Hey fellow entrepreneurs, welcome to the Buckets and Boone Gates Studio with Kim White, Jill Olish, and many other brilliant entrepreneurs. Determined to solve world problems for entrepreneurs, this community is changing how we look at the big things we do on our business adventure and sharing from their own lives ways to protect our time, money, and bandwidth. This show is designed for you, the entrepreneur, to hear behind the scenes stories of real business people across the globe and learn what is possible for you. Keep listening to join today's juicy conversation with Kim and Jill. Welcome to the Buckets and Boom Gates studio. I am Jill Olish and I am joined by the fierce Kim White. Kim, thank you so much for joining me today on the podcast. I love podcasting with you, Jill. It was a good time. It was a very good time. Well today we are talking about money rhythms and how to make money feel calmer without needing a complicated spreadsheet. So if you are avoiding your bank account until you're terrified, this episode is for you and me. Kim, I think as we talk about this topic, we will automatically go ahead and explain what money rhythms are. But can you start with some framing and telling us why rhythms matter for our money? Rhythms matter in all areas of our business and life. But money is a big one. It can make or break you. There are so many entrepreneurs who only talk about money when something happens like a crisis and they panic because they feel their human value is tied to their monthly dollars. So we've got two different scenarios kind of going on in the same human. We all have to make money in business or we won't stay in business. So listen clearly. I do know how important it is to make money in your business, but I also know what it means to ignore your money and finances and how that sets you up for real failure. Not your human value, but your business closing its doors. And that's scary to me. I don't want anyone to close their doors because of something they're not handling in their business. A rhythm can be a crisis, so you can get in a mode of crisis to crisis to crisis. That is actually a rhythm that you don't want, but that is a way a lot of business owners operate. If you want to be successful, then I think there's a very sexy way of handling your money. And we're not talking about perfection or advanced accounting. We're talking about a simple weekly check in that keeps you informed and peaceful. So the peace comes from the known. You can know exactly where you are in your finances and start doing something about it instead of living in fear of the unknown all the time. And Jillo, I love the episode or the show of Good Morning Entrepreneurs number one forty seven. We'll put that out there that. That is our weekly live stream we talk about in here. But I shared about growing up in poverty and how I had no idea to handle money. And it kept me in a state of survival mode and panic mode and really total chaos. That is not a peaceful way to live. And we want better for you, sweet listener. Definitely. If you've been listening along with these episodes from the beginning, this episode might bring up some feels for you, just like it is for me from one of our original co-hosts, Carrie Zarb. She was the money barista. So she talked all about this stuff. And yeah. We miss Carrie because she is the one that should be talking about this. Let me say that. I talk about it from lived experience. She talked about it from lived experience, but she also taught about how to do things with your money. So I think this is a very special episode and jill i'm with you i miss carrie i'm not in any way able to fill her shoes in this episode so i am just facilitating the conversation because there is so much that i miss from the practices that she helped us put in place and one practice that we have from our sticky note time is to keep an appointment on our calendar with ourselves which is one example of a rhythm. So, and alongside that, Carrie was able to help us figure out, you know, you can place this money spot alongside with that. So it'd be great. It is a great spot. And I know from experience, because I have tried it to add in a money date. So Kim, what would a money date look like for us? Well, I'm going to give you my money date that I have. I have a meeting every single week on Friday morning, early, early in the morning, so nothing ever is a conflict, that I do this. This is a practicing of this, so I want you to know if you set this up, what we're going to talk about, and then you know you fall off the wagon so to speak and then you get back on keep getting back up because it can't become a habit and a consistent thing but a simple cash flow rhythm to break down weekly And it's like having a date because you're the CEO of your company. You're having a date with like the higher ups. Just think of it that way. You're having a date with yourself. And if you have to, pretend you put somebody else in the other seat with you that is the CEO. Like you're the one that's in charge of this. So be very serious about it. But pick one day. Pick a time every week and same time, same place, twenty to thirty minutes. When you first start, let me say this, when you first start, twenty or thirty minutes may seem like there's no way you can get through all the stuff. But start with this week. Start small. Don't try to do the last twenty five years. draw a line in the sand and say, this is where I started the money date. This is the realistic picture. This is what I'm going to do this week. You have to have a location. So If it's at your desk, fine. If it's, you know, with coffee so that you at least are, you know, enjoying some part of this date. It could be a coffee date. That's Carrie. That's Carrie. That makes me miss her even more. But what you look at is simple, simple, simple. What's your starting balance? And if it's negative, don't be scared. It's okay. You're going to figure this out. What's in your business account right now? So look at that. If you have more than one account, make sure you know why you have more than one account to look at. Put that in on paper. Put it in writing. Write down your money in. All the payments you received. Subscriptions, launches, client payments, like anything that comes in. In that week, write it down so that you have it in front of you visually so that you can decipher things. Money out this week. So we pay for tools. We pay for subscriptions. We pay for contractors. We pay for expenses. Around here, one of the things that's not negotiable for me is we use the all-in-one platform of Kajabi. I know every month on this date, Kajabi is going to be a payment I pay. because it makes all the difference in our business. So look at that. When you're looking at your, your things, the money is going out for make sure they're like stuff you really, you really need, um, what's coming up. What do I need to expect to pay next week? So that I make sure I'm not spending, you know, money this week on something I actually need for next week. And cancel some tools if you need to. Set aside some money for bigger expenses or for taxes or whatever. Hold off on something that you want really bad, but maybe it doesn't make your business better instantly. If you're going to learn something, It takes more bandwidth. So think about it. Do you really where you're at? Do you really have enough time to learn a new tool? Don't buy it until it's time. Don't buy it until you have the time to set aside for it. So you can do this with a simple notebook. I think old school handwriting to start with is magical because it makes you engage your brain in a different way. That's like science behind it. but you also can do a digital doc. You can put it in and as long as you're able to read it and understand it, keep it super simple and no spreadsheet heroics. I will say Carrie is the queen of spreadsheets. She knows how to operate them and set them up and all of that. That's awesome because Carrie has gifted a lot of us with spreadsheets that we still use. but if you're not the queen of all spreadsheets don't be heroic about this just keep it simple or you're gonna dread it every week and it really can turn into something that you maybe i won't cross over to the enjoy part but but you won't dread it it won't be like maybe how you feel right now yeah One place that I've used is our Sticky Note Time Planner because it has a calendar in it and I can look, you know, each week, keep track of things. I was able to just write in the calendar when things were due or when I was expecting a payment and it helped give me an overall picture in a single spot that I was in every week anyway. So I was able to use that pretty successfully and Um, but Kim, when we talk a lot about business and money, it's, it's not always where I should say, we talk a lot about business. We don't always talk about the money part because our money's not, you know, our minds aren't always on the money in a lot of our conversations. It's about how to set up our business to have a sexy life, but it is important. You do say that we need to make money in order to stay in business, right? So let's touch on having a healthy business and our self-worth, since we did talk about that in the beginning, too, for a minute. So I kind of have to say, you know, business health versus self-worth, they're actually two completely different things. And I want you to recognize when you start crossing them, commingling them. So, you know, it's easy to feel like a failure when you're not bringing in the big, you know, big bucks. Maybe you're feeling like a genius when you've got a big month of income from clients. You've got to stop that, both sides of that, because that is not the proof you are valuable anymore. this you got to separate your human from the dollars so i i'm i'm going to say this i didn't understand how to do this whenever i was younger because of growing up in poverty because of not understanding money i'd get you know paid and i would make a good amount of money and i'd spend it before i would even get home because I was afraid that was all I was ever going to have this fear. I had this fear of if I didn't go buy something, I wasn't really valuable to, you know, to a business. And the truth is my value has nothing to do with the money I make or don't make in my business. It's not what your value is either. Sweet listener. Self-worth is who you are and how you show up. Business health is about numbers. You've got to crunch the numbers. You've got to have your weekly meeting. You've got to look at what's coming in and going out so that you can make wise decisions and great decisions. If you're paying for a tool that you're not using, get rid of it. It's like getting a raise instantly. If you're paying for something that you know, it's not working either figure out how to make it work or get rid of it. These are like business decisions that you have to be grown up and responsible about. And I just, I was pretty old. I'm going to say before I got responsible before, before I started figuring things out and I still have many things to figure out, but I think this is a, it's not success and failure alone. based on who you are as a human, it's your business numbers. If they're not working right, you've got to change that. But look for trends. As you do this weekly and as you're going along, look for those, not just the one week. Look for, hey, look, I messed up here. Okay, we have all messed up, so now fix it. Like go back in and correct whatever the decision behind it was. And you'll find that over time, your money will get better. Your spending will get better. The money coming in will get better because you're understanding more about how to do real business. And you will separate your worth out of that so that you are not, you know, you're not tying that to, oh, I'm such a failure because I didn't make twenty thousand this month. What does that have to do with you being an amazing human? So maybe you made some bad decisions. Maybe you didn't do something. Whatever it is, that does not tie to your worth as a human. So just going to say this again. avoiding numbers surprise overdrafts and fear can feel like a lifestyle and it is when we make that the rhythm of our life we're panicking all the time we're we're doing those things it's horrible But when you put that money, that weekly date, it can change everything. You can feel more calm. Even if the numbers are bad, you can feel more calm because now you have a plan to fix it. Now you know what you're going to be doing. You get fewer surprises and you're making better decisions. Maybe they're small to you during the week that you feel like, but over time they add up to really big, wiser decisions if you're taking it serious. Sorry, I got all passionate there, Jill. It's so understandable because I think it was last year I started incorporating my husband into my financial meetings. Like, why didn't I do that? It's life, not just business, right? So we now treat all of our finances as a business meeting for the two of us. And that has helped us get a bigger, clearer picture on things. But I also do my best to keep up some kind of rhythm because otherwise we're like, oh my gosh, we have no money to pay our bills. But also in the long run, tax season... That comes up for all business owners. I feel like I'm underwater trying to get through it if I don't keep up with it. And I've done both. I've done it where I kept up every month. for a whole year and the tax season went so smoothly. It was amazing. But then also I let life get the best of me. Like this past year, I didn't do any tracking of my finances and it took hours to get through my taxes. So I know just how good it feels when you do it with this rhythm versus without a rhythm. Yeah. I've been successful at it. So it's hard, but like you said, you know, get back up off and get back on the wagon for that part. Um, so we really want you to have a win and not have this struggle in your business finances to lose your confidence, to, to feel like you can't have it attainable. So we want you to have a win this episode. Kim, what can we work on today? So today, like you can set the date. You can pick the date, the day and the time that you're going to sit down, even if it can't be today. Pick the day and time you're going to do it. Decide where you're going to sit and how you'll make it feel safe. Because when you're talking money, it can bring up a lot of insecurity. It can bring up a lot of fear. It can bring up just a lot of panic. What am I going to do? But here's, here's the thing I want you to hear really, really important is when you start doing this, you won't have those moments anymore. You'll stop having those survival conversations of what are we going to do? Because you know, tomorrow's the day kind of conversations. So decide where you're going to sit. Maybe it's in your big comfy chair with a cup of coffee. And again, I miss Carrie. Maybe it's in, you know, in front of the fireplace. Make it something for your mood to be. help you understand this is a good thing. This is not a bad thing. You're not being punished because you have to do your finances. You actually get the opportunity to see the possibilities for your life and business by doing this. So five things. I want you to look at five things. And Carrie is like such a I just think stellar example of telling us these things. Write down your starting balance. That's one. Write down all the money in. That's two for the week. Make sure you're using those parameters. Money out for the week. That's three. What's coming up for the next week you have to pay. That's four. And what is one tiny decision to make something better? So again, canceling something, you know, changing a tool, downgrading. We just did a downgrade on one of our tools that because of the meeting, I realized we were paying more than what we were actually using. We still needed the tool, but we downgraded. So we are saving like six hundred dollars a year because of one tiny decision to go, oh, we don't have to have the bigger plan. We can have a smaller plan. so those are little things but you don't have to do it perfectly show up for yourself once a week and be the ceo of your business in your life that you are capable of here's a short recap money rhythms create calm all around in you, in your business, help you get a better understanding of what things look like. And when we have that better picture, we are more calm. And then also you are not your revenue. Your confidence does not rely on the money that you're bringing in. Your, your worst does not rely on that. So just remember you as a human are worth everything. And yeah. Yeah. So if this helped you share this episode with one business friend who is tired of being terrified of their money accounts and tune in for next time where we're talking about hiring help without losing your mind. Yeah. Buckle up for that one. But thank you again so much for listening listeners. We could not have this podcast and make it better without you. So we hope that you'll tune in next time. Love y'all. Thank you for joining Kim and Jill in the Buckets and Boomgate studio for today's conversation. Don't forget to follow the show for future juicy episodes and they can't wait to chat with you next week.
