This episode is sponsored by CURE Hydration. All right, I’m going to be real with you. Drinking water is boring. My ADHD brain is like, wait, we have to do this again? Like every day, multiple times. What in the world? And because I’m running from meetings to coaching calls to kid chaos, staying hydrated is not something I’m naturally good at. It’s not something I naturally think about. That’s why I’ve been obsessed with Cure hydration packs lately. Cure is a plant based hydrating electrolyte mix with no added sugar, only 25 calories, and it actually tastes good. The watermelon and berry pomegranate have been on repeat for me. I’m actually like really running low on those flavors, which is so sad. They’re refreshing without being too sweet or artificial. It feels like my water finally has a little bit of personality, which I enjoy. I really do. What I love most is that CURE uses a science backed formula that hydrates as effectively as an IV drip. So when I’m scrambling through my day forgetting my water again, CURE helps me to catch up fast. I throw a few packs in my bag and it makes drinking enough water simple, which for my ADHD brain is basically a miracle. So staying hydrated isn’t just about water. You also need electrolytes. And that’s why I love Cure. It’s clean, tastes great, and it actually works. And bonus, CURE is FSA HSA approved. So you can use those funds to stay hydrated. The smart way for I have ADHD podcast listeners, you can get 20% off your first order@curehydration.com I have ADHD with the code I have ADHD. And if you get a post purchase survey, make sure to tell them that you heard about Cure right here on the podcast. It really does help to support the show. Don’t just drink more water, upgrade it with cure. Welcome to the I have ADHD podcast where it’s all about education, encouragement and coaching for adults with adhd. I’m your host Kristin Carter and I have adhd. Let’s chat about the frustrations, humor and challenges of adulting relationships, working and achieving with this neurodevelopmental disorder. I’ll help you understand your unique brain, unlock your potential and move from point A to point B. Hey, what’s up? This is Kristen Carter and you are listening to The I have ADHD podcast, episode number 68. I am medicated, I am caffeinated and I am ready to roll. Happy August to you. If you’re listening real time, it is my favorite time of year. It is summer. It is hot, sweltering. I am loving every second of it. I was made for the heat. Spending almost every night on our back porch under the pergola, sitting in my hammock swing with an adult beverage in my hand, occasionally loving it completely. I hope that you are enjoying your summer as well. Today we are going to talk about money, money, money. I am enjoying talking about money so much. I am changing all of my thoughts, all of my thinking, all of my beliefs about money, and I can’t wait to bring you in on everything that’s changed for me. So I do have two episodes that I recorded. I believe they were last summer. And even in the last year, so much has changed for me. And so I’m super stoked to kind of give you a peek into my brain and the thoughts and feelings that are changing, which are creating different actions and different results. It’s so fun. In my experience, most adhders are under earning, overspending and feeling shame, can’t seem to get a handle on their finances, not able to consistently get positive results in this area. And that was the story of my life for most of my life. But honestly, not anymore. And so I’m super excited to tell you about where I am today and how I’ve changed everything in the last year. And I’m still in process. Like, you guys know that I don’t wait until I’ve made all of the progress to share with you where I am, Because I love to bring you in on the journey, and I love to show you what it looks like to be in the process of change. So I want to tell you a little bit about where I am right now. I earn what I want to earn. Imagine that. Okay. And I continue to increase my income just for fun. Like, just because it’s super fun. I’ve dropped my victim mentality with money, which I didn’t realize that I had, but I totally did. So I’m no longer mad at my kids or the economy or my husband or the world for not allowing me, quote, unquote, not allowing me to make money. Okay, so this was a story that I told myself for years. I’ve dropped the drama around debt, but I’ve also dropped all of my debt. I’m not afraid to look at my accounts. I don’t feel the fear and the failure anymore. I’m not avoiding them anymore. My husband and I have specific financial goals, and we’re reaching them systematically. It’s wild. And I don’t keep A strict budget. I don’t. I just don’t. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t. I’m just saying that I don’t keep a strict budget and I don’t have drama around it. So magical, right? That all sounds super magical and it totally is. Now, let me tell you what this podcast is not. I’m not going to give you the tips and tricks on this podcast. So if you’re new around here, you’re going to want me to tell you like exactly how to get it done, right? Like the step by steps and the three rules of budgeting that will help you to be consistent or whatever. I understand, but I don’t have it for you. Right. Like that is totally Googleable. You can go ask the Google how to do it and you can hear from financial experts, people who are way more qualified than me to talk about the specifics of budgeting and finances and investments and all of that. Right? You can learn from financial experts. But what we’re going to talk about today, understanding that your thoughts about money create your results with money. Your thoughts about money are going to produce feelings, and those feelings about money are going to produce actions, and those actions will give you a result. Okay? Now, I promise you, this is life changing. This is what has allowed me to become a multiple six figure earner. This stuff. Not the budgeting, not the tips and tricks, not the how tos, not the get out of debt quick or the like, you know, get rich quick scheme kind of thing, okay? It’s the willingness to examine all of my beliefs about money and see if they’re actually serving me and then if they’re not changing my mind on purpose. So what we’re going to do today in this podcast is we’re going to bring up all of your money BS and we’re going to observe it. We’re going to see if it’s affecting you negatively or positively. And then if you determine it’s affecting you negatively, I’m going to invite you to change it intentionally. Okay? This podcast is all about introducing new money thoughts and new money ideas that you can believe if you want to, and if you don’t, you totally don’t have to. So this is how to create wealth and financial freedom. I promise you. I promise you. I promise you. Let’s go. Okay, so you’ve created your current life with your current thoughts down to the exact dollar amount in your bank account. And this is really important to understand. So take a minute, like maybe even open up your bank account. What’s in there has been created by you, and it’s there because of you or it’s not there because of you, right? So the concept that you’ve created your current bank balance or your current debt amount with your thoughts is totally important. I want you to understand that deep down to your core, okay? Your thoughts create your feelings. Your feelings drive your actions. And then of course, your actions ultimately produce your results. So look around, look at the car you’re driving or the room you’re sitting in. The life that you have right now is because of the thoughts that you’re currently thinking. It’s because of the beliefs that you’re currently holding. It’s just the way the world works. There’s no getting out of it. Just because we have ADHD doesn’t mean we’re exempt from it. Okay? So we’ve designed our current life whether we realize it or not. Just because we have ADHD and we’re not super practiced at being mindful and observing our thoughts, it doesn’t mean we’re exempt from the fact that our thoughts are creating feelings which are driving actions which are producing results. So you’ve created your debt, your savings, your job, your financial status, all the things you’ve created that with your mind. Okay? So for some of you, my friends, you’re starting to sweat. This is going to be unsettling, right? Because if you don’t like your current financial status, you might struggle with me saying that you’re the one that’s created it. But first of all, like, I’m right. And second of all, it’s good news. It’s really good news. So don’t be scared. It’s really good news. It’s good news because if you’ve created your current results with your thoughts, it means that you can create a different result, a different financial future with different thoughts. And that’s really, really amazing news. You have the power to design the financial future of your dreams just by investigating and managing and challenging and changing your beliefs. Okay? So let’s just give an example of how thoughts might create results. So if you’re currently in debt, it’s because of the thoughts that you think. So a thought like I need it creates a feeling of urgency. And free from that feeling of urgency, you buy I deserve it creates the feeling of entitlement, and you buy I’m ugly creates the feeling of insecurity, and you buy. I’m the only one that doesn’t have it creates the feeling of scarcity, and you buy I’ll never earn more than you know, fill in the blank, creates the feeling of defeat and then you under earn, I don’t have time to make more money. Creates the feeling of victimhood and you under earn, right? So if we don’t want to be in debt, we got to change our thoughts. If we don’t want to under earn, we’ve got to change our thoughts. Right? Those thoughts will create beliefs which will drive actions which will create results. So okay, hear me here, hear me here. That was a weird thing to say. It’s not about a perfect budget or the best money tracking app, or joining a get rich quick scheme or the right multi level marketing company. It’s not about that. You have to become a different person. You have to become a person who thinks about money differently in the future than you do right now. Right? You have to become a new person who feels differently about money. If right now you’re feeling scarcity, failure, victim, all of those are going to produce zero money, lots of debt, right? But when we choose new thoughts and new feelings, we get new actions which create different results. So a thought is just a sentence in your brain and a belief is just a thought that you think over and over. All right? So if you are anything like I was, your thoughts are probably on autopilot. They’re probably racing around in your brain, jumping around from thing to thing, causing all kinds of feelings that you probably have trouble identifying because it’s like a mishmash. Is that a word, mishmash? I think it is. Okay. And I get that. Right? So if you are struggling to even observe your thoughts, I encourage you to go listen to episode 16 which talks all about the brain dump thought download. And you can learn that technique there, that’s really important. And then I have so many episodes on observing and processing your emotions. So look those up. So this is a skill. It’s not going to happen quickly. It’s totally fine though, because if I said, hey, in five years you can be a millionaire, are you willing for it to take five years? What’s your answer? So don’t think that it can happen overnight. Allow it to take days, weeks, months, even years, knowing that financial freedom is at the end of it. Okay, so it’s not gonna just take a day, it’s not gonna happen overnight. But Even if in 10 years you were a millionaire, what if that were possible for you? Let me tell you, my belief is that it’s 100% possible for you. If you want it, it’s 100% possible. Okay, my friend, so what I want you to do while you listen to this podcast is when I ask a question, pause it, Pause the podcast right. Literally write down the answers to the questions that I ask. That way you can begin to observe your thoughts. You can see what you’re thinking, how you’ve created your results, and why you have what you have or why you don’t have what you don’t have. Okay, so we’re going to start here. When you think about money, when I bring it up, when you start listening to this podcast, what comes up for you? You feel good, free, easy, easy breezy, peaceful. Are you feeling anxious? Failure? Yucky? All right, what thoughts and feelings are coming up for you? Seeing your thoughts on display will tell you exactly why you have the current money that you do. And then that will give you the pathway to quote, unquote, fix it if you want to. So I’m wondering, like, what messages did you receive about money as a kid? And what are you still believing today that’s just kind of left over from your childhood? So one of the things that I realized that I was believing is that money is super hard. Like, you know, other people make a lot of money, but I don’t. And I really had to, like, recognize that belief in myself and just realize that that, I guess, was a message that I received at one point, but it doesn’t actually serve me to believe it. It doesn’t make my life better to believe that money is super hard. And so I just decided to stop believing it. And now one of the beliefs that I believe, like, I really hang onto money is easy. I learned that from my coach, Brooke Castillo. She said it, and she says it a lot. And I at first was like, you are crazy, woman. You are crazy. There is nothing harder than money. But I’ve introduced it into my self concept, into what I believe about myself. Like, it’s actually really easy to make money. And now it’s just a thing with me. Like, I totally believe that it’s very easy for me to make money, and I prove it true. So weird how thoughts work. It is so weird. Don’t ever forget your thoughts. Create your results. Okay? So the way that you think about money will always be proven true. Our brains are designed to prove themselves true. So if you think negatively or you feel negatively about money, you’re going to inevitably prove that true. So if you believe there’s never enough, there will never be enough. If you believe that money is hard, money will always be hard. If you believe you’re bad with money or you’re impulsive, or you’re the worst. You will always be bad with money, right? So I’m wondering, how can you acknowledge. How can you see that your thoughts have created your current financial results? Now, I want to continue to talk about the thoughts that I had, because I think they’re going to be super relatable. So the first one I already mentioned, money is hard. Hard to come by, it’s hard to make, it’s hard to keep. It’s always a struggle. It is so hard. There’s nothing harder than money, right? When I uncovered that belief in myself and saw all of the ways that I believed it and it affected me, I was like, I want to let that go. Another one that I believed my whole life is that I’m bad with money. I’ve never been good with it. I don’t know what to do with it. I’m careless, I’m reckless, I’m impulsive, I suck at it. I’m just bad with money. Now, I have evidence for that, right? I have evidence that I’m bad with money. And so it was really hard for me to let go of that belief. But one of the things that I decided to do is to just become a different person when it comes to money. And so, like, the old version of me maybe was bad with money, but this new version of me that I’m evolving into, she’s not bad with money. She’s so good with it. No, she doesn’t keep track of every single dollar. So I’ve also redefined, like, what’s good and what’s bad, right? But believing that I’m bad at money has never helped me to be better with money. It’s always put me in a really, really bad spot. And so I’m just done with that belief. Another one that I used to believe was, there’s never enough. No matter how hard I work, I never have enough. No matter what. It just. There’s never enough. So even if we get, you know, like, a special Christmas bonus, then the car breaks down and it just, like, steals from it. There’s never enough money. I proved that true almost my entire life. I am done with that belief. I’ve changed it around. There’s always enough. I’m so thankful. There’s always enough money. And now I set my brain to prove that true, and I go looking for evidence of how there is always enough money. Another belief that I held onto for a long time that is really sneaky is I should have more. My company should pay me more. I deserve more than I have, right now it’s annoying that I’m only making, you know, whatever. Fill in the blank. More people should be buying from me. I should have more. My husband should be making more. We should have more money. Now you might be like, oh, but that’s true. You should have more money. But the thing is, this thought produced a feeling of entitlement. And entitlement is a feeling that will never drive actions that get you more money ever. So feeling entitled, like, I should totally have more money, always caused me to stop working my hardest to stop investing in myself and in my company. And it made it so that I never actually made more money. I should have more. That’s actually one of the beliefs that I let go. Most recently, I was just looking through a journal, and it was all like, last summer. And this belief I still had last summer, I should have more money. My day job, company should be generating more revenue. I’m doing everything right. I just cannot imagine why it’s not growing. Okay, like, those sneaky entitlement beliefs are going to keep you from making more money. It for sure did for me. And this was just me last summer. So, like, things have changed hugely for me. I never think this anymore. My thought that I go to is, I shouldn’t have more money. I totally shouldn’t. I should have exactly what I have. The reason why I have what I have is because of me. And so if I want to have more money, I need to be taking different actions, right? I need to be doing things differently. But I should have exactly what I have. Another one that seems really, like. It just seems really sweet is, I don’t need more money. I’m fine. I can pay my bills. I don’t need nice vacations or fancy cars. But here’s what I think the underlying belief is, I don’t deserve nice things anyway. I’m going to ruin it if I get it. I’d probably mess it up if I got more. So I’m just going to say that I’m good with what I have. And I’m wondering, like, is that you? What kind of feeling does that create for you? Okay, two more. I had this belief that rich people were snobs. Most of them are jerks. Millionaires, like, are weirdos. They’re like. They’re not real humans. And some. I don’t usually think this, but I know that some of my clients struggle with this, is that, like, rich people get rich off the backs of poor people. And so if I become rich, then I’ll be a bad person, right? Because Rich people are bad people. They become rich off the backs of poor people. I had to let that whole entire belief system go. And coupled with that is this, like unfairness of inequality, right? So some people have more money than others and that’s not okay. More money for them means less money from me. And so in turn, I don’t want to be wealthy because more money for me means that I’m taking away from other people. Those are zero dollar thoughts. They’re not helpful and they do not allow you to put out into the world your magic. They don’t allow you to just like sell yourself and your product and make like, create so much value in the world that people want to buy from you. Okay? So in order to become a high earner, I had to let go of all of these beliefs, even though I had believed them my whole life. At the ripe old age of 39 is really when I began to uncover these with my coaches and say, like, wow, these beliefs I’ve held onto for so long and they’re not serving me, they’re not producing money, they’re not helping me to become who I want to become. So I had to exchange them. And I’m going to tell you some new beliefs. Money is just neutral. It’s not good or bad. It’s just neutral. You’re not a good person if you have money and you’re not a bad person if you have money. Money isn’t moral. It’s an inanimate object. It’s a tool. It is just math. Math is not good. Math is not bad. Math is just math, right? So if you’re a good person, having money is going to amplify it, okay? It’s going to make you an even better person because if you’re generous, you’re going to become even more generous when you have money. If you’re a bad person, having money or not having money doesn’t really matter. You’re still a bad person. Money will just amplify it, right? So if you’re a bad person and you have money, then, like, you’re going to do bad things with your money. But I want you to ask yourself, are you a good person or are you a bad person? Are you someone who’s going to do good things with money or bad things with money? I identify as a good person. I’m going to do such good things with my money. I already am doing such good things with my money. Being generous, giving to charities, like, I’m enjoying being a good person with money. Okay? Money has nothing to do with your morality. I was a good person before I started having money. It didn’t make me into a good person. It also didn’t make me into a bad person. Okay, there’s your morality and then there’s money. They’re completely separate. Also, money doesn’t cause your feelings, which is so funny because I went back and I listened to episode 22 of the I have ADHD podcast. Not sure if you ever heard of it, and in it, the host, Kristen Carter, talks about the feeling that she has when she has debt. Now, this is Kristin Carter from about 14 months ago, I believe that was. That episode dropped on June 4, 2019. This episode that you’re currently listening to is coming out, you know, mid August 2020, about 14 months later. Kristin Carter of 2019 didn’t really understand that money didn’t cause her feelings. Money doesn’t cause your feelings. Now, I think that she knew that intellectually, she understood the concept of it, but she still thought that she was happier without debt than she was with debt. Right? And that’s not actually true. Right? Money doesn’t cause your feelings. Money doesn’t make you feel anything. Debt doesn’t make you feel anything. Money just sits there. Again, it’s just math. It’s totally neutral. Now you have a thought about it, and that thought creates a feeling. So the thought might be, I should have more, or I’m so impulsive, I can’t believe that I spent that much, or I’m so thankful for what I have. Right. Or I can’t wait to give to that charity or to my church. Like, those thoughts are all going to produce a different feeling in your body. Okay? Now, if I could go back and coach one year ago, me, I would really help that version of me to see that money and debt didn’t cause any of my feelings. And not having debt really didn’t make me happy because debt is totally neutral. My thought about it, which was I’m totally free, made me happy, right? I felt so much freer without the debt. Now, here’s what’s cool. I chose to go into a couple thousand dollars worth of Deb, and I felt amazing about it. I hired a coach, I gave her money that I didn’t have, and I felt incredible. Why? Because I believed that she could help me. And spoiler alert, she did. I was able to pay it off very quickly. But still, I want you to know that debt itself is neutral. It doesn’t cause feelings. It’s just the thought that you have about it that causes your Feelings. Another belief that I’ve adopted very recently is that there is more than enough money to go around. Now, scarcity is the belief that there’s never enough, whether it’s money, food, emotions, something else entirely. Maybe you come from a place of scarcity with money. And I know that I did for my whole life. I believed there wasn’t enough, and I proved it true over and over, okay? And even when I got money, hear me, this is the most important part. Even when I got money, I’d get rid of it so fast, I’d spend it right away so that I could be comfortable in my belief that there wasn’t enough. Okay? So if you believe that there’s not enough, if you have a scarcity mindset, everywhere you look, there will not be enough. And when other people succeed or make more money than you do, you’ll get jealous and mad. You’ll think that they’re doing something wrong or shady because your brain is believing that their success takes away from what’s available to you. I would love for you to pause this and write down what you’re thinking and feeling right now. Do you have a scarcity mindset? Do you believe that other people’s success takes away from what’s available to you? Now, I want to encourage you to develop a mindset of abundance. There is enough. There’s always enough. There’s so much money to go around. Everywhere I look, I see people succeeding. And it shows me that it’s possible for me, too. If someone’s a millionaire, that doesn’t mean that I have less. I don’t despise them. I’m like, oh, my gosh, that’s amazing. That means it’s possible for me too. It’s just an example of what’s possible. Money is not a zero sum game. You having more doesn’t mean that I have less. Okay? Me having more doesn’t mean that you have less. I want all the adults with ADHD to become wealthy if they want to. All of you. Like, if something that you want, go after it. It’s so fun. And it starts by believing that if I make money, I’m not maliciously or even inadvertently taking away from someone else. It starts by believing that one person’s financial success is an example to be celebrated, not cut down. It starts with believing that there’s enough in the world to go around and that we are so lucky to have everything we have. The amount of money in the world is limitless. It’s enough. There’s always enough. The amount in My bank account’s enough. The number of clients in focus is enough. My house and the things that I have are enough. I. I’m safe. I have a place to live with a bed that is soft. I get to eat food as much as I want. I have everything that I need. I am the luckiest human on the planet. And from that energy of gratitude and abundance, I create so much value and so much money. And I invite you to do this the same, my friend. I want you to know that if you’re not enjoying your current financial status, it’s not because of your ADHD. It’s not ADHD’s fault. And that’s good news, because we can’t get rid of adhd. We can’t cure it. Okay? If you are not enjoying where you are financially, it is as simple as identifying the beliefs that are holding you back from making progress with money. So evaluate. Do you have a scarcity mindset? Do you think that money is hard? Are you believing that rich people are, like, shady and mean? Check in with yourself. Because these beliefs that a lot of times are passed on from childhood, that we just never actually question, they’re of keeping us from really making progress. Especially the belief that we’re bad with money. That’s going to create a feeling of failure, a feeling of shame. And then, guess what we’re not going to do. We’re not going to look at our bank account and nurture the money that we have. We’re always going to believe that we’re doing it wrong and we’re going to try to avoid it because it feels. Feels so terrible. We’re not going to reach out and ask for the help that we need and deserve because we feel like we should know by now, right? Like I’m 40 years old. I should know by now. Well, why? Who says I’m almost 40 years old? I’m actually excited to say that I’m almost 40 years old. I’m not there yet. And I don’t think that I should know anything by now. I feel like I’m just waking up from my slumber. I feel like I am just becoming the person that I was always meant to become in every area of my life, including my finances. So when I uncovered a belief, especially the sneaky one, that I should have more money, I was like, oh, my goodness, I cannot believe that. I’ve been believing this for so long and it’s been holding me back. But I didn’t beat myself up for it. I wasn’t like, kristen, you’re such A terrible person for believing that I was like, of course you believe that. You never ever looked at your thoughts before. You never, ever realized how sneaky this little thought was creating your actions. I never realized that. This is the value of coaching my friends. I had a coach say, hey, you’re an entitlement here. You need to cut that out. And it was the most valuable coaching session I probably ever had because she was totally right, and it changed everything for me. So if you don’t have a coach, you need to go find someone who’s going to help you to see your thoughts, someone who’s going to tell you the truth and someone who will, like, hold your hand through this process and be gentle and kind. Because it’s not easy to transform into a new person. It’s not easy, but it’s worth it. It’s not fast, but it’s worth it. It’s totally, totally worth it. And the best thing about it is that you don’t have to let go and, like, transform all of your ADHD behaviors. You can still be the full version of who you are, which might include impulsivity, it might include distractedness. Right? It might include all that stuff. And that’s totally fine. You can still still be super rich with all of those ADHD symptoms. So I don’t want you to think that, like, an ADHD human cannot be as wealthy as they want to be. My belief is that anyone with ADHD can do anything that they want to do as long as they have the right support. My belief is that that will include medication, a medication that’s right for your body. It will include a good relationship with your medical doctor and, you know, all of that stuff. And it will include therapy and or coaching. 100%. If you want to know more, hit me up. I would love to work with you. All right, guys, that’s all I have for today. We will revisit this topic of money over and over because I believe it. It is so important for our ADHD community. I believe it with all of my heart. So let’s go out there, let’s all make all the money and be as wealthy as we want to be. I will see you next week if you’re being treated for your adhd, but you still don’t feel like you’re reaching your potential, you’ve got to join Focused. It’s my monthly coaching membership where I teach teach you how to tame your wild thoughts and create the life that you’ve always wanted, no matter what season of life you’re in. Or where you are in the world. Focused is for you. All materials and call recordings are stored in the site for you to access at your convenience. Go to ihaveadhd.com focused for all the info.
