My husband Mick joined the Baltimore City Teacher’s Residency FIVE DAYS after our wedding. He’s been a high school teacher for the 16 years we’ve been married.
During this time, he’s been the primary income earner in our couple. His consistent salary and our willingness to lower our expenses is what allowed me to stay home with our two sons for four years, to work part-time as a financial advisor, and to create my dream financial coaching business four years ago. He’s been 100% supportive of my dreams since the day we met (March 8, 2004).
Mick loves teaching and has excelled in his numerous teaching roles. But around two years ago, Mick started to explore the world of life coaching. For as long as I’ve known him, Mick’s been on a path of self-discovery and has coached in various programs over the years, but it wasn’t until Covid highlighted the various and persistent challenges of the people around him that he contemplated the possibility of becoming a paid life coach.
I’m excited to announce that 2021-22 was Mick’s final year as a full-time teacher. Starting NOW, he’ll be teaching part time while growing his full-time life coaching business!
We did not come to this decision quickly. We created a month-to-month financial plan, and we’ve been implementing it for the past year, getting coaching when we hit roadblocks along the way.
Most of the roadblocks haven’t been around our actual finances, they’ve been around how we think about our finances. It took another coach to objectively point out where our limiting money beliefs were stopping us from taking this leap.
On my first call with new clients, I ask them what they want to get out of working together. Paying off debt, learning to budget, and saving for a specific goal are usually at the top of the list. Yes, we will do all of that and it will be amazing, but what do you REALLY want? What’s that pushed-down dream that’s whispering inside you? I guarantee that if you’re not pursuing it, some level of financial fear (often masked as disorganization and confusion) is getting in the way.
How do we get to the bottom of this fear? Start by listing the thoughts you have when you consider pursuing this dream. Don’t hold back, let the thoughts flow and do your best not to judge them. The first step to tackling any fear is to become aware of it and consider where your thinking about it stems from.
I grew up with a solopreneur father who ran his own successful business. Without knowing it, I saw examples of the intense satisfaction that comes from living your purpose and creating financial freedom doing it. I never balked at starting a business, but Mick didn’t have these examples. Like most of my clients, his parents worked 9-5 jobs and didn’t venture into entrepreneurship. It seemed like a stretch to him – something that other people did, but he’d never it try because why would he give up the safety of his regular paycheck?
When we inspect where our fears come from, we can choose to cling tightly to the thoughts creating our fears or to release them and to create new thoughts that better serve us.
The Plan Ahead Budget I use with my clients allows them to see a detailed financial plan to reach their goals, and they LOVE it. But our deeper work is confronting the money scripts we’ve created over time and creating new possibilities for our money and our lives. It’s the work I’ve been put on this planet to do, and I’m grateful.