Why Women Think They Suck at Making Money with Tara Newman

H: So this is a conversation that I have been looking forward to for a very long time not only because Tara Newman is someone that I follow because we have a lot of badass women in common in our respective ecospheres. But because her expertise, her zone of genius, her awesome sauce is like bullseye in the area that I am finding coming up again and again and again with the women that I work with and here it is… they went into business because of their passion and because of their purpose but a huge percentage of them were not paying attention to profit and this is like, this is what you do all day long. So let's just hit it hard from the beginning, why or why is this the case with so many women?

G: So, what I have found, and I have done a tremendous amount of research, I am a researcher by heart. My background is in industrial organizational psychology, which is a mouthful, but it's really the study of human behavior at work and in business. So, my start to my career was in academia and in research labs so I am, and my favorite book growing up as a kid was Harriet the Spy with her little marble notebook where she would like, observe everybody and like write it down and she was the spy right so that's me. And so I've done a tremendous amount of observation over the last eight years that I've been working very specifically with female experts running service-based businesses and even I had made a tremendous amount of assumptions about them starting out, and what I've come to realize is that women start businesses at a necessity. Nobody wakes up one day and says, I want an eight figure business with a hundred thousand dollars months that you see on the internet. They start a business typically out of necessity, they have childcare issues, they are have chronic illness, they're the most competent person in the office, but not compensated that way, and the stress is making them ill and they want to regain some level of autonomy and agency in their lives before they know something really bad is gonna happen to their health.

And they take this big, bold, naive leap with the sole purpose of getting paid, replacing their corporate traditional nine to five salary through business ownership. They want to earn income independent of an employer and then what happens is they get scared, which is totally normal, and they flick open their app, their phone, and their apps, and there's all this noise in the space of telling them what they should do and what strategy they should apply and how to make money overnight and how to get clients now and make bank and crush it, and all those things. And their insecurity and their fear and their vulnerability and their lack of self-confidence takes over and they go careening off down this profit depleting rabbit hole of online business education. And they get twisted up and turned around, never really getting the actual knowledge and education that they need because that is less sexy than what is being sold in these marketing messages, which is like sex and candy in a single bite.

H: It's true, it's fact, women have always been told what they should want, right? And in our current online environment, women are currently being, well, the last five years they've been told, they've been told they want to start their own business, they want to be an on online entrepreneur, and they want to have a six figure business with passive income and that the marketing part should be easy and so it sounds good. It certainly sounds a lot better than having a tool of a boss and set hours and you know, difficulty managing the other parts of your life. But once we buy into that, once we're on the hook, we are going on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride and told, okay, well now that you want this, these are the things you have to do to get that never hearing for one minute that actually all the people who believed these messages and bought into programs and courses from the people selling them, only 3% of their customers get these results and usually because they started off with an unfair advantage that is not disclosed, would you agree?

G: 100 thousand percent agree and what happens is once you get into this, like, I call it like a Ginsu knife matrix like funnel and wait, there's more and wait, there's more that they're constantly selling you right. And the reality is it's intentionally confusing and complicated because it wears you down and you're not able to make good decisions when things are intentionally confusing and complicated. So once you start getting into it, it really kind of takes you down this rabbit hole. I had a call with a woman, I mean, I'm getting these calls every day, but I had a call with a woman who like lost her retirement to these out outrageously grotesquely expensive programs that really don't deliver the steps and the tangible skills that women need to profit, to make sales, to make things easier on themselves, to understand what is passive income and what isn't passive income you know, it's a lot of lies being told. The online business model is interesting because it's billed as accessible, it's billed as you know, get started with no money and it's just a lie. It's one of the most complicated business models I've ever seen.

The amount of money that you have to spend in people telling you or showing you or learning what you think you need to do, and then the team to implement with all the crazy technology. There's this woman who does like she's like one of these teenybopper influencers. I am not a teeny bopper so, you know, she's in her twenties and she's like, run a successful coaching business using Instagram or whatever. And then she's like very vulnerable, shares her behind the scenes, which are a hot ass mess so I'm not really sure why anybody's trusting her to run a successful coaching business. But beside that, she actually put her numbers down and anytime they do that, I rip the numbers off and I'm like, let's actually run them. Let's actually see what's happening and they're never profitable. But the interesting thing about this one was the numbers were startlingly similar to my husband's manufacturing business, his brick and mortar manufacturing business in a high cost of living area where she, her expenses are more expensive than his for a brick and mortar, renting, leasing a space, 20 employees with cost of goods and I'm like, this is insanity.

H: And I think the time has finally come for truth tellers like you and me and a couple handfuls of others who realize we've bought into cults. This is not healthy, it is not profitable, it is not sustainable and now we're trying to pull people out of those sinking ships, hopefully before they go bankrupt, hopefully before they lose their retirement, hopefully before they lose custody of their kids. But what it comes down to is, you know, business in and of itself is not sexy, hashtag, sorry, not sorry. Like I think there are people who are really drawn to being in business for themselves, I believe I am. I believe you are, but I personally don't think every woman should be an entrepreneur. I don't think everybody is cut out for it but I think that's sort of presented as like the glamorous, sexy thing. And when somebody has a job that they really like, they're on a career path that they really like. I work with a lot of the same people you do, they were successful in corporate, they were successful in nonprofit, they were successful in academia, and they assume they're gonna be successful in so entrepreneurship as a thought leader. But what they don't know is really hurting them and the notion that profit really does need to come first, the training that you got to be able to really help other women in that way. I think one of the first things we have to do is take the bitter aftertaste out of the word profit, because women really struggle with that word I think.

G: Women struggle with anything having to do with money and sales and marketing.

H: Well, fortunately or unfortunately, because I think unfortunately it means they get hooked. I've been hooked plenty of other people have been hooked and reeled in and flopping around, gasping for air in the boat but it's what we don't understand about money, it's what we don't understand about our relationship with money. It's what we don't understand about how money works and how it can work for us. You're never gonna have passive income. You're never going to reach whatever mysterious benchmark because you really won't honestly know how to get there.

G: Yeah and I start these conversations and I say, not our fault. Not our fault. We were not given the language for money as women, we were not in rooms where they were talking about money or business or sales, or you know, how to be visible and promote yourself and all that and ask for money in exchange for your value and your service and when I look at some of the data points, some of these are wildly interesting. For example, there's a UBS survey that showed 51% of married women default financial decisions, all the financial decisions to their partners. However, a hundred percent of them are involved in decisions around charitable giving. And as somebody who considers human behavior, I have a hot take and it is a hot take. Obviously, I haven't spoken to these women, right but then you come into and start a business where you have to be making financial decisions, and we see women prioritizing giving all their money away for impact for learning for whatever and it's like they can't hold onto their money. They can't actually profit because they've never been taught to profit. They've only been taught to be charitable and give their money away.

H: Okay I gotta pause you for a second. I wanna make sure I'm understanding this on a deep level. Are you saying Tara that women, I'm air quoting here, investing in their business by hiring people and buying information products and taking courses is a form of giving all their money away akin to charity because they don't feel comfortable actually letting it accumulate in their account?

G: Nuanced, it depends, right because we do know that we need to be investing in ourselves. I invest a tremendous amount of money in myself, in myself, not my business, in my own skills and tangible abilities and competencies, and that's important. And it comes from a place of I'm building my money, making skill set so that I can profit under any circumstances and any conditions, not from a place of, and I have invested from this place as well. It never goes okay, it's always a loss. But when you invest from a place of lacking confidence in security, thinking that someone has an answer that you don't have thinking that you are wrong in someone else's right. Which is why when I work with people, I'm very clear that we're gonna stand shoulder to shoulder, and I'm sure you have this as well, shoulder to shoulder. They are an expert in what they do, and I am an expert in what I do, and we are equal in having really amazing expertise just in different areas. So things like I don't question people's offers like you know how to get your client's results. I'm here to show you how to position and sell the offer. I'm here to show you the value that you're not seeing in your offer. I'm here to support you in increasing your prices, but I'm not here to question your knowledge and your expertise and what you know and your ability to get somebody a result.

H: That makes sense, that makes sense cause your conversations are about value and not about expertise. The expertise is assumed, and that's a place coming to that relationship, like you say, on an even playing field, you know, eye to eye. Where do women usually start Tara, with figuring this out because I find that you know everybody, not everybody, most people say, I need to make more money and most business owners of the type that you and I work with say, I need to get more clients. So they're thinking about generating revenue, but they're much less concerned, or it's much less of a consideration or a focus of how am I going to make that transaction profitable. It's sort of like we're constantly pouring into the bucket, the top of the bucket, but we're not necessarily making sure that it's the right amount or that once it's in there, we're gonna get the most out of it, why do you think that is? Why do you think the focus is just on, I need more clients. I need more clients. I need more clients.

G: Because people are repeating back the marketing messages that they're swimming in so which is the big problem, right? This is the brainwashing so, I have a opt-in, revenue goal calculator, and I offer these revenue goal calculator, assessment sessions and what we do is we find the biggest bottleneck for people with regard to their achieving their revenue goal. And it always comes back to pricing, to understanding the value of what you offer, both tangibly and intangibly, and seeing yourself as somebody who has that value to offer at a level that will get you paid, make you profitable, and get you paid. And so it really starts there but if nobody is out there, if you are not able to and this is where I say you do need to invest in yourself right. Because they're not seeing this for themselves, but they're also not in programs that help them see these things.

So I don't like, I don't know what to say, like they don't realize that the first step is the first step because they're so wanting to have quick fixes. They're so in their fear and anxiety and insecurity about, you know, making money that they're not actually doing the things that will help them make money which is like the weirdest part about the online marketing soup. Well, again, I think they feel, you know, a lot of women, I need to think right and correct. I need to look right and correct my offers and everything need to be right and correct, and I am not the person who's going to decide whether they are right or correct. Someone else is going to do that for me, they're gonna give me this permission, this validation, and for whatever reason, it's, well, if I can just think right about making money, then I will make money and that is partially true but really for me, I say let's do math before mindset.

H: And my version of that is, let's separate the math from the drama because whatever is going on in your head about why you can't make money because of your money story or your money archetype, or your money blocks or your, you know, the stories that were taught to you when you were a kid about money. And I do not discount mindset because like you, I have a psychology background. However, it isn't the whole story and you can get a ton of improvement in your money mindset and still be broke as a joke in your business because you do not actually understand how to be profitable. Now, when you decided to become a profit first consultant, do you ever, I'm just curious if you ever get feedback from women that well, but does it actually have to be profit first? I mean, like, I wanna make a profit, but like, I just don't really feel comfortable making that the top priority.

G: So I get, I mean, 100% I've heard I'm not motivated by money, definitely have people who come to me who wanna make an impact and to be honest, if that's their, what they're leading with. And after I ask them a bunch of questions, if they're just very compelled that they wanna share their story, they wanna have an impact, they wanna impact millions, I can't work with them because impact comes through income, period. Like we can slice this however many ways that you want to, but in the reality, you're going to have a bigger impact once you have that income. Now, as far as like, profiting first, and you know, to me it's just more that they don't understand and they even know the women that I see they know that they don't know something they're just looking for what that is in the wrong places.

H: A hundred percent agree and I would imagine that by the time they reach you, Tara, they have probably been looking for business love in all the wrong places, following all the wrong people, getting whipsawed by confusion and depleted emotionally, financially, their confidence is down because it's like it can't be this hard. And actually that's probably perfect timing to work with someone like you because they have the awareness that business is hard and complicated, and there's got to be a better way. And in fact, there is, it just may not be as sexy as what you've been taught to think is sexy and you may not find a bunch of other people talking about doing it that way, which can be scary. One of the things I think is really interesting about your business is that you talk about bold money and bold leadership because in my experience, you know, women do have difficulty with money and they have difficulty identifying themselves as leaders, even though they have been in positions with a tremendous amount of responsibility over either a big budget or a bunch of people. But it's like identifying that you are a leader seems to be another stumbling block, but it's absolutely necessary to unlock, I think, their full potential, whatever size business they're in.

G: Yes, I agree and, you know, there's also the components so when I work with larger businesses, I work with all different ranges of business and different industries. It's actually what I like most about my work is that, you know, when I go and test strategies, I'm testing them across various industries, various different size companies, different personalities, styles of CEOs and things like that. And when I'm working in larger businesses, like my largest business that I work in, or they're between like 60 million and a hundred million in revenue. The one thing that we work on the most for their leadership is having difficult conversations and there is nothing more helpful for your money and your sales is to be able to have difficult conversations, which is a leadership skill so it really does all tie together and factor in.

H: Preach, actually having difficult conversations is something I consider to be a superpower of mine because I'm relentlessly honest. I'm relentlessly curious if I feel like I don't fully understand a situation, I just keep asking more questions. And typically people find that uncomfortable because they either expect to be able to figure it out quickly and easily, or they are afraid of going too deep and getting to a level where they're outta their range or unprepared. That's when I think things start getting interesting is when you really start digging in, because I think sooner or later you're gonna find what the actual problem is, but you know, it all makes sense how all these things are connected if women haven't been taught about leadership skills, don't feel comfortable having those challenging conversations we are limited in every possible way, whether we are in business for ourselves or we work for someone else and those are the very things that this is maddening okay. We come from similar world academia, they're the very things that are held against women in terms of promotability because they're told that they lack these certain leadership skills, but then they're not given the opportunity to develop them and women who do demonstrate them oftentimes get other negative feed.

G: Yup, it's a very tight box for women and I also wanna say like, women are tired, God dang. Women are tired, they're holding a lot, just from my own personal life, my husband owns a business, I own a business. We have two kids, teenagers and he's just been traveling for three weeks of the last four weeks and I'm running a business, delivering service. Got two teens, got two dogs, got a house, got a mother who is requiring more support than I thought she ever would where we are right now and it's, you know, I've got it all on my plate. And so women do not need complicated business strategies and tactics that create more overwhelm in their lives, they have enough. I'm very committed to, I have an owner's statement that says, you know, why I run a business is to create a business that is in service to my health and generates extraordinary wealth for myself and others. And that is what I'm here to do, to help women to create businesses that are easy on their energy and get them paid. And the reality is, it's far simpler than they have been led to believe that they want to believe. And the biggest challenge for me is the cognitive dissonance that comes into play when I'm, and I'm sure like you too, when we're just speaking the truth. And it's so divergent from the pink glittery, infantile, cutesy marketing that they're seeing online.

H: Yes, and so they, it feels jarring to them.

G: And we have a big problem with discomfort in this country. We don't like to be uncomfortable Americans, North Americans, all Canadians in there. We can put the western world in there. We can put UK in there you know, we like our comfort. We like to not have to be challenged in a way and women are especially fearful of putting themselves in uncomfortable positions. A lot of that has to do with our own conditioning, but the more that we can become comfortable with doing those uncomfortable things, the quicker it's going to be for us and the pushback for me always comes with, people are like, but this is systemic, but this is our conditioning but this is like, but we've been penalized on one side and the other. Yes, we have 100%. I'm not denying that, that is true and are we going to be victims to that or are we going to rise above that. Because now more than ever, there are tools and our information and sources and resources for women to move beyond that place.

H: I would also link in boundaries yes to this conversation because it's, you know, boundaries. Whether it's, I can't do that I, you know, like you just talked about your husband being gone for three of the last four weeks. My husband was also gone for three of the last four weeks, my kids are grown and flown, but I have a new puppy. It's like a new baby basically, and the household, and we just moved and all of those things. And the other thing here is the disproportionate division of labor in heterosexual households, right? Still, after all these years, whether you have a job, a business, if you have aging parents, if you've got pets, if you've got kids, if you've got a big piece of property you have to manage, whatever it may be, women are still doing the majority of the household labor in addition to whatever paid labor they may be doing. And we've never really, I mean, if you think about, I'm sure you have done this, if you had to absent yourself from your household and your spouse had to literally purchase all of the services that you provide, he couldn't afford it.

He absolutely couldn't afford it, it would be a total collapse of, well, if and on a systemic level and you know what, I totally agree with you that you and I both have privilege that some female business owners do not have. And I also don't think that that should end the conversation about what any one of us individually are capable of doing. It's kind of like, should we not try to change any of these things in our personal lives because these are systemic issues. I think if enough women are changing them and talking about changing them, and other women realize even if they don't look like us or don't have the exact same circumstances as us, we can still educate them, we can still inform them, we can still inspire them. I don't know how we have any chance of the systemic culture changing without us do you?

statistic was put out back in: 2018

H: And while I think most women agree with that, philosophically, when you actually start doing the numbers, you have to address the cognitive dissonance. I mean, I see it in people's faces on the Zoom screen when you realize you're saying something that's disruptive, like their brain literally hurts because they say, I never thought about it this way. Well, yes, and that's why you're here and I didn't think about it that way. Let me tell you a little story, I was a single parent for a decade. I got divorced when I turned 40 and my kids were 10, 12, and 15. I supported them on my own dime for 10 years, including putting all of them through first community college and then state college, putting braces on their teeth, helping them get their first shitty car and get prepared for adult life on their own. I did that at my own expense. I did not contribute to my own retirement for those 10 years, which, and I don't, I never got braces, by the way so it's like this is a typical mindset for women. I was focusing on being proud of the fact that I was ahead of household and I was able to support my family without, you know, I didn't get child support and things like that, but I did so at my own expense. So was I really winning, not really. Not really and I think that, I realize after talking to so many different women, that that is very typical if we have children, we're so focused on making sure their needs are being met, that we typically do so at our own expense.

G: Well, I think that's the, so first of all, thank you for sharing that story and I'm really proud of you. Not that you asked me to be proud of you or anything like that, but I think you did an amazing job and I don't think that, you know, I think that should be something you're proud of. And I get what you're saying with the, you know, kind of setting yourself on fire to do that but that's an incredible story and I think that so much of that is just buying into this narrative that we have, that is conventional, traditional narrative that doesn't take into account any specific really any specifics about somebody's individual situation at all right. And that's where we need to be challenging our beliefs is, you know, how would this look if I did it unconventionally, how would this look if I didn't follow the rules? How would I look, how would this look if I was brave enough to buck the system and go against the grain because women have been raised to be good girls. I mean, we are so the good girl next door.

I mean, look at that in a marketing message we all know who the good girl online is and, and we see her marketing message and it is like moths to a flame trying to be the good girl online and that is not going to get you very far. You need to be the woman who makes decisions that align with her values and what she wants in the world, and to also know that looking back and like Diann has done and had this self reflection, you know, that's a wonderful learning and lesson in your life. And you know, I went bankrupt and that's like the best lesson for me. I'm not here because I've always succeeded or did things perfectly or didn't make a mistake. I'm here because I failed miserably. I'm here because I spent the majority of my time thinking that I was a nobody not that I thought that I was a somebody and that is such a painful thing to overcome in business as well. Just this belief that we have to be the good girl and perfect, and to do it all right, and to never mess up or lose money or any of those things but my best, I make money. I am a wealthy woman because of the mistakes I've made, not because of the safety of not making mistakes.

H: I love this so much and do you think, Tara, that it was necessary for you to make those mistakes, to experience those failures and learn from them to have the bold message that you have now cause I love that you feature the world bold in so many of the things that you do, because it's truth in advertising. They know that what they see is what they're gonna get and I think just proclaiming and embracing your boldness in a way is telling women, you kind of have to distance yourself from this notion of being like sweet and passive and to mirror and likable if you actually want the things that you actually want and if you're attracted to boldness, you have that inside of you too. But I think that women are terrified of failure and that is the number one reason why we don't succeed because we believe that if we fail, we are a failure. If we make a mistake, we don't have what it takes. But I don't think most men who are successful expect to succeed right out of the gate. And that's probably the dirtiest little secret that we should start telling little girls in grade school is plan to fail and get up and try again, and we don't do that.

G: We have a real failure to manage expectations in the space of business, especially online. We're just not truth telling enough and the reality is, is that I still fail and make mistakes. I make mistakes every day. I lose money all the time. I just don't make a big damn deal about it and that's why I go out and I make more. I'm like, okay, I made this mistake what did I learn? How am I gonna use this to go make more money? You know, I started off in my business and this is hysterical, and I'm always really embarrassed to share this. I've been with my husband for 27 years, we've been married for 22, and before we even were married, I gave him my paycheck. I just handed over my paycheck and I'm like, Here, dude, you do with it like, I couldn't be bothered. I didn't wanna know, you know so much of that had to do with the very real stories that I had about how I managed money as a young teen, you know, that stories that my parents and family reinforced and all that stuff, and I did not start managing money until I started my business.

So the first year in business, he did my books at the end of the year after they were a total mess and I was like I think I need to pay taxes on this like how do we do this here you go and he's like, entering all my expenses and he's not thrilled. I wasn't thrilled that was really uncomfortable and I really vowed that I was going to gain financial literacy after that. And the only thing that I did, cuz I didn't even know what financial literacy was, I didn't know what that meant. I wasn't all of a sudden going to really start like paying the bills in our house because that was something that, you know, we had always combined our money. By the way, if you don't trust your spouse with money or you think there is financial abuse, please don't combine your money just cuz I combined my money with my partner, I just always like to just put that caveat out there but we have our money combined and I do trust him and he does a fine job with it. And I just was like, okay, I'm just gonna gain financial literacy and any time there was money or finances involved, instead of shrinking and turning away and hiding and avoiding it, I just leaned in.

That was how I started and then when I found out was that I have a real gift for all things money creating opportunity, you know? Creating something where there was nothing, creating money, going and making more money. Understanding the value of things. Understanding how to position the value of the thing. Understanding how money works and how to take the money I'm already making and go make more money with that money, but without having to work for the money right. True passive income and so when I first started my business, my first goal, like everybody else's, is this a hundred thousand dollars. I'm gonna make a hundred thousand dollars in revenue but what I didn't know at the time, embarrassingly enough, but also there are some people on this podcast that are gonna hear this for the first time as well. A hundred thousand dollars in revenue is not a hundred thousand dollars in paying yourself, there is a very big difference between that.

There are things that need to happen with the hundred thousand dollars in revenue in your business so that you can pay yourself. And so then my next goal was, okay, I wanna pay myself a hundred thousand dollars and then I wanted to pay my team a hundred thousand dollars cuz that was gonna mean that I was really supported in my business and that I was creating jobs which I love to do, creating opportunities for others. So my owner's statement is that I create wealth for myself and others. It's, if you take the and others out of my owner's statement, it doesn't have any meaning to me. That is my impact, but I can only do that, because I've created wealth for myself first oxygen mask on, right? Which is what sort of what Diann was saying was that she wasn't putting her oxygen mask on first, and so then it became, all right, so I've gotten to a hundred thousand dollars in revenue. I pay myself a hundred thousand dollars plus in pay. I pay my team a hundred thousand dollars well, now I wanna invest a hundred thousand dollars into my retirement and into my wealth creation in a year and I had no idea how I was going to do that.

I knew that I wanted to do it on my own and I wanted to learn, and I didn't want to hire an advisor who I may or may not trust who was gonna charge me large fees and all that stuff. So I went and I learned, spent years learning about financial planning and investing, and then I invested my money and I have made so many mistakes along the way. There were these stupid, shitty rockets that I bought that I read a headline and it was like a rocket company. I'm like, these, they read a headline, these rockets are gonna be amazing, and they have the best leadership team and I'm like, Oh, I like their leadership team. This sounds like a wonderful idea and the rockets crashed and burned, right? So I bought Peloton because I love Peloton and there's this whole theory in investing to buy and I lost like 80% of my money investing in Peloton because I was emotionally involved in it. So like, I learned all this stuff about investing and like what to invest in and how to invest not because I made all this money, but because I lost all this money.

H: And failure is a teacher that unless you make the mistake of thinking, I failed, therefore I'm a failure therefore I shouldn't do this anymore. You thought, this is not the outcome I wanted what do I need to do next time to course correct so I can make that money back and then some. You know, something I'm wondering is that one of the assumptions that I made about you, Tara, is that you grew up with entrepreneurial parents and you're married to an entrepreneur. And so my biased thinking is, Oh, so that must be an advantage, right that must mean that her learning curve is not as steep as the rest of ours. And it's so refreshing to hear you talk about all these ways that you screwed up and how much you learned from that. Because I think it's one of the other things, going back to your statement about how women wanna be the good girl and we wanna just be told what to do and we don't think we do, but we actually do and it's why we get brainwashed easily, I think because when someone tells us it's easy, it's fast, it's fun, anyone can do it, and you're gonna be rolling in the cheddar, we're like, sign me up, here's my card. You are demystifying even for me in this conversation, some of the assumptions that I made about you, because I have this belief, maybe until now you might have just relieved me of it, that if you grew up in an entrepreneurial family, that it's kind of a fast track path to your own success and that's not what I'm hearing.

G: Yeah you know okay so interestingly enough, one of the things that I, when I work with these larger businesses, they are often multi-generational businesses and I'm supporting them in transition. And I also grew up in an entrepreneurial family yes, 100%. And so this is such a great, nobody's ever asked me this, nobody's ever said this to me and I think this is awesome so thank you. Couple things my dad started off sweeping floors. He was struggling to hold down a job. He had done a stint in, at the time, a mental institution and was put on lithium and was rejected from the Vietnam draft so this was not a stable human. And so he would, he started by, and I mean that with absolutely no disrespect at all, or judgment or anything like that. It's just a starting point, right and he started by sweeping the floors in this business and decades later he went on to buy it. So what that taught me was work ethic, he had quite the work ethic. Yes, of course I have stories around having to be productive all the time thanks dad right? But he really taught me how to work and he made me work for everything.

an hour. This is in: 1998

So they have a tremendous amount of scarcity, more so than anybody else I've ever really seen, because they don't understand how money works. They're responsible for it, and they wouldn't be able to make it if they had to on their own so that's really, that's really interesting. I have no idea how much my dad is worth. I have no idea if he's worth anything. I have no idea if I'm getting money as an inheritance. He liquidated his whole business. He sold the whole business without anybody working in it or getting a part of it or anything like that. And as far as my husband goes you know, and you have to realize too, that my husband's father was an entrepreneur and they had no education. They didn't know how to run a business and that's true for a lot of that school of thought, right? My dad happened to be a voracious learner and so he was always interested in like passing on lessons so he taught me how to learn. Not necessarily how to run a business, although I watched him, I emulated him like if you asked me when I was like four or five, what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would say in charge because he was leading and he was in charge.

H: That’s my girl.

G: The greatest gift that I think my dad did give me, he never gendered my sister and I, he never treated us like girls. There were two girls in my family. We never wore dresses. I was a tomboy. I thought I was a boy for a very long time growing up. He never treated us like boys or girls. It was very a gendered and I think that was probably one of the greatest gifts that he did give us, even though it caused a lot of confusion later in life, to be clear. And as far as like my husband's concerned, you know, he has his skill set, I have mine, and I hope he never listens to this podcast because there was a really long period of time where he was turning around the business that he took over from his father, where we share a mutual accountant. And his accountant was like, I think you need to come and run the business I think, you know, would you consider coming and being the CEO and letting him go and do the ops stuff?

And this was at the very beginning of me starting my company and I was like, no, no, I'm not gonna set myself on fire. He will figure it out, he has paid me to come into his business and do work. He receives regular and consistent coaching at the dinner table and, you know, he's equally supportive of me and I have learned a lot from my husband. Like I would learn from any other co-entrepreneur who has these, you know, very, maybe more honest conversations than you would have in a mastermind and he understands. He's really great because he owns a brick and mortar business. He's really great for like, when I show him shit that people saying online, and I'm like, What do you think of this and he's like, I think it's a cult and I'm like, What do you think of this he's like, it sounds like an MLM and I'm like, so he's really good for like, sense checking me with that stuff but you know we equally learn from, from each other. And the two of us learn 100% we've both made serious, serious, serious mistakes together and separately.

H: I think one of the things that stands out most for me about you, Tara, is that you don't personalize the fact that you may struggle. You don't personalize the fact that you may fuck up. You don't personalize the fact that you may fail. It's just part of the game and in that respect, it's like you're not only thinking like an entrepreneur, but you're thinking the way men have been taught to think ever since they were little boys and it really, you should be leading women. I'm really grateful that you are and that you are leading women in the area of transforming their relationship with money. Because what they don't know is very much hurting them and holding them back. And all of this stuff is intergenerational and many of us have daughters and nieces and female friends of the family. Do you think any woman can be a business owner can, not that whether they should, but you think any woman can be a successful business owner?

G: I love that question, and here's what I want everybody listening to this podcast to consider. Think of this as the zombie apocalypse all right? I know some people really have like a strong opinion about zombies, but like, let's think about this like the zombie apocalypse. I've loved watching The Walking Dead until like, I don't remember, maybe episode nine where things got really wild, but it's a zombie apocalypse and there are three characters, types of characters in a zombie apocalypse. There is the one who is like, I'm just gonna take the cyanide tablet, pop it done, right? They're out, they're like, I'm not even going to spend any amount of energy trying to figure this out. This is hard and exhausting and I've said my peace with life and I'm good with it Cyanide, tablet. And then there are the ones who are like, I'm going to get ahead by stepping on everybody else. I'm gonna steal resources and I'm going to be in scarcity and I'm gonna do shitty things and I'm gonna manipulate and control and convince and persuade and just be not great.

H: I'm gonna be a fucking sociopath zombie. I'm gonna be the zombie equivalent of a sociopath.

G: Right and then you have the person who is like, I'm gonna figure it out and I'm going to be in alignment with my integrity and my values and when I get to the end of this thing, I'm gonna be a leader in the new society. And I'm gonna help create something wonderful and beautiful after this time of sorrow and despair and bereavement and holocaust. And so I want you to seriously consider which one of those three archetypes you feel aligned to, and you will know whether or not you can and should be a business owner.

H: Girl, did you just make this up on the spot?

G: I think about lots of weird ass shit, Diann, in my free time.

H: Same, no, same, same, same. In fact, while, while you were saying it, I think we definitely have a little bit of a hive mind thing going on here, but what you were just saying about the three different types of approaches in the zombie apocalypse, as soon as you started explaining it, it reminded me of a story that I tell when I was a coach on a Spartan race. I could do nothing for the people who are the elite athletes who could scamper up the 30 foot rope like a monkey and flip upside down, ring the cowbell with their feet, and then scamper down and go on their merry way. They didn't need anything from me and I didn't try to offer them something. I also couldn't do anything for the people who took one look at said rope and thought, hell no. So they took the alternative and did the 30 burpees, which is the requirement if you refuse to attempt one of the obstacles. The ones that I actually grabbed the bullhorn and called out to them individually and helped them make it the rest of the way up the rope, we're the ones who could get about 70 to 85% of the way by sheer will and skill but then they stalled out physically, emotionally, mentally, they just couldn't go any further they were totally shaking. They didn't wanna quit, but they couldn't go any further. I'm like, I can help you close the gap so I think it's like knowing what you're called to do if you're called to lead and you're okay with being really, really, really uncomfortable then I think you are called to be a business owner. We don't even have to wait for the zombie apocalypse, but I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up happening, because there certainly has been a lot of entertainment preparing us for that.

Wasn't that a powerful conversation, I only recently connected with Tara Newman, and I already have so much respect for her. I wanna make sure you listen to her, you learn from her, and you continue to follow her because this lady is the real deal. You know I like to think of myself as the speaker of Uncomfortable Truths, and I think Tara can actually share that title with me because what women don't understand about money and their relationship with money is holding them back even women business owners, we need to learn more. We need to do better, and it's really the only way that our business can be successful and sustain is to be profit first and not let ourselves burn out in the process. So, I really wanna thank you for staying all the way to the end of this episode. Make sure you click on the link in the show notes, check out Tara's website, her podcast, and so much more. I'll be back next week with another no BS straight shooting solo episode and in the meantime, stay driven.