Rewriting your victim stories around money with Jessamyn McLachlan

Jessamyn’s Bio

Felt is a boutique digital content agency that specialises in brand-storytelling guidance across communication channels like social media, newsletters and website copy. They’re for the artisans, healers and guides. The people who run communications for these biz or the sole operators trying to juggle all the balls.

Felt was founded in 2015 by Marketing Manager, Jessamyn McLachlan, because she firmly believed that authentic communication DID have a place in a social media world. You might be surprised to find that this was an unusual path in this space even just a few years ago…

Having been in marketing across hospitality, wellness, craft beer and wine for almost 20 years, with the past 10 involved in digital communications, it took her a while to find her own voice and comfort in the space, honouring the power of narrative and engagement, not just the path of sales.

But what she knows now, from years testing the theory, is that social media can be a game-changer for business. It’s not about numbers. It’s about stories.

Transcript

Our money stories or our beliefs around money play out into our money reality. But the great news is that we can rewrite these victim stories we have around money and write new money stories. Today I chat to Jess from Felt Brand Stories, about how to get rid of those old money stories and rewrite new ones.

Doors to my course, Million Dollar Money Management, are now open. This course is for you, if you want to create the mindset of a million dollar business aria, even if you aren’t even close yet. Inside this program, you’ll learn how to manage your money well, and how to magnetize more. If you’d like to join this live round of the program, you can do so by clicking in the link for the show notes for today’s episode. I’d love to welcome you in and help you manage your money like a million-dollar business owner.

Hello, and welcome to the Clare Wood podcast, where myself and incredible guests share about money mindset, financial successes, and how to manage your money in a fun and practical way to create wealth and abundance in both your business and your life. I’m your host, Clare Wood. I’m a business coach and a money mentor. I strongly believe that money has the power to positively change the world. I can’t wait to help you transform your mindset around money, create a love of numbers, and build the business of your dreams, so you can live a life of financial freedom, giving, and global impact.

CLARE:

A big warm welcome to the Clare Wood podcast, Jess. It’s so great to have you here. How you doing?

JESSAMYN:

Good. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

CLARE:

Oh, absolute pleasure. So we’re going to be chatting today about money stories and particularly victim stories when it comes to money. But before we dive into that, I’d love for you to quickly introduce yourself to the listeners. A little bit about yourself and your business, and how you help people and who you help as well.

JESSAMYN:

Thanks, Clare. I run a little digital content agency called Felt. We like to say that we’re for the healers, the artisans and the guides. We work with, largely people that pretty much make or serve with their hands and their heart, is the way I explain it. But what that looks like is, we work with a lot of wine brands. We work with a lot of healers, artisan food producers, and businesses like that. Our aim is really to empower them to bid themselves online and what we say is, “Finding their own digital voice.”

CLARE:

I love that. So when you talk about helping them find their brand voice online, what exactly does that look like?

JESSAMYN:

Either we run feeds or we coach them in running their own feeds. Invariably these businesses have incredibly heartfelt stories and sometimes they just need a bit of guidance to believe in themselves enough to have that voice online. And really, that’s what we’re there to do. We’re brand storytellers. That’s our absolute… the base of what we do. Our main thing is that we’re in storytelling and we teach them how to be confident in that and find content that they may otherwise not believe they have. That’s really the main thing we work on. But yes, it’s around social feeds and coaching and newsletters. Anywhere where their voice would be online, essentially.

CLARE:

Yeah, amazing. Helping people find their voice. I love that you’ve got a really specific audience that you serve as well. It’s something that’s been coming up a lot lately. You’re talking about really niching, knowing who you serve, and then really being able to have really deep impact in that space.

So wonderful to have you here. Like I said at the start, we’re here today to chat about money victim stories. Maybe you could explain, in your own words, what does a victim story around money look like and what victim stories did you have around money?

JESSAMYN:

I guess I didn’t realize I had them, till I did your course, to be perfectly honest. But once I realized, it was really, really clear that I ultimately believed money came from elsewhere. And whatever that elsewhere was, it didn’t actually ever come from elsewhere, but that was my belief, is that it was going to be some pie in the sky place that money was going to come from. I think that comes from a lot of things, not least of all, being the child of divorce and at times being quite poor growing up or very tight, growing up. But I think to get to 44 and only just realize that, that is something I’ve carried with me was a bit confronting, but also, I was a bit frustrated with myself that I’d got this far because I certainly could have… I absolutely believe now, that I could make that money. I don’t, even for a minute, question it that I could make that money myself, but ironically six months ago, I did.

CLARE:

What exactly is a victim story when it comes to money?

What is a victim story when it comes to money

JESSAMYN:

I think being saved, being saved by the money coming from another person, another source, probably from a loan, would even be one way to look at it. That I don’t believe, or I didn’t, sorry, believe that I innately have the ability to create that abundance for myself. But I absolutely do and I just don’t even question that now, but I genuinely didn’t believe I could create that money for myself six months ago.

I think that is just, not taking the time to reflect on this money mindset. I think I’ve mentioned to you previously, I’m very spiritual. If I do those psychology values reports, I don’t have a corporate background so I didn’t traditionally do them, but I did one recently. And on all the versions I did of it, spirituality came up as one of my top values. It’s ironic to me that this was something that I wasn’t strong in, when it came to money. I definitely wasn’t attracting it and I was undercharging and all the rest. But reflecting on that and actually acknowledging that’s how I thought and felt, has allowed me to flip that script.

CLARE:

It’s so interesting, isn’t it? I never thought that I had money stories either, until I started doing this work. And then when I started to come to understand a little bit more about how stories play out into our life, it was like a big light had been shone on it. And I realized that to your point, like things that have happened through my childhood, through my life, have really played into how money plays out in my life. To your point, like victim stories, “Money only happens because you’ve come from money.” Or whatever it might be. This is why this work around money mindset, is so important because when we start to recognize, “Well, actually I do have all of these limiting beliefs when it comes to money.” We can start to see how they are playing out in our life and then how it’s impacting our ability to earn and how we sabotage our success and hold ourselves back from our success.

So you’ve got some really interesting stories there, that you’ve said, around victim hood when it comes to money. If you didn’t know that you had those, I’m really curious to ask this. Why did you choose to invest in my course, Million Dollar Money Management? What was calling to you and why did you decide to go down that path to learn more about money and changing those stories?

JESSAMYN:

To be honest, it was one of those woo woo moments, where it just called to me. We were driving to KI. I hadn’t had a holiday. I’ve had hardly any holidays in six years of running this business. I’m six, actually this month. And we were driving to KI, I have this lovely, new, little team that started, and I felt I could go on holiday. It just popped up, and I was in the car with my husband, who is an ex-banker, and I said, “I think I need to do this.” And he said, “I think that is an excellent idea. I think you should absolutely do that.” And so I literally, driving in the car, almost out of wifi, I booked it there and then. I think really, what I thought was calling to me was I was grossly undercharging or have grossly undercharged, historically, in my business. And I knew that was something I had to find a way to change. So I think, probably, I thought that’s why I was doing it. I was very uncomfortable with the name, to be perfectly honest, the Million Dollar name as you know, it’s something I have found complete comfort with, now. But there was something that called to me, I knew it was something I had to do, but yes, I did think it was because I needed to increase my prices.

CLARE:

Amazing. And yes, it’s so interesting. The name of the course, a lot of people say to me, has turned them off joining the course. For me, talking about million dollar businesses just seems so normal. It’s something that I do with my clients all the time. We talk about scaling their business to a million dollars. And what I wanted to do, was empower everyday business owners, who “That might seem like some ridiculous, completely unachievable number.” But I would say to them, “Hey, you can start building that, now. Even if you’re not even close yet.” That’s the whole purpose of this program. I nearly looked at changing the name, to be honest, but I’ve stuck with it, because I want to empower people to get confident in talking about money. In believing that they can achieve anything that they want in their business, when they get the mindset right.

Sometimes what happens is that people think, “Well, all she’s doing is talking about learning to look at your numbers a bit more and put your prices up. I could just put my prices up.” But you can’t just put your prices up, until you understand, firstly, why you’re doing it. And you have the belief and the confidence in the logic and the strategy behind it.

Let’s maybe start to dive in a little bit to the course, if that’s all right? When you first got started in the program, what were some of the things or the shifts that started to happen in you, that were unpicking some of those victim stories that you had?

What happened when Jess faced her victim stories

JESSAMYN:

I think I was really frustrated about running my financials. Really, really frustrated. I didn’t even like my money and very, very quickly I started feeling a bit inspired about diving into them and I knew that was another script I had to flip around. What words I use to describe my money, the frustration I had around it, and occasional cashflow problems, which I now know pretty much every business, no matter what size they have, has. I think that’s one thing in business, until you really hear these real stories, you think you’re doing this alone. You’re the only one that’s suffering this, or obviously you’ve stuffed something up, but actually everyone is on some level. But I think that idea of talking to your money with love and one of the things I have absolutely implemented is, every time I pay Jen and L who worked for me, I thank my money for being able to pay them. And they have, it’s taken six months, but it has made a massive difference in my business, having them and the workflow is just so much more manageable and enjoyable. I think all of that was really good. Yes, I probably thought it was going to be a bit more dry, than what it ended up being. But funnily enough, the dry stuff I liked as well, because I love the cashflow forecasting we did and I still do that every month now. Those are the things that really hit home very quickly.

CLARE:

For anyone who’s listening, the reason why I’ve married together this money mindset and money management, is because I’m actually an accountant by trade. So I grew up in the world with spreadsheets were king and I quickly came to realize in the business world that, yes, there’s the spreadsheets, there’s the numbers, there’s the budgeting, all of that, but there’s got to be that bit more to it. Which is having the sense of belief around what’s possible. Dreaming big. It’s really different to the traditional accounting training. So, I’ve married those two concepts together. The other thing too, that I find, no offense to accountants out there, I’m an accountant, I can say things about accountants, but sometimes I think that they over-complicate things. Try and use fancy terms and make things seem a little bit more complicated than they need to be.

I’ve really tried in his program to break it down and make it easy and accessible, because it doesn’t need to be scary to look at your money in that level of detail. I’m really glad that you had that experience doing the program.

One of the things, getting past the victim story, was actually saying, “Okay, I’m not going to put my head in the sand anymore. I’m going to start to look at the numbers. I’m going to start to dig into the financials.” One of the things that you’ve shared with me is, that you actually start to look forward to your meetings with your accountant. Is that right?

JESSAMYN:

Yes. I love them. And they’re not always as exciting, I’ve had just had one yesterday, February has been quieter. But I still love them, and I feel we’re constantly looking forward and planning where things are going and thinking, “What could be.” And that’s great. It’s been a really nice addition to my role. I did also get a new accountant around that time and she’s wonderful. The idea of actually talking about my money is something I enjoy now. I love thinking about how much I’m going to make in another year.

CLARE:

It’s really exciting and expansive when you start to be able to be a little bit more empowered around your money, rather than feeling like, “I don’t want to open that up. I’m not going to look at that,” and start to really go, “Oh my gosh, if I’m really mindful with these, I can actually start to intentionally scale my business.” So, speaking about scaling, one of the things that people always ask me is, “Oh, is the only way that you do it, through pricing?” And actually inside the course, we talk about multiple different strategies of how you can grow your business, right? What strategy is feeling aligned for you, in your business now, and how are you implementing that to start to scale your business towards the million dollar mark?

What strategies Jess implemented from the program

JESSAMYN:

I did do a price increase, that felt great. Then I have introduced a new product, I am someone that moves a bit more slowly, because that’s my comfort, but I have started a group coaching product called Find Your Digital Voice. And I’m onboarding my first five participants next week. It’s been wonderful. They’re all delightful humans, who I am thrilled to be doing this with. That’s a three-month program that we will finish in May, at which point we will look towards another intake. Possibly adding a lower tier version of it, for those that would prefer to just have that little bit of a touch in, without the full coaching product, each month. That will start from May. So, I’m thinking of new products. I’m very focused on my coaching now.

We’re still social media managers and we have a unique platform in how we do that, in that, we like to call ourselves Engagement Specialists. We grow through community and conversation and being experts in the fields that we service. We still do that. That’s still a really important part of the business, but we only take the absolute right people on now, for that product. Whereas, the coaching is something I feel I can help a lot more. People who need to really run their own feeds because it’s really important that it’s their business voice, but they just need a little bit of guidance and a little bit of handholding, and a bit of brand counseling, is my style. That’s starting and I’m really excited about the direction of the business, as a result now.

CLARE:

Yeah. Amazing. That’s so cool. It’s great that you’ve been able to find a way to scale, that works for you and it feels in alignment for you. Inside the program, that’s what we talk about, is that when you’re wanting to scale to a million dollars, I don’t have one specific formula and go, “You need to do duh, duh, duh.” It’s like, “Well, let’s uncover what’s going to work for you and your client base.” This is why the strategy, in my opinion, needs to come before the action. And so often people are like, “I just need Facebook ads or I just need to master my social media.” And I’m like, “Well, first of all, you need to work out what exactly you want to do and why you want to do it and where you’re heading.” And then the inspired, aligned action comes from there.

Let’s have a little bit of a chat about your, “relationship with money”, now you’ve started to get really into your financials and embrace them. Where was your relationship before with money and what was possible with money and where is it now?

How the course has changed Jess’s relationship with money

JESSAMYN:

It would have been a bit of a scarcity relationship. I think I feel far more abundant about it now. I can see that abundance attracts abundance and I’ve already seen that. And when I say that, I don’t mean millions of dollars, but I mean, a new project will land on my doorstep when I’m going, “I really think that it’s time for this next client or this next thing.’ Once I really focus on that, meditate on it, journal on it, it certainly does happen. The universe is a funny, funny thing. But it does work when you really believe in it, positively. It doesn’t always happen exactly how you think it might happen, but it does happen. Like they say with Pantene, “It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen.” And it does. It does. When you have a clear idea of where you’re going with it. I do find myself dropping into the scarcity still, so don’t get me wrong, but what I do now, is I very quickly flip the script again. I have a little habit, that I started in your course, of when I hear the negative words, I start flipping it for positive words. And when I have negative thoughts, and sometimes I get stuck in them for a bit, that happens, but I will go and activate a few systems. Whether it’s a meditation, whether it’s writing things down, whether it’s a walk, to then flip that.

CLARE:

Yeah. And the money work, it doesn’t end. I’m a money expert and I still have hiccups of bumps along the road. And that’s why I continue to invest in money mindset courses, even though I’ve done multiple of them now, because I know that the more work that I do in this space, the better that my mindset continues to be. And I definitely find that as you progress through a new level, work through a story, either that same story pops its head back up again, or a new story pops its head up. So you can become really comfortable with your pricing or something, but then you might fall into new beliefs that start to hold you back. It’s work that needs to keep getting done, like any sort of work, right? Any relationship, you can’t just go, “Oh tick, that’s great. Now I can move on.” It’s work that needs to be done all the time.

JESSAMYN:

Totally, I think I can absolutely see that now. But also the work works. It does work.

CLARE:

Yeah, it’s crazy, right.

JESSAMYN:

If you acknowledge it’s going to keep popping up, rather than think that it’s done, working on it works.

CLARE:

Yeah. Any time that I’m finding that stories are popping up for me, I’m finding that my habits aren’t aligned. And that’s why I’ve got that module inside the course, which is all about money habits and identifying them. Identifying the stories and leaning into the habits. Because if we’re just doing the thing, like I spoke about before, and expecting the outcome without actually working on changing who we are, at our core, then we’re going to fall back into our old patterns. And that’s sort of why we want to create these new healthier habits around money and improving our relationship with money.

So if someone’s listening to this and they’re thinking, “Oh, that’s all well and good, I’ve got a great money mindset.” What are your thoughts? Is it work that needs to continue to get done? Is it something that… sorry, I just totally stumbled over that. Wait. Let me start that whole question again. If someone’s listening to this and thinking I don’t have money stories or victim stories around money, have you got any advice for them that you’d like to share?

JESSAMYN:

Look, I think from observation of human beings for a very long time, we come in all shapes. We come in all sizes. I think some people don’t have them. And I think those people genuinely do attract incredible abundance. I don’t know why they don’t. I think it has a lot to do with a lot of things, but I know people that are like that, that have had similar experiences in their childhood as me. I feel like in a way they never will struggle because it’s innate in them. This attraction of abundance, is innate.

It’s the people that have a little too much fear and a little too much self doubt, maybe a lack of self-belief or those people that are horrendous over-deliverers, like me, like I have been historically, that we just give more than we perhaps attract back. I think for us, this is so important. And for us, these are moments in time where we can really sit and reflect and start to hear what we’re doing and know we don’t have to do it anymore. We can attract abundance, like those that do it more easily. But we do have to do this work quite regularly. It has to be part and parcel.

CLARE:

Well, do you know what I think? I think everyone’s got money stories, but some people have healthier money stories. This is going to sound like a massive generalization, but sometimes people that have come from money, have less money stories because for them it’s never been something that they’ve had to worry about. So, they don’t worry about there being a lack of money because they’re so used to having money and money show up for them and it continues to show up for them, right.

JESSAMYN:

The opposite of that I find is the people that have come from money, that have had some traumatic events and maybe they still have money, but they’ve had these great losses of money at some point, and that’s with them forever as well. But yes, I agree. The stories are just, for some people, a better. Aren’t they lucky. I just don’t know why that is, exactly. And perhaps it’s something in their upbringing and how their parents spoke about money and how money was also used in their upbringing. But I can definitely see a difference between people like me, who have all the negative self-doubts around it and who are actually having to learn a new skill in flipping that script, to some that just seem to not have that at all.

CLARE:

One thing that I would like to share that I hope inspires people, is that regardless of what your money stories are, you can change them. And even a belief that is really deeply rooted in us, from something has happened in childhood or our experiences that we’ve continually had in our life, we can turn that belief or that story around. Even as adults, I’ve only started doing this work later in life. I am a massive believer that you can definitely change your belief systems. But to your point, the way that you need to do that, is through doing the work and through identifying that you’ve got stories. Rewriting, reprogramming those stories and then reinforcing the positivity. So it’s starting to go, “Oh my gosh,” to your point like, “I really desire something. I create the belief around it. I take the action around it.” And then guess, what it shows up.

So we start to re-iterate those stories for ourselves again and again, and again, “Look, it worked for us.” And then if it doesn’t work, what are we making it mean? If something doesn’t lend to us, in the form that we want, in the time that we want to, do we then go, “All this money work is rubbish,” or do we go, “Okay, cool. Something bigger and better is coming at another time.”

I loved that you shared that, because to me, a big piece of the work is starting to accept that. Sometimes the thing that we desire doesn’t show up to us in the timeframe that we desire. In the form that we desire. It doesn’t mean me throw toys out of the cot and storm off. It does mean we go, “We trust and keep doing the work and know that it will show up when the timing is right and the solution is the right solution that will ultimately serve us the best.”

Any last things that you would like to share around money, stories, victim stories, or anything else in this space of money, that you think might help anyone that’s listening.

JESSAMYN:

I think talking to what you just mentioned, a good example of that is, when we were doing the course, at the end of the course, I had quoted on a really great workshop, one of the things I love delivering, probably nine months earlier and it was about… how many weeks, we were about six weeks on the course. I think it was about week five of the course. I got this email out of the blue, booking everything in. Just randomly booking everything in. And I just went, “That is insane.” But I had felt because I’d been doing all the work and I’d been really enjoying the manifestation meditations, and enjoying the focus and I really felt that was very aligned to what we’d been doing.

It was a really good example of, “It’s not just some big pie in the sky thing.” It was just this lovely little workshop. And I had literally followed up a few times and then I’d let it go. And to just randomly come out of the blue, I couldn’t find any other reason for it. I do think what you put out, you attract. There’s no doubt. And I think that, talking positively about our money instead of talking negatively about the lack of it, is such an important thing as business owners, we need to flip. Because the lack story, there’s no doubt it attracts more of the lack story.

CLARE:

100%. Well, I loved having you inside the course. I’ve loved having you along side of me. I’ve loved having you in the podcast today as well, of course. If people are loving your vibe and would like to work with you, Jess, how can they connect with you?

JESSAMYN:

My website is, feltbrandstories.com.au or on Insta, is probably where I’m most active, @feltbrandstories. They’re the best way to find me.

CLARE:

Amazing, well I’ll pop those links in the show notes for today’s episode, of course. Thank you so much for joining me today.

And if you do like the sound of my course, Million Dollar Money Management, doors are now open. So please make sure you check it out via the link in the bio as well. I would love to welcome you in and help you rewrite your money stories. Have a beautiful day, and I’ll chat to you guys next week.

I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s episode. And if you would like me to help you build a million dollar money mindset, so that you can start scaling your business towards the million dollar mark, you can join me in my course, Million Dollar Money Management and the doors are open now. You can join by clicking in the link in the show notes for today’s episode.

Thanks so much for listening. If you loved this episode, please share it with your audience. And don’t forget to tag me on Instagram at @Clare_Wood_Coach. Also make sure you hit subscribe, so you never miss an episode. Have an abundant week. And I look forward to talking to you again next week.