Is your money mindset a business handbrake?

In an extract from her book ‘Intentional Profit’, Clare Wood explains how your beliefs around money shapes the zeros at the end of your bank balance.

Do you want to know the number 1 reason why you’re not getting the results, the sales, or the outcomes you desire in your business? The answer is… well, you. 

Before you get mad at me – I want to let you know that this is really good news. If the reason your success is blocked is external – a supply chain issue, or a lack of demand for your product or service – then your options to address it are limited. But when the solution is literally in your hands, you have a huge opportunity to improve your outcomes.

As a money mentor of 7+ years and a qualified accountant, I’ve worked with countless clients to unlock huge growth in their businesses. These business owners have different types of enterprises, ranging from solo operations based out of a home office, through to big businesses with dozens of staff and bricks and mortar locations.

There’s one thing all of these business owners have in common, however, and that is: challenges with their money mindset. Whether you realise it or not, your money beliefs inform your habits. Your habits then determine the actions you take, and those actions determine your outcomes. So, it therefore stands to reason that your money mindset and beliefs can have a lasting and tangible impact on your business success, profits and wealth. 

To make sure your money mindset is helping you unlock massive growth (rather than standing in your way of success), there’s a few things you can do about it.

First: learn how your money mindset is blocking you.

Money mindset is your thoughts, beliefs and stories around money.  Some beliefs we have are very helpful and rooted in fact. For instance, I believe in gravity. If I didn’t and I decided to jump off a 20-story building, that wouldn’t end well for me.  But I’ve also had beliefs that have not served me well. For example, I used to have a terrible fear of public speaking, to the point that I thought I’d have an anxiety attack if I was forced to speak in front of others. I still have this fear, although it’s gotten better over the years, as I’ve pushed myself out of my comfort zone and done the work on my mindset to change that belief. 

My point? When it comes to our money, some of our money stories are helpful and true, while others hold us back. 

Get clear on your money stories

Our stories or beliefs can be so strong that we believe them to be the truth. For example, if your experiences to date have shown you “you have to work hard to make money”, that won’t feel like a made up story to you. It will feel like a fact. But when you start to work on your money mindset, and you challenge your belief systems, you can start to recognise that things you thought were an absolute, a definite, a truth, are actually how you are perceiving what is going on.

Money stories are usually born out of protection. We build them throughout our childhood and our adulthood, based on the different experiences we have, and we develop lots of different coping strategies as a result. For instance: if your family struggled to pay the household bills growing up and you went through periods of the power being shut off or being behind on the rent or mortgage, you might now have a money story that says: Household bills are a source of stress. 

As a business owner, you might then be taking this belief you have around bills and expenses into the way you run your business. Instead of seeing the costs of running your business as being the investments required to generate a profit, you view them as being a source of stress.  If expenses are a source of stress, then you’re unlikely to be willing to make strategic investments in your business to support further growth… which could then have a big impact on your overall profits.

Having seen the outcomes that show up both in my own business and that of my clients, my mindset has rapidly evolved over the last decade. Now, I urge you to consider your own money mindset as a business owner. Are you subconsciously blocking your own success, or are you open to making intentional investments to supercharge your growth and profits? Your answer could be the reason why your bank balance isn’t as big as you’d like it to be.

A numbers nerd and ex-accountant (CPA), Clare Wood (pictured above) is not your average bean counter. As a money mentor, she uses her number powers for good to help entrepreneurs transform their money mindsets by following her proven frameworks to create big, beautiful business profits. Listen to Clare’s podcast here, buy her new book Intentional Profit here or visit her website here.