Your financial pressure has nothing to do with money

Do you ever feel like cash flow, sales, and money pressure are keeping you up at night?

In this episode, John explores the deeper mindset behind financial pressure in business. He explains why money is not something to be chased, but a byproduct of the value we create. He also talks about underpricing, saying yes to the wrong clients, avoiding the numbers, and learning to shift from a scarcity mindset into a more abundant way of leading yourself, your team, and your business. 

For more on the Deru approach to leadership from the inside out, visit https://www.derunation.com/TGM-Hike 

00:01:00 — Sales, Cash Flow, and Money Mindset

00:03:30 — Financial Pressure as a Symptom

00:05:30 — Money Is a Byproduct of Value

00:07:30 — Business Is About Solving Problems

00:10:30 — Seeing Money as a Tool

00:13:30 — Underpricing and Saying Yes to the Wrong Clients

00:16:00 — Lack of Financial Visibility

00:18:00 — Letting Go of Scarcity

00:20:00 — Giving Yourself Permission to Receive 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Imagine that was the case. Imagine not having to worry about paying salaries or paying wages or wondering where the money's going from or how you're going to pay that bill anymore. Imagine that's gone, because that's the impact of you shifting your mindset. Mightn't happen overnight, but it will happen. Welcome to the Grounded Man podcast by Deru. I am your host, John Douglas, and founder of Deru, and this space is for hardworking men building businesses, carrying responsibility, and providing for their families who feel they should be freer. You see, the world has changed, and leading through hard work and long hours now limits a man's influence. The new way is mastering the inner game of leadership so you can carry it well, enjoy what you're building, and still feel free. Deru is leadership for the 21st century. Especially when it comes to businesses. You know, the main reason that businesses fail, and most of them fail in the first five years, is because of cash flow. And I want to delve deep because I think cash flow and the problems associated with it, and I suppose being able to sleep at night and not having financial stress and worry keeping you up, a lot of that actually is symptoms. And it's not the root problem. And that's what I want to go through today is talk to you about financial pressures in business that are real because of economic uncertainty, because of marketing events, or market events, because of um cost of living, the rising cost of living, um, and just the general nature of business in that there is always cash flowing out and always cash flowing in. And obviously, we want to have more coming in than going out, or else we run into trouble, if not, or we need to seek other ways to support our business. But a lot of the guys that I work with at somewhere along the way, maybe some of like I don't think financial pressure is the is a is the main problem with a lot of the guys I work with. I think a lot of the main problems actually leading other people. But this, I suppose, is maybe how some sometimes leading other people or not being able to lead them at your best, or leading your evening, lead leading yourself at your best, can actually end up with financial problems. And so where do we actually want to be? Where we want to be is somewhere completely different. We want to have uh good cash flow, good margins, good profitability, having the confidence in our numbers, having the confidence in being able to see the numbers and plan for the future, plan for unforeseen events, plan for investment, plan for growth, plan for hiring, plan for expanding and scaling operations. But out the worry and this and the weight that you know paying the bills and paying the wages can often bring with it. So we want to be free from the dread of checking the bank balance on a Monday morning or a Friday afternoon. I want to be free from having those sleepless nights and being up thinking about that. There's nothing worse than that, the financial pressure actually stopping you sleeping well. And this has happened to me, especially in the first couple of years of business when you don't really know what you're doing, uh, you don't have a maybe good strategy, you don't have the right mindset. And so I I know myself my my own sleep was affected. You find it hard, it takes longer to go to sleep, and when you do, it's restless, and then you often wake up, and then maybe some days you can't get back to sleep, and then this has a knock-on effect. Uh, but thankfully, through developing my mindset, I was able to reframe things, and that's what I want to share with you today on the on this episode. So that's that's what we want. This that's kind of the goal. And what's the gap? What's the gap actually stopping us from getting there? Like, why are we experiencing financial pressure, cash flow issues, and not abundance and prosperity and you know, peace of mind when it comes to finances? There's a bit of a gap there, so I want to name that very clearly. And the mindset shift that you need to have if cash flow keeping you up at night, money, etc., is causing an issue, is that money is not something to be chased. Money is a byproduct of value created. Because now the game shifts. It's not about chasing the money, it's about creating the value. And when I say creating the value, what is value? Well, value really is what you could classify as wealth beyond money. And value is riches, prosperity, abundance, they're all kind of value. Another way of looking at this and really entrepreneurial is value is solving problems. And what does business exist for? It exists for solving problems. So if we exist to solve problems, and that's the value that we create, is the problems that we solve. Well, the more problems that we solve, the more value we create, and the more money we make. And so once you start to get that into your mind that business is about solving problems and that problems that keep arising, it's not not getting frustrated at them, but accepting that they are what makes a business, that releases an awful lot of weight in the first place. Just knowing that that value is the problems we're solving, the value we're creating for other people, the opportunities we're giving other people through the through what we do. And I'm not just talking about your clients, because you might be thinking I'm talking about who your business serves, but I'm talking really I'm talking to you, and I'm talking about who you serve. And you serve your team or your staff, you serve your clients also, but you also serve your serve your peers and your network, you serve your industry, you serve friends, family, community. So thinking of it that way, how am I providing more value is a good place to start. And sometimes we're already providing a lot of value, but maybe we're we're struggling with actually receiving, receiving help. Might be struggling, you know, if we have you know only a limited amount of time to work today, we might push on doing more for others rather than actually doing the invoices to actually receive the money back in. Do you ever find yourself maybe you put that on the long finger and you prioritize doing something, like doing providing maybe more value, maybe value that's not even needed, but you you feel maybe that you're not doing enough, so you need to do a bit more. That kind of mentality also. So that's the shift to make. And if we don't make that shift, there's a huge cost to this. Basically, we don't grow and we can't sleep well. So it affects not only our uh mental health or our mental well-being, our emotional well-being, but it also affects the business financial health. Obviously, it's going to impact your ability to whether you can invest in people. There's there's nothing worse than doing something you love, seeing the potential and the opportunities there, but maybe not having the confidence in your finances to back it. You know, maybe you're playing not to lose instead of playing to win. And playing not to lose might look like uh rationality, it might look like logic, but actually, really, there's a bit of fear behind it. There's a fear of getting big. There might be a fear of um getting too big and um, you know, maybe questioning can I handle that? Am I ready for that? What happens if I waste it? What happens if I fail? What happens if I succeed? And that can also be you know playing at the back of money, of a money mindset. And you know, there is a quote that says money is the root of all evil, and then somebody else came along to say, well, actually, no, it's not money is the root of all evil. The love of money for its own sake is the root of all evil. And most of the the guys I speak to and the guys I work with, they would classify themselves as not material people, you know, but at the same time, we are we are spirit and we are matter, we are energy and we are form. And so we live in this physical world as well as a mental, emotional, spiritual kind of world. And everything on the outside, we've so like evolved as a as a human human race that we have systems set up whereby we can actually swap things of different value through the medium of money. And so money has is like it's a really it's a really intelligent thing, and it's a really intelligent tool because we can use it to leverage, to multiply things. And we often say that money is a multiplier, but at the same time, money is I suppose the lifeblood of the material world in terms of it's traded so much, it's accepted, its value is accepted, and it's traded. So we do need it, okay? And uh it can do marvelous things, can do marvelous things, you know, on the inside when we are able to you know go go away and explore the world with money, where whether we're able to go out and spend time with family because we have money to do certain activities and things like that. So it's a very special thing at the same time. So why do we not want to love it for its own sake? We also want to recognize that the power that it can bring uh to your own life. So we have to realize that we are material as well as spiritual, and that money is really core of that. And so if we don't have it, we we're not going to be able to live our fullest lives in mind, body, or spirit, okay, and any stretch of the imagination. We just we're so developed that we actually need it to do that, and it's amazing that we can do that. So without money, then we can't invest in our people, maybe in developing a stronger culture, maybe taking the team out, celebrating some wins, uh, forward progress, celebrating milestones, um, just maybe team bonding, helping them, I suppose, grow as well in their in their roles, but also in their own lives. We'd love to be able to have the money to invest in those things. We'd love to be able to have the money maybe to hire a more capable person, more capable people on our team. And it's a really good idea to always think about your team has a value. Imagine like your team was a soccer team. What would their value be? And you're going to hire in people and are they going to increase the overall value of the team or decrease it? And it's, you know, it takes money because we're buying people's time. You know, it takes presence to really buy their buy-in and uh their ownership, but money is like the entry point into that game. So we need money to do that. We need money to obviously pay for all the things in our personal lives that our family enjoy, a certain standard of living that we've been become accustomed to. So without this, we're not going to go very far. And when you're when you're in business and needing other people, you don't only have to get into a in a good frame of mind around money and mindset, and it's it's it's a positive thing, but your team do as well. Okay, your team do as well. And sometimes there's pressures there from certain members of staff or team that they want more money. And that can be a battle sometimes because maybe they don't, maybe they haven't kind of shown the results that actually deserve extra income, deserve extra payment or salary or wage. And so again, a lot of people I think use money as an excuse or as a stick or as something to measure themselves or compare themselves by. But you know, as leaders, we need to be able to mentor these people beyond money because most people don't stay for the money, they stay for something deeper. But the money is kind of as that as I said, the buy-in or the entry point into this world. So, what do you actually need to uh what do you actually need to let go of? What do you need to clear off out of your mind so you can have better cash flow, better maybe sales, even, better financial planning, clarity, better overall financial health? So there's a couple of things. One is maybe underpricing. When was the last time you actually sat down and looked through your pricing, forgetting about even if it's in line with fine inflation, but actually, is it in line with the value that we're actually creating? Like, are we selling our time when we should be selling the results of what we provide to our customers? How are we selling what we're selling? Are we undervaluing it? Do our customers and clients actually appreciate the true value of what we do for them? And are we underpricing it? And then it's why we're underpricing it. Okay, and that's the next step. Why are we underpricing? What are we afraid of? Underpricing is one thing, especially maybe if you as well if you have legacy clients, people who are with you from the start, and maybe you haven't raised your fees or prices uh with that because you know you want to show loyalty to them. But you know at the same time, growth is growth, and at this stage they probably don't owe you anything, just like you don't owe them. So it needs to be neutral, and uh, I suppose you need to charge, charge your worth. And when we're chasing money, we need to let go of this chasing money, as I mentioned, because that's an identity, you know, that money is something to be chased, it's a belief. And maybe we do that by by saying yes to clients and customers that we know are going to give us headaches, we know they don't pay on time, we know that they'll want the cheapest price, we know that they don't care about our margin, we know that they are disorganized and I'll be end up chasing invoices from this person. Yet we say yes anyway. And why do we do that? What are we afraid of in that instance? What are we concerned might happen if we don't? Is it a scarcity mentality that, well, if I don't take on the work, what about the next time? What about if I need it? Because there's lots of opportunities out there. I guarantee you said that to yourself in recent times that there's so much opportunities out there. Yet at the same time, when it comes to saying yes or no to a client, it there's a little bit of a disparity there. And you say yes when you should say no, and then you regret saying yes in the first place, because it's going to impact your cash flow. Another reason maybe is lack of financial visibility. Like you just don't really know the numbers. You're not really keeping up the track with it in real time. And if you're not keeping up the track with it in real time, then it can kind of get away on you. Um you don't have the you don't have the clarity that you actually need to plan, to plan for these seasons, because all businesses have seasons of ups and downs, even if they're not regular or uh routine or predictable, they happen. Okay, so we need to be able to plan for those. We need to be able to plan for unforeseen events, we need to be able to plan for investment. And if we don't have the the if we lack the visibility and the clarity there, that's not going to help our cause. It's going to make it everything more difficult. And sometimes maybe we avoid going into that because we don't want to know the truth of the other two things, which is maybe we're underpricing. Maybe we're saying yes to people we shouldn't. Maybe we're selling a product or providing a service that actually doesn't pay. And if you started to analyze that and see what's what, see the wood from the trees, that's obviously going to help an awful lot. But again, I'm on that's a surface level thing. I'm asking you, why don't you do that? And that's a different question. Because why don't you spend time on that? A lot of it is can come back to your own feeling of, you know, self-work. Do I do I deserve it? Am I doing enough? That kind of mentality. Because if you feel like you're not doing enough, then maybe you won't demand from yourself more. So there are three big reasons why I see financial cash flow being a problem in business, is from scarcity mindset, just taking on work when you don't have to, saying yes to clients that you know are going to cause hassle and cause you to chase invoices, uh and maybe underpricing your own work, especially with those legacy clients. So, what do you need to accept in order to clear that out of the way and let go of them? You need to accept something because you're making a decision here as you're listening to this. You need to make a decision in your mind. What am I going to let go of? And beneath the surface, this is going to feel a little bit like a betrayal because letting go of something always feels like a betrayal. It's not like this fairy tale scene where we're releasing these doves into the sky. Okay, that's not what it looks like. It's actually more like we're turning our back on our family. That's what it feels like. And uh I'll tell you why it feels like that, because you have an identity, and that identity has helped you survive to where you are today. It's got you to where you are today. And that might have been a scarcity-driven identity, the chasing the money identity. And maybe money was on a pedestal because we often heard things growing up like money doesn't grow on trees. We're not made of money. And that kind of uh mindset, that kind of self-talk actually puts money on a pedestal and we we put ourselves put ourselves down below it. So then we feel like you know, money is the is the God or the goal to achieve. When actually money, as I said, it's just a byproduct of the value that we create. That's a very neutral framing. So then it then, you know, growth doesn't is not something to be feared. You know, bigger numbers are not something to be feared because we're just understanding that money is a byproduct of value created. Um, so maybe letting go of those fears that, you know, fear of success, fear of failure. This is what I'm talking about in terms of what you have to actually accept and how you're portraying that old identity, because that old identity maybe is driven on scarcity, and scarcity works. You can survive through scarcity. But if you're if you're surviving through scarcity, especially when it comes to money, that means headaches, that means stress, that means financial pressure keeping you up on night. And if you're fed up with that, then that's what you need to change. You need to let go of that idea. So you need to accept an abundance mindset. That's what you need to accept instead. That um whatever I focus on turns to gold. Getting that into your head, whatever I focus on turns to gold. It's not about like which opportunity is gonna make me, it's like what am I gonna give my attention to, my presence to? Because either way it's gonna turn into something profitable and prosperous. So, what actually really values my time? And that's a different dynamic and a different feel around it. Um, where are you gonna invest that time and money? You might also have to let go of the fear that you're gonna waste it. That was a big fear of mine. It still is driven in my identity, especially when it comes to how I use my money, how I use my time, uh, where it goes to. Because we're we're always trading something, and really we can trade, we can trade time, we can trade money, or we can trade other people's time and money, which which really comes through trust. Um, so we can trade our uh time, our money, and trust, our reputation, our brand. And so you're always investing in and you're always making a decision to trade one thing for another here all the time, even without knowing it. Um, and so one of the things that I I was I've I've had to work hard on it, let it go is that fear of wasting it, that I'm gonna get something of value, something, something of wealth, and I'm gonna waste it, I'm gonna squander it. It's in my mindset somewhere because of a few things that happened when I was younger, um, where I was I was I suppose things were bought from me as as a child and I lost them or I broke them. And so I kind of put on a meaning to that that I'm I I kind of waste things. And so I had to I had to do a lot of work to let that go so I could actually accept. And that's uh another big part of this, moving into what you need to give yourself permission to do. And one of those things is giving yourself permission to accept to receive wealth, okay? That is that's a big one because if you feel money is on the pedestal and you're chasing it, that's not a really good home for money to come into. Remember, we're trying to create the right conditions in our mindset so this money is attracted to us, and so we're not having these financial problems, and so you we have to we have to be able to receive money, and um, that can often be harder because we're trained to grind it out and work hard and work long, and so it feels like it needs to be earned, and if you do if it feels easy, we can't trust it. And so to um to be able to accept it better and receive better, we have to be able to trust it, trust ourselves and give ourselves permission to be an abundant man, like be a man who's creating that value for people, not focusing on chasing the money, but on creating the value and tie your identity in with that. Wallace D. Wattles in the science of getting rich, he called this become the advancing man, the man who advances the lives of everyone that he comes into contact with, leaving them with what he calls the impression of increase that they're better off because of you, not just financially, but even more maybe spiritually, mentally, emotionally, uh that they're better off because they've come in contact to you, with you. And so therefore, you need to become more intentional that you're not just doing work, but you're actually you let every act be a gift. So you're more intentional about what you do, and you're you're looking at what I do, and how is this actually contributing to somebody else? Rather than just getting the work done, how's it actually contributing to somebody? And that's a different frame of mind to think about it. Uh, I know this this whole episode maybe is a the way I'm talking about money and financial pressure is a new concept, and there is, of course, um, you know, just tactical and strategic elements to money and its use and uh how to get by with it. But I'm I'm going below the the surface, the invisible side of things, the inside of things that we don't normally talk about or can even see, and I'm trying to name it for you so you can see maybe there's some underlying issues and release them and let go of them and give yourself permission because the impact of this, what is the impact of this if you can actually change that money mindset, start being more unapologetic in wanting more money, um, and because of the value that it's creating, being fair, okay, not chasing money, but seeing it as I'm creating this value, I deserve to get back this this amount of of money for this. And I'm not going to accept you know, following up with people anymore. I'm going to put in, you know, into contracts, I'm going to put in time frames that money has to be paid. So I'm not in that. And holding myself disciplined to that, not for anybody else, but maybe for the business, but more importantly for yourself, because it sends a message to yourself that you deserve more. You deserve more abundance in your life, that you don't deserve to be having sleepless nights. You deserve good night sleeps, going to bed with peace of mind. Imagine knowing that the bank account is overflowing with money. Imagine that was the case. Imagine not having to worry about paying salaries or paying wages or wondering where the money's going from or how you're going to pay that bill anymore. Imagine that's gone because that's the impact of you shifting your mindset. Mightn't happen overnight, but it will happen. I want to invite you to the grounded man hike. It's a day in nature with a small group of founders and leaders, men who carry a lot and want to carry it lighter. And there's no slides, hitch your agenda, just honest conversation and open ground. The link is in the description below. Leave your details and I'll be back to you personally. Thanks for being here, and I'll see you next week.