Becoming Free: A conversation about independence, security, earning and how our relationship with money shapes the choices we make and the futures we are creating.

And I would, you know, open it up to you to say that both perspectives are pretty dysfunctional, so we need to find some wonderful middle ground where we’re not compromising, but we have this aspect where we understand that money’s really key But not at the expense of people and profits. And also that money is important to be able to make a difference and make the world go round. So you’re starting to see some of you are involved in these movements already or are leading or funding projects and programs Businesses that are B corporations, socially responsible B corporations or community run organizations or socially responsible companies or, you know, companies that are now starting. And I would say still quite early days, even the programs that have Corporate with social responsibility programs and the rest of it, which we, you know, we were not having 10, 15 years ago, but now it’s still not truly integrated, is it, into the… the bottom line. In fact, quite often, these are some of the things that are the first things to go if there’s any kind of challenging economic circumstances. So When we truly get to this concept that you may have heard of and I talk about a lot, the triple bottom line, the triple bottom line, which is not my phrase, but it’s something that I see and I see more businesses, and I will say, particularly businesses that are led By women where the focus is on people, planet, and profit. So there’s reporting and governance and values-driven decisions, which are made based on people, planning, and profits, so imagine that, because the reality of the world is that That money does make the financial fabric of this planet, so we are living within it, even though we would do things perhaps very differently if there was no money, okay? So I’m curious as to what you’re thinking about freedom And money and the lives you’re building. And I say lives because, of course, it’s your life, but also the life of those around you, some people you work with, or people you may lead or family members that you impact And what is it that drew you to this event? Like, what is it you’re wanting with regards to freedom and money that would be really useful for you if you feel comfortable and you can, please post in the chat So the question is What drew you to this webinar? What is it that you’re wanting or you’re needing to gain right now with regards to freedom and money? Please post on the chat if you feel like you would like to do that. Some of the questions and challenges or let’s say issues that you might have, I’m sure are very individualized to you, but also quite collective. All right, we have very collective views and ideas about what money is and isn’t And I want to share with you some of the, let’s say, the grounding and facts around money that I’d like you just to kind of sit and absorb for a moment, not in a Oh, that’s really terrible way, but in a way, perhaps, that can empower you in a way where you can think, okay. What can I do about this? And this is something that I try to do even when I’m watching the news these days, that I’m able to really think about not just the tragedy of what’s happening in the world, but what it is that I can possibly do about it. All right. So did you know that globally around one in 10 women live in extreme poverty? So when I say extreme poverty, that $2.15 a day, all right? So this isn’t due to a lack of any kind of capability of women. It’s very much the structural inequities globally that women are up against. And we’re going to be talking about what a number of those are, but this directly impacts independence and freedom. So

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This is Globally, alright, so this isn’t purely in developing versus developed world countries. It impacts differently in developing world countries. We are talking perhaps more about Security and home and the ability to have those very important food, shelter, medicine health aspects that finance access to finance gives us in the more developed world, we’re talking about women who want to have more freedom in their careers, more opportunity to focus on the lives they want to build Within their families, but also it can be, of course, access to health and education, and the things that really help us to build our lives. So women are more likely than men to live in poverty everywhere. But in developing world, it’s very much more about basics survival Did you know as well that the gender pay gap is still very much alive and kicking? And I think that it’s really interesting that it’s not front page news. Why isn’t it front page news when women, we women are paid Less than our male counterparts the world over, and maybe you think about that when you sit down next to your male colleague as much as they may be very capable or perhaps highly incapable, that they are paid more than you for doing the same job Typically in the United States, this is around 81 to 83 cents on the dollar. And in the UK, if you’re coming in from the UK, it’s about 87 pence to the pound. And this is more exacerbated in more traditional industries law, accountancy, banking, finance, etc, and it’s even more increasingly exacerbated for anyone that is white. So even today, women are still earning less on average, not just at entry-level positions, but across careers. And what happens is that compounds over time. It compounds over time and it leads to not only a gender pay gap, but a pensions pay gap. So women in the UK have retirement incomes which are 40 lower than the average than men, yeah, so more than half, I’m reading some of these facts for you, more than half of women, 52%, worry they will run out of money in retirement. Anyone here, do you worry that you might run out of money in retirement? Do you think about that even for younger women on the call? This is something to perhaps start thinking about right now for women who are coming into their retirement or in retirement how we financially plan around our retirements. So what I’m talking about here is that, you know, when people say to me, I need to stay in my job because I need the security or I need the pension, or whatever it is, this is a reality. This is grounded in a real financial gap And so part of this is, yes, a lot of us women, we don’t always think about pensions and we don’t worry about it, or we’re not worrying that far in the future. But we do contribute as well more total work, so there is an invisible cost that many, many women around the world bear. So we perform around 75% of unpaid care work That can be housework, it can be children, it can be, it can be parents, it can be elderly people. And so many women I know, and perhaps you are one, are bearing this invisible Very, anyone have shoulders that are permanently aching, it is not only the physicality of that aching, but it is this emotional burden that we’re carrying of having to do just so bloody much. All right At a conference I was at last week I was sitting in the audience. It was a human tech AI conference in San Francisco I was at, and the day was focused on health And there was a conversation about genetic… what do you call it, genome, genome testing. So I’m not an expert in the era. And the guy next to me who sort of looked over me and said, I’m scared, I don’t want to know what I’m

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I’m going to get and I was like, yeah, I understand what you’re saying. Anyway, I started talking to him, and he was developing an AI, an experimental app. He was in academia around Alzheimer’s disease, okay? We were talking about Alzheimer’s, but I’m telling you this because what he was telling me is that three quarters in his research that he’s been doing, three quarters of the people who have Alzheimer’s are women, which I didn’t know So that plays a bit to our conversation two weeks ago about health. But what I found also really interesting, he said pretty much 100% of the carers of the women with Alzheimer’s are women So it’s not only that you have more women who are getting Alzheimer’s, which I asked him why and he said they don’t know, right, because there’s That’s another thing that health for women or health research for women is massively underfunded. But he said he suspects from his research that he’s doing that it’s very much about hormonal changes and, you know, as we age. So the caring Economy, the unpaid economy, the time that is taken by us is massively high. And also, I want to just allay this idea that women don’t negotiate, because I hear this a lot with the gender pay gap, and I find it really annoying. We say, oh, well, you need to ask for more money, and you need to negotiate more, here’s a negotiation course. It’s not that women aren’t negotiating. We can absolutely negotiate, can’t we? Can we negotiate? Of course we can negotiate. Please tell me, yes, we can negotiate We can negotiate, but what we’re finding is that, and the research is coming up time and time again, this isn’t a confidence issue for women, that women are negotiating, but even when women ask for more money, they don’t always receive it and can actually get a penalty for asking What the F, right? So the systemic perceptions about being a good girl, like, don’t ask for more, be nice, you know, all of this kind of stuff is absolutely real. We’re also seeing a massive rise in women who are the main breadwinner. Are you a breadwinner in your family? Please say yes on the chat if you are. Today, in roughly 45% of marriages, same, opposite sex marriages, women either out-earn their husbands And some husbands can find that challenging or they earn roughly the same amount among households with children, more than 4 in 10 working mothers Are the primary breadwinner Also, McKinsey reports that by 2030, almost 45%, so almost half of women between the ages of 25 to 44, if that’s you, or you’ve got a daughter or sister that age, are projected to be single and child-free, which I think actually is really and smart should have done that and they will be the main breadwinners for themselves So this is super interesting. All right, start seeing the trends for women. So women in women money enables, it enables healthcare, it enables education, it enables safety, it enables access, it enables recognition, and it will enable Value. We cannot have a conversation about freedom without talking about money. For many people, money is the stability and foundation of any meaningful choice. But is money the same as freedom? This is the question to explore. Does money enable you to be more free, or is it constricting you to be more free? Is it something that you think about, are conscious of, and have a good relationship with to enable you to live your best life if you want to use that term, or is there a paradox there? Is it providing you with constraint Or is it providing you with possibility Where are the places that you need to address with regards to your own financial plans, your own financial stability, your own finances within your own world And where, perhaps, for those of you that are leading change or who are interested in leading change, where are the areas that are important to you with regards to changing the world of work

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Or changing the world when it comes to finances And I know many of you are interested in bringing a more conscious and purposeful social conscience into banking and into finance. And many of you are funders and investors in women-owned businesses. And some of you want to go out on your own And start new types of social business and social entrepreneurship and social enterprise and organizations where you can, let’s say, forge your own way and forge your own freedom You’re not perhaps within the constraints of the system that you might see yourself in right now So there’s a phrase, there’s a phrase. Have you heard of it? It’s called golden handcuffs Golden handcuffs What is Golden Handcuffs mean Are you familiar? People who are earning well. Yes, sometimes very well And yet feeling unable to leave their roles Even though it may be time up for that role, even though it may be costing your your health and your energy and even your sense of purpose There is a sense of and a very real sense of, well, my mortgage needs to be paid and there’s my responsibilities that I have. So leaving doesn’t feel like freedom, it actually feels like a risk And I think, yes, many organizations are, let’s say, quite cognizant of this. And know that they can keep people in the organization with perhaps sometimes that the fact that they don’t even really want to be there anymore. I’ve heard the phrase a few times this year. By managers and leaders Well, they’re paid a lot, so they should just get on with it. Well, they’re paid enough, or that’s what they’re paid for. So the connotation that when you’re paid more money, the level of suffering should increase and you should be okay with that Yes And so this is the idea of the golden handcuffs It’s not so visible, but people are paying the price. And that price doesn’t show up financially necessarily because they are paying the bills and paying the mortgage and the rest of it. It can show up in a number of different ways. It can show up in and stress and mental health, and well-being, and vitality, and a lack of time spent with loved ones. Is that familiar to anybody? That quiet sense of life being endured rather than lived We call this phase of life pragmatic endurance, pragmatic endurance. But for many, it’s even more than that. It’s a sense of not being able to truly fulfill one’s potential. a sense of not being able to be truly themselves. Even one of the most pioneering, most accomplished coaching clients that I have. And when I work one-to-one with my little wonderful set of coaching clients and She is surely very accomplished and very, let’s say, rebellious in the work that she does, but even her, we were talking about many meetings that she’s in where she gets very bored and she feels like these meetings are just going on and on and on and Waste of time. Anyone ever feel like that? But she doesn’t say anything. She just sort of quietly checks out in her head And we’re talking about the concept of being unedited, which is An incarnation of freedom, and how she communicates in an unedited way. I asked her, what stops you being unedited, and she said Well, I have to pay my mortgage.

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And I was like, wow, this is really interesting. Even like one of my most clients have been working for a really long time, where I kind of see someone who is very free in how she does things. We’ve still got this constraint. So we had this conversation about… about that, and how that is holding her back, and the fact that actually She could be more unedited and make a much bigger difference, potentially make way more money to even pay off her mortgage. So it doesn’t… changing your mind, changing your thinking around some of the things that… I don’t know that we even know Half the time that we’re doing the decisions that we’re making how we’re thinking, what we commit to What we say, what we stop saying What job we apply for, how we see ourselves How we value other people We say, oh, well, they’re better than us, or they’re more because they make more money or they’re less than us because they make less money. Like so many perceptions of Live work and world based on money. Huh. So what do you think about all that? Post any comments that you’ve got in the chat. From a female lens perspective, we talked about some of the issues and barriers for women around the world. I also do believe that there’s a massive potential for us as women to really rebel against all this money stuff because The narratives about money have been very male dominated. They’ve been very traditional. They’ve been very focused on the linear hierarchy of making more and more and more and more. And that’s how many organizations are based And many organizations Our reward, of course, through money, but when you look at why women are leaving corporations The number one reason is not because they’re not getting paid enough, they say I don’t feel valued. Now, part of that might be money, but most of it is that they don’t feel valued. They don’t feel acknowledged seen, heard And that their contribution is important and it’s significant and part of the future of that organization. So it’s what used to work. The golden handcuffs that used to work are starting to break open And it’s not working anymore. So I just think that that gives us so much freedom. If you don’t give a , if you’re kind of like, well, you know, I’m… I’m strong, independent woman, and I’m going to find a way, and I… I trust myself That I can earn money and that money is going to come, then we start new businesses and we get new jobs, and we do new things, and we change our organizations because we’re not locked into this idea of, well, if I won’t do that, and I’m going to entertain myself there, because What if I lose my job and can’t pay my mortgage or my rent or whatever it is? Does this make sense? I really hope this makes sense because I see so many women who do do that. They go off and they start their own business and you know I’ve had my own business now for 25 years, nearly in November. 25 years, who knew And I see so many women and we undercharge, we undervalue ourselves. And I just think this, we got to start really changing our ideas So, yeah, it’s not only about the money, and we’re generous and we’re principled and we’re humble, but I really believe that we as women have not really reached our potential when it comes to our abilities To make a lot of money if that’s what we want to do, or live with less and be perfectly happy and in harmony with it, if that’s what we want to do, if we can really understand The complexity of the relationship dynamic with money. So I’m not saying that the barriers don’t exist. Women businesses are underfunded. It’s much more difficult to get funding for, or investing for a woman-owned businesses. There are biases. All of it is True. It’s true, of course, I don’t live in La La Land. It’s though looking at that and going, okay, I’m not going to let that stop me. I’m going to look at how I address that, how I address that head on for myself, how I address that head on for the people around me. What does that look like for me?

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And for some of you, it’s going to involve having a period of time off, like having a sabbatical, having a rest, having a break. to kind of recharge and really realize what’s important for others, you’re not going to go headlong into something new. For others, this is a time for you to really think it through and understand what it is that we can do from an individual perspective. So how do you start to reframe your relationship with money? And I know that’s a kind of more and more people are starting to address this now, not just the practicalities of your pension or your savings, or your financial planning, or your earnings, and the numbers. I’m a big fan of the numbers But it’s to understand how do you feel about it Right, so if you have and think about it, if you like, for a moment, like the romantic relationship, a relation or a friendship, you know, if you’re if you say, oh. what all terms people say about my hate money, or money’s what post on the chat some of the things you say about money that perhaps not so positive. I hate money. Money’s… money’s evil, money is the root of all evil. Money is a necessary evil. money… finance is difficult. I don’t really like that. It’s not about the money. There’s so many things that we say And we’re putting out there about money that is incredibly negative and money is a means of control and is one that’s come up from Tina. So If that’s our relationship with money, if we said the same things about are a good friend or our romantic partner, you know, that relationship is not going to go very far. So I really encourage you to start to reframe Your relationship with money. It’s not about rejecting money or chasing money. It’s about becoming in a more conscious relationship with money, all right? Like, it’s… it’s one where you get to, you know, have the debate with your friends, and… and think about it within your company and team, and understand, okay. What… and here are a few questions for you, all right? And maybe you might wanna… maybe want to write down these questions as what I would call some inquiry questions for you post this session. So if you write these down, and of course they will be in the recording, and you can always come back to it as well. With regard to money, the first question is, what is enough for me? What is enough? Enough in quotes. What is enough So I’m not asking you to set big aspirational financial goals. You can still do this. This isn’t complimentary question. What is enough For me at this time, you know, at this age and stage. Second question is what might I be giving Where… where might I be giving value away? Alright, so where might you be giving value away, is the second question. So this might be that you might be overworking, because you’re over-delivering, maybe a bit of a people pleaser, maybe too much Working too many hours, where might you be giving value away? Undercharging if you have your own business, perhaps So where might you be giving value away? Third question is, what would financial freedom allow me to actually choose? What would financial freedom allow me to actually choose? So you may need to think a little bit about First of all, what is financial freedom for you? Okay. And try and open your mind up even more that it might absolutely be more money It might be the same that you have now, but the relationship with money has changed, or how you utilize money, or save money, or make money may change, or it may be that even there’s an option for you to have less money And it gives you more freedom, right? Which is a little bit countercultural to how we’re conditioned. But I’ve certainly been experimenting with that this year, making less money and having way more freedom. I will say that I Healthier and happier as a result in my little experiment, I’m saying you have to do the same thing, but just sort of an option for you. All right, so what is enough? Where might I be giving money away? And what would financial freedom allow me to actually choose

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Financial freedom might be a mindset for you. Like you change your thinking in your mind about money, you might end up like attracting loads and money and wealth and prosperity to you, you know, a law of attraction and manifestation, and all of those wonderful things, okay? So Who knows? So that’s my thinking today about becoming free with regards to money and finances and earnings and security and independence and the lives we are building. We’ve talked about facts and data context around women and money globally, and then we’ve talked more broadly about, let’s say, women’s money liberation And where the possibilities and potential might be for us with regards to money. Please post in the chat any questions that you’ve got or any comments that you would like me to address or any reflections that you would like me to address, I’d be very willing to answer them, and I can say on a couple of minutes to do that. I also want you to think about I’ve given you these questions to reflect on I would like you to consider taking and action in the next, let’s say 2 days. All right, so taken to you till Saturday. So maybe something you do tonight or tomorrow. That will move you into action with regards to what we’ve discussed today. So it could be An awareness where you notice where money is influencing your choices more than you realize. It might be that you dig out your pension and see how much it’s actually worth, and whether it’s going to last you into your long, long life and years. It might be you start a pension, it might be that you think about how much you earn, and whether that’s truly representative of what you should be earning Maybe you look at your fees that you charge if you work for yourself and you do that. Maybe you look at completely revolutionizing your organization’s financial structures, or maybe the industry that you work in. It’s time for you to Raise your voice above the parapet about the gender pay gap or about the pensions pay gap, or about the triple bottom line or something else, or maybe something else, okay? So please Consider taking an action in the next 24 hours. If you would like, you can post your action on the chat so I can see it. It will give you a little bit of public accountability that you will do what you say you will do as a result of this webinar. If you have any additional questions or if you would like any access to the resources from the facts and research that I shared with you today, then please drop me an email, scollins@aspirecompanies.com, and you’ll be getting The recording of this, so you’ll be able to reply to that email. My wonderful husband, Robert Silverstone has written a book which has been very helpful for me. It’s an ebook easy read called Grow Your Relationship with Money. It’s a free ebook. So if you want that, you can drop him a line His email is robert at robertsilverstone.com, robert at robert silverstone.com. He said to me this morning, if anyone wants it, they should just email me and I will send it over to them. So you might want to do that The next session with me about time and busyness, and we’re going to address busy disease is on May 27th at the same time. You can sign up at Spyacampus.com if you’ve not done that already. And I look forward to seeing you there. All right, so hang in there, stay with it. Become more free. and focus on how money can truly be your friend, and open yourself up to the possibility of creating so much freedom with so much health So much time and so much ability to be able to truly, truly reach your potential. Thank you very, very much.

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And I look forward to seeing you again next time.

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