Ep 074: Millionaire Mindset Lesson with Denise Duffield-Thomas

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Dawn: So we are live and streaming, and this is so exciting [00:01:00] because anyone watching this from the UK, you will see that it’s dark outside. So it’s midnight here with me, and we are filming for episode 74 of Dawn of a new era with myself, Dawn McGruer, digital marketing speaker, author, and trainer. And guess what? We have one hell of an amazing guest with us today.

We have Denise Duffield Thomas. Now self-made millionaire, we have obviously lots to talk about today. And in particular, we’re going to be talking about, obviously mindset and money matters. Now, erm what time is it with you in Aus today?

Denise: It’s not too bad. It’s 9:00 AM. And it sucks having such a big time difference between our two countries, because I love the UK.

Um, I lived there for 10 years and so a lot of my audience are in the UK. And I’m desperate to come and visit again soon.

Dawn: When was the last time you were here?

Denise: Pre pandemic easily. So [00:02:00] probably three years, but my husband’s English and there’s something about the UK that feels like home to me. My great-grandmother was from east London and I lived in east London when I was there.

And what I find fascinating too, is some of the cultural differences between money and, you know, I live in Australia now, a lot of my audience is American, so it is fascinating seeing how those three countries really interact around money and business sometimes. And, um, I think it’s a fascinating conversation.

So I’m so thrilled. Thanks so much for having me, Dawn. 

Dawn: Thank you for coming on. I think one of the biggest questions that everyone who’s tuning in would want me to ask is, how did it all start? I mean, I think the thing is, is we see this journey online and, you know, it’s amazing. And I think one of the posts I saw was about your tax bill, 700,000.

Yeah. And, and, and for some of us, it’s like, you know, that, that is a very, very huge number, but where did it all begin? How did it [00:03:00] all start? 

Denise’s background

Denise: Well, if we go right, right, right back. So my, my mum had me very young. She was only 17. She was a single parent. And so we grew up with not a lot of money. But to be honest, I don’t think that was like super traumatic in itself, right. 

Because I meet people all the time and they grew up in lots of different ways with money, and everyone has money blocks. So where my particular ones came from, was seeing how men in my mum’s life used money as a form of power and control. And so, I actually never felt a massive lack around things. I knew that there was, but it didn’t bother me because a lot of my friends were in the same situation. You know, I had a lot of friends who grew up in council housing, like me, some with single parents, some weren’t, but none of us were super wealthy. My mum married someone who was quite wealthy when I was 11 and they had a very volatile relationship for a [00:04:00] couple of years and that’s where I saw the real power play come in. And I remember just thinking, I never want to be controlled. I want to make my own money. And so I kind of, I guess, started on that quest from as a teenager, I read a book called The Magic of Believing when I was 14. And it was a book about the law of attraction and how you can control your thoughts and, um, you know, manifest things into reality.

And it was mind blowing to me because I just thought, oh, well, I guess this is your life and how can you control your thoughts and how can that can, how can that change anything? So I started goal setting. I watched Oprah every day after school to kind of really start to expand my worldview, but I knew I wanted to make my own money.

I just didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t know a lot of entrepreneurs. I just didn’t know how you do that. So, um, I, after university, I moved to London. And I was like, I mean, I [00:05:00] make my fortune and I’m going to marry Prince William. There was literally like a picture of Prince William in my London diary.

And, and I went through, um, just tried a lot of different things, but what I realised is, I had this real fundamental belief about money. I knew I could work hard that wasn’t the problem, but I just had all these inner beliefs about money that I needed to work on. I became a life coach and then a business coach.

And then I wanted to start talking about money because I wanted to share with people, some of the discoveries that I had made, but also I found that there was so many people, you know, like you and I, obsessed with personal development, but for a long time, I saw it as separate to money. I was like, here’s personal development, and here’s you know, the world of wealth or wealth creation, whatever. 

And there, they have to be separate because money is not nice or money is not spiritual. Um, so I just, I honestly just went on a quest and, you know, I wanted to share what I was learning with [00:06:00] other people. And so I started, uh, a one-off course called money bootcamp, and we’ve just celebrated our 10 year anniversary.

We’ve had eight and a half thousand people go through that program. But it just started with me just going. I just want to share what I know with other people, which I think is what, how a lot of good businesses start. And, um, so that’s been my journey. And now this is my, you know, full-time career, obviously talking about money, which is super fun.

And I write books about it. I um have a podcast called Chill and Prosper. That’s what my newest book is called To Chill and Prosper. And I, yeah. I help people with their money mindset. 

Dawn: I think the thing is, is, um, many of us have come out of corporate. We’ve gone into the entrepreneurial world and there’s a whole kind of like cultural shift isn’t there. 

Where it’s like we have to work hard and it’s like the nine to five and kind of start feeling guilty if we’re not kind of burning ourselves out. And I think some of the language, um, that, you know, the way that you say about making money with ease, you know.

It feels different. And I think [00:07:00] there’s a big shift to go through.

What would you say that the, the biggest, uh, money blocks are that you see from people kind of in the entrepreneurial world when they’re starting and scaling and growing their businesses? 

Disrupting that relationship between hard work and money

Denise: Well, you nailed it, Dawn. The biggest thing , disrupting that relationship between hard work and money, because it’s not true, anymore.

Doesn’t mean you don’t have to work. We know this, you and I have businesses. It doesn’t just magically happen. There’s a lot of logistics involved in doing anything, but. It’s not hard like we were raised to believe hard work is, and we’ve seen this too in the world that, you know, when you look at like income inequality and the gender gap, that’s got nothing to do with hard work, at all.

So we know that’s not true that if you just work hard, someone will reward you. Eventually, and you’ll get a pay increase, but we also know now, that [00:08:00] thanks to the power of the internet, we can leverage our time and expertise in a way that people before never could. And so in, especially in the eighties and nineties, if you were an entrepreneur that meant something tangible that you were selling, that if you didn’t have someone to bankroll you into creating it, you had to get a bank loan. You had to have a whole bunch of stuff selling out of your garage, probably. And it, it was so much more related to time and dollars. Effort equals reward. 

But now we live in a time, it kind of breaks our brains a little bit to think, wow, I can create something once. Especially if you sell information, if your sell transformation and then heaps of people can, it’s kind of just doesn’t make sense to our brains. Even if you create something tangible these days, you don’t have to have your own factory, your own manufacturers, your own marketers, your own distribution, channel, your own bank account to do it.

It [00:09:00] has all kind of been sorted out so we can leverage our ideas. But I still think there’s this legacy guilt attached to that because the numbers don’t, the math doesn’t work in our brains. We’re like, hang on. I can’t just do, it can’t be easy because it wasn’t allowed to be easy. And if you never saw your, your mother, your grandmother, being able to earn her own money, that’s a whole extra layer around that too, of who is allowed to make money.

And are we allowed to make money doing things that were traditionally feminine like, holding space for people, talking to people, you know, and in my early days, I remember my little sister, who’s 19 years younger than me, by the way she was at my house and she was just kind of hanging around as I was doing some coaching calls and recording a few videos.

And then I had someone come over to do a VIP day. And she was like do you think people just pay to like, be your friend? Like she couldn’t, she couldn’t understand [00:10:00] 

Dawn: Yeah, but coming out of corporate, it feels so alien because. You know, you’re used to kind of the travel, the work, the everything that goes with it. And then suddenly there’s this like freedom. And you do, you go through a guilt process. I mean, I, for sure did. I mean, when people talk about money and you, you talk about these, these blocks, one of the biggest things I see is about pricing.

And people thinking about what will someone pay or even the, well, I’m a brand new entrepreneur who will book me, who will pay for me. How would you kind of manage people past those, those mindset blocks?

Pricing is one of the hardest things to overcome as an entrepreneur

Denise: I think pricing is, it’s one of the hardest things to overcome as an entrepreneur, but it’s also the very first hurdle where it’s actually an amazing opportunity to uncover some of your own internal thought processes about money.

Because before I was an entrepreneur, I did consulting for awhile and my day [00:11:00] rate was just set by my company. And every couple of months, they were like, we’ll, increase your rate. Oh, you did a course. Let’s increase your rate. Oh, you had, you know, you’ve got a client experience in that now, let’s raise your rate for the next one.

But then when it came to my own business, it felt really personal to put a rate onto my value. It felt like I was like being too big for my boots. And it felt like I was putting a value on myself as a human being, which is not true. Right. We’re putting, I mean, pricing is so complex. It comes into play what results you get for people, what clients you want to serve, what perception you want to have in the market.

It really is a made up construct in so many ways, you only have to look at the art world. You know what, um, we’ve just seen in the news that someone threw cake at the Mona Lisa, you know, what makes the Mona Lisa more valuable than, you know, millions of other painters that are probably better, you know, [00:12:00] It’s perception is so much around pricing and that’s where we trip ourselves up too, because we don’t want to show that we have this perception.

Oh, look how look, how good I am. You know, the other part around that is how women and I’m talking to women here because that’s who I mainly serve, not exclusively, but mainly. Generally we are conditioned to be helpful and to not expect things in return and it’s better to give then receive and we’re conditioned that way.

And so then suddenly putting a price on something we’re trying to be fair. We want it to be for everyone. We want to find the critic proof price that everyone feels happy at and that everybody can afford. How can you do that? Yeah. You just can’t. So we’ve just put ourselves into a tears. We’ve made ourselves feel bad.

We’ve made ourselves feel guilty and. [00:13:00] And then sometimes that then means that people are in analysis paralysis. They don’t even want to start their business because they’re stuck on the price. And the truth is everyone’s making up their prices. And if you look at everyone else’s first and then average yourself out or whatever, you’re taking on all of their perceptions about money too.

And considering so many of our beliefs came from our upbringing where we grew up, how our parents talked about money. You might be pricing based on someone who has this internal view that they’re not allowed to charge or it’s impolite to talk about money. Let’s talk about that because this is where I think the British thing comes into play.

Right. Is I’m an open book. I love talking about anything. And I do think that is an Australian way. We’re kind of, we’re not embarrassed to be a little bit crude sometimes. And we’re just, we’re just say what it is. And I think we can get away with it because it can come across as a kind of a bit charming to be that.

But for, [00:14:00] for people in England, I found that there is a little bit more, it’s impolite to talk about money and money is itself a little bit maybe crude to talk about. So I want to, what do you think?

Dawn: I think it’s like, totally like, you see on social media, what I love what you said about the perception, this kind of comes into the visibility piece and how people feel comfortable about stepping out and talking about their accolades and their wins and money.

So it’s so interesting. It is, it’s very cultural as well. Isn’t it? In terms of what people believe, people feel it’s a bit braggy, people feel like a bit triggered by it, but why is it not okay? Why do we have this perception? And I think we should be able to talk about it. And I spoke to you about, you know, that, that post, that you put out about your tax bill, you know, that is to me inspiring, but to somebody else that could be really quite triggering.

So what is it? That is the block. What, why, why do we have that perception? I don’t know. 

How different cultures view money

Denise: I think there’s so many layers to this, and you can really go into so many different directions, which is why I love this work because I I’m always finding new nuances for us to consider. One could be, if, again, if you look at it from a cultural point of view, it can be seen as very American to be braggy.

Right? The other aspect that I’ve noticed in England, again, we’re generalising is, you know, how you guys are famous for queuing. We 

Dawn: We love it. We love it. You ask us to queue for anything. We get in a queue.

Denise: So let’s look at that in context of money and business. If you feel like you have to wait your turn and you have to be patient almost, so then putting yourself out there for your business or even making big leaps in your income might kind of go against [00:16:00] this grain of no, no, no.

I wait my turn. If we look at another layer of that, um, and this is why it’s so personal. If you’re the youngest child in your family, there might be an unspoken rule. I can’t make more money than my brother. I have to wait my turn, that’s against the natural order of things. So there could be those layers.

And then if we talk about things like tax, okay, so we did a massive, big, deep dive into tax recently in my money bootcamp, because I’m just fascinated to talk about different topics and how they relate to money in our lives. And so we started talking about tax and most of us have this real deep, deep fear

about the tax man and getting into trouble with the tax man. And I realised my first conscious memory of that is watching, um, movies like Robin hood and seeing the [00:17:00] sheriff of Nottingham and, you know, just all those movies set in that kind of era where the tax man would come to your house and, you know, he’d be wearing all black and he looked like an undertaker.

He literally always looked like that. He’s not a friendly guy going, I’m just here to collect the tax money. It’s always a very traumatic experience. And oftentimes in movies it’s like they don’t have the money. So what happens, someone in their family goes to jail, someone gets killed or someone gets really hurt or threatened by it.

And then you used to send people on ships to Australia. For not paying. Not you personally, Dawn, sorry. That lives in your consciousness of, if I get into trouble, something really bad is going to happen. And my country, you know, if we’re, if you’re descending from English, people, you have that as well of something bad is going to happen.

And so the reason why I [00:18:00] talk openly about tax is because. I felt that same thing. When I started my business, I had to register my business with the government and I have terror, like you wouldn’t believe. The Australian tax office. So we, as it’s called ATO, you could have a free session with a tax advisor.

And I was sweating. I was sweating because, and I, because I’m just that person I go, well, let’s explore this. What is, what is happening? And I realised I had all these fears about, you know, growing up in the welfare system and getting into trouble. And my mom always fearing the government feeling like, especially as a young parent, she always feared, you know, my kids will be taken away from me if I speak up or, you know, she was so powerless against that system.

And that lives in me, in me, in my conscious memory, as well as in my lineage. And I think even now, there’s a sense that the tax man [00:19:00] is not on your side, is trying to catch you out. It’s just very much embedded in culture. So, I had to get over that tax feeling very early. But then it hits people at different stages.

If, I see people unconsciously hold themselves back before they go to a next tax bracket, before they have to register for VAT, before they have to do all these things, and it just strikes terror into our hearts. And so we have to look at where we’re sabotaging ourselves because we can’t control the economy.

We can’t control what people think about you in your industry, in the world as a woman, as you know, a queer person, as a person of colour. But we can control how we feel about, the fear that we have around tax or feeling guilty or taking our turn before someone else, all of those things we can have awareness about.

Um, the other reason why I shared my tax return is because I, I guess now, you know, new money, I’m a self-made millionaire, whatever, you start to [00:20:00] say, oh wow. This system really is rigged for these people who are very wealthy and they don’t pay tax. And so I do that, one to show people, don’t be afraid of paying tax.

Don’t be afraid of paying a hundred dollars, a hundred, a hundred pounds, a thousand pounds. Your tax bill will grow as you make more money, but also to show, hang on, look, I. You know, someone who has benefited from having welfare in my life and benefits, and that saved me and my family. And look at what I’m putting back into the, into the 

Dawn: I love this. It’s like seeing it as a milestone, isn’t it, it’s like kind of repositioning our minds and thinking, you know, VAT, yay. I’ve got to that point that I’m earning this amount of money. It’s the next step. 

So. when you think about your business and life side of things, when was it that you kind of got to a point where, you know, when you grow in the business, it’s quite tough, first of all, and you go through hurdles, it it’s never plain sailing, [00:21:00] you know, let’s be honest, there’s sometimes trials and tribulations along the way that do make us rethink what we’re doing.

What was the kind of the pivotal moment or the pinnacle moment where you kind of just, it felt like it was flowing. Was there like a. Uh, a launch or a, a peace in your business that kind of just, it all kind of felt right. 

Denise’s pivotal moment in her career

Denise: I think this is a great question because sometimes I think we think there’s a version of us now, and there’s a version of us that is different and is the perfect version.

And I still have self-worth issues that I have to work on all the time. I still have imposter syndrome issues that I have to work on all the time. So it’s never this thing where you just go, oh, suddenly I’m there because you have to work on the fact that you are that person, you are on the journey and you have everything you need.

And so the honest answer to be honest on is, I sold a workshop. My first paid workshop [00:22:00] And it was $97. And I had, I think maybe 20 people in the room and I had sold that by doing free workshops, all over town. And I remember, like I got my hair done for the first time, I bought a new outfit and I made no money on the workshop.

Cause of course I over-delivered. And you know, didn’t take all my costs into consideration, all of those things. But afterwards I was like, I had my hair down and so I went to the fanciest restaurant in town and I checked my bank account and I was like, okay, I can get a glass of champagne and I can get, uh, a snack.

And I could only afford poutine from the venue, which is, which is like a Canadian thing. It’s cheese and fries and all that stuff. And I, I even, I never thought, oh my God, I’m such a loser. I don’t even have tons of money in my bank account to buy anything I wanted. I was like, I’m on my way. And I literally toasted myself and I went [00:23:00] more of this please universe.

More of this. I remember that so much more clearly than when I ticked over a million dollar in revenue, because I was already, it was already a done deal. I was like, oh, Um, I’m a success. Like I really felt like that. And I think that’s the kind of level of almost delusion, but you have to be in your own corner right from the start, because it is tough and it is a mindset game. 

And as I said, I still, you know, last night I was lying away worrying about things and, you know, stressing about stuff. That’s never going to go away, but you can decide that you’re a success story. And because I was on my journey, there was never any point of going, I’m going to quit because it’s like, why would I quit I’m in it, I’m on the journey.

And the money then, you know, I made six figures that first year from, you know, a bit of coaching, a bit of this, a bit of that. And then I pretty much doubled it every year. So it took me five years to get to that million [00:24:00] dollar, um, mark, Australian, mark. And then I think last year we just got our figures from the financial year.

I think we did 4.6 million, you know, which I don’t know what that is in pounds. Three, something like that? Um, and you know, it didn’t feel like, oh my God, like, I think people think it’s going to feel exponentially bigger and it doesn’t because you have to do that work at the start almost more. So you have to celebrate, you have to celebrate them exponentially more at the start, if that makes sense.

Um, yeah, but, you know, and I would say too, I could probably celebrate more because even when people were like, oh, you know, you, your first book when, when you saw it on the shelves and I was like, yeah, it was cool. But I’ve been visualizing that for years. So it was just kind of like, oh, there. 

Dawn: Yeah, the next, and then when the second one came out and then, Hey, look, you’ve got the third one coming out as well.

I love this because I really feel that a lot of people will relate to it because it’s those first initial steps that [00:25:00] it’s like when you just kind of, you know, get to it. If, you feel it more, don’t you, you just kind of like doing an event or doing something that just gives you that fills into flow. 

My next question is about when you talk about how you’ve built this amazing sort of roadmap to abundance again, you know, that is such lovely terminology, but without burnout. I think a lot of people, me included, have experienced time where we’ve been really passionate about something, no frill on it, you know, things are going well, but we don’t actually know that we’re entering into that burnout, we kind of in it, and that’s sometimes really difficult to get out. 

Have you got any advice in terms of if anyone maybe listening to this who is kind of like in that fatigue, that exhaustion, you know, how do you gear out of it? What’s a practical way that they can kind of manage their own self-care?

Denise: Well, this is great because I still experience burnout and I still have a tendency to put too much on my plate. Like I’m [00:26:00] completely delusional about time, always. I really am. And I think it’s really funny because as you know, you launch a book, you have to do a lot of promotion for it. Right. And so it’s the 1st of June here as we’re recording this, um, cause we’re a day ahead to you and I’ve, I think I’ve got 35 interviews over the next six weeks.

So you’re the first of my June and July interviews. And I was like, man, you know, cause I think I’m promoting a book called chill and prosper, but I still have to promote a book called chill and prosper. And so I think it’s really easy to get out of balance, especially if you’re that kind of person like I am where you just think you can do everything.

So in the book I talk about my, a lot of my philosophies in business and one of them is know thyself and prosper. And this really is the crux of the book, right? Cause it’s not about saying you have to do businesses in a certain way. You have to do business in a way that works for your personality. And if you know [00:27:00] that you’re someone who takes on too much, you have to put things in place.

So you don’t do that. So one is now we can use technology to, as a gatekeeper. So I have it in my calendar. So I’ve got two interviews. But I’ve set it up in my calendar. So they can’t be back to back, there’s always space in between those things. And also I can only have four people can only book in for a day.

So that’s the max interviews I’ll do in a day. And if it was up to me, if someone says, oh, but today’s, can you please do it? I’d say yeah, okay, because I’m, cause I’m delusional. And I don’t like to say no. So sometimes it’s about finding those structures in place that will do it despite you. I never find time for yoga ever, ever, ever.

So, and I’ve got the budget to do it, so that’s fine. But I, I pay someone to come to my house. They knock on the door and I have to do yoga and every week I go, hope they cancel because I don’t want to do it, but it’s those other things of going? How can I just make [00:28:00] sure that I am putting everything in place as much as possible, where there’s boundaries, policies in your business.

So you don’t have to be the bad cop, scripts that are already pre-written so you can say no to people, you know, things like that are so important because. Otherwise, we do fall into our default behaviors, um, outsourcing, delegating, all of those things are really helpful, but it’s really finding, um, doing that inner work to see how you work and where your little weak points are.

And my weak points are always saying yes to things. So then I have. Um, like I separate out my social media now, so I have my personal Facebook and I have my business Facebook. So when I’m on my personal, it’s all just cat videos and dog videos. I’m not in my inbox saying yes to things, you know? Um, and you know, I have a, a separate email.

That’s just business email, and I’ve got someone to do that. And I did that right at the side of my business. I paid someone just five hours a week to go through my [00:29:00] inbox. And be the, be the gatekeeper, you know, and that was literally my first year of business. So everyone can afford just a couple of hours of that kind of thing, but you can use technology to put stuff in place, but I totally relate though, because I do, I do find myself getting into that over work and then I have to check myself and come back and, and then sometimes you have to say no to things and that can be hard.

Dawn: See, I love this. I love the honesty about the yoga. You know, it’s like, uh, I have to do PT and the only way I will be there is that because I have to pay to go there. And if I don’t, then obviously I get charged and it’s kind of like a get text and it has to have, but if I joined a gym, I would never be there.

Um, if you think about your kind of like day in the life of Denise, like, what is your favourite thing to do? Like how do you love spending your day? If it’s not yoga.

Denise: So I have, I have my own office here. You looks out at the ocean and to be honest, I’m obsessed [00:30:00] with the world of business, you know, so I love, I love working my business.

I love talking about it. I love writing my books. I love helping people. So for me, I just have the dream job, you know, of, of being paid to create and, um, and, and help people. Personally, like for, um, like I don’t have a ton of hobbies outside of my business to be honest, but I love the freedom that I can go to the movies in the middle of the day with my friends.

And so I have a Thursday, 11:00 AM movie date with one of my friends every week. And I think it is that freedom, it is that freedom of going, I can go to the beach if I want to, I can do this if I want to. And that’s what I have always desired, I think is, I thought it was about not being able to be controlled, but now I see it’s, it’s having that freedom then to be, do and have anything you want and be able to help other people.

Dawn: Um, totally. I love it. And in terms of obviously like personal development, [00:31:00] what’s your kind of go-to, are you kind of like, do you like podcasts? Do you like books, do you kind of like physical things like a Kindle, what’s your favorite? 

Denise: My thing at the moment, I actually don’t read a lot of personal development books at the moment.

I really feel like I went through a stage of that’s all I read and same with business books, what I tend to do now, where I feel like I need that extra oomph is I love listening to prolific creators. So I listened to podcasts of people who. Write books, write musicals, write for TV, write for movies. Um, I love autobiographies, especially from people in Hollywood, you know, famous people, because I feel like then it doesn’t feel like work.

I’m not going, oh, how can I improve, improve myself all the time, but it’s almost like, I love just seeing that they’re normal. And I love seeing the, sometimes they talk about money. Occasionally people will and I’ll just go, wow. Like, look at that money experience that they’re [00:32:00] sharing and seeing the psychology behind it.

It’s very inspiring to me, but yeah, I listen to a podcast quite regularly. It’s called the Hamill cast and it’s, um, interviews with the creators of Hamilton and the actors in Hamilton and the singers and the dancers. And each week it’s someone different. It could be someone who’s a swing who plays all the characters, or it could be the guy who does the wigs, or it could be.

Whatever. And for me, just hearing people’s stories of how they made a decision to live a life of creativity and what their struggles were around that. And that to me is inspiring because it doesn’t even matter. That’s nothing to do with me. I’ll usually come off listening to that and I always have new, fresh ideas and I’m not then just, you know, fishing from the same pond that I’ve been fishing for a while, which is always, you know, business and personal development.

And that being said, I love whenever I’m feeling, um, Kind of bad in myself. I’ll always go back to Louise Hay’s work because it’s always [00:33:00] about self love and acceptance. And that’s what I preach too, is that everything comes from self love and acceptance. Everything else has logistics in terms of this.

Checking checking things off the list. But if you, if you really work on that inner self love and acceptance and so much is possible for you because you’re in your own corner, you, you do it despite the guilt, despite feeling, feeling crap. And then you re you are in your own corner, then. 

On getting her first book deal

Dawn: So, what was it like when you got your first book deal?

Because for me it was something I’d always wanted to do a book. And when I actually got my book deal, my proposal had gone into spam, uh, three months later that, yeah, while you got in touch and said, do you still want to contract for me the day that I got that it was elated, but from the minute after, when I was writing, that was when I was in complete impostor syndrome.

And, you know, I went through a process and the day that I put the manuscript here, I was just like a [00:34:00] wrought with like anxiety. What, what was the experience like for you? 

Denise: Exactly the same. I’m so glad you brought that up because I think something like a publishing deal is something so many people want and you know that, oh, were you excited?

You know, do you and I, the honest truth is it feels horrible. Um, and it’s not even that cool. You write the book and you have to go through all of that imposter syndrome, then it’s all the other stuff of the back and forth of the edits. And then every time, every time I would get an email back from my publisher with, you know, he’s the latest round of edits.

I was thinking. They’re going to say, this is horrible. That’s the worst book they’ve ever read that they hate it. That it sucks. And that just keeps on ongoing. When I was recording the audio book, I was going, people are going to feel like I’m mispronouncing words. People are going to think I suck. And then when you start promoting it, honestly, It feels horrible.

I’m not going to lie. And so it’s such good personal development because you have to constantly be like, if it just helps one person it’s worth it. It’s [00:35:00] okay. I don’t have to be perfect, but even, um, you know, promote and then you have to promote the book. And then I was like, oh my God, I’m asking people to buy my book.

Ugh, this sucks, it’s not going to be worth it. And then of course you get reviews and things. It’s, it’s our real mindset. Hmm. Wow. And not many people talk about it enough. So I’m grateful that you do 

Dawn: to, um, people kind of think, you know, like in, in the wishlist it’s like podcast publishing, contract doing all these things, but the, the energy and anxiety that goes in her, Rhonda is.

Massive. And I think for me that, like, I love what you said about if just helps bond people. That was exactly what I was doing. Like the day that my book arrived and I was like, I’m bailing out as I’m thinking, I haven’t seen the cover, but if it just helps one person, even if 10 people, you know, buy this book and then, you know, you’ve got the set or something like that.

But I think people expect you to connect more with the energy. And I think for me, As my business has kind of grown. [00:36:00] I think he got more self-critical as I’ve kind of become more visible. And I think the thing is, is the more I’ve stepped out, the more I’ve stepped forward. It’s almost like I’m giving myself more imposter syndrome as it goes through.

What, what what’s been kind of, um, the point in your business where you’ve kind of like not regretted, but kind of like really felt like the pressure 

Denise: on something it’s hard because. I didn’t feel the pressure from outside. I think I’ve always felt the pressure from inside of going, you know, this isn’t good enough or I’m not good enough.

And so I I’ve been really lucky that I haven’t experienced a lot of hate or hate mail or haters or trolls. And it’s been it’s in, even when it has happened, the odd times it has happened. I’ve just. Oh, well, that’s fine. That’s your opinion. Like we did not even like, oh, that’s your peanut? It’s like, well, I hate stuff too.

Like, I would never be impolite enough to tell someone, but Hey, you do you. And so it’s [00:37:00] never really landed in a way that has made me feel bad about myself because I’ve, I do. And myself. So I know that I can’t control them. I can only control myself. I would say that I there’s a couple of things I regret a little bit.

So in the last 10 years, as I’ve built that business, I’ve also had three kids and I put a lot of pressure on myself when I was having those babies to. To still show up and perform. And I did a lot of prep and batching and things like that, but I definitely had that pressure on myself of going, oh, my audience is not going to like me if I don’t show up for them.

And yeah, I wish I just was just a little bit gentler on myself and that’s not even saying, I wish I took more time off. It was just more, I just wish I just was a little bit gentler. Um, with myself and just gave myself a little bit more grace, which I should do now as well. Right. Because I’m still hard on myself all the time.

Mm Hmm. 

Denise’s advice to anyone struggling with fatigue

Dawn: Yeah. Well, isn’t it. And I think [00:38:00] why love is the complete transparency of like, You being honest and open about these things, because I don’t think people talk about it enough in terms of, you know, how you feel self-worth, self-doubt imposter syndrome. They’re all things that people think that you have.

And then they move off that they don’t in terms of obviously the, the money mindset side of things. If somebody is in a point of difficulty, you know, And, you know, I feel like there’s a lot of people since the pandemic that I’ve kind of got to a fatigue and it’s kind of like the really just don’t know how to get out of that.

Is there any advice that you could share that you could maybe just help someone kind of move in, in small shifts to change that, that. 

Denise: Absolutely. And I think we have to be so careful in the personal development world to not deny the realities of our world. And it’s tricky when you’re in a situation where you [00:39:00] do feel the lack, because it could be completely real for you and someone saying, oh, you know, Just do some affirmations and everything’s going to be okay.

And it, sometimes it’s not. Um, and so baby steps of things that you can do. I talk about this in money bootcamp, creating a first-class life. And that’s different for everybody, but we actually do it incrementally with what we have at our disposal right now. So you might find something in your life that makes you feel particularly poor, stressed or inconvenienced, and that’s where you can direct your energy.

To upgrade it just to the next level. And it could be something that you don’t even necessarily have to buy. It could be something that you borrow or something that you declutter. Sometimes it’s better to have the absence of the friction before you can afford to, to buy something better. And sometimes it’s the smallest thing.

And I’ve heard this from people at all income levels. Sometimes it’s just. [00:40:00] It actually didn’t even cost much money for me to do it, but it was the symbolism of it. And I’ll give you an example. When I lived in London, in my twenties, I never, I was never warm enough, never, and I really could have gone in. Uh, secondhand because there’s so many secondhand stores in London, but I just, there was something there about, I have to suffer.

I have to be inconvenient. I don’t deserve it. I never, I cannot believe I’m even saying this. I’ve never the whole time. The whole 10 years I lived in London. I never had an electric blanket. And. Um, I mean, they would have been 20 pounds that our GOs would’ve afforded, but that would have changed my whole life, but there was just something there.

I never considered that I was allowed to be comfortable, that I was allowed to. Change my state, because it was always, you know, as a kid, it was like, you get what you give [00:41:00] in and you get what you get. Yes. You get what you get and you don’t get upset. And I never felt like I had the right clothes as a kid.

I never felt like I was warm enough in winter. I never felt like I was allowed to have the thing I had to compromise and I had to suffer. And so that was just, that’s my example. But sometimes it’s something little that we’re just putting up with and it could just be. It could be a screw to stop that squeaky chair.

You know, it could be that you choose a different mug. It could be something like that. And then whatever you have around you use the best, because if you, if everything in your life is economy, class, and you’re used to making do, and you’re used to suffering. This is where you’re always going to be. And if you change your minimum standards, things do start to shift.

You start to upgrade your boundaries with people. Maybe you have a little bit more confidence to put something out there for sale. Maybe, you know, you stopped listening to [00:42:00] people or that inner voice that tells you you’re not good enough. And it is sometimes it’s an a climatization, you know, and, but we have this fantasy of going from here.

I’m going to win the lottery. And that’s why people lose all their money because they haven’t a climatize to it. The money isn’t in alignment with their, who they think they are. And the way that we do it, like this incrementally one little thing at a time. And sometimes you make a mistake, you know, when sometimes you go, well, everyone else is doing that thing.

So I must, and that was, for me, that was high heels. I was like, when I started making money or surely I have to wear high heels. Yeah, it didn’t work. Right. I was like, oh, it doesn’t work for me. So you will make mistakes. But what you’re trying to do is raise everything. So then it’s who you are. You are climatizing to it.

It becomes part of who you are. And I know it still sounds a little bit trite of like, oh God, how can changing one thing? But it does because it’s, so it’s symbolic [00:43:00] of what you’re allowing into your life. And I, I don’t think anything is too small to look at. You might go, man, that light flickers every single day.

And you might realize it only takes two pounds to fix something, you know, but it’s just that you. You again, you feel like you have to suffer, you have to put up with things. And so 

Dawn: all this inherent thing is like, if it worked hard, we deserve it and this is it. And if it’s been really difficult, getting that even better.

Yeah. But I love this gentleness, this kind of looking at effort thing around and just switching up small things because it’s so true. It’s like, it’s like little things. Like I really enjoy just kind of, kind of getting a fresh juice to that. It’s small, but I just love it. It becomes like part of like, you know, if I’ve been doing training and I think I’ve not got a big gap, I can just have it delivered and have a lovely juice.

And I’ve just recently started to getting into adaptogenic coffee, which.

[00:44:00] Sure. Have you seen that film? Limitless feels like that. It’s like literally my to-do list is like done. It’s it’s all plant based, you know, it’s all a lovely 

Denise: brand. I want to hear it was 

Dawn: Andrea then. Yeah, it’s called London nootropics, and I literally, it comes in a box of three. You have a Zen one, um, for if you’ve had a really hectic day or you’re quite tired, there’s a flow one and a, and a grind one.

And honestly, it’s, it has been the biggest change in my life. This is, this is just crazy. Isn’t it? How did I not find this before? So is it switching up the little things and paying attention to. What makes you feel good as well? And it isn’t, I mean, I think the box of compounds, you know, 

Denise: it’s all of those things that make you feel abundant and we’re kind of, um, you remember when not so much anymore, but definitely when I was growing up, [00:45:00] it was always like treat yourself and it was.

At two pounds thing of chocolate, you know, or, or it was like treat yourself with Palmolive. So you have nice soft hands while you’re washing up. Oh my God. We are just conditioned to think that the basic self-care stuff. Is a trait. Exactly. So no wonder, we kind of feel like we’re not allowed to have stuff.

And I would say, even if you’re super, super broke, use what you have, but use the best of what you have and make that your new normal, you know, and don’t save things for best because you’re trying to get yourself out of a situation and you deserve it. You deserve it now. And I’m a, I’m a big thrift store shopper.

I love. Antique stores and things like that. And the amount of things that I see that are still in their boxes from, you know, from people who never used those glasses, never used that beautiful mark. And I just think, well, that’s, that’s what you have to do. And when he literally has no money in there, you just have to.

Feel abundant in any way you can, [00:46:00] because it gives you the energy to come up with a solution. That’s what it does. Not because it’s, you know, suddenly magic and your situation’s going to change, but you deserve to feel good no matter what, um, like today I put on, I put on perfume, you know, and there’s sometimes you just think, oh no, I I’ll save that for best.

I’m like, well, no, I, I I’m allowed to do it now, wear your jewelry now. And then that, that continues on. There’s still different things that you can upgrade. You know, as, as you go, but pay attention to the stories. That’s the useful thing to go. Why aren’t I allowed to wear my nice perfume every day? Why am I not allowed to use my special mug?

Um, because then there’s so much learning there. 

Change your work environment

Dawn: Yeah. My partner always goes on at me because I always get. My lovely wine glasses out and I drink sparkling water from them because I want a nice glass with my drink. So, but he thinks that’s crazy, but it is, it’s all these little things, aren’t they? And I love this.

I love this whole kind of ethos because everyone, every single one person who’s listening to this [00:47:00] can do one thing. And I, you know, I’d love to hear more about what people go off and do, but. It could just be changing a work area and switching things up and just having more luxury and more loving-kindness around everything you do and, you know, wearing the red lipstick, if you’re going to be on podcast all day, just because you want to.

And I love, I love this. I think it’s, it can give such so much energy, I think in a day, gone to, in terms of. Just, I don’t know, feeling good because you, do you feel better when I got clothes on and you you’ve done your hair and whatnot. 

Denise: So, but you just said one thing, I just want to say where you said I changing your work environment.

Something that I notice a lot of women do is they go, oh, I’ll just work with. Corner of the kitchen bench or something like that. And they don’t give themselves space to do their job or they go, oh, wait, my business is making more money before I get a laptop and they’re working on something that’s like so clunky and you know, and there’s always ways that you can upgrade second hand or you can, you know, find some way to get it [00:48:00] cheaper for yourself.

But I find it’s so symbolic around the space. Are you giving yourself space and time for your business dreams to flourish? You know, if you do need a little bit more childcare, I, again, I hear it, oh, my husband says, when my business makes more money, then we can do it. And it’s like, it’s a chicken or egg scenario.

Like if you can afford it. But even if you can just have the audacity to take up space in your house for your business dreams, then that’s amazing. And I’ll tell you a story about this too. Right? So we, we built this house, um, a couple of years ago and. Uh, my office is separate, so it’s, you know, it’s only a little walkway, but it’s, it’s separate from the house.

And it went in and out of the plans quite a few times, because it was like, oh, we’re over the, you know, a floor space. Oh, the neighbours are going to complain all of these things. I had to really advocate for my own space again and again and again. And then, you know what happened? We built the house. I didn’t use this office for six months, six months.

I was working [00:49:00] from my bed from, because I didn’t believe that I deserved it. And I felt guilty about having to advocate for this extra space, just for myself. And this is already Adam having a multimillion dollar business where I support everyone in my family. I still feel, felt guilty about that. So I can imagine, you know, at the start of your business, if you’re just feeling guilty about it and I’ll just take up this little thing, it’s like, no, create a space for you and your dreams to flourish.

You know, even if it’s, you get a little backdrop into your, in your closet, which is what my friend Bushra Bushra did, she started in her closet, but she had a great backdrop and no one, even no one even knew. 

Dawn: That’s crazy. Oh, wow. Is he? I see her on social media at the time. We would never have known that we would never have known that.

I love it. She’s going to be next. So I’m going to contact her. This is brilliant. So in terms of, obviously you’ve got your book coming out and, um, what, what’s kind of your next steps. I mean, a lot of people will kind of think, well, Denise, you’ve kind of done a [00:50:00] lot. Where do you want to be? Are you thinking that kind of you’ve like hit a sweet spot?

Is there more things that are coming? What what’s what’s the future going to hold for you? 

Denise: Well, I want to write a lot more books for sure. And I’m so chill and prosper is my latest one with hay house. And that one comes out in July. So let me just quickly plug it just so I can take that off. Um, I have a ton of amazing pre order bonuses if you’re listening pre July.

And if you just go to Denise dt.com/prosper, there are all the links to where you can buy it in Kindle and paperback and hardback. And. Is that all the things audio, and then you can get all those bonuses, including a book. We’re going to do a live book club as well, which will be really fun. Um, so I know I’ve got more books in me for sure.

I think the thing that I want to try and do is not sabotage my business by thinking. Which I do every now and again, everyone’s seen this, everyone’s seen this [00:51:00] work. I’m not going to talk about money boot camp anymore. And so I always have to, that is my quest is not don’t break your business. Don’t just keep on helping more people.

Cause there’s always more people to help and write more books. So I’m trying to just not over-complicate things and keep it, keep it simple and hopefully more travel after, you know, when we can travel again. Love to do more speaking to us and book tours. And, um, I host retreats sometimes at my farm in the country, you know, just that kind of stuff would be fun too.

But my big thing is, um, every now and again, I just think, oh, maybe I should start a new business. And it is just, it’s my recurring sabotage, you know, I think when, if I get momentarily bored, then it’s time to throw everything in. And I know I’m not alone in that people do that all the time, but it’s just like, I just want to keep on helping people with their money.

That’s it 

Dawn: love it. Love it. Well, I think everyone’s going to go and head on over, even if you’re listening to this next year, everyone, you know, if you’ve not read the, so it’s [00:52:00] three now in total, start from the beginning where we through and obviously go and connect with Denise online, but being so lovely just to hang out and, uh, just.

Denise: I love people’s our house, by the way. So, I’m at Denise DT at, on all my social media and that’s Denise D t.com as well. But, um, I love hearing people’s ahas. So, feel free to tell me your money stories. It’s my favourite thing is people telling me all their GC money stories. So, I can find all of those extra nuances from all of our upbringings and all of those are hubs that maybe I haven’t considered too.

So definitely reach out. I’d love to hear from you. 

Dawn: Well, thank you so much for joining us on Dawn of a new era, and I’m sure we will connect again soon to hear the next part, but good luck with all your interviews. You will be amazing. And remember, obviously time for Denise. 

Denise: Thank you. 

Dawn: Take care Denise. Bye now. 

Denise: Thank you for listening to [00:53:00] Dawn of a new era podcast and for your free checklist to find out how to boost your business for growth, profit, and success, and join our community.

Go to dawnmcgruer.com