#77 The More Money You Have They More You Can Contribute to Support Others with Tina Van Leuven

“When enough trailblazers have the courage to step outside the crab bucket and realise that by being true to yourself, choosing joy and allowing yourself to choose expansion, growth and transformation through joy, what a different world we can create!” – Tina Van Leuven

Overview of the Episode

How do you upgrade your money mindset and realign your soul back to your life and business?

In today’s episode 77 of Meaningful Work, Meaningful Life podcast, I’m excited to have on the show, Tina van Leuven, author of Money and Miracles and co-author of #1 Amazon bestsellers ‘Choosing Happiness’ and ‘Cultivating Joy’.

In this soulful conversation, Tina shares the key lessons she has learned the hard way to overcome self-doubt, fear of rejection and being a people pleaser.

Now she’s helping creative entrepreneurs, healers and coaches to upgrade their money mindset and align their soul back to their life and business.

Here’s a snapshot of a few things we talked about

There is so much distortion and illusion that money is the source of our happiness. Money has been turned into an authority, a source of power and the source of our security, safety, freedom or independence for many, but we need to realise that all this stuff has been projected onto money. Money itself is not our source of happiness.
When you make anything, including money, the source of your happiness, the source of your freedom, the source of your security, the source of your safety then in times of uncertainty, everything crumbles. But if your sense of security and safety comes within you no matter what is going on in the world, it doesn’t matter whether you have money or not you know that you’ll be guided to be in the right place. You need to trust that everything you require will always show up at the right time.

Money tends to trigger a lot of fear because with survival and safety, when that’s threatened or seems to be threatened, it triggers fear and fear triggers the body’s stress response also known as fight or flight.
Understand the difference between real fear and false fear. When you are in a heightened state of worry or anxiety, it triggers a stress response in the body, and you can start feeling exhausted but may not make any connection between worrying and feeling anxious, being the cause of this response in the body.

Worrying and being anxious is the source of a lot of our insecurities. It is essential to be kind to yourself. If you are in fear, worrying or in anxiety mode no amount of meditating, doing yoga, going to the beach, exercising will help to relax. Acknowledge that you are in freak out mode and take a couple of nice deep breaths. Just breathe in peace and breathe out everything that’s stressing you out for however long is required. This will give you a moment to rebalance and give the body a moment to regroup. And it’s only after that you go into nature or do something that relaxes you.
The fear of being rejected can stop you from saying what works for you and what doesn’t work for you and no other topic brings this up better than money. You need to get clear on what works for you, what doesn’t work for you, what are you tolerating in your life, what are you putting up within your life, who are you tolerating or putting up with? Getting to confront our behaviour and understand how to make that work for us is crucial.

The four pillars of joyful living are joyful body, joyful money, joyful business, and joyful relationships. Find your passion, focus on where you find joy in whichever aspect of your life this may be. Once you start to do this, you are on track to discover your purpose, evolve it or expand it.

We have to unlearn certain things to progress and develop. When you realise that something that was once helping you is now holding you back, you need to give yourself permission to let go of these protective barriers that you have unintentionally put in place.
Sometimes you have to put your pride to one side and allow support from others. You will have low points, but knowing that you have support around, you will make things much easier in the long run.
Don’t be afraid of being different, it may result in backlash, but being a trailblazer takes courage and choosing to do something different allows you to expand and grow as a person.

Fire Questions and Answers

When you travel, do you select your flight by the cheapest or by the duration?

I chose the aircraft type.

If you had just a laptop and a hundred dollars, what would you do?

First of all, get clear on what it is that lights you up? What is fun for you? What do you love doing? If you had all the money in the world, what would you still be doing?

And then look to see, I would probably start up a Facebook group or some other platform and start inviting people who resonate with that message and then begin offering experiences.

I love doing five-day challenges for people. And that doesn’t take a whole lot of money to do all of that. So it’s about connecting with others, asking this is where you got to be willing to ask, to receive feedback.

What is financial freedom for you?

Financial freedom for me has the freedom to do what you love to do when you want to do so that you can say yes to something because it resonates not because you’re looking at.

What is your definition then of meaningful work and meaningful life?

Meaningful work for me is I think that it nourishes you. It fills you up when you are doing what is meaningful for you. You feel like you are making a contribution to the world, and you could keep going and going and going.

You lose track of time when you’re doing what you’re doing because your heart is so in it. You love it so much that you wouldn’t call it work, even though it takes work and effort. You feel like you’re leaving the world a better place.

Last piece of guidance to do more for meaningful work and live a meaningful life

I would say, ask yourself the question. What will it take to have a meaningful life? What will it take to have a meaningful business? And then the inspiration that’s going to come and you ask the questions, and the answers will come. And when you ask what will it take and whatever answers come then look to see, what is one thing that I can do right now, or today that’s going to move me closer in that direction?

Quotes by Tina Van Leuven

No matter what is going on in the world, you know, that you are secure within you. And when you are in that space of being secure within you, then it doesn’t matter whether you have money or don’t have money.
Let your heart be open and allow yourself to get really good at creating healthy boundaries.
Joyful living to me are: joyful body, joyful money, joyful business, and joyful relationships.
Nothing zips the joy out of you faster than judgment.
If you want to overcome the fear of rejection, then parts of that curriculum include the people-pleaser program and one of the things that it includes is boundaries.
You can prepare yourself and clear out fears and worries to a certain degree; until you’re in the actual situation you don’t know what it’s going to be like.
I realise that I had to get over myself and whatever pride I felt had prevented me from asking and knowing that as much as I love to give, I had to allow others the opportunity to give to me as well.
Money can be a really joyful experience. It’s not about how much you have; it’s about how you feel about what you have and what you allow yourself to receive.
The more money than you have, the more money you can contribute to support others, to support causes that you really believe in.

Action points

What is your key takeaway from this episode? What are you committed to doing today to find more meaning in your work and live a more meaningful life? Share your thoughts on my Facebook page.

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