Welcome back to the NOYACK Expert Series. I’m your producer and host for the day, Anna. And today I am here with Danielle McKinley. She’s a strategic connector, speaker and money mentor to woman entrepreneurs. After navigating personal finance instability of her own, she’s helped to lead multiple 9 figure exits. She created the State of the Union Framework and the Harmony Hustler method to give founders simple, durable systems for cash flow protection and growth. She talks about so many different topics from personal finance to business finance to insurance, and we’re just going to dive into a bunch of it today. Thank you so much for being here.

Danielle: Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Happy to be here.

Anna: Of course, what brought you into this sphere of the universe in the first place?

Danielle: You mean like money?

Anna: Yeah.

Danielle: Like where? How did you end up here?

Anna: Yeah.

Danielle: Such a great question. So had you asked me as a child if I would be a money mentor, I probably would have laughed in your face. I wanted to be a dance teacher. Full disclosure it was always I’m going to be a dance teacher. But my journey is really interesting and I feel like I’m finally walking in my true purpose.

So how I became a money mentor is because I discovered only about two and a half years ago my own money story. So as you mentioned in that lovely intro, I’ve had some successful exits and one of them, the largest one was a nine figure exit and it felt totally empty, which sounds insane because when you hear something like that, you’re like, my gosh, that’s so cool. And you kind of picture these different things in your head. And I can tell you that anything that you’re picturing is not what was happening for me.

So that led me to really question what? Why does this feel empty?

And so I went on a one year journey of really looking inward and doing a lot of self discovery, a lot of healing, inner child work.

And what I discovered was my money story. And it was solidified when I was eight years old, which is actually very common for many of us. We make a decision about money in our childhood.

So for me, unfortunately my dad is an alcoholic. He has undiagnosed bipolar disorder, loads of unresolved childhood trauma of his own, and one day when I was after my parents had a really big fight, I asked my mom if she would leave my dad and her response was, honey, I would if I could, but I can’t afford to care for you kids on my own.

And I didn’t know it then. I only recently discovered that’s when it was locked in.

So my decision about money became it equals safety. It equals choices. Equals being able to stay or to go.

And so it was great because it launched my entrepreneurial flame and it made me an overachiever and all of these things. But it also led me to a space of where I was really like proving that I could earn enough for safety and always having the choice and being hyper independent and now I get to help people understand what their money story is, where maybe it’s not fitting for them anymore, so they can really live in alignment with their money and their life in general.

So that is how we got here today.

Anna: Well, thank you so much for sharing that. I know that’s a story, stories like that resonate with people and like when you’re an adult, you’re working your job, you’re so far from your life when you were younger. I think it’s important to remember that our attitudes towards money always originated somewhere. We always had that first impression and it often can stick with us quite a bit.

I know one of the things that sticks with a lot of people, when it comes to just through talking with people, doing this job and talking to friends and family, people. I know one thing that they learned and remember their attitude towards pretty early on is if they remember when they were younger, if there was a budget in the household, how is money just? Battery fast and loose with their money. It is every single dollar have a place and there’s a lot of different attitudes toward that.

And I know something that you and I have talked about in some previous conversations was about making sure that you know, you know where your money’s going, you know how it’s working for you and that’s I think a little different than the every dollar has a place. This goes to rent, this goes to food. This goes to that. It feels a little bit deeper than that.

Danielle: Yeah. So money and your feelings about money stem from somewhere, right? And usually they’re inherited. I call it your money story, right? Those feelings and the things that come up.

And oftentimes our money story is subconscious. We don’t even realize that it’s actually running the show because it was inherited and it’s really deeply rooted in our subconscious mind because it was brought in by the things that we observed and heard about money in childhood.

And because we don’t step to think back, okay what like what decisions did I make? Like if you’re listening to this right now, start to think about what decisions or what did I observe as a child about money that may not be how I want to be with my attitude and mindset towards money and you start to unpack it and it’s really easy to start to see it and there’s typically like five different trends that you see.

If you’ve got the savers, you’ve got the fast and free like you mentioned where you’re just blowing through cash and you’ve got money, you don’t have money. Then you have the people that feel almost bad for having more than say they did in their childhood and then you got the ones that are like, my gosh, money is so bad. You’re greedy because they had their rich uncle that made themselves feel less than right or the rich neighbors that made them feel less than that sort of thing.

So the first thing to do aside from just understanding, budgeting, like you said. You kind of, even your body language changed when you started talking about budgeting and budgeting for some reason has this restrictive context to it, right where it feels almost rigid, but really a budget is the second step in the money game.

The first step is cash flow tracking, so really understanding where the money is coming from, where it’s going, how much are we working with?

And then instead of budgeting, think of it as how are we assigning our dollars the best jobs for us.

Anna: Yeah.

Danielle: So I look at it as like an assignment, a role assignment, just like you would in your organization where you manage a team, how you get roles and responsibilities. It’s your roles and responsibilities with your money.

Having said that though, there’s another filter that you want to funnel that through. And I call that your contentment filter, okay? Because what we say when we want more happiness is we what we really mean as we want to be more content and in today’s world, because we’ve got this phone and we’re all scrolling, right? All that every day we’re scrolling and every time you open one of the social media apps, you’re going to find somebody that is quote unquote, doing better than you.

And then what happens? Then we start to go, gosh, maybe I should try that or that’s working really well for them or they must be happier because they have XY and Z that they just posted.

Okay, well let’s go back pre social media. So before social media existed, our comparison ratio was very small. It was our neighbors, the kids we went to school with, friends and family anywhere we traveled, right. But there wasn’t this and list every single day we’re seeing someone that’s quote unquote doing better than us.

And because of that, it is so important that you identify what content means for you. It’s another like people like to say, what does success mean for you? I like to go content because that that covers everything. What do we want in life? How do we want to show up, What type of friendships do we want to have? What type of parent do we want to be? What type of spouse do we want to be? How do we want to show up and serve? And what does that look like?

And so it’s really important. And what I teach clients to do is we define that first, then we master our mind, our money story, and we create a money mindset, which is your present day. And then we start to get tactical with cash flow tracking, assigning jobs, investment strategy, that sort of thing.

Anna: I think that’s a really good approach because when a lot of people are working towards, okay, I’m going to look into my finances, we’re going to fix it this time like we’re we’re going to do it. A lot of times people do jump straight to those numbers, straight to those buckets. Where does everything need to go? When in reality, taking that step back could, as you have plenty of experience doing that brings more of an emotional piece to it. You’re making it work with who you are, who you want to be. You’re making it fit within your specific life.

And I think that’s from my experience working with people on their finances. Not with people on their budgets, but I talked to a lot of people about budgeting and a lot of it is very numbers focused.

So I sense taking such a core piece to your not even financial journey, it’s just such a core piece to your finances and being able to take that step back and bring it into where you’ve come from with money, where you want to go. That makes it more personal and easier to stick to in the long run. Would you say?

Danielle: Absolutely. And I think that that’s where we get this resistance. So like my job for a client is to strip away any stress or shame they feel about money first because we can get, we can give you a lot of times people think, I need a better strategy. I need a financial plan. I need to look at the numbers. And this goes for anything in the world, sales, marketing, right? But it all comes back to what, what’s your mindset on it? So that’s why we start there.

I always say that if you can master your mind, you are absolutely unstoppable.

And because money has this taboo feeling even today, like we don’t talk about money, but yet when we’re making money, we’re supposed to just somehow magically know what to do with it. It’s just a funny piece.

So it really makes sense for me. And I just see the breakthroughs happen that much faster when we uncover some of that stuff that we’re unaware of because it isn’t something that’s talked about.

And what I find if you don’t do that is that the strategy, the numbers, the game plan becomes a band-aid and it won’t actually stick because you don’t believe that you’re capable of what you’re working towards a lot of times as a result of your money story.

Anna: It’s always interesting to me to consider and talk about the psychological impacts of money. I do actually have a psychology degree, so whenever I get a chance to use it for something, I’m like, yes, I can do that, yes. But I think with most things in your life, there is a psychological impact to it.

And with something as even if you don’t want money to be a big portion of your life, it’s still definitely going to be there. And being able to wrangle and understand and get a sense of how you feel about it, where you need to be in order to feel good about yourself. That’s important.

For some people that might mean being more rigid, doing more tracking, keeping it more in control and for others that might be putting it less out of their mind all of the time. It’s totally personal and when we’re talking about budgets and anti budgets and all of the budgeting terms you might have out there making sure that you can personalize whatever trend you found, whatever newsletter article you read that gave you an idea, making sure to bring it back to who you are is very important.

Danielle: Yeah. And that’s the contentment filter, right? Because if you don’t know what it is or what we’re working towards, then how do we have when we open up our app and we get that feeling inside where we’re like, they’re doing better than me. We don’t have anything to anchor into, to come back to ourselves, to go, you know what? No, this is what it this is what works for me. And what works for me doesn’t have to work for you.

Anna: That’s true. But it especially again, you keep like I got, I got mine right over here, especially when it’s with the phones and you’re seeing what everybody’s doing. That can ruin your own sense of contentment. And so having an idea of what is good to you and being able to always come back to that. That’s that’s great for some people.

Danielle: It’s going always, you can rewrite it too, right?

Anna: Yes, your definition doesn’t have to be the same in two years, but it’s something you should regularly visit because it is what will anchor you and remove that doubt and that worry and that spin out the spiral of the mind that happens when we let others creep in and and.

Anna: With that, yeah, because one thing you see a lot online is people with luxury bags and luxury shoes and luxury items, and you might watch it be like, gosh, I really want all of those things. But you don’t wear luxury items. You’re not the type of person you don’t really like this style. It doesn’t fit in with your life at all. So being able to go back to these are the things I actually care about. I really don’t care about that bag at this point in my life. My brain’s just tricking me because of the phone into thinking that I care about the bag.

I think that helps when you’re trying to with lifestyle creep. That’s something we talk about a lot that high earners will experience. They’ll start making more money and their lifestyle will catch up to it. It’s just this constant race. Being able to ground yourself is a very important tool to have in order to combat that.

Danielle: Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. I see I’ve talked lifestyle creep all the time, and that’s again, the contentment filter. We start to see it and we’re really cash flow tracking, which is what everything comes down to, is making decisions from the data, then you’ll see it too.

So if you’re regularly cash flow tracking, you’re not going to need somebody like Anna or myself to be like, if you’re having lifestyle creep, you’re going to see it. And then you’re going to be able to revert back to your contentment filter and be like, okay, do I need to upgrade this? Is this different or do I need to make some changes over here?

For some of our listeners who might be a little unfamiliar with the term lifestyle creep. Could you give your just explanation of what that might entail someone?

Danielle: Yeah. So I’ll break it down because in the way that I even experience yeah, because I’ve experienced lifestyle creep for sure. Like I remember when I was in my early twenties and six figures was the mark. Like I was like, I can’t wait to make six figures, I am going to feel so rich and I hit six figures that night within that next year and I remember thinking like I really don’t have a lot leftover like why doesn’t this feel the way that I thought it would?

And then when I looked at my finances I was like it’s because I’m shopping more it’s because I’m traveling more it’s because I’m doing more of the things that I wanted to do before I was making this kind of money.

And so all that shifted is I’m doing more of those things, but I’m not actually future planning in the way that I thought that I would be at that level of income.

So if you’re somebody that at the end of the year when you go to do your taxes or you meet with your financial advisor and you’re like, I feel like I’ve made so much money. Where did it all go? You are likely experiencing lifestyle creep and I think that’s the way a lot of, I know that’s a way a lot of higher earners fall into a paycheck to paycheck cycle.

And you feel like, I was living paycheck to paycheck when I was making twenty thousand a year in retail because there wasn’t money. But why am I now making two hundred thousand a year, still not being able to save what I want to, still not being able to pay off all these credit cards?

And it’s because yes, you’re making more money, but your life also went up at the same rate. So there’s still the same amount of expenses, you’re still paying the same amount to withhold your lifestyle, but it’s on just different things than it might have been back then.

So I think higher earners forget that a lot because it seems on paper like you’re making so much money.

Anna: We actually our last episode we recorded was with Sean Tully the created the term Henrys high earners not rich yet. And we had a lot of talk about these topics too, how your net worth and your earning potential over time and all of these things don’t necessarily equate with your income.

Danielle: Yeah, absolutely. And that, I mean it all comes back to you again, like your cash flow tracking the jobs that you’re assigning to your dollars and your discipline there is one of my favorite books is Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel and he and it talks about a story of a janitor that was a janitor it’s whole life. And at the end of his life he had millions of dollars that was ultimately donated to charity and he didn’t have any fancy plans he didn’t have a high end CFP he had disciplined.

And that’s the thing that a lot of high earners are missing is that now they have the money, but they don’t have the tools and the tactics to be able to make their money, make them more money.

So again, it’s just the jobs that you’re giving if you’re a high earner, but you feel like you’re not rich. But then if what we got to look at is where are we assigning the roles for the dollars and then make some adjustments, add in some discipline and we you could be a whole different in a whole different situation with 12 months time when we’re talking about like, you know, a high earner that’s trying to like look at their money, try to figure out, okay, where should my dollars be going to best service me. What advice would you give them?

Anna: So it’s always going to be very personal. So there’s no like blanket, any financial person or somebody who works money mentor or anything like that should never tell you this is exactly what you should do. You should never listen to a podcast. And then they talk about one strategy and you’re like, that’s it. I got to go implement it if you want to make sure that it makes sense for you.

So step one I’m going to ask you, what does content mean to you, right? Because once I understand that, now we understand reverse engineering, We’re reverse engineering the goal based on content.

So what does content look like for you? And that could be content today, content in five years and content for future you and your retirement plans, right?

But if we don’t understand what that is, how are we going to build the best plan for you? Right?

So understanding that and then reverse engineering according to it is always going to be the method that I work with.

Anna: That’s I haven’t heard true or words in a couple couple couple episodes. That’s that’s really true because it’s such money is such a personal individual thing and you also have to remember when you’re assigning your money the best tasks that it can do for you in five years, those might be different in 10 years, you might have to look at it even the next year. Your priorities might have shifted, your living situation might have shifted.

And that’s another way that some of these lifestyle creep living paycheck to paycheck these issues kind of sneak up on us because our priorities change, our idea of what we want life to be changes, but we don’t circle back and make sure that our money and our lifestyle are matching that.

Danielle: Yeah. And I think it’s important, there because there’s no one-size-fits-all. It’s really important. And that’s one of the things like my husband’s a CSP, so I challenge him all the time and the way that he’s working with clients, I, I would, I’m considered a disruptor. So in my, in my career of building software companies, I can really pinpoint and see quickly pain points before others can or someone using the software can experience it.

And I think one of the big pain points in the financial industry is that they’re taught how to teach investing and it’s the same process for every single person. And that just doesn’t make sense to me because it not everybody wants the same life. Some people want to retire when they’re forty, some people want when they’re sixty. Some people don’t need seven houses, right?

So I just think it needs to be a personal touch, and you’ve got to decide what that is so that an expert can then help you reverse engineer the path to get there.

Anna: I think another thing along those lines is also be wary of where you’re getting your information from. I know this sounds like it’s such a basic concept. It’s something a lot of the upcoming Gen. Z and younger millennials might have even learned in school later in high school. Like you need to know where your information is coming from. But that is so true, especially with how many influencers are out there, how many books are out there. Just check your information. Make sure that something you read in a book, great, that’s going to help you, great. Maybe see if there’s backing for it. Maybe check in with a professional. Maybe just double check that the information you are getting is the best information for you and you’re not just doing it because it’s the latest trend because that’s not going to help you in the long run either.

Danielle: Well, totally. And I think that I look at it like, so I, I have flipped houses too and you always get three quotes right? Like the rule of thumb gets three quotes for each trade and then go from there and it’s kind of a similar thing. You want to shop around, you want to find the person that connects with you, that you’re like, okay, he or she gets me and then also has the skills, the experience. I think that experience coupled with credentials is great. I think that credentials are great, but I personally will work with someone who has experienced and actually used the techniques that they teach versus just learned about them through a book.

Anna: Yeah, I think just all of this is so important just to keep in mind when you’re looking at your budget, when you’re trying to figure out your life, when you’re trying to make it all mashed together, it can seem like there’s a lot of moving parts and there is, but if you start with that sense of contentment, you figure out what your life needs, you figure out what your financial situation needs, you can go from there.

It’s not always smart to just run into the numbers because if you’re looking at your finances, chances are you’re a numbers person. Chances are you want to just run on in with the numbers. But it’s important to take that step back for sure before we close out for the day. Is there anything that you’d like to get into a little more detail on or touch upon that we didn’t quite get to?

Danielle: Such a loaded question. And I’m like, how much time do we have? Can we talk forever? I just love this stuff.

I think that my, my give back for the listeners would be that if you’re feeling stressed about money, that that is normal. If you’re feeling overwhelmed with all of this, you’re not alone.

So when I go and speak on money, I often will ask, like how many of you became an entrepreneur? Took this job because you wanted to make a bigger impact or you wanted more freedom and flexibility, right? And everyone’s hands will go up and I will ask everybody to look around, keep your hand up and everybody look around. And then I’ll ask them, okay, what, what do those things require? And they require money.

So then the follow up question is has money ever stressed you out? Felt intimidating, or maybe even a bit like a foreign language? Put your hands back up. Everyone’s hands go up.

So I think the big take away here is that you don’t have to learn it all in one sitting. You don’t necessarily have to become a money expert in order to feel comfortable and content with your money plan and the way that you interact with money, the way that you save and send and teach your kids and lead your team can all be resolved like you can. You can feel good about it. It’s being willing to get familiar and start to learn enough to get there.

So know that you’re not alone and be willing to reach out for help that you don’t have to feel stressed about money.

Anna: I think that that’s really important. You don’t have to learn it all at once because there’s so much to learn all at once. And I think that other, what even hits home even more is you’re not it seems like you’re the only one who doesn’t know what they’re doing with money, especially if you’re earning a lot. If you feel like, okay, I’m in this higher income bracket, I should know what I’m doing. But you don’t really know what you’re doing. That’s normal. That’s fine. It’s so, so, so complicated. And just tackling at it one little bit at a time is going to get you somewhere.

Danielle: Yeah. And I would say like our high earners that are listening to this, I see it the most with you. And it’s because you made the money. And so now somewhere you told yourself this story that like because you made the money, you’re now supposed to know what to do with the money. And nobody is just born knowing what to do with money.

So ask for help, reach out, find the resources, and just know that it’s okay and all that that is doing that shame and those feelings that are coming up, those are just nudges to go get a plan and to upgrade the the jobs that you’re assigning your dollars, that’s all that it is.

Anna: Thank you so much for coming on today for this recording. It was a fantastic conversation. I’m sure our listeners out there got a ton from this. Just on keeping your attitude about money in check, understanding yourself and where you’re coming from and what you can do to go from there if you like this conversation on please, please, please subscribe to our newsletter, Your Wealth Blueprint, over on our website. You can just go over to the newsletter tab and take a look at all of our additions. And you’ll also be notified when new episodes like this come out. Thank you so much, Danielle, for coming on today.

Danielle: Yeah, thank you.