Am I Good Enough to be Rich?

Last week, fresh from moving all weekend and thoroughly exhausted, I realized I had bought a ticket to see Denise Duffield-Thomas in Miami on Monday night.  Now, Miami is a four-hour drive from our new house; never mind that I couldn’t find a towel to take a shower, or a plate to have breakfast…It’s amazing how many things get topsy-turvy when you move. Nonetheless, I dragged my tush out of the house and made the drive down to Miami for Denise’s Money Mindset Tour.  It was being held at the Perez Art Museum, a super-swanky location which left me feeling completely inadequate in my wore-them-yesterday jeans and flip-flops (because, by the way, I also couldn’t find the box with the rest of my shoes…). In case you’ve never heard of Denise, she’s the creator of LuckyBitch.com (I know, I know, but the name completely makes sense after you’ve seen her work for a while…).  She teaches women about changing their mindsets around money, business, and lifestyle. And seeing her in person?  Amazing!  I actually took 3 pages of notes (and I’m not a big note-taker) on things I want to implement or look into further right now.  And while I’ll spare you ALL the details, I wanted to share a few things that occurred to me after listening to Denise.

1. I believe making a lot of money is somehow immoral.  Looking at my family background, this actually makes total sense.  You see, my father (who’s amazing, by the way), early on in his career, made the decision to become a prosecutor, working to get victims justice and put criminals in jail.  He loved criminal law, apparently, but couldn’t stomach the thought of defending criminals – even though it would make him a LOT more money (private defense attorneys make sometimes 3x or more what prosecutors, who work for the government, do).  So I grew up believing that making less money was more virtuous, and that making more money was immoral.  Even though, by the way, this was a specific situation that doesn’t apply across the board; I nonetheless inherited the money = immoral lesson.  Wow – definitely something I need to work on!
2. I feel guilty hiring others to do a job for me.  If I hire a housecleaner, for example, and happen to be home while they’re cleaning…I feel badly, like somehow I think I’m better than the cleaning person.  My husband clearly doesn’t have this hangup – he views hiring others to help, such as the laborers we hired to help us move, as providing them with opportunities and income while easing burdens on us.  And his mindset is clearly the healthier of the two – after all, why on earth should I feel guilty about being able to provide income to someone else?  I’m actually hiring and providing opportunities – frequently to other moms!  
3. I think that I have to make less money in order to be a good mom.  Wow – this is a hard one.  In fact, I spoke with my own mother about this very topic after listening to Denise speak, and I’m fairly sure she thought I had lost my mind.  As women, we get told pretty regularly that we’ll have to make sacrifices for our children, and that our careers might suffer.  So I had completely bought into that reality….so much so, in fact, that I turned down a better job opportunity the same week I found out I was pregnant with my son – all because I wanted to ensure I had time to devote to raising him.  But, what I never stopped to ask myself, was whether the other job opportunity, which offered significantly more money, would really take any more time than my then-current job.  Looking back, it probably wouldn’t have – so right off the bat, I was limiting my options so that I could be a good mom.  And, by the way, being a good mom is unbelievably important to me.  It probably is to you too.  So how do we, as women, start overturning the myth that good moms make less money???  I think we can start by becoming better businesswomen, better investors, and better at building each other up instead of tearing each other down.

#3 is a rough one, I know…particularly because it’s so pervasive!  Every mom I know is making choices about career vs. family as though it’s an either-or equation. What deeply-held beliefs are YOU hanging on to that are limiting your success?  Post below and share!