The Prosperity Show Podcast. Financial Health | Business Success | Peace of Mind

I have been doing this podcast for more than 10 years and it feels like time to find new ways to express myself and connect to people. In this episode I say my goodbyes and tell what’s coming up in the future.

Here are the links to the things I mentioned:

The Money Workshop on Friday, March 14 and 21

The new newsletter on LinkedIn

I will let you know about the membership site via my email list or LinkedIn in about a month.

In the meantime, you can get in touch with me via LinkedIn or [email protected]

When most podcasters talk about money and emotions, they talk about how people feel about their money. My approach is quite different in that I look at the emotions you are acting out through your money. In this episode, I talk about how what you feel when dealing with money is never about money – and what it is about.

Highlights:

You can use your money feelings to understand your emotional makeup.

If you are afraid of running out of money, that indicates that you are feeling alone.

If you think you need more money, you are saying that you need more people because money is always attached to people.

Feeling like there’s never enough means that you feel like not enough.

The fear of losing what you have is often the result of abandonment stories.

The idea is to recognize the feeling and express it.

When you hear yourself thinking that you need more money, ask yourself, “What am I feeling?”

How you were brought up – either in poverty or wealth – will affect your money emotions.

If you let yourself deal with the feelings, you aren’t going to have to repeat the dramas.

Learning how to manage cash flow can mollify financial fears.

When you learn how to put off purchases, you can manage your money better.

I talk about learning how to delay gratification.

If you learn how to manage your need for gratification and your dopamine signals that you need more, you can feel better about yourself and your money.

You can use the Covid pause to retrain your emotional responses.

Focus on what you have, not what you don’t have.

This is a good time to learn to recognize and deal with your emotions.

Small business owners and many practitioners have trouble talking about money. Yet, if you want to be comfortable financially, then you have to learn how to talk about money with potential clients, vendors, and financial practitioners.

Highlights

Sex and money are the two hardest things to talk about. A lot of people would rather talk about sex than money.

Both sex and money are about sharing personal energy, which can be scary especially when there is a lot of shame around both issues.

Always remember, money issues are never about money. They are about the emotions you’re acting out through your money.

People in every financial bracket don’t like to talk about money, especially how much they have or don’t have.

It’s very freeing to be able to talk about money and to realize that you are not your money. It’s just something you use to interact with the world.

How much money you have or don’t have doesn’t change your value as a human being. You have value even if you have no money.

Having a lot of money is not necessarily easy because you have to make a lot of decisions and it’s not that easy to talk to people other than financial advisors for whom you are a source of their money.

If you’re part of a peer group that struggles with money, when you start making more they might treat you like an outsider.

People often feel validated when they receive money. But money is not the answer to anything.

If you think you need more money, you actually need more people because money always comes from people.

For people who are in business for themselves, there’s a lot of uncertainty about income and unless you train yourself otherwise, that causes a lot of anxiety.

When you love, except, acknowledge, and appreciate yourself, you’ll make more money.

It’s important to counteract negative self-talk. I talk about how to do this.

Trusting and acknowledging yourself are important.

Being comfortable asking for money is essential if you’re in business for yourself.

How do you feel about talking about money?

Understand the value of your uniqueness.

Do you ever say, “ I don’t care about the money, I just want to help people”? As someone in practice or as a business owner you have to care about the money. That’s part of being in business.

If you suffer financially commonly no one is going to rescue you. You have to rescue yourself.

Links

To set up a time to talk to me click here.

Because of everything that’s going on in the world right now, many people are experiencing stress and its side effects on the body and mind. In this episode, I discuss the causes of toxic stress and offer a few suggestions for dealing with it.

Highlights

Toxic stress often starts early in childhood and continues throughout life. This can lead to many physical and emotional problems.

Most major diseases are caused by stress. I give examples.

Stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol are meant to be released for short periods. When you’re under constant stress it wears out body parts and systems.

You can teach yourself to manage stress, but first you have to make the decision to do it.

If you’re always trying to make things happen rather than allowing things to happen, that can cause stress.

When you feel uptight that’s a signal that you are responding to the external world in an unhealthy way.

Notice when you feel contracted. That’s when you’re under stress. Take a deep breath and imagine you’re expanding.

It’s the pushing to make things happen and to reach specific goals that cause a problem.

Wanting to be the best parent and being hyper-vigilant about your children’s activities can cause stress.

You get to decide how you want to respond to the stressors in your life.

If you decide to treat yourself differently and do things like eliminating negative self-talk, within a year or two you’ll feel entirely different from the way you feel now.

If you’re taking responsibility for other people’s feelings or outcomes, that’s a stressor.

When you’re with people, look for commonalities not differences.

Having more money is not going to solve your problems. As a matter of fact, it often causes more problems.

Having body work done is a way of reducing some stress.

I have known therapist Doug Foresta for a long time and we have been talking about how many therapists have money issues. In this episode we talk about that and an event we're planning to help people in the helper professions.

Because we had such a rich conversation, I’m going to include most of the called transcript under the Highlights.

Highlights

Doug Foresta shares his personal background with money and why he was attracted to my work before he became a therapist.

Doug talks about his emotional habits of disappointment and deprivation and how it affected his relationship with money.

He realized that his problems were not about money but about his emotions.

He also learned how to replace the habitual emotions for those that were more functional. It led to some business that he hadn’t expected.

If a therapist can understand how they deal with money, or a doctor or any other kind of coach or practitioner can understand the money piece, they will find more inner peace because they're not going to be thinking about money all the time.

As my money changes, I noticed that so has my identity. I no longer identified as a person who is screwed up about money.

When I think about being prosperous, a big part of that is around love that I have in my life now.

Doug tells the story of how his relationship with his first wife has changed since he’s been making the changes in his life.

He talks about other things in his life that have changed and the new habits he has developed.

When you worry, when you're in a hurry, when you're not able to stay in the moment, that's when you miss opportunities.

Links

If you are interested in learning more about the program Doug and I are putting together, sign up for my list at https://ProsperityPlace.com/joinnow

Here’s the Transcript

Hi, everyone. Joan Sotkin here. And welcome to the Prosperity Show, where we explore a holistic and often alternative path to business and financial success, personal fulfillment, and peace of mind. And today, I have a special treat for you all. A good friend of mine with whom I'm putting a project together, we're going to talk a little bit about, so I want to get right to the interview. And so my guest is Doug Foresta, who is psychotherapist. How do you call yourself?

I call myself a therapist. I'm a licensed clinical social worker, but.

I'm a therapist. Okay. A therapist who is really smart and knows how to do therapy. And I met Doug years ago, and he's been listening to the podcast and following my system for more years than anyone else, and we've decided to do something. So, Doug, welcome to the prosperity show.

Oh, it's such an honor to be here with you, Joe. Thanks for having me on.

So what was it about what I do that attracted you?

Yeah, it's a great question. I think my whole life, so, yeah, I mean, I go back to, like, it was either 2008 or 2009 when I started, when I really started following you. And so my whole life, I kind of have always had struggles with money, but, yeah, I mean, emotional stuff around money, and it was something about the way that you broke things down differently than anyone had ever done. You know, it was. It was always like, practical advice, you know, do this, do that, but, you know, save, you know, save more than you spend, but, I mean, everybody knows that. But I knew there was something else. There was something else because it's like, well, why am I having so much trouble? Why am I having so much anxiety around money?

And so there was just something about the way that you spoke about things, the way that you used the combination of humor, and it just made sense to me, and it just resonated for me. All of a sudden, it was like, oh, yeah, that's me.

Were you a therapist at the time?

I wasn't practicing very much therapy at the time. I had a full time job working for the state, so I had, like, a state job with a pension and all that stuff. But I was always stressing about money. I always remember racing to the bank to try to desperately put $20 in so I don't overdraft.

I don't think anyone else can relate to that. All right. You said what you liked about what I was doing, but it must have been the emotional piece that also attracted you.

No, I mean, that's exactly it. It made me feel like, oh, okay, I see what's going on here. And it made me reflect on my own sort of family origin and stories that I had about money. So, yeah, absolutely. That's what really drew me in. It just made so much sense to me, and it spoke to.

And Doug had a podcast called stand out and be heard, which is a lot of people's issue. He's not doing that anymore, but he's done a lot of different things along the way, and we hadn't talked in about five years, at least. And then he ordered something from me, and I said, let's talk. And here we are. And we've been looking at the market, because you have to do that in order to know what to do next. So tell the story of what we've decided to do.

Absolutely. Well, in full disclosure, you've helped me tremendously. And what were talking about as a therapist, I see that a lot of therapists, when money is brought up in therapy session, a lot of therapists ignore it or they manage to conveniently not talk about it. Why? Because we're uncomfortable, as therapists with money. A lot of therapists have money issues. I would say most therapists have money issues. So if we can't deal with it ourselves, how are we going to help clients deal with it? And that was sort of where we started to think about how do we support other therapists, coaches, healers, in helping them work with people around money issues, which always come up right.

And so we've decided to put together a certification course that's going to start with just a webinar in March. And that's all we're going to say about that at this moment. If you're on my mailing list, you're certainly going to find out about it. So if you want to know about it, just go to prosperityplace.com joinnow and you'll get on my list. But what I find interesting is that not only do therapists avoid talking about money, most of them have serious money problems. That a lot of practitioners have money problems. And it's like they get very caught up in being a good person and helping their clients, and somewhere along the line they forget to help themselves.

I think many therapists become like, why do we become therapists? And I think part of the reason is our role in our family of origin might have been one where were helpful, and that got us attention. And so now we go out in the world, and I love what you said about we want to be good people. Of course, that alone is like, of course you can't be a good person and have money. I mean, good people are broke and destitute.

Well, it's the Jesus model, right?

Yeah.

In order to be spiritual and in order to be a good person, you can't have a lot of money because money is the root of all evils. I mean, our gestalt beliefs are really screwed up around money, and everybody wants it.

Yeah, absolutely.

So will you share some of the things about yourself that you learned?

Sure.

That have helped you develop a different attitude and practice with money?

Yeah, I was addicted to, I had developed a habit of disappointment and desperation with money. Money is something that was constantly disappointing to the point where, yeah, it's like, if I got $100, you'd be like, oh, only $100, why not 1000? And if it was 1000, it'd be like, oh, only $1,000. It's a cycle of desperation around. Money is something there's not enough of. It's hard to get, and it's very stressful. So of course, I just wanted to avoid it. I would avoid logging into my bank account because I didn't want to see how much money was in there. And again, just this constant feeling of never enough. And what you helped me realize is that I had a disappointment habit and a deprivation habit. That was a habit I grew up feeling that way. And then the habit filled my emotional life.

And then I can see so many places in my life where if I had to go back there was no reason for me to go through the emotional trauma that I put myself through with money.

Okay, so once you realized that it was not about money, it was about your emotions. And in recent years or a year, I think we looked at that feeling of being trapped. And you related to that?

Yes, very much so. Yeah. Money was exactly just a general overall feeling of constriction.

Yes. And that being contracted and being contracted. And it didn't take you long to not only understand what was going on, even though you had done a lot of work until then, but what was amazing to me was that new opportunity started showing up without you realizing it.

That's right. Including what we're doing together. But, yeah, I give you an example. So as I started to develop a different habit, which was of appreciation and gratitude, and I can actually log into my bank account today, look at my money and go, I am grateful for every dollar that I have, and I never was able to do that before. And then all of a sudden, I had somebody call me and say, hey, could you work with me? Could you take me on and supervise me as a therapist? And so now I'm building a mentoring of other therapists, which is I'm going to do a fee split with them. And so it gives me an opportunity to supervise and help other therapists grow, but also to grow my practice way beyond what I could earn working just one one with clients.

And that's the key, is finding out what to do other than one to one with clients.

Yeah.

And I had decided a long time ago that I didn't want to work alone anymore, that I didn't see that was healthy, that people did better when they were in joint ventures, when they had partners in their business, and that I had a habit of protecting myself by being alone. For me, having you show up and all you did was buy something from me....

In this episode, I discuss the problems caused by unrealistic expectations with an emphasis on how subconscious expectations affect your life outcomes. You will also learn more about how habitual emotions are the creative force behind your life stories.

Highlights

Subconscious expectations that result from past experiences can influence our relationships and financial decisions.

You can learn more about your expectations by recognizing patterns that might lead to disappointment and learning from your mistakes.

I give an example of relationship expectations. Also, examples are given about f how habitual emotions are the creative force behind our life stories and how this relates to expectations.

All of this is happening on the subconscious level.

If you have an expectation that a relationship won't last, you will make decisions and behave in ways that make sure it doesn't last.

Once you recognize a pattern, ask yourself what emotion the  pattern stimulates for you.

People who are overly optimistic often make bad financial decisions.

Experiences that don't have happy endings are not bad, they are just what's happening.

You can never really know what someone else is thinking.

It is best not to have expectations about how other people are going to behave.

If you expect a relationship to fill in the emptiness in your life, that can lead to disappointment.

Nothing can be perfect and the more tolerant you become of other people, the easier your life will be.

It's okay to make mistakes and not do things perfectly.

Links

Click here to learn more and register for the Money Energy Activation.

Interview with Dr. Daniel Lieberman that I mentioned

The beginning of a new year is a great time to introduce some change in your life. In this episode, I discuss why it’s necessary to make changes gradually and I offer some tips on some easy changes to make to get yourself going.

Highlights

Take small steps towards change to avoid overwhelming your brain. Start with things that don’t have major consequences.

I talk about how to embrace the discomfort and disorientation that change stimulates.

I offer some suggestions about small changes you can make around your house.

Develop an awareness about your current financial habits and decide what small steps to take towards new, more effective habits.

Develop a “buddy” relationship with a friend who may also want to change their financial habits. This gives you both the chance to establish accountability.

You can’t control everything in your life. Be aware of what you can control and make changes within that realm.

There is some discomfort that comes with change. The idea is to learn to recognize the discomfort as part of the process and to develop ways of adapting to it.

Learning how to adapt to change will help you deal with the major changes that are going on in the world – and will continue to go on for the foreseeable future.

What is one small change you can make today?

Links

Iris Apfel’s Instagram page

I would love to know what changes you are considering making and if you need any help in charting a course for yourself in the new year. Click here to set up a time to talk to me.

You can also send an email to [email protected]

The new year is a time of change. You can ignore this or use the energy of change to move your life forward. In this episode, I offer some suggestions for getting to know yourself better, to follow your intuition, and to be who you want to be.

Highlights

What is your intention for next year and who you want to be? You can choose.

How do you want to perceive the economy and what’s going on in the world? You can choose.

This is a time of change, and you can decide if you want to tap into that energy.

Your age will often determine how you think and feel about things.

You have value just for being who you are.

No matter what your age, it’s important to be flexible.

Be willing to take chances and try something new. Not everything you try will work out perfectly, and that’s okay. At least you know what not to do.

When making business decisions, be aware of the marketplace.

It’s important to learn how to listen – and follow – your inner voice.

It sometimes takes courage to follow your own path.  The so-called authorities don’t always have the right answers for you.

Do you really want to spend your life trying to please other people?

What is it that you are afraid to do or be?

Links

Henry Lopez’s Course

Click here to set up a time to talk to me about how we might work together.

Henry Lopez is a serial entrepreneur, small business coach, and consultant who helps people start, run, and grow a small business. He also hosts the popular podcast, The How of Business.

Highlights

Joan Sotkin and Henry Lopez discuss chaos in business. They talk about how chaos becomes an identity for business owners and how they feed off problem-solving. Joan suggests that this mindset can lead to discomfort when trying to delegate and step back from the chaotic environment.

Henry talks about the importance of taking time away from the business to allow it to grow and giving employees the freedom to make decisions.

Joan mentions that fear holds entrepreneurs back from making changes and asks how they can give their brains a new message. Henry suggests focusing on identifying new roles and working away from the office to avoid micromanaging.

They also discuss learning to trust oneself and finding satisfaction in one's business journey rather than constantly chasing goals.

Joan discusses how uncertainty in the financial world affects business owners. Henry expresses concerns about inflation, interest rates, and labor-force shortages, which create instability and hamper long-term planning.

They discuss finding opportunities within chaos and embracing it to make positive changes.

Joan shares her own experience of currently recreating her business with a focus on helping people find peace amid chaos.

They also talk about the importance of enjoying what you do in business and making decisions that prioritize personal values.

They discuss the importance of setting feeling goals instead of focusing solely on achieving external success.

Henry and Joan discuss the importance of looking at one's internal world and developing skills that are not traditionally taught. They also talk about how chaos can manifest in business.

Joan shares her journey to self-confidence and her transition into being an Energy Activator, while Henry expresses his excitement for Joan's new endeavors with minerals.

Joan discussed her interest in working with minerals and crystals in a scientific way to help people find peace in the midst of chaos.

Henry mentioned the challenge of comparing oneself to others and feeling like they haven't accomplished enough.

Joan discussed the concept of accepting what is and finding satisfaction in the present moment.

Henry shared his belief that introspection and self-awareness are key to reducing chaos in business.

Links

Henry Lopez’s website

Henry Lopez’s course on Udemy

Henry Lopez on LinkedIn

Henry Lopez on Facebook

Henry Lopez on YouTube

Elizabeth Ralph is a high-level wealth strategist and intuitive investor who retired at the age of 39 to teach others how to reach financial freedom through non-traditional ways. She is the founder of The Spiritual Investor and the host of The Spiritual Investor podcast, the place where entrepreneurs transform from unsure investors to effortless wealth creators.

Formerly a financial executive and energy trader, Elizabeth shifted her focus entirely in 2012 while feeding Cheetos to a kangaroo on a beach in Australia. She realized that to fulfill her purpose of saving unwanted horses from slaughter she needed to break free from the confines of the corporate world. So right then and there, she decided to go “all-in” and set up a strategy to achieve financial freedom within 10 years. Since then, Elizabeth has helped countless spiritual entrepreneurs to create their own strategies for financial freedom through The Spiritual Investor framework.

Highlights

Elizabeth Ralph shares her journey from corporate energy trader to spiritual investor, and the courageous steps she took along the way.

First you have to get to the point of emotional neutrality about money before you can learn the principles of investing.

People Elizabeth works with are usually already open to the idea of a spiritual path.

If you already know that everything is connected, then you can bring that concept into investing.

We talk about how to differentiate between your intuition and your “monkey mind”.

Elizabeth’s clients usually have made the decision that they have to change their relationship with money.

People who are already on the spiritual path often have trouble understanding the financial world as it is presented. Elizabeth helps to translate traditional concepts to ones that those on the spiritual path can understand.

How do you go out in the world with the idea that money is energy?

Everyone is different and it’s important to meet people where they are.

Links

Elizabeth Ralph’s website

Elizabeth Ralph on Instagram