Inner Money Authority

 

Welcome to Module 3 of the Inner Money Authority. Thank you for following us for the first two modules and joining us during the live calls, sharing in the WhatsApp group and just in general being engaged. The first two modules were about creating awareness and identifying internally where doubt appeared and where you were leaking your authority. This week is taking that inner awareness and inner authority and expressing it in real money conversations with other people.

Examples of those conversations can be when you're stating your price or responding to a customer, discussing compensation or talking about money with a partner or other family member.

Often we as women, we know what we want financially, but when it comes to the moment of actually saying it out loud, something happens. We hesitate. And this is where we give our authority away. So today is focusing on a simple three-step process that can help you stay grounded and clear when you are talking about money, as well as practicing

different money conversations. The three-step framework is basically stating your situation clearly, focusing on facts, expressing your position, which is about expressing your needs and wants, and then finally inviting collaboration. A money conversation, even in a situation where the other party might not agree with you does not need to lead to confrontation. We are looking for ways to create collaboration and win-win situations.

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So step one is, as I said, stating the situation using clear facts. It's about taking away the emotion and being very, very clear about what it is that you are asking for. For example, "My rate for this work is X amount of euros". Or if you're in employment, "I have been in this role for, let's say 12 months, 18 months, and this is what I have delivered." So being very transparent and clear on the facts.

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The next step is expressing your positions. So as I said, this is about what are your wants or needs in a negotiation with an employee about your compensation.

It might sound like this, "I would like my compensation to reflect the work that I have delivered." Or if you're giving the price of your services to a client, then this part will be around "This is the rate that I offer."

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And this is where we can tend to fall into fears of rejection, fears of being wrong, of someone thinking that we do not potentially deserve what we are expressing. But here again, if we state very clearly what we need and it comes from us, then it is much easier to move away from those fears about what others are going to think of us.

 

And then the third step is the invitation to collaborate. Using expressions like how can we make this work? What flexibility do you have? What would you need to happen to make this possible? And here is really where we're shifting into a situation of collaboration and joint problem solving.

 

The worksheet for today includes five different exercises.

 

The first one is just about identifying money conversations that feel uncomfortable or difficult for you. Again, bringing in more awareness.

The second one is taking how you usually express yourself in money conversations and rewriting those expressions into authority language, into more empowered language so that you can start to think about how you are expressing yourself versus how you could be or would like to express yourself in money conversations.

The third exercise is taking this into identifying a real conversation that you have had or are about to have and using the three-step framework to work through how you would or how you will express yourself in that specific money conversation.

And the fourth exercise is really about practicing out loud. Something might make sense in your head, but until you have actually said it out loud, it's not really anchored into your body. So practicing out loud will make it easier when you're actually in that real life situation.

And the fifth exercise is an invitation to practice during the week in real life situations. And it's not about saying anything particular more than just asking for a moment to pause and giving yourself that moment to pause before responding to a price or a question or something that has to do with money in conversations during the week, we invite you to just say, let me think about that and get back to you instead of falling into the, I was going to say trap, but into potentially the

old habit of responding straight away, which we usually do when we want to get rid of a or get out of an uncomfortable situation. The tendency is to be very quick to respond. Here we're inviting that pause into a real conversation by just asking, "let me think about that. I will get back to you soon."

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So that's it for this week. This week is about noticing how you are showing up in real money conversations and starting to practice those shifts by speaking out loud, by reworking your typical conversations and by inviting yourself to pause before responding.

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We look forward to seeing you on Thursday. Hope these exercises are going to help you move into the real world with your money conversations.

 

See you soon!