THE WAY SOMEONE SAW ME.

 

My manager at Fast Company saw me as a capable and quick learner.

 

Samantha the Google recruiter saw me as a competitive and brave motherfucker who liked WINNING.

 

One identity put me on the breadline.

 

One identity put me on the throne.

 

You can do that for yourself too, btw.

 

Change the way you see yourself.

 

Your identity will put you in the dirt or land you on the moon of your life.

 

But know this.

 

You will never out-perform your self-image.

 

Your external world calibrates to the story deep inside of Who You Are.

 

Let me pick up the poor girl at private school thread for a minute and fast forward to 2020-ish when I turned down partnership at a design company because I had a DREAM.

 

Well.

 

Poor Girl Identity bled all over my business.

 

Like, carotid-artery-bled.

 

Because, long story short, I’m an Avoider.

 

By conditioning, but also by nature.

 

The way I cope is to avoid.

 

People. Emotions. Conversations.

 

Also I HATE feeling dump and powerless.

 

And money made me feel both.

 

So I avoided money and how to make it like the plague when I started my coaching business, which grew into Brave Thing.

 

Because I was The Poor Girl.

 

And simultaneously The Woman Who Was Above Money.

 

HOW GRABBY AND DISGUSTING!

 

Also, I was in the very normal phase of my business which I call the “Just So Grateful To Be Doing This Work” Era.

 

Which gets old around year 2 when you realize you were making more money fact-checking burritos than you are helping women turn the stone in their chest back into a beating heart through breathwork.

 

And these women are asking where I learned this magic, and thank GOD I found you, my life is changed forever.

 

So.

 

Whether you own a business or not.

 

If you also like sticking your fingers in your ears, singing LALALAAALAAL, I get it.

 

And if you are also pretty sure you’re calibrating to an identity that puts you closer to dirt than the moon in your life, work, and relationships…

 

I want to model something a wee bit braver for you.

 

In late December, I’m hosting Brave Thing - The Financial Dirt ’23.

 

If you’d like a peak behind the scenes of how I build this imperfect, Brave, and beautiful Thing, you want to be there.

 

If you want to know where I made brilliant business-changing moves, while simultaneously throwing gobs of money down the actual toilet, you want to be there.

 

And if you want to understand some of the inner mucking about I do consistently to create the self-image needed to build a business I am equal parts frustrated, proud and joy-filled about, sign up for the waitlist here.

 

Financial Dirt is free / donation-based.

 

I want to raise enough money to cover an annual membership for a girl at my jiu-jitsu gym.

 

Oh, and tell your friends. 

 

If you forward this shit to a woman in your life who doesn't know Brave Thing exists but would probs get a lot of out it, I'd really appreciate it.

 

Intent is a spell,