Women don't make their own money.

While it was never said in exactly that way, this was a message that I received loud and clear as a child.

From the well intentioned grandmother who told me to "marry well" (and the other who outright said "marry rich!" to the many stories I heard about the financial dangers of being a single woman, not to mention various cultural inputs, the message was plain.

The man in your life is the one who provides financial security. Women don't have their "own" money.

For many years that has been a belief system that was pretty central to my relationship with money and with men. I believed myself to be reckless with money because that fit the story of women and money. One of my most destructive relationships, which I hung onto for far more years than I should have, was the result of that belief that I had to be with someone who would take care of me financially.

One of the ways that it showed up most obviously was in the early days of my business.

I was completely unable to make any money from selling my services and when I did get clients, I often found reasons not to charge them. Believe it or not, having a mindset that you cant make money stops you from making money!

But to illustrate how ridiculous this is, my mother has always been the primary breadwinner and has run her own successful business for decades. She's also not the only self employed or financially successful woman I know. I know plenty of them!

CLEARLY there has been proof right before my eyes that woman DO make and have their own money.

So why did I hold onto the belief for so long?

For the same reason we hold onto any belief, because our brain is designed to create a belief structure and then play out everything we do according to that belief.

I believed it for so long that it felt like it was just true EVEN THOUGH I had evidence under my nose that it wasn’t.

Which is why our mindset is a vital piece of being a successful business owner. Because we act according to what we believe.

If I believe that I'm bad at sales, I will act in a way that continues to prove it.

If I believe I don't know what I'm doing, I'll focus on the things I don't know how to do.

If I believe that I'm terrible at time management... you KNOW I'm going to be a hot mess.

Our belief systems have a direct impact on the things that we do so we have to be willing to explore what we believe about ourselves and our business and examine if those beliefs help up, or hold us back.