Sacred Wealth Podcast Transcription
Episode 11 | The Energy of Money with Sarah Rogo Transcription
PODCAST INTRO:
You are tuning in to the Sacred Wealth Podcast, I am your host Meaghan and I am so excited to have you here. Throughout my ten years in finance, I have come across so much anxiety and fear surrounding money. It is now my purpose to help women become rich unapologetically.
The goal of this podcast is to empower you to love your debt, to be so ecstatically grateful for what you have, and to feel safe to ask for more. Together we will figure out what your luxury is and get you on the path to financial freedom. Let’s fucking go!
EPISODE INTRO:
Hi everyone, welcome back to the Sacred Wealth Podcast. This episode is the interview that I did with Sarah Rogo last year. Sarah is a beautiful and intentional artist, and she’s a singer/songwriter, she plays the guitar. I highly recommend you looking her up on Spotify, Sarah Rogo R-O-G-O, and listening to her stuff it’s amazing. And I wanted to drop in and say that my usual offer for writing your review and getting a free Oracle Card is being amped up to every single person who reviews the podcast in the next two weeks, today is March 9th, gets free coaching from me. So be sure to screenshot that review and send it to me on the ‘gram. You can either send it to me at my normal business page or my backup business page.
I have been feeling very suppressed by Instagram lately. Which is why I wanted to hop on today and connect with you here, because I feel very intimately connected with my podcast listeners. So yeah, I hope that you take advantage of this offer. I hope that you have loved listening to my deep, raspy voice as I’m getting over being a little sick. It was not COVID, but it sucked nonetheless. So yeah, I just wanted to hop on and say hi, tell you about my offer, and ask you “How are you doing?”. If you don’t feel called necessarily to rate and review the podcast, still shoot me a DM on Instagram. I’d love to connect with you and I can’t wait to learn more about my podcast community.
There’s an awesome way that you can send me voice memos through the Anchor platform, which I think is so cool, I’d love to start taking advantage of that. If you have something to say, if you have a question, send me a voice memo through Anchor, and yeah, I’d love to respond to you on the podcast. Maybe play your little snippet and share that with the rest of the audience, your friends here in the Sacred Galaxy. I hope you enjoy this episode, it is so intentional, so eye-opening and I just loved talking to Sarah.
SARAH ROGO:
Money. What happens when you think of money? I know firsthand as a creative, money has been full of trauma and confusion. Money is energy just like art itself. So today we have guest Meaghan Wall from Sacred Numbers Finance. We chat about the art and spirituality of money. We discover what it means to build a closer relationship with money and all things tied to it.
MEAGHAN WALL:
My name is Meaghan Wall and I own a company called Sacred Numbers Finance. I am a chief abundance officer and money coach and I just love what I do so much.
SARAH ROGO:
I checked out your Instagram and I loved how you are constantly bridging the gap between spirituality and finance and money. And this is something that really interests me because money, it's really scary. It's really scary to me. It's really scary to a lot of entrepreneurs and I love how you have such a spiritual take on money, what it means, what it feels like. What brought that on? Why do you decide to blend spiritual with finance?
MEAGHAN WALL:
We have so many rituals for everything else in our lives. Like, when we want to wind down, we get in the bath. When we want to go on a date, we light candles. You know, everything else is so ritualized and you can have a spiritual experience with every single part of your life. And I just saw that there was a lack of love and spirituality and dating towards your money. It was just treated as this other thing and that didn't need to be treated tenderly.
SARAH ROGO:
Yeah. I mean, money is something that we don't look at it in that way. You know, we're grown up to fear money in a way. We're grown up to just panically save or feel shameful when we spend. I know me in particular, I didn't have any type of even-like, relationship with money up until very, very recently. It's just been something I thought, "Okay, this is a system in the world that I have to follow and I'm kind of afraid of it and worried about not having enough.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Absolutely.
SARAH ROGO:
Or worried that it's going to change me." So what would you say to people who are just starting on the path of realizing there's so much more to money, energetically?
MEAGHAN WALL:
Yeah. I think to your point of it seems like this thing that we have to live with, an evil that we have to deal with. Like everybody hates money, but we have to deal with it because that's the world that we live in. But I think that the minute that you start to realize that money is just energy and it takes on whatever energy you put into it, then you can put love and acceptance and joy into your money and it becomes love and joy and acceptance.
So as you spend it, as you receive it, if you're spending it and receiving it with a stigma, this icky feeling around money, that's what it becomes and that's what it is. So, the minute you start practicing your gratitude for the money that's there and the money that's already left your account, that's the minute it transforms into something completely different.
SARAH ROGO:
I loved when we were talking on the phone, um, you said something about dating your money and then the aura of money. Can you touch a little bit on that? Because I think if any person in the big, bad finance world or pretty much everyday people, if- if they heard the phrase ‘dating your money’ or ‘what is the aura of your money, they would be like, “What is she talking about?"
MEAGHAN WALL:
Yeah, exactly. It's something that is so foreign to the concept of money. I think it's so fun. First of all, we have to start talking about money positively. I mean, the way we should talk about money and the way we tell money we hate it all the time. Of course, it doesn't want to have a relationship with us and of course, it doesn't want to have a positive relationship with us. And that just further fuels your own negative relationship with money.
So if you continue, or if you start dating your money- If you start telling it you love it. Like lighting candles, like I was saying, and making a ritual out of it and sitting down with your bank account and looking at your numbers. The main thing that I teach with my clients is non-avoidance. We look at our money head-on and we know the real numbers. We don't use fluffy terms. We use real numbers and real accounts.
SARAH ROGO:
And then what about what you were saying about the aura of money?
MEAGHAN WALL:
Oh, right. So yeah the aura of money, like I was saying before, it's something that's like, if you send it out with love, it becomes love. People who read auras- I'm not one who read auras, but auras are colorful and they have different spikes and movements and all of these things. So if you put love and acceptance and gratitude into your money. It becomes this purple, these pinks, these warm colors, and it flows.
SARAH ROGO:
Similar to our own aura and our own energy, I think for some people it's a stretch to think about money as, you know, energy or colors. And I think a lot of people would actually scoff at that saying, "No, like this foo-foo spiritual stuff can't be tied to money." It's like, what do you think money is? Like, money is invisible, so to speak. Money is like green, dirty paper, or just numbers in a bank account.
Like, this is the ultimate energy and trading because, back in the day, money or currency was bartering goods. It was bartering exchange of services, exchange of energy. So it's like, if I'm a Shoemaker and I'm spending all my time and energy making these shoes and I'm trading them for the bag of rice that you harvested, that's an exchange of energy. If I hate my job so much, I'm creating that energy that is just not grateful or colorful.
And I will hold on to that money because I worked so hard in this job that I hate. I worked so hard and I want to cling to this money. And I don't want to let it go, versus if I learn to be grateful for what I have and then also even enjoy my work as my purpose and my calling. Then you can maybe treat it as something that you're excited to trade and to give and to invest in more things.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Absolutely. And like you said, it's a direct correlation between you loving how you get money and you loving your money, right? So the way that you make money, if you hate that, if it doesn't light you up, the money itself is going to feel tainted. It's going to feel icky. So when you begin to start choosing yourself and choosing your soul calling of like what you can do to change the world and then charging for those services, charging for that gift that you have, it directly correlates to the feeling, the aura, and the loving of your money.
SARAH ROGO:
Absolutely. And on the other side of that, I really want to talk about scarcity mentality, especially right now, amongst the chaos of COVID-19 pandemic. A lot of us don't know where our finances are coming from, or um- even if we do, we're still scared of the economy. I think scarcity mentality, in general, is something that's really avoided. Not feeling like we have enough ever. I'm happy to give myself, like a perfect example. I have, I'm provided for, I make, you know just enough to put the roof over my head, eat some food, save a tiny bit. I'm not rich, but you know, I make it work.
But, I wake up often and I say, "Hey man, I don't have enough money. How am I going to make this work? How am I going to make this life work? I can't save, I can't plan. I'm so scared that I don't have enough." Um, and I'm curious if you have any things to say around scarcity mentality. A: What it is to you? Um, and then- B: Like, any advice or thoughts on scarcity mentality that you have?
MEAGHAN WALL:
Yeah. I think scarcity mentality is such a beautiful topic because everyone can relate. Everyone knows what it feels like to be afraid that they may not make their next credit card payment or their next rent payment. And it's just something that is so accepted. And scarcity comes from ego and ego keeps you in your comfort zone, which is not a bad thing. Ego keeps you safe. Ego makes sure that you're not, you know, running around, jumping out of airplanes all the time. And that way you can stay safe in your comfort zone. However, there's no expansion in scarcity. There's no transformation in scarcity.
So, advice that I would give would be to just begin with giving. Focus on giving what little extra you have. Like for example, here in the United States, there's a service called Thrive Market and I order from Thrive Market all the time. It's just a grocery service and they are now taking donations to help people who have been affected by the COVID crisis and a hundred percent of the proceeds go to the COVID crisis. And so the other day I just donated $1 and that dollar, I know for a fact, is going to come back to me, tenfold. And it brought me some peace of mind. It brought me gratefulness to my money and it brought me out of the scarcity mindset of like, "I have to hold onto this so tightly because I need every single cent." Of course, I can give $1. I think all of us can give $1.
SARAH ROGO:
Mm. Yeah. I love that. I was thinking about that the other day. I've been taking a lot of online yoga classes and meditation classes and stuff that are donation-based. And I personally don't have a lot to give right now, in terms of on the money front. But, I realized I tried to meditate on the little I had to give and really fill it with so much energy when I send it over. And even with a little note of gratitude. And even just as I let that little bit of money go, even though I'm afraid to let that go because of there's so much unknown right now in the world, I feel an energetic valve kind of like, it's like, a thing of letting off some steam-
MEAGHAN WALL:
Yeah.
SARAH ROGO:
-In my bank account and in my field. And I realized I have the big fear around spending what I have, not because I don't want to give, but because I'm afraid of not having enough for the future. You know, I kinda have like squirrel syndrome, where I like collect too many acorns and like don't actually eat my own acorns. But yeah, this squirrel mentality of me just wanting to collect all my acorns and not share them, kind of, causes me to cling too tightly and not have experiences that I could be having.
Um, so even though I have a fear around money I can still move forward and take little steps to release that fear, little bit, by little bit. And I think it's important to remember that everyone has scarcity mentality. Me, who is an artist, the starving artists, so to speak. And then someone like, I don't know, I'm sure Bill Gates has scarcity mentality, but maybe he does. I mean, I don't know, like maybe there's something in Bill Gates' brain or the head of Amazon or something. Like, maybe there is something in their mind that they still feel like they don't have enough or they're worried about not having enough, which is ridiculous because they clearly do.
But that shows you something about the human brain and the human design that we think we don't have enough. And we look at millionaires and billionaires who are still clawing for more and more money and we realize that maybe it's not about money at all. Maybe it's about our own personal gripping.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Yeah. It's something that's like, even as your income increases so do your expenses. There's not ever this huge gap between how much you're making and how much you're spending. Usually, you have a spending threshold, just as the same as you have an income threshold. So, the income and expenses are going to go up, up, up at the same rate as they always have. Because you're right, it's about our brains. It's about how we were programmed to believe about money in our childhood.
And I'm sure that Bill Gates has had, or might still have, some sort of scarcity mindset around money. Because, first of all, someone's net worth, just because he is like rated to be a billionaire, does not mean he has billions of dollars of cash in the bank. Right? He has lots of money and that may be. However, his threshold for expenses might be just as much or, you know, the gap there might be just as much as you or I.
SARAH ROGO:
That's really interesting because I think a lot of people don't realize that. And I think that creates more of a divide between the so-called rich and the so-called poor. You know-
MEAGHAN WALL:
Hmm. There's a lot of hatred.
SARAH ROGO:
Yeah, a lot of hatred. I mean, I sense dark mucky energy when I run into another 27 year old, that is just like smashing it in finance, even if they might not necessarily even be very happy. But I'm still like, "Oh man, like, I would kill to like have a car that runs well."
MEAGHAN WALL:
Yeah. There's always this mindset of like, when I start making $5,000 months or when I can afford to pay off my debt, then I'll be happy. Whenever I do this, then that's when my life's going to start. And we get sucked into this. Like never being truly happy with what we have currently. And I think that's kind of the trap that we fall into with like new year's resolutions and like, you know, setting our goals every single day.
And like, we can never just truly be happy with what we have at this very moment, whether it's- and I talk about abundance and more than just dollars and cents. It's an abundance of nature. It's an abundance of home and family and friends and it's way more than money. And as soon as you start the gratitude practice, I think it all starts to fall into place.
SARAH ROGO:
Yeah, it's funny. It's like, you know, when I first started on just the path of, I don't know how to call it, spiritual living is a one-way but it's more of like purity of mind, body, spirit, purifying myself, but even just revamping how I thought about gratitude. I kind of scoffed at it. I was like, "Well, yeah, I'm grateful. But, how is being grateful gonna change like everything in my life." And, you know, it's so funny that it actually does. Cause I think when we're actively, and I think the keyword actively, actively grateful it shifts our weight. So we're not leaning on the crutch of finance, solely.
Obviously, we need money to survive, to pay the rent, theoretically, but there's so many different things you can lean on for support in life; family, friends, passions. You know, there's some people, I mean, I'm honestly- people would call me one of these people. I have such a low overhead cost of living. I live in a tiny, little trailer in a trailer park. I eat very healthy and local, sometimes right from the garden. Like, I have a very low overhead but because I don't lean too much on the crutch of finance.
Now, granted, there are some things, there's a scarcity mentality. There's some fear there, but I take pride in my life that I choose to not have to rely solely on money to be fulfilled. But anyway, the gratitude practice, just shifting into that daily, whether it's having gratitude for your money or things you're spending on, or your body, your health, that can clear and clean so much energy around you and what's around you is- is your bank account.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Yeah. Once you start understanding what brings you the most joy, like you said, like getting to eat food out of your local garden and having a low overhead, I'm sure that brings you a lot of joy that you don't have a lot of bills that you have to worry about, necessarily. Of course, like we were talking about, no matter how many bills you have, there's always something to worry about.
But once you start identifying what truly brings you the joy and happiness that you require in your life, that's where you can send that money. And I think that it's so important to drop everything that you're spending money on that doesn't bring you joy, I mean, within reason, the stuff that you can, and start spending more on the things that fill you up.
So say it's self-care, say it's skincare, and you happened to spend a lot on eating out, but you don't necessarily like make it a date, maybe you do a lot of takeout, and you're just bringing it home. It doesn't really do anything for you. Drop it, spend more on skincare, start lighting up your life, start filling your cup first.
And that will automatically bring the gratitude into your money as well, because you will be so grateful that you get to just pamper the shit out of yourself, right, or that you get to travel all the time. If you can live without the Starbucks coffee every day, just so that you can have an extra 150 bucks every month to go camping or to take a road trip or do something fun on the weekend.
SARAH ROGO:
Yeah, totally. The Starbucks thing. It's the Starbucks thing. I think I've been guilty of it like a few months where I just go- I go ham. And honestly, if anything, this pandemic thing is good for is just chilling out on getting drinks out. But I will say, there's a difference for me and it's identifying the differences and this is where mindfulness and consciousness comes into play here.
So yeah. I'll go out and I'll randomly spend like, whatever, $5-$6 at Starbucks, right? And I'll just like be on the go and I'm like, "I just need this. Cause it makes me feel comfortable and I'm on my way to a job", or whatever, but then I'll feel guilty for wanting to go sit at a coffee shop that I really like, with the really nice pastry and my book and a nice latte.
I'll be like, guilty about that. And I'm like, "Let's maybe re-look at this.” Maybe I could cut out the Starbucks and bring a matcha latte, to-go, from my house. And then I can sit in my favorite local, family-owned coffee shop, buy a homemade pastry, and read my book in the sunny window.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Absolutely. It becomes a whole experience instead of just a coffee to go.
SARAH ROGO:
I want to talk, a little bit, about talk and language and how we phrase things in our lives. You know I am an artist. I've been an artist from day one. I've always known that about myself. And I grew up with so many different stories around what an artist should be. And I think when I say artists, I'm actually going to include healers in this as well.
And I've always been told that story by other people and by myself, "Oh, I'm the starving artist. I am the poor artist, the artist doesn't make any money", this, that, this, that. And I still catch myself saying, joking around, like, "Oh, I'm a starving artist." And it's like, what am I doing here?
I'm perpetuating this story of lack of finance. And even when I say starving artists, I guess I might not have gobs of money in my bank account, but there's a roof over my head. I'm fed. I am in a great relationship. I have friends. I have instruments to keep me company to the end of the world. So it's like, why am I telling the story to myself that I'm a starving and poor artist?
And I think there is something to shifting that. And I've noticed that in my life, even the past six months, shifting myself out of saying, "I'm a starving artist", just to saying, "I'm an artist." I don't even need to say, "I am a abundantly, you know, safe and happy and provided for artists." Like, no, I'm just an artist. Let's shed the false stories that are created by society and our own ego.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Absolutely. And I think what you said really nails it. First of all, your success, in whatever you identify as, should not be the identifying factor. So, whether you're a starving artist or whether you're an abundant artist, let's stop identifying with the numbers we have in our bank account and allowing that to dictate the way we live our lives. Live abundantly, regardless of the money that you have in your bank account, regardless of whether you're starving or not, you know?
SARAH ROGO:
Yeah. I mean, because then we have to really ask ourselves in the moment, are we starving?
MEAGHAN WALL:
Right. Have we ever been starving? I mean, as someone who's listening to this podcast, on your phone probably or on a computer, “Have you ever truly been starving?” And I think it's so important to think about and also think back on all those times that you felt like, "Oh shit, am I going to be able to make next month's rent? Am I going to be able to do this? Am I going to have enough money to buy groceries? I'm going to have enough money for gas."
Did it ever end up that you actually didn't have that money? Like how many times is it actually that you don't have the money for rent? And if you didn't have the money for rent, did you get kicked out immediately? Did you lose your apartment immediately? Were you able to come to some agreement with your landlord or borrow some money from a friend for gas? Money is abundant in so many different ways. Maybe you don't have that number in your bank account, but there are so many ways to figure it out.
SARAH ROGO:
I also wanted to, I think this is a great segue and a great transition into talking about charging for your services. Because it's funny when you said, "Oh, like someone like me, can't necessarily afford to bring someone like you into my backyard and play". I'm like, "Oh, I will totally come to your backyard and play." Because, I run into this all the time, um, with not only my- my music work, but also my healing work.
I want to just play as much as possible and heal as much as possible and give. And I think there's this really interesting line that I'm toying with right now of needing to charge for my services often, but also just understanding and really evaluating people's situations and when to have sliding scales, when to do a friend price, when to just do a donation-based performance.
And I think this is really something that's interesting to talk about because healers, like yoga teachers or Reiki masters or massage workers, we oftentimes struggle with the idea that we're only able to help the privileged and the fortunate. And I wonder if you have anything to say about this huge topic, quite frankly.
MEAGHAN WALL:
I have three points about charging. There's a lot of worthiness work that has to go into charging. You have to know that you're worthy to charge anything at all, to begin with. Because people will tell you, ‘Charge what you're worth’, and your first thoughts may be, “Well, that's not very much because I haven't been doing it that long, or I am not that experienced, or all these other people are so much better than I am."
And you may feel like you have to charge less because of these things. And, don't get me wrong, there's something about quote, unquote, "Charging what you're worth," that kind of irks me because you are worth more than money. So your value comes from your transformation, whether or not you are a healer, whether or not you are an artist.
The value of your work comes from the transformation or the impact that it's going to have on the people that you sell it to. So choosing rates based on the transformation is where you should start rather than charging what you're worth, necessarily, because I believe that we're all worth, you know, millions and millions of dollars.
So if you are just starting out and you've never had a coaching client, maybe you've never had a Reiki client, or you've never sold one of your paintings before, definitely set the threshold of something you feel like you can achieve. But also when it comes time to raising those prices, there's a worthiness aspect to it.
So I kind of mixed in all my three points of like, worthiness, charge where you're at, and also my last point is meet the market where it's at. So right now in this crisis, there's a lot of people reducing their prices, people offering coupons, and free things. And that's all following your gut, following your intuition.
And that also has a lot to do with your worthiness. Once you line up your worthiness, your intuition knows where to go from there. If you have real scarcity mindset, if you have real low-worth, you're going to listen to your intuition and it's going to be telling you, "You're going to be scared of raising your prices." You're going to be telling yourself, "I can't sell things at that rate because I'm not worthy." So that's where you're going to feel like your intuition is pushing you, but once you meet your worthiness, your intuition is free to point you in your true direction.
SARAH ROGO:
I think that there's some amazing nuggets of wisdom in what you just said there. You know, especially charging based on the transformation of the experience. And that could be anything from a guitar lesson to a healing session and the list goes on. And I really relate to the fear of charging too much or too little.
A perfect example, I love to use examples from my own life because that's all I really know, you know, when it comes time around the holidays, I have to be somewhat picky and choosy about what gigs I take around Christmas time because people want a lot of music. So, and I have to not be too timid to charge what I need to charge, but at the same time, I am worried about scaring people away as well.
And I have scared people away when I really need the money. And that's the thing, like I've scared people away with a price point that wasn't that scary, but they felt like, you know, ashamed that they couldn't afford that. Even when I said, "Oh, I would love to negotiate. Let's make it work for you." And they don't even want to face that, so they just completely run away.
And I understand that that's on them, but I think as-as an artist or a healer, like that, is just so sensitive to confront. It's so hard because, I mean, don't tell anybody, but we would probably do it for free, but we shouldn't because we- we need to put a roof over our heads.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Yeah, absolutely. And you're so right, that fear from your potential client comes from them and I never take it personally. And I also, you know, going back to the way we speak, I would offer you to maybe reframe that as, "You didn't scare them away, they just weren't the right gig for you at the time.
SARAH ROGO:
I love that.
MEAGHAN WALL:
So, yeah. So, and I truly believe that whatever is meant for you will never miss you. So, there is no missed opportunity. There's no, "You fucked up, therefore you've lost this opportunity." It just wasn't right for you at the time, and maybe it'll circle back, and maybe you will greatly surpass that level of gig the next time around.
SARAH ROGO:
Yeah. It's almost like when you're showing your cojones, so to speak, to the universe, the universe will show its cojones to you.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Right. And that's you standing in your worth as well of like, you felt good on a price, it scared you to say that price, and they reacted the way they did. And you didn't try to like, "Oh, but you know like, uh, we could also do it for free." yeah. You know, you- you stood there. I mean you, obviously, like were able to negotiate and all of that, but it's something that you also stood in your worth.
I believe, truly, that that was a test. That once you set that threshold of, "I'm going to charge this", the universe was like, "Okay, here you go. Are you sure?" and as soon as you were like, "Yes", I'm sure that set your minimum for your pricing, right? So in the next time you could go into it feeling confident that you made the right decision.
SARAH ROGO:
Absolutely. And I mean, what's your- I wonder if you have any advice for healers, or musicians, artists that are willing to be negotiable and flexible with their pricing. Like, how to come off the bat with starting that conversation? If somebody is like, "Okay, what's your rate for a three-hour performance at this day, this time, this place", and you want to come back and basically say low key like, ‘Well, I really need the money, so basically whatever you can give, but saying, you know, from a business standpoint, saying, "I charge x amount of dollars", which is like your kind of high point. And then how do you say, "I'm willing to be negotiable," without diminishing your worth?
MEAGHAN WALL:
Hmm, that's a beautiful question. I think if you're in the space of, 'I really could just use whatever anyone's willing to give me,’ start out by asking them what their budget is for the performance, or the gig, or whatever it is.
Start out by asking them, "What is it worth to you to receive this experience from me," and go off of that. So you can tell right off the bat how much value people put on your services by how much they say that they're willing to pay. So in, for example, one of the questions in my application for my group coaching program that I'm running right now is, "What are you willing to invest in to completely change your money mindset and set you up in times of crisis?"
And there's like, "Less than a thousand dollars thousand to 3000", you know, there's these ranges and it kind of gives me an idea of what value they put on your services but also, at the same time, how they value themselves and how they value their own level of commitment. So if you're running a program or if you're doing some sort of healing, you are not really necessarily doing the healing, right?
They're healing themselves. You are just creating the container and you're facilitating that healing. So, a lot of it has to do with their own worthiness of like, "How committed can I be? How much energy can I put into this? And am I scared that I'm not going to give it my all, therefore I'm not willing to pay as much for it because I don't think I can do the work."
It's a twofold for me. So asking them how much there is in their budget and also feeling out, "Okay, is this coming from a place of fear or is it coming from a place of, they're trying to be intelligent with their money, this is really their budget. It's not coming from their own lack of worth."
SARAH ROGO:
Ultimately speaking, money is just like time spent and invested in things. And that's why I am really adamant on, for now, keeping my overhead pretty low, so I can work jobs that I really only want to work. I mean, granted, I am privileged.
I'm privileged in a lot of ways in my life to allow me to do that, but I actively choose to acknowledge that time is also a currency. Energy is a currency far more powerful than money. I mean, money is energy. So remembering that, to step outside the box a little bit and just realize you're not just going to work just to make money.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Right. And I think it's so important, what you were saying about privilege and how much of a privilege it is to love what you do and to be able to actively choose that.
I'm not giving anyone an excuse to cop out and say, "Oh, well, I hate my job, but I have to have it. Therefore, I'm stuck." I always believe that there's an opportunity and as soon as you start opening your portals of like applying for other jobs, maybe moving to a new city, there's so many limitless opportunities for you.
So at the same time of like, I hear you and I see you for being in a job you might not necessarily love, but also prioritize yourself and your happiness because that's going to trickle down to your family. If you're in a job that you hate and making decent money, but your kids see you miserable and tired and exhausted and all of these things. How good is your quality of life, actually?
SARAH ROGO:
You know, for a lot of artists who are like, "I have no business working at a coffee shop," or this or that." You know, maybe that will actually bring you joy if you're so worried about having only $10 extra in your bank account every month. Like, having a job is also an experience as well.
And I know so many musicians who have worked at coffee shops that made, especially in LA, that have met famous stars, that have actually helped their careers. So, working different jobs is also a version of an experience.
MEAGHAN WALL:
I call them bridge jobs and bridge jobs are specifically to fulfill a goal. So, if you have a goal of like, "Okay, I'm going to get a job, work it for a year, and pay off all my debt,". That is something that you may take a job that you don't, necessarily love, it's not your sole purpose in life, but it gets the job done. It gets your goal done. And you get to set your intention of like, "I'm going to kick ass at this for as long as I can, until I get my debt paid off. And then I get to choose something that's actually gonna light me up and fill my cup."
So as long as it's a facilitator, as long as it's something that you know is going to be a temporary means to an end, then absolutely work at Trader Joe's, work at Starbucks, get a nanny job. I'm currently applying for nanny jobs because I know how needed it is in this current climate of like people being at home with their kids all the freaking time, you know?
SARAH ROGO:
Yeah. I think that's amazing. And I, again, I loved how you touched on just being mindful of the duality of the situation. So I was like, "Yes, it's okay to go get that barista job, et cetera, et cetera, but remember that it's a bridge to your dreams." Or if you want to get that low- low-key barista job, but you want to be a coffee connoisseur and a professional coffee roaster, it's like, "Well, you got to start by steaming the milk", you know?
MEAGHAN WALL:
And even if it's a corporate job of like, you may be making hella money but it's not what you want to be doing, it doesn't have to necessarily be a menial job. You're trying to move out of working in finance and you're trying to start your own business on the side. So while you're starting your own business on the side, you take a job in finance because it's what your degree is in, it's what you have experience in. So, what you're good at and you know that you can make money and get paid well at it. And you'll, also, know that you're going to be bad-ass at running your own business, so it's a means to an end.
SARAH ROGO:
What's the importance of a bookkeeping and financial management?
MEAGHAN WALL:
What I tell my clients, bookkeeping is something that is just a peace of mind activity. It is something that, as you get better at it, as you get more confident at keeping your own books, or knowing that they're being kept by someone else, it's a peace of mind that you are in compliance with the government. Which, I realize is a necessary evil as well.
It also, it's a peace of mind that you know that at the end of the year, you can file taxes and possibly get a refund which, who doesn't want to refund. As well as, you are going to be able to make decisions in your business. And I run into a lot of artists who feel like they don't have a business. Like their art is not their business. Although they make money from it, they feel like they don't have a business from it. They're not business owners in the traditional sense of like, corporate world business owner. But it's still so important to keep track of your income and your expenses for your practice and in order to be able to make decisions about your life.
So, maybe you want to invest in a practice space for your band, or a studio for your artwork, or a massage office- I don't know what am I trying to say, not massage parlor, I guess, but you understand what I'm saying? So you have to know where your money's coming from and where it's going in order to make these types of decisions and expand your business.
So, that's why I would say it's important and financial management is important in your personal life, just because it touches every single part of your life. Like you have to know what you have in order to move forward, you know?
SARAH ROGO:
What would you recommend, say for instance, even just to me as an artist who- I know what's coming in and I know it's going out but I am not, necessarily physically, exactly keeping track of it. What are some tools or even some resources that I can start with? Right now, I don't have the money to invest in a physical bookkeeper. Are there different resources or things that can help me?
MEAGHAN WALL:
Yeah. For you, I would honestly, just recommend an Excel spreadsheet or a Google sheet, of like, just keeping track of what's coming in and what's going out. Just have an expenses column and have an income column and that's the simplest and easiest way.
I also have a relationship with a service called Bench, B-E-N-C-H. And they are a bookkeeping service, they also do taxes, they also have like payroll services, and everything like that. But they're super, super affordable. I mean, they're like, I can't compete with their prices. Being a solo entrepreneur, of like, I have to charge a certain amount in order to feel like I'm getting my time's worth.
But they're really great. It's less than $200 a month and they do everything for you and you have your own bookkeeper, you have your own tax representative, and you form relationships with this person. So, if it's something that you feel like you just don't want to do, you want to outsource it, that would be a great option.
As well as, QuickBooks Self-employed is like less than $15 a month right now and it's a bookkeeping software. I have a, "Be Your Own Bookkeeper," course on my site. Teaches you how to set up your QuickBooks Self-employed, how to get the most out of all the deductions, how to categorize correctly, and it also brings in the spirituality. It's got journal prompts, it's got check-ins, it's got breathing exercises. So, it's a lot of bridging the two, like we were talking about at the very, very beginning.
SARAH ROGO:
That's wonderful. I think again, I'm coming back to the importance of just bridging the mindfulness with the technicalities of life and the money and realizing that they're actually, not separate. And I think adding things like breathing exercises and journaling and different vision quests and stuff within financial practices and physical practices is so important.
I mean, our society is doing that now with exercise. With yoga, first we all started to do yoga because it was like good exercise, right? Until we realized that like, "Oh wait, these teachers are kind of right. They got something going on. Like, this is not just exercise, this is mind, body spirit conditioning."
And I think if we can think about our finances like a form of yoga or meditation, not only are we healthier with it, but I think we actually can create a beautiful relationship with it and create beyond our wildest desires.
MEAGHAN WALL:
So, I really have a holistic approach to money. How can you expect to be consistent with a budget or your financial management, if you still hate your money? If you still have these stories being looped in your mind, from what you learned as a kid? And even what we still hear today, of like, "Money is the root of all evil, and it's hard to make money and, don't take any charity from people." All of these things are stigma and tropes around money that hurt our relationship with it.
So the holistic approach to money has to be hand-in-hand with the spiritual, with your mindset, and with the ritual. So I'd really like to just leave you off with, I am currently enrolling in my Abundance Alchemy group coaching program. It launches May 1st. We begin on May 1st and I'm super active on Instagram, @sacrednumbersfinance, and on my website, sacrednumbersfinance.com.
Perfect.
SARAH ROGO:
Thank you so much, Meaghan, for joining us. Guys, don't forget to check out Meaghan, Sacred Numbers Finance. She's doing great, great things. Thank you so much, Meaghan.
MEAGHAN WALL:
Thank you for having me. Oh my gosh, it was such a good conversation.
SARAH ROGO:
Have a good one.
MEAGHAN WALL:
You too. Bye.
PODCAST OUTRO:
Thank you for listening to the Sacred Wealth Podcast. It would mean so much to me if you would subscribe and leave a five-star review. And if you choose to share this episode on social media and tag me. I would love to pull you an Oracle Card as a thank you. See ya next time, Sacred Galaxy.