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Exercise: Take an Honest Look at Your Financial Situation

- [Megan] So I want to go ahead and take an honest look at your current financial situation. So which of these best describes your needs from selling your craft? Are you the primary breadwinner? Maybe you're single. So it's all you. Maybe you're a shared breadwinner. That's the situation that I'm in. I don't have to pay all the bills every month, but my husband's certainly not paying all the bills all the month. We got to get in there and do it together. Maybe you want to make some financial contribution, like your main bills are covered but you want to make some money so that you can pay to send the kids to a better school, or go on a better vacation this year, or just have extra spending money, or put money into savings for a cushion. So maybe you're there. And maybe you just want to support your craft. You're like, "I want to make enough money so that I can keep making stuff." And that's okay too. So I just want to ask our in-studio audience, where are you guys at? Anyone? Rochelle?

- [Rochelle] Right now I'm at some and I want to move up to shared. - Awesome. I'm going to go down the line. I just think everyone could just say it right from the start. It helps me to know as we're having this conversation where you guys are at. - [Michelle] Probably between shared and some financial. - [ Woman 1] I'm probably between support my craft and some financial. - [Woman 2] I'm between some and shared. - [Angel] And I would say support my craft and moving towards something higher. - [Denise] That's kind of where I am too. - Where you're at too? - Needs to be a little higher. - Needs to be a little higher. And that's important to acknowledge too like where you are and where you would want it to be. Toni? - [Toni] Some. - Some. - [Man 1] Support my craft and moving torwards. - [Woman 3] And mine's definitely some of our financial but it would be nice to move it up to the shared. - To the shared. Awesome. Matt. - [Matt] Primary. Yeah. - Perfect, yeah. - [Sarah] I'm in the shared but I would like to move it to somewhere towards primary. - Awesome. Yeah, that's always my goal too. I'm like my husband hates his job so someday we're going to get to the point where he can get rid of that. I mean, if my husband's company is watching, my husband loves his job. Right? It's amazing. He wants to stay forever. All right. So then I want you to think about what positives result from selling more of your craft. This gives you something to focus on, right? So is it that you can pay your bills? That's a really big positive. Is it this feeling of financial independence? Maybe it's just so you can take a trip, or school for your kids, or that you get to spend more time making your craft. Thinking about what those positives are for you because it gives you something to hang on to. You can also think about the opposite. What is the result if you don't meet your financial goals? I don't know about you guys, but I am pretty well motivated by some of the things on this list. Right? For me, that big thing is I do not want to get a real job. I have no idea how to have one, it sounds terrible, like you want me to show up at the same place every day, no. So that is a huge motivator for me. You know, what are the results if you don't get there? Do you have to give up your craft? That's terrible. We don't want that to happen. So using those things to motivate you. And really thinking about that. So is it this idea of financial freedom? Is it something for your family? Is it this idea of travel? Is it a fear? A fear of getting a real job? Or is it just a passion? I have so much passion for my craft that I need to make money. Think about those motivations. Rochelle, what motivates you? - Financial freedom. - Financial freedom? And it doesn't have to be on this list. It can be anything else. Michelle? - Travel and financial freedom. - For me it's more of a sense of self-worth. - Perfect. - Yeah, I don't want to get a real job. - Angel? - For me I think it's being able to do more of my art and also to share it with my daughters. - Awesome. Denise? - Yeah I love what I do, and so I have been home with my kids since my son was born five years ago and so I can see a real struggle. If I have to go back to teaching, I'm not going to have time to do this, so I don't want to give that up. But once they're both in school, I'm going to have to legitimize me staying home, justify me staying home versus going back to teaching and getting another job. - Yeah. That's a huge motivation. - I'm going to go with sense of self-worth. - Nice. - [Woman 4] It's a way to show myself that I can make something, something that means something to someone, and to basically meaning to what I do but also freedom. - Awesome. - Yeah, mine is definitely right now sort of financial freedom, just extra spending money and stuff. But then once my kids are in school, they're one and a half and three now, it would be nice to not have to go back to work and be able to make my own hours and be there when they get home from school. That's big. - Matt? - It's like a mix of all of it. - Everything we're talking about. - Money and not wanting to have a real job and yeah. So a mix of everything. - Awesome. - Mine's that financial freedom and also it's the first job I've ever had where I felt like I was somewhere near reaching my potential as a person, creatively and in business. So I don't want to lose that. - Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, I think those are all really great reasons. And like I said, there's no wrong answer here. I had dinner with a friend last night and she's just starting her own business and she was like, "You know," she's like, "I really like making money." She's like, "It's not because I want a lot of money," she's like, "It's just like how you keep score, right? Like if I'm making a lot of money it means I'm winning." And that's totally valid. So there's really no wrong answer here, but it's important to understand that, because then when you're feeling overwhelmed and you're feeling stressed out, you can say, "Okay, why am I here? What is the reason that I'm doing this?" So this is something that I want you guys to just take a second and write down. So whether you're watching online or you're in here, I want you to complete this sentence. "I need to make money from my craft because…" So in my case, it's I need to make money from my craft because I'd rather spend my time in my studio making jewelry than get a real job. Another really interesting example that I heard, I heard an interview with Susan Peterson who's the founder of Freshly Picked, they make the little baby moccasins. And if you guys have seen any of my classes, you've heard me talk about her before because she's pretty much a marketing genius. And in this interview, I heard her say, "When I started my business, literally my goal was I wanted to be able to walk into Target and buy anything I wanted." That was her goal. And then as the business grew, she was like, "Okay, now that's my goal for my employees. I want all of my employees to be able to walk into Target and buy anything they want at any time." That was her goal. So then once you've written this goal down, you also want to think about then what this statement tells you about your financial needs. So for me it means that I need to pay for my studio, right, I have this really pretty studio, I got to make sure that I'm paying the bills on that. I have to pay my share of the bills. I like travel and clothes. So I have to do that. And I want to do that primarily from the sale of my jewelry, right? That's my goal. So we kind of talked about those, your vague reasons. But I really want everyone in this audience to share that actual sentence. I need to make money from my craft because… Rochelle, I'm just going to keep going to you, you're right in my line of sight. We're just going go all the way down again. - Well, my family needs more financial independence. My husband is basically taking care of everything, so if I could contribute, it would make things a lot easier for both of us. Awesome. - I want to make money because I come from working a real job and I hate it. Working in a cubicle for the last 10 years. And so I really want to pull my part with me and my husband to make money and step away from that job. - I want to make money because I want to support my craft and I want to feel that what I do has value. - I need to make money for financial independence and also I want to feel that I'm doing something important with my life. - I want to make money because I have so many ideas I want to get out into the world. - Denise. - I really enjoy working doing LM Organics and I just want to continue doing that after the kids go to school but still have a schedule that's flexible enough that I'm available to do field trips and to do drop off and pick up and do scheduled things with my husband. Just have that flexibility. That's really important. - That's awesome. Honey. - It gives me some validation that I and my craft are worthwhile. - I need to make money for my craft because it will give the meaning to what I do and give me financial freedom. - I want to be able to be present and inspiring to my children and to have the freedom to travel with them and help provide for them and then brag as I also like want to build something. I just love like you were talking about the marketing, and that that's not really, I actually love the marketing. I like it as much as the making. - I actually kind of do too. Matt. - Yeah, I think it's wanting to do something with your life that isn't just working for somebody else's dreams. I want to be able to put my time and when I'm on my deathbed like, "ha ha ha." I killed it. I don't want to be like, "Oh, I'm so glad I made someone lots of money and spent my whole life working for somebody else." Yeah. - Like master revenge fit. - Yeah Sarah. - I need to make money because I want to be able to continue my dream job and not have to give up on it. - Perfect. Yeah. So this statement gives you something to focus on when things get tough. So when things get tough for Matt, he's going to picture like, "When I'm on my deathbed, I want to be like the guy laughing because I did my thing." So now that we understand why we're doing this, we want to start to dive into the how, right? We've got this motivation, but now it's time to start to think about where we're going from here. And so before we get into the really nitty gritty, I want to talk about this idea of ABR, which is "Always Be Releasing." And so we're going to go ahead and talk about that. But before we do let's dive into a couple of online questions because I'm so excited to hear that you guys are jumping in online. So perfect. Okay, so we have people from all over the world. We have DaisyChainOddities who is in Vienna, Austria, which I'm super jealous of because I love Vienna, it's such a beautiful city. ukPaintedSilk is Tidying my studio while I watch, from London, England, PropMonkey is saying "Aloha from Hawaii." Man, you guys are all in such cool places. It's not fair. I mean, this is a cool place too, okay. AerieNorth is in Toronto, WickedDeluxe is in Cleveland, someone's in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, you guys are in cool spots. Michelle is in Snowy Mountains, Australia, and it's 4:00 a.m. Super props to you. Shubham is from India, That's awesome. Eli's from Slovenia. This is amazing. I love seeing people from all over. So I think we have a couple of questions as well, or a couple of statements, perfect. So Nancy says, "I want the freedom to choose what I do everyday." Awesome. Aerie North says, "I need to make money from my craft because our family needs a second income." And then Daisy Chain Oddities says, "I need to make money from my craft because I want to do what I love and be my own boss and make my own schedule." Yeah, absolutely. I think that's a big theme for a lot of people, myself included.