Riding Tandem

Vivian Kvam
Hi there. This is your host, Vivian, and you're listening to Riding Tandem, a podcast that is all things business, entrepreneurship, and the secret to operating a successful business while still having a life you love. Whether you're a business owner on the verge of taking that side, hustle to the next level, or just curious about the world of entrepreneurship, join me as I go behind the scenes of my own business and the businesses of others, unpacking some of the most valuable lessons you can apply today. Let's dive in. Welcome back to today's episode of Tandem Works. I wanted to quote this line that my guest actually sent me today. She wrote me and said, every business needs to be funded so it can create the impact it's here to make. Megan Hale is today's guest, and she wrote that to me, and I thought, well, obviously. And yet as I thought about it more, this also feels incredibly profound because we're in business to make money. So I'm like, okay, yes, clearly. But then as I got thinking about it, it's a statement that can mean wildly different things and can carry very different feelings and emotions and meanings for different people. So I wanted to explore the whole idea of money and how we make it, how we feel about it, how to handle it, helpful tips, and even just some of the emotions around it that I think come up. And so I knew Megan was absolutely the guest that I wanted to have for this today. So she's here with me today. And Megan is a business strategist. She's a money mentor. And I love that line. Money mentor for experienced coaches, consultants, helpers, healers, basically people who are ready to meet their, like, 250K milestone and really focused on this one key offer, which I'm excited to unpack with you today, Megan. Yeah, but we got to work with Megan as well, Machaela and I. And I was trying to remember I can't remember how we actually met. I think it was like an online meeting.

Megan Hale
It was a Facebook group.

Vivian Kvam
It was a Facebook group. Okay. I thought Facebook group. And then I was like, wait a second, was it an in-person thing? Because it was like 2019-ish, I want to say. So we met and decided we had to work together. So I'm thrilled to have you here today.

Megan Hale
I am so excited to be here too.

Vivian Kvam
Thank you. Okay, a little more background about you and then we're just going to dive in here, but I think it's important for people to have a bit of an understanding about your background and where you're coming from as we're talking. Totally. So I met you shortly after you moved here to Omaha area, and now, of course, I'm in Council Bluffs. But I was fascinated, Megan, with your mastery of money and how you thought about it from a practical approach as well as this feeling approach, too. And as a thinker personality, I really resonated with the practicality and using spreadsheets as tools and things like that. From the feeling side, I was like, okay, this is a stretch, but I know I need it. And I think a lot of that comes because you have a background in psychology, correct?

Megan Hale
Psychotherapy.

Vivian Kvam
Psychotherapy, that's right. And I think that plays in a ton into your background and then just also how you have unpacked your own business, your offers, and then helped coach so many people through that process. So is there anything you want to add about your background and just how you've arrived here and why you've brought those to money and the emotional feeling side together?

Megan Hale
I think when you go through any sort of career like psychotherapy was for me, it's something that you are always going to bring with you because you can't take that education or that perspective or lens outside of your head. So I think when I think about money, it's almost unavoidable for me to ignore the internal experience that we have when it comes to money. We all have our own money beliefs, our own money perspectives, money lenses, money experiences, money mistakes, money traumas, even for some of us. And the idea that that's not going to have an impact on how you're experiencing money or thinking about money or even managing money, I think is an oversight. So I think it's just a very natural approach to me, given how, like, my prior career.

Vivian Kvam
Yeah, I think as I've experienced that with you through parts of your programs or offerings in the past, that is a huge value that you bring to people. And I'd love to have some of that value unpacked here today.

Megan Hale
Yeah, totally.

Vivian Kvam
For everyone who's listening, it's one of the things with Tandem Works we talk about is we don't on the show know everything, we're more writing alongside or with. And so I'm excited to kind of talk through what frameworks look like and how other people can use pieces of that as well and then maybe engage with you more.

Megan Hale
Yeah, totally.

Vivian Kvam
That'd be awesome. So fill me in a little bit on highlights of your journey that have helped you arrive around this philosophy outside of you have a background in just how people think and work, right? Yes, but what about the whole money piece and a business? And how did you arrive and start merging those together?

Megan Hale
Well, I think my first entry into entrepreneurship was really having a private practice and psychotherapy. And what I didn't anticipate starting a private practice is that I was really stepping into like a CEO or what I call an LEO role, which stands for Lead Executive Officer because there's so much leadership that happens when you are starting and growing and scaling a business. And I think especially in the field of psychotherapy or any helping profession, for the most part, most of us go through indoctrination to some degree that you don't get into this field to become rich or to become wealthy. And so there's a sense of martyrdom in that, that you're here to be of service. And that's just one example of a money story that is present just in the career field of choice. And I think other career fields might have completely different expectations. If you're a doctor or a lawyer that's a profession that can be is something that of course you're going to go and make a lot of money, right? But there's also the other side of that where there are lawyers and doctors that do a lot of pro bono work and that's not part of their journey at all. So I think starting to learn about running a business and growing a business and what sustainability actually looked like, that was my beginning stages of really starting to realize, oh, money is actually it's really important, and I have a lot of stuff to unpack with this that I have been taught to believe. And the career side of it was just only one piece of it. So with my background, I always look at things through a holistic lens. And when you start pulling a thread, you realize that that thread is connected to all of these other things, kind of like a web. And as I started to explore all of that, it's like, oh, I have family stories here that I need to unpack. I have other social conditioning narratives. I have religious and spiritual stories that I'm carrying. And so it became like this really complex web of conditioning and ideologies that I really needed to examine, of saying, is this my truth? Is this how I want to see money or hold money or think about money? And that really kind of began the journey of and I hadn't even heard of the concept of money mindset yet. But when I went into the world of online entrepreneurship and started to make that shift from therapy to coaching, this term found me, and I was like, ding ding ding. Oh my gosh, I have a lot of money mindset work that I need to do. And so I really poured myself into that. And I think that was the first part of the journey. And I think given my background as a psychotherapist and even just doing my own healing work, I'm not afraid to go down the rabbit hole, really do some introspection. And so I did all that work and I had started a new business in the coaching realm. And I knew that there was some disconnect because I was doing all the money mindset work, but it still wasn't making a really big impact with being able to charge more appropriately for my services or want what I want without guilt or shame around it and all those things. And so 2018 was a pretty phenomenal year for me in which I made some strategic and structural shifts to my business that allowed me to earn a lot more, like doubled my revenue working half the time. And I realized, oh, Money Mindset is like one piece of it. It's super important, but also how we're directing our money, how we're structuring our money to come to us is really key. So I think that was kind of the experience of I'm always going to think about the money mindset piece because it's a part of how we're approaching things, but we also have to think about the strategy, the structure, how we're actually managing it, like money skills and tools. There's a lot of things that go into money and I think just with my experience of it, doing the inner work first, not really getting anywhere with it, then making these structural changes that really kind of set a whole new framework for me, for how I want to think about it.

Vivian Kvam
I think that's one of the secrets that people go, okay, yes, I'm tracking. But how or what caused the shift to happen? Because we can. I mean, I've definitely been there. I'm learning, learning, learning. Didn't know I needed to learn. All of a sudden now I know.

Megan Hale
I need to learn.

Vivian Kvam
Then these phrases find you or these concepts find you're, like, oh my gosh, you dive in, but then taking it from head knowledge to applying, sometimes it takes like a moment, sometimes it happens over time. Like, what was it for you? How did you actually leap from or start leaping, maybe is the better term. I don't know.

Megan Hale
Well, I was kind of forced to change. I was faced with a really big obstacle in late 2017 when I was getting ready to have a second baby. My partner was going to be deploying for six months just three weeks after we had him. I still had big goals and dreams in my business that year. And I think that that really invited me to ask myself radically different questions and be really realistic around what was even possible for myself. More so in the sense of what's sustainable for me to even commit to in my business because I knew I was going to have so much on my plate. And I remember at that time, it felt like it was just the hugest obstacles. I was getting ready to have the least amount of energy, the least amount of time, the least amount of resources. And as my mom would say, I'm very hard headed or stubborn. I like to think of I myself as determined. I was like, no, so all these things are going on and I still want, I still want because I had been creating some momentum and it just felt like now is the time to keep the foot on. But I had to keep my foot on in a radically different way, so I wasn't going to burn myself out. And what that did is it created intentional constraint. And I think that was the greatest gift that ever happened. Because I had to say, okay, I only have this many hours that I can really commit to. How can I structure my business to fit within those hours, to make bigger things possible for myself? And so that really led to those structural shifts that really laid a super sustainable foundation for me that has radically shifted everything that I do since then. And so now that's like the first step. When we get into your business and we get into your numbers, the first thing we're going to look at is time and energy. How do you want this to look? What's the life that you want to live? And how can your business actually provide that from a time and energy standpoint? Because that is going to inform how you structure the revenue streams.

Vivian Kvam
It makes total sense. And having worked with you and had some of these conversations for our own business, I know it's something I'm an extremely introspective person as well. I've always thought maybe I should have gone into therapy of some kind, but that is one of the things that you challenged us to think about. And I immediately was like, yes, okay, this resonates with me. I've kind of journaled this out of it before, but now how do I take this and start applying the dollars to it? Which is really fun. Yeah, so as I got thinking about it, as for example, I would love to be able to get up at the crack of dawn and work till about ten in my pajamas, have a really great workout at about ten, shower, do client work from about one to three and be done.

Megan Hale
Yeah.

Vivian Kvam
And I don't want to do anything on Fridays.

Megan Hale
Yeah.

Vivian Kvam
So as I think about it, like creating those constraints, but I have a dollar amount I know I want to hit. So I think a very similar scenario to what you're saying. What hasn't happened though, is I haven't had the baby to force it. Right?

Megan Hale
So you have to force it. And I think that sometimes that can be hard because a business, it needs so many and it's like a needy child. It really is. And it's really easy if you don't have team support where everything truly is resting on your shoulders. It's like, well, if I don't do it, then it doesn't get done. And so you can really easily find yourself working, you know, 40 hours, 60 hours, a week. And that's just not sustainable long term for most entrepreneurs. Because in an entrepreneurial world, yes, you have, like, sit and chair computer work, but your mind, your brain is having to do a lot of executive functioning all of the time because you're holding so many hats and you're thinking about your business a lot. So I think that that's the other thing is thinking about what sustainable hours look like for you. It's not just like active work. It's like really thinking about all of the things that you're holding and then holding yourself in agreement. If you want to take Fridays off, it's up to you to make sure that you actually take those Fridays off instead of, oh, I'll just schedule that one call, or I'll just send this one email, or, oh, and that's so easy to fall into.

Vivian Kvam
So easy. We did go to a four day work week, and it came up because Michaela, my business partner, she does have kids. So it was kind of kids actually in this one that forced it. She has kids plus as foster care and young children, and she was also a Casa. So she's advocating for these other kids even though they're not in her home. On top of we're growing a business. We were running multiple brands at the time. Too many things happening, too many offers going on. And I'm watching her, frankly, kind of fall apart. She was trying to take, like, a CPR class at the same time she was making a presentation.

Megan Hale
Oh, wow.

Vivian Kvam
And she had taken CPR class like eight times or something like that.

Megan Hale
Oh my gosh.

Vivian Kvam
Because she couldn't get done. And we were sitting there and I also, even without the kids, I was trying to pile more and more on and could I take that client off and et cetera. And I texted her one day, and I said, I think I literally said, this is dumb. What are we doing? Don't show up on Friday. And it was really scary. Yeah, but wouldn't you know, our business has grown, things have gotten simpler, we make more money, and we have more time.

Megan Hale
Yes.

Vivian Kvam
It's crazy.

Megan Hale
Yes, absolutely. I think there's a concept called Parkinson's Law, meaning that however much time you give a task to take, like, that's how much time it will take. And I think that's how intentional constraint really works, is that if you say, okay, I only have a four day work week, what are we going to do in that time? You're now asking yourself the right question, or you're now solving the right problem. So I think that starting with time and energy first is so supportive for money to feel the way that you want to feel. Because a lot of times when we want to step into what I call feel good money, it's like we want our money to feel supportive for the life that we're having to live. We don't want to have to work ourselves to the bone in order to get the money that we want. And even if we are making all of the money, if we're burning ourselves out to get it, what's the point of that? Like, now you have no energy to actually enjoy it, and then you find yourself in these golden handcuffs of like, and I'm working 60 hours a week, but I'm making really, really great money. It's like, yeah, but you're not seeing your family, and you're not being able to go on that trip. And like, you have no flexibility, you have no freedom in that. And that's not what most entrepreneurs just want.

Vivian Kvam
So I'd love to explore that more because there's a lot out there that says, like, the phrases they're on mugs and T shirts. Everything like, hustle hard. And there's this mentality of and I definitely have struggled with this. If I'm not suffering, I'm not doing it right.

Megan Hale
Yeah, I opt out of that.

Vivian Kvam
Talk to me about that, though, because I think a lot of entrepreneurs start wired that way or get wired that way at some point.

Megan Hale
Yeah, well, I think it's part of our macro culture. If you think about I mean, that's capitalism. It's like, do whatever it takes to get the thing that you want, and then there's always more to get. So we do this thing as human beings where it's like, okay, this is the goal, and I'm going to get this, and then I'm going to slow down. And then you get there and you're like, oh, but now they're just this other thing that I really won. So then I'm just going to keep on going and keep on going. And so you keep on raising the bar on yourself. And I think for me, when I first started my coaching practice, I realized pretty quickly that I was pursuing other people's definitions of success. And I realized that if I did not shift into something different, that was much more grounded, the one, I was never going to feel successful, and I was always going to be chasing a carrot because there was always going to be a new carrot to chase, for sure. And so at that time, I would really define myself. I am very still type A. I'm very driven, I'm very ambitious. And I don't know if your listeners are into astrology, but I'm a triple fire sign, which means I have a lot of get up and go energy. I'm a quick start on the Colby. I like to get things done, and productivity can be a really big dopamine hit for us. And the problem with that is that there's always more to do. And so even my husband and I would have conversations around this. In the early stages of entrepreneurship, it's like, if you don't learn how to contain your energy, how to contain your focus, contain your ambition, you're literally going to burn everything down. You're going to burn yourself down. You're going to burn us down, you're going to burn everything down. Because that's always, like, there's always going to where's the limit? Where does it stop? And so I think for me, a lot of my inner work was really redefining enoughness. And there's like a whole podcast I did about the enoughness revolution of how do we really redefine what is truly enough for us for us to be happy and content and to see ourselves as successful. And that is work that I still lean on to this day. That really allowed me to divorce myself from this idea of productivity to define my worthiness. And I see so many of us getting caught up in that. Marrying of the two is like, I'm only worth what I was able to get done. And this shows up a lot when it comes to motherhood, like, parenthood, like all of those things. Like, there's the to-do list. The to-do list. And that's how we measure our success, right? So I think I had to really opt out of redefining success for myself. It's not just about doing. It's also about who am I being and what am I experiencing. And if I don't have balance within those things, then it's going to be off-kilter, and I'm going to be hustling, hustling, hustling for what? And I think that there are so many of us. I think about it when I was doing this in our work, working with a therapist at the time, and I was like, I feel like I've just been in this fast-moving river where everyone's swimming at 90. We're all looking at each other like, where are we going? I don't know. Just swim faster. Right? But we're never getting anywhere. We're just going to be doing this forever. It's like a rat race. And I said, I just don't want to do that anymore. I don't like feeling the anxiety, the stress, the overwhelm, the never enough. So there's got to be more to this than that. So I stepped out of that river and I realized there's actually this slow-moving stream. There's awesome inner tubes. There's like umbrella drinks, and you're still getting to the place you want to go. It's just at a much more sustainable pace.

Vivian Kvam
I like that. Funny you say about the swimmers. I just watched this movie. Total side tangent here. Netflix, of course, right?

Megan Hale
Yes.

Vivian Kvam
Feeds you great things. And it was about two women, young women, trying to be athletes. So Olympic athletes, rather. They become refugees, though. Yes.

Megan Hale
Okay. Syria.

Vivian Kvam
Yes. Syria, yes. You've seen this?

Megan Hale
Well, I haven't seen it, but I've seen it advertised on Netflix. I'm like, oh, that looks good.

Vivian Kvam
It's really good. It's interesting because some of the things you're talking about is expectations others place on us than how life gets in that situation. Super crazy, right? When you have to leave your country.

Megan Hale
Oh yeah.

Vivian Kvam
Swim across the ocean. I won't spoil it or anything, but part of the training that the one sister does, she gets in a tank and goes nowhere. She's just swimming. When you're training to be an Olympic athlete, you're swimming hard, right?

Megan Hale
Yeah.

Vivian Kvam
And so it just made me think of that, of like, oh, my gosh, what if you're not even in a pool? What if you're literally in the training tank and you're just swimming like crazy and it just has the resistance coming at you? That was the picture that came to my head, yeah.

Megan Hale
I mean, it's a really hard dichotomy, I think, because most entrepreneurs I know, we have big visions, we're visionaries, we see all the things that are possible. And I think as we start to build our skill set and we start to experience success for ourselves, like, oh, yeah, even that bigger thing is totally doable. And I think the hardest part is finding this space where all of that ambition, that drive that big vision gets to also coincide with, we're going to do all of these things at a very sustainable pace for us to maintain. That is hard for most of us because we just want what we want when we want it now. But if you have these constraints, I'm only going to work I only work from ten to three Monday through Thursday. Sometimes I'll work Fridays if I need to, if I'm in a launch where there will be seasons of higher output, for sure, in entrepreneurship. But I've had to get really realistic of what my timelines are, of like, I am only working from ten to three. And so what that means is that something that might take two weeks, if I was working 60 hours a week, is now actually going to take four weeks because I'm going to honor these boundaries for myself. And so it's kind of like a give and take, and you have to trust that it's going to get done in the time that you give it.

Vivian Kvam
What have you experienced doing that? Have you ever felt terribly disappointed that it took three times longer?

Megan Hale
Oh, yeah. I think as most humans, like, we want what we want when we want it, and I think a lot of times things take longer. I think there are two things. I think one, things take a lot longer than I think that they're going to take. And I don't know if I'm ADHD, but I do know enough ADHD entrepreneurs where that happens to be like, it's time to pleasure, where you have a wildly unexpected timeline or time frame, which you think a task will take, and then it ends up taking, like, twice as long. So I think that that's something that you have to learn about your own creative cycle and how long one task do take and also buffer in additional time in case it does take longer. So then that way you're managing that disappointment, like oh my God, this is supposed to be done by now. It's like, well, that wasn't a realistic goal anyway, right? So I think it takes a lot of practice. It's still something I'm learning of. Like, how do I guesstimate realistic timelines for how long something is going to take and do it and the pace that I want to approach it.

Vivian Kvam
Yeah. And that clearly plays a lot into that self-awareness piece and being okay with just saying I'm a slow whatever, or I'm a fast whatever, and now I'm going to stack those blocks in a realistic way. And so often, I mean, the whole idea of insanity is repeating things, expecting a different outcome. And entrepreneurs, we are a little insane and I love it. But also, why do we do that to ourselves? We know we've been in business for X number of years or months or however long it's been. We know how long that's going to take. Just mark it on the calendar as such.

Megan Hale
I know. I think this is like we don't want it to take that long until we resist it. It's like it doesn't not this time. It won't be different. No, it's not. Be truthful with yourself on the get-go and you'll be better off in the long run. But I do think the thing that I've learned is especially during the enoughness work, it felt terrifying for me to slow down. And in fact, the assignment that my therapist gave me at the time, he said no goals for four months.

Vivian Kvam
Wow.

Megan Hale
No goals. And I was like, who am I without a goal? And so I realized that I was so over identifying with who I was becoming that I was less identified with who I already was. So I think that that was one totally the right homework exercise for me. But the thing that I learned is that the slower I go, the faster I'm actually able to create results because I'm not working from a place of frenzy. It's slow, deliberate, focused, intentional action where I'm giving myself the space to really connect the dots in my brain and really produce the best work. And that's the thing that actually creates the speed. And you don't have to go and redo it. You're doing it right the first time. Hopefully.

Vivian Kvam
Yes. I love it. And it definitely resonates again, so much resonates for me where I was like, oh my gosh, what would I do without a goal? Oh, yeah, I'm so goals driven.

Megan Hale
Me too. I mean, it was terrifying. Yes.

Vivian Kvam
I enjoy them.

Megan Hale
Yes.

Vivian Kvam
Other people like, oh, I would never set a goal. And I'm like, Why not?

Megan Hale
It's so fun. Yeah.

Vivian Kvam
But it also can be stressful.

Megan Hale
Yeah. I think goal setting, this is timely. At the beginning of the year, goals have radically shifted for me. It's not necessarily about, of course, I have revenue goals. It's like a huge part of the work. That I do. But once the goal is set and there's a meaning behind it, it's personally relevant and meaningful for me, then I start focusing on the work that actually needs to happen for that goal to be real. So it's much more around the minutiae of like, okay, if I want to get to this amount of revenue, and I know how I'm going to get there, what are the things that I actually have to do that make that possible for me? And so I see my goal is not really getting to the end result, because the end result is not really totally 100% in your control. Right? No, it's not. But the thing that is in your control is like, what actions can you take towards that goal? Those are the things that are actually within our control. And so that's what I focus on now.

Vivian Kvam
Do you ever have goals, money goals specifically, that you change? Have you ever done a radical change? We're like, okay, I set a dollar amount eight months or a year or two years or whatever it is, and you do get into it, and you're kind of in those steps along the way and then realize that the goal is wildly off. Has that ever happened?

Megan Hale
No, not yet. I think mostly because you've been through the money map, so we do a lot of work around one, knowing how much it costs to run your business, how much it costs to run your team, how much it costs to live your life. Unless any of those things change, which they can, if we lean out our business, that's going to adjust the cost. Or if we lean out our life or we add expenses, those numbers can definitely fluctuate, which will then impact your overall revenue goals. But I think we also do a lot of work around thinking about your money motivators. What are your personal money dreams? What are the things that you want to provide for yourself and your family? And then we create a priority hierarchy of, like, what's the most important to you? I think the only time that I would really change a goal is if I realized that I was pursuing a money motivator that actually wasn't really important to me. It's like I was doing this thing because my ego wanted it, or I was doing it because I thought it was the right thing to do. That's probably when I would change a goal. But that doesn't happen too often because we do that work from the get go.

Vivian Kvam
That makes sense. But I do love the reminder that if someone does go through a significant life shift, a large mindset shift, it's important to revisit it maybe.

Megan Hale
Oh, we revisit our goals all the time. Yeah, for sure.

Vivian Kvam
Because sometimes I feel like I've had that happen. The dollar amount doesn't shift a ton, but the motivator has shifted slightly, or it's kind of shifted into a slightly different category. So it will change things slightly.

Megan Hale
But yeah, I mean, I think what I find with most of my clients is they're not really money motivated. They're motivated by what that money is going to provide. So staying connected with those things, that really light you up, that really add to your life and of course, the money that's going to fund that, that's really like where the magic is for a lot of my people. And so, let's say one of your goals is I want to be able to buy a farm. And this is a goal that you and your partner have, for instance, but then you go through a divorce and you're like, I don't actually want that farm. It was like their dream anyway. And of course, we're going to adjust our money goals to be more aligned with the life that you want to live.

Vivian Kvam
Yeah, I love that. Okay, so talk to me a little bit about it because you've mentioned this in the past, you mentioned it a bit prior to jumping on here, but just that idea of like, it sounds like a lot of healing thinking, self-awareness, self-work that needs to happen. But I know you've talked about like, you don't necessarily have to stop everything and do all this healing and then jump it. Can you explain that a little bit?

Megan Hale
Yes. So I think in my industry, which is like the online coaching consulting industry, there's a lot of noise out there that if you're not making the money that you want to make, it's because you haven't done the healing work first. It's a mindset block. And that's just not true. It's just not. And I think the reason for this is when we get into your numbers and we look at all of the revenue streams that you have in your business, I can help you reach those numbers. And we realize actually you're offering 9 million things. There's no way that you and you're feeling energetically depleted and scattered and all this. We realize actually something needs to change in the business model for this to feel a lot easier and a lot more focused, where you can actually start creating traction and momentum. So when we have the right structure in place, we know where to focus our attention and our energy. It's like we have to make sure that the structure and business model is there first and foremost. Then from there, that's going to inform your price points for your offers, and your sales goals for your offer. Like all of those variables that we need to dial in that then inform your strategy. So we reverse engineer the whole process. Right when all of that is dialed in and you know exactly what you need to do,, you might be able to make that happen just like that. You might already have the audience for it. You just have to invite people into this new offer, whatever that is, and everybody will have a different situation. But I think the thing that happens is let's say that you realize you need to double your price point for this to truly be a sustainable offer for you.

Vivian Kvam
Sure.

Megan Hale
And then you're like, oh, freak out, who's going to pay that? Right? Now all the money mindset stuff comes up. That's where the healing work can really kind of partner with the strategy. Your business is going to talk to you, it's going to tell you what it needs and whatever resistance comes up around you giving your business, that's when we can have that laser focus, like, inner work piece instead of just saying you need to do money mindset work. Money mindset work is so incredibly layered and nuanced. There's a lot of things that go into that. Like all the different types of conditioning. As I mentioned in the earlier episode, which will take years, right, versus saying I need to double this price point. I know that's what I need to do for my business. What's my resistance around that piece then? Doing that focus work that allows you to overcome that hump and then take that step and then you'll have more money and then you might feel wildly uncomfortable receiving more money. Okay, cool. So now let's unpack that, right? So allowing your business to inform the healing work is way better than trying to do the healing work and then trying to earn more money.

Vivian Kvam
That makes a lot of sense in that you're truly pinpointing exactly what comes up because you're going to feel it bubble up in the moment and you can't deny it then either, which, that's one of the things I thought was like, okay, so now you can't deny it. Like it's right in front of your face. But I can also see for the overthinkers, like me, I'm not wasting my time working on these mindsets that I might not even really have.

Megan Hale
Oh yeah.

Vivian Kvam
There are times where I think I have a mindset and then I'm like, actually I don't struggle with that at all. I just thought I was supposed to struggle with that. So now I've been working on this thing that I thought I was supposed to be struggling with with because it's in everybody's face, right? Everyone struggles with this. Okay, well then I must struggle with that too. Let's fix it. And sometimes I get into it and I'm like, I'm not struggling with that.

Megan Hale
Yeah, that happens too. I think the fascinating thing about money is it's so connected to so many other things. I was just talking to a client the other day and they're wanting to give themselves more space and time. But it's like I feel like I need to do the most of the least because that's like the conditioning, right? I just need just enough. And just enough is all I'm allowed to have because it's creating this struggle. This starving artist feeling right?

Vivian Kvam
The martyr.

Megan Hale
And I was like, what impact do you think that's having on your money for you to experience more than enough money if you're not able to give yourself more than enough time? Everything, the dots really start to connect. So if you make one shift with money, it starts to impact other areas of your life. But the same is true if you make one shift in this other area of life with time or energy or support even, right? So many people have trouble giving themselves more support. I have to do it all on my own. Who told you that? Where does that story come from? You're creating all of this stress and pressure for yourself when their support is right there. Why not give that to yourself, right? Why don't want to spend money on that? So you don't want your money to support you? You don't want your money to nourish you. It's like an onion, right? Of like, let's look at how all of this is connected. So that's why it's so fascinating to me and so profound. Like, when you do money specific work, it really does have an impact in so many other areas of your life. Even your relationships, your marriage, trips, vacations. You'll go on, like, all these different types of things that you're willing to now give yourself because you have a more supportive relationship with money.

Vivian Kvam
I think that's an interesting shift. And having known you now for a while and watching your social media and it takes me a minute, right, where I'm like, Wait, what are we saying? I said this to my yoga instructor the other day alone, who actually was on an earlier podcast about travel and I'm in yoga class, and after that was like so I've been coming to these classes for I don't even know how many years now. And it just suddenly hit me in the past couple of months. She'll say it all the time, like, are you taking the support you need? And I've literally been sitting in this class like, what the hell is she talking about? Do I need a pillow? I don't know. Do I need a pillow? I don't know if I need a pillow. And then all of a sudden was like, I'm a smart person, and I don't know if I need a pillow.

Megan Hale
Yeah.

Vivian Kvam
And it just hit. And that's been the past couple of months of thinking of that. Same with money or the other thing. She says, Be gentle on yourself. And I'm like, what are you talking about? I'm not beating myself up. And I was like, I'm beating myself up, like not taking a pillow. When I want a pillow, I'm cold. Why don't I cover myself up with a blanket? I don't know. And so I've thought about that a lot with money and the way that you've presented that, and it has taken through my six call so long of listening to Megan Hale say your money supports you. How do you want your money to support you? You've literally said it so many times and I thought, no, I work for my money. And then I was like, no, I don't. The money really is meant to support me. I'm not here to support the money. Yeah, so thank you for that. And it has taken me forever to understand.

Megan Hale
Well, I think that's why it's so helpful to, one, work with other people, but two, to hear the same thing over and over again. I think so many of us, especially as content creators, is like, we need to create new content all of the time. You really don't. You just need to say the same thing over and over again in different language because that's how your audience they're going to have that moment where it's like, oh, the light bulb goes off, right? Like, she's said this 9 million times and now, oh, I get it. I see it from this new perspective now. And so then once that thing clicks, now you have so much more awareness of like, yeah, how have I actually because the thing that we so often do with money is we say, well, I can't afford that. Really? Is that true though? Right? Or are you choosing to put your money in other areas instead? Or are you saying, well, if I do this thing, then if I spend it here, then I can't save this so I can't afford that? What would happen if you actually chose to allow your money to support you in this way that then allows you to make more and then you have both of these things. So it's really fascinating. The way I can't afford it is not a phrase that I say. It's not one that I say to my kids. It's not one that I say to myself. Very rarely is that true. I'm choosing to do something different with my money and that feels so much more empowering to me.

Vivian Kvam
I like that. And I think of it for the new business owner or the person who's not a business owner yet is really the way I should say that. Who's like, I want to be, I want to leave my job or I want to shift into this thing or I want to reenter into a career and create it myself. I think there's a lot of that. I can't afford to that come up. I can't afford to lose my benefits. I can't afford my paycheck cut. And I think of that all the time. What makes you think you're getting a paycheck cut? We have this mentality of if I start a business, I will take a cut in pay. Who said that? Who wrote that story? Because what if your paycheck doubles or triples? Or what if you don't need that insurance? Because now you can pay for the insurance eight times over yeah. So it's just an interesting thing to think about.

Megan Hale
I think entrepreneurship really comes there's a lot of risk with entrepreneurship, is how most people perceive it. But there's also different ways of thinking about the risk that you have at a job because you could be let go at any time. It's not guaranteed. There aren't very few guarantees in this world. So I think it's just choosing the type of risk that you really want to take. And I think entrepreneurship, I mean, it requires you learning a lot of new things, and it requires you to trust yourself immensely to make the right decisions at the right time. And that's going to be a learning process. Like, you're going to make tons of mistakes. You're not going to know everything. You're going to have to figure it out as you go. I mean, so much of building a business is honestly like building the airplane while you're literally flying it. And that can feel terrifying for people. So I think that's why nervous system regulation work is so key. How can you hold yourself in that discomfort? How can you really ground yourself, create that sense of internal safety that, yes, there's a lot of unknowns, there's a lot of uncertainty, and you're okay at the same time, and you can figure it out and you can find the people that know the things that you don't know. Like, you don't have to figure it out all on your own. But that's like a whole other conversation I was just going to say.

Vivian Kvam
It was like, what did you call it again? Nervous system.

Megan Hale
Nervous system regulation.

Vivian Kvam
Regulation. So that's something you can learn.

Megan Hale
Oh, yeah. I mean, the work that you're doing in yoga right now, that's part of it. You're learning to tune into your breath. You're learning to slow down all of your internal processes. You're learning to tune in to all of that feedback that your nervous system is giving you. I'm sure there's times when you sit down on your mat and you're like, I'm really anxious right now because your nervous system is activated, right? It's giving you that feedback of like, something's going on. I need to be worried, I need to be concerned, I need to be fearful. But the longer you sit and you breathe and you're steady and you slow everything down, your nervous system starts to relax too, right? Of like, oh, it's okay, it's safe. And that's really what happens when you're learning to, like when you're doing, like, mindset work, working through anxiety or depression or whatever that is. Your nervous system gets in these habits where it's used to feeling unsafe, and so you're learning to teach it to be okay, it's safe. You don't need to be activated right now.

Vivian Kvam
Yeah, I think a big part that helps me with that is morning routines.

Megan Hale
Oh yeah. The structure is huge. Yes.

Vivian Kvam
Like starting out the morning slowly, which is a little hard because my brain is firing like crazy in the morning. But it's one of the things I've worked hard on and I think has helped me be more successful in our work, is not racing into the studio, not flying about in the morning, but just like easing in. And I journal and I pray and I think, and that's when I read. So I let the cat sit on me. I have a cup of tea, but it also requires me to get up for me at about five, or else I'm like, oh my gosh, the day is over.

Megan Hale
I've tried to be an early person forever. It just doesn't work that way. I wake up when my kids get up. I have what I call slow coffee every morning when I just give myself all the time that I want to drink my coffee. And then I mosey about my day. I go to the gym, come back, start my workday fairly late, like ten or eleven, then I take a break for lunch. Not too long into that, and that works for me. But I have found because I live with anxiety and so a lot of that has been learning how to manage that and the structure of the routines, the slowness, really, really supportive and then also really challenging any concepts that I have around time scarcity because my anxiety, oh, my God. It loves to tell me there's not enough time. There's enough time to get hurry up, get out of hurry up. So a lot of my work is really resisting that of like, no, there's plenty of time. I get to choose how I move. Slow equals fast. My little mottos that keep me going in the way that I want to move.

Vivian Kvam
Yeah, repeat again, for sure. I'm curious too, as you are just moving through your journey right now. You've had a lot of changes.

Megan Hale
Yeah.

Vivian Kvam
Like the path we were talking about that before we hopped on here. But I'd love if you're willing just to kind of unpack what are you doing right now? Where are you going? What are things that have happened? I know you had your live event. That was last year, correct?

Megan Hale
Yeah, summer led my first conference back in April of 2022. I think so much of my so it's like probably my eight year business anniversary in like a couple of days. By the time this episode goes live, it will be officially eight years.

Vivian Kvam
Congrats.

Megan Hale
Thank you. And I spent the first four years of my business really thinking, like really focusing on a lot of the inner work that allows us to show up and pursue our purpose bravely in the world. And then when I started doing so much money healing work, that informed a whole other body of work. And that's where the money map came from and all of my calculators and understanding sustainable business design and all of those things. And so I think where I've arrived to now is actually bringing those two things together. And so my work moving forward is, yes, we'll still focus on the money pieces, but really helping people build their body of work and what that really means. So building out their philosophies, their intellectual property, their ideas, their wisdom, their unique methodology of how they're going to help people get results. And so that has been a really big transition for me lately, because I've started building out a lot of curriculum. And so my business, like, the way that I'm experiencing my day to day has greatly shifted because I'm doing so much behind the scenes work and kind of feeling like balancing the behind the scenes with needing to do the forward facing marketing. And the reason that's relevant to all of the other changes that have been going behind the scenes is that any time you have, like, a really big body of work that you're building, it's like writing a book, right? Or maybe even write several books by the time I get done with it. You're also navigating all of these other life shifts and stressors. I think ever since I've been an entrepreneur, I've been a mom to two young kids. My youngest just turned five, so that feels like a really big milestone. They're both in big boys' school next year. And I'm also an active-duty military spouse, so my partner is always leaving and coming to go on missions and things like that. And so I think balancing motherhood and being an active duty military spouse while also having a high output journey in my business right now is a lot, but I've never known anything but that. The last time we talked, I was kind of like, oh my God, I'm getting ready to leave my first conference, I am going through lunch, my husband's gone, and I'm on my own with the kids. And then those weeks, it's like it does feel like a lot, but then you work your way out of it, and it's just part of it.

Vivian Kvam
Yeah. And you've brought team on. Is this the first you've done that?

Megan Hale
Yeah, I grew the team this past year, so I ended up I've always had like well, I won't say always, but I've had one team member who's worked with me for two years now, and she's like my right hand. She does so many amazing things that helps the business just function on a day to day. But one of the things that I wanted to move into was bringing on more coaching support for my clients and then bringing on more marketing help because I just can't do all of the things all the time. And I made that transition earlier last year and was planning on moving into additional launches, bringing on more clients, and that ended up not happening. Just everything that I had on my plate, it just wasn't a sustainable timeline for me. So I had to kind of scale back. So I learned a lot around one, the hiring process, how long that really takes and especially the onboarding, because it's going to take some energy to really allow somebody else to learn all of the things that you because you've built the thing from the ground up. You know how everything functions. You know all of the values, you know all of the content. You know your ideal client. You know all of the things, right?

Vivian Kvam
Definitely.

Megan Hale
And now you have to teach somebody else that and they need to learn it. And that took a lot more time and energy than I was anticipating, which put me in the weeds really quickly. And then also figuring out staffing needs for your client roster, like how many coaches do you need based on how many clients? And how can you anticipate when you need to hire based on when you expect more clients? And it's just so much learning just in that alone, but also something you can't really know until you go through those growth edges. So ended up hiring. And then I had to let people go because we pushed out timelines and all of those things, which is hard, hard conversations, hard leadership decisions. And you just have to practice grace and compassion with yourself, like you're just a human being figuring it out and then you know better or you have more data to go off of next time.

Vivian Kvam
Yeah, that's the piece that I think is so valuable to remember is that it can be frustrating or disheartening or.

Megan Hale
Just not what you pictured.

Vivian Kvam
Learnings are so valuable and there's no way to manufacture those. You can listen to podcasts, you can read books, you can talk to mentors. They can tell you their stories. But until you allow yourself to go through it and the previous episode, I was talking with Mary Ann here, Chanson, we were talking about fear, and she was saying, everything you want is on the other side of fear. It really is.

Megan Hale
Oh, yeah. I think the thing that's going to serve entrepreneurs like the best is just to have a learning growth mindset, to always be learning, to always be growing. And in that growth is not usually comfortable having to do things that we haven't done. And I think the other thing that is challenging around business, my value set anyways, is I always say we're human first, always. And so that means that if your mental health is struggling, you push back. You don't go into that launch, you don't add one more thing to your plate. You say, no, not right now. Right. And that can dictate sales, it can dictate revenue, it can dictate timelines, it can dictate all kinds of things. But if you're not taking care of you, then you're going to I mean, so much relies on your well being. If you've ever been in a place trying to run a business, when you're really not okay. It's the hardest thing to do. And so I think the more you can honor yourself, honor your capacity, honor what you really need in any given season, if things have to change and rearrange, that's what is going to have to happen and that's hard. So I think business, especially when you're bringing on team members, it's an added responsibility because now somebody is counting on you for revenue and what if that changes? And it's not black and white, but you have to think about the business and what it needs and say, okay, if I keep all this team on one, they don't have the work they need to do. So that's not going to be fulfilling for them because now they can't have the impact that they want to have in your organization. And then from a cash flow perspective, the business cannot continue to pay for support that it's not really needing or using. So those are some hard decisions that you have to make, but I think as you make them and you'll get comfortable making those decisions and it's not personal, it's just you have to honor needs and you have to honor capacity and all of those other things.

Vivian Kvam
Yeah, that's good. It's one of my favorite things and I say it all the time on here about being a business owner is one, it's a personal growth plan, like accelerated. And two, you just get to have such if you choose it, you get to have such great impact as a leader because if you're leading a team or you're leading in your community, there's opportunities to lead in your community in different ways or you're leading in your industry. So those two things together but they can be very uncomfortable at the same time.

Megan Hale
Oh yeah, definitely. I think that the other thing is you're usually leading in public too. That can add some additional vulnerability to all of it. But I think if you're really clear on your values and where you're making decisions from, even in the hard ones, it's like you know that it's the right decision to make. And I think that's the thing that really just holds me, it guides me.

Vivian Kvam
Yeah, that's one of our it's actually how we started the podcast out was with core values for your business and personal both and they come up a lot because it really does. So I love that you tied that in too. They're called core values for a reason. It is the core. And if you can come back to those, and that does help you set your goals around your money, or set your goals on not having goals, whatever that needs to be, if you can come back to those, it just makes decision making so much easier and can help you ease through some of those more difficult decisions.

Megan Hale
Oh yeah, there's no game plan for your business being successful in this. World because no one's had your business, no one's been you growing this business. And so you have to learn how to trust yourself and making the right decisions for you. And there's no way that you can know what is right if you don't have the North Star that's guiding you. And I also think, like, doing some self work of really understanding yourself is really key. So taking assessments and personality inventories and things like that I think can give you a little bit of a lens. Like, for instance, one of my human design pieces is that one of my lines, if you're familiar with human design, is the martyr. And when I first learned that about myself, I was like, oh, my gosh, do I just lay on the floor for other people? That's actually not what it means. It means that I am willing to take the risk to go out and find the thing and then bring that wisdom back for others. And so it really allowed me to see that me being willing to learn in public and to lead in public is actually part of my personality as part of what I'm here to do. It's one thing that I really add to our society. So I think that that can be helpful, is just seeing how some of those things need to also show up in your values. So my values are not traditional, and I'm sure that doesn't really surprise you, knowing me, but like, human first, Leo second. That's a company value of mine. We're always going to honor capacity first. It's not about the task that needs to get done. It's about how are you? How are you right now? First and foremost, but also transparent leadership and being willing to learn in public is also core value because otherwise you will keep yourself kind of stuck in that sense of, I'm scared to go and do this because what if I mess it up? What if I screw it up? You're going to. How can you create safety around that that allows you to take that imperfect action? Because that's how things really get made and done.

Vivian Kvam
Yeah, I love that. So many things that we could explore.

Megan Hale
I know.

Vivian Kvam
So many good topics. So I've been asking this question a lot more and I was really excited to ask you, what is that specifically? Just thinking about how we shape our world through our businesses. We can have such impact and that can be good impact and it can be poor impact. I think we choose. So the question is, what do you think business owners can do? Or if you'd rather take it just humans can do to make the world better? I know it's a big one.

Megan Hale
Well, personally, I think the culture that you're creating inside your company gets to be whatever you want it to be. How can you make that more human centric? Because I think capitalism tells us that it's around profit over everything. And a lot of us are imprisoned by that. We're imprisoned by productivity. We're doing all of these things that actually minimize our well being and our connection and we have such a rich opportunity to redefine that for ourselves and our companies and to take a stand for that. I also think when you are shaping culture, you need to also be bold about that and verbal about that so other people know because whether they're a client of yours or not, you're an example of what could be possible, and that can ripple out in lots of different ways. I also think from a financial standpoint; I'm really big on making a give back into your business. So the 2% pledge is really that initiative of taking 2% of your revenue and giving it to organizations that are creating the type of change that you want to see in the world. I think that that's a really, I'll say simple way of making a bigger difference. But it's really like the culture piece, the values piece, those things kind of have to be dialed in first, I guess. That's not really true. You could do the give-back first. But I think the thing that keeps people stuck with giving there's several things. One of them is not necessarily knowing what you really care about that you want to give funds to. And so what I typically say is you don't have to be married to a cause, you don't have to be married to an organization. It's by the process and practice of giving that you actually get clear on where you want that money to go and what you want it to do in the world. So I think being clear on the culture, being verbal about that culture and then putting some money behind it is a really great way of making a larger impact in the world.

Vivian Kvam
Yeah, I love it. That is a piece that we have kept from just working with you and it resonated so well. It was something we had built into the business from the beginning but we didn't really built it in, do you know what I mean? Like you helped us actually put a number behind it and go let's make categories and buckets, et cetera. And so we have that built in now and it's a neat thing to be able to say, no, we have money for that, we want to give to that and here's the money to do it.

Megan Hale
The thing I love about the 2% pledge too is that that 2% gets to grow with you. Like as the company earns more, you're able to give more, or if the company earns less than one year, you'll be giving less. But it's still 2% of your overall revenue. So I think it's something that allows you to stay constant. Instead of saying I'm going to give $1,000 or whatever that amount is, a percentage works a lot better when it comes to those things.

Vivian Kvam
I can get a little nerdy about percentages for that very reason.

Megan Hale
I love margin.

Vivian Kvam
Yes, it's great because you're like, okay, it does feel more easeful in that regard versus these, like, dollar amounts. So I love that.

Megan Hale
Yeah, definitely. I think it'd be really motivating to earn more, too. Especially, like, when we get our, like, our Good, Better, Best goals out there. We can really see how that 2% grows over time. So that can be really motivating if that's like, a huge money motivator for.

Vivian Kvam
You and that's a tool that you're offering.

Megan Hale
Yes. So Good, Better, Best Goals was really the foundation for me making those structural shifts that I did in 2018. Because up until that point, I've been chasing after this random revenue goal that people were saying, this is how much money you need in order to have a successful business. And I kept on pursuing that and failing miserably at it, by the way. So when I was getting ready to go into maternity leave, I really had to get clear of how much money do I really need to earn in order to feel financially supported so I don't stress about things. And that really allowed me to calculate what I call my good goal, because if I could get that money, reach that milestone, I was good, I was covered. And then I asked myself, well, if I could do that, then what would come next? And then that became a better goal. And if I could do that, then what? And that became my best goal. And so Good, Better, Best really became just these beautiful milestones that were really personally meaningful and relevant to me and my family. And it's so incredibly motivating. And now, Good, Better, Best Goals is what I help people create for themselves and their businesses. And then also weaving in the magic of profit first, which is all around understanding your margin. So if this is how much you want to make personally, how much does the business need to make in order to ensure that you're getting paid? Your taxes are getting paid, the business has what it needs, your team has what it needs, and all of those other things. So Good, Better, Best Goals is a really short mini course to help you get some foundational financial clarity and set really personal, meaningful money goals for yourself.

Vivian Kvam
Awesome. And then we chatted about this before, but we'll make sure there's a link available.

Megan Hale
Yeah, definitely. Go and check it out on that.

Vivian Kvam
And what's the best way for someone to connect? We'll put it in the show notes. Is it for your website? Email. Social media was kind of your preferred. Someone wants to reach out.

Megan Hale
Definitely, my website would be the best way. Social media, sometimes I'm on social media, sometimes I'm not. I do a lot of my marketing just through emails. So if you want to stay in touch. Definitely get on my email list. Which you would go to the website to do.

Vivian Kvam
Yes, and I highly recommend getting on the email list. I get your emails and every once in a while respond back with something once every couple of months. But I do read them and they're great. I enjoy getting those emails.

Megan Hale
So thank you.

Vivian Kvam
Thanks so much for being on today.

Megan Hale
Of course, thanks for having me.

Vivian Kvam
And talking about money. Oh, yeah, I think it's great.

Megan Hale
It's my fave. I think there's a lot of taboo about it and the more we talk about it, the more we shift how we think about it, how we feel about it, how we approach it, stepping into more of it, all of those things.