THE INSPIRATION PLACE PODCAST
Barbara Huson: I got the idea to interview women who were making millions because that’s what I wanted to make. I would make six figures. I wanted to make millions. And what I found in those interviews was dazzling to me. It changed my life. Those women, it wasn’t that they were making such outrageous sums. It was how they were doing it. They were playing a different game than what the world i.e. men models.
Speaker 2: It’s The Inspiration Place podcast with artist Miriam Schulman. Welcome to The Inspiration Place podcast, an art world insider podcast for artists by an artist, where each week we go behind the scenes to uncover the perspiration and inspiration behind the art. And now your host Miriam Schulman.
Miriam Schulman: Our next guest is a financial therapist, wealth coach, and the author of multiple best selling books, including Overcoming Under Earning and Rewire for wealth. She spent decades helping women break through income ceilings by transforming their relationship with money, power and purpose. Please welcome to the The Inspiration Place Barbara Houston. Well. Hey there. Welcome to the show.
Barbara Huson:Hi. Thank you so much.
Miriam Schulman: I’m so happy to have you here. I love our little color scheme going on to this. We’re not wearing black today. I told one of my girlfriends that I got rid of everything black in my closet, and she says, well, you can’t live in New York City anymore. I was like, what? I said, no, all right. So I have I have my first question ready for you. We’re going to just like, dive in to keep this, like really short and juicy. Tell me about Underearners. How would you define an under earner?
Barbara Huson: So I was an under earner my whole life. I was an under earner for almost 50 years of my life. So I’m intimately familiar with the topic. And what happened is I wrote my second book. I interviewed women who made six and seven figures because that was my goal, and I had never made anywhere close to that. And I started making six figures before I even finished writing the book. And so then I wanted to teach others what I had learned. So I started giving overcoming under earning classes. And it’s been phenomenal. So let me that was just my way of saying, why am I the one to write a book on overcoming under earning? Because I was one?
Miriam Schulman: Yeah. Can I can I ask you a quick question? Well, it’s not none of these are quick questions, but do you think it’s true that most women have been socialized that way, though, to not that it’s wrong to desire to earn more? Or do you not believe that.
Barbara Huson: Many have many. Many many have.
Miriam Schulman: Say more about that.
Barbara Huson: So I’m going to go back first. Okay. Your first question I’m going to answer what is an under turner. Perfect would be surprising. And then I’ll say why so many women tend to be unprepared. Okay. Okay, great. So under Turner is anyone who earns less than she needs or desires, despite her efforts to do otherwise. An under turner has nothing to do with the amount you make. You can make six figures and still be an under earner. And you can make less and not be. I have three daughters. One one’s a stay at home mom, so we won’t talk about her. But one is an organic farmer and the other owns a small town movie theater. Now, neither of them make a lot of money, but they are not under earners. They make enough. They are what I call mindful low earners. They make enough to meet their needs. They’re not in debt, but they’re doing what they love because it feeds their soul under earning. Never is a conscious choice. It never feeds your soul. It is always a condition of deprivation and not just of money, but of time, of joy, of freedom, of choices. But most of all, of self-esteem. So it doesn’t matter how much you make it is if you have that desire or need to make more and you can’t, you are an earner. Okay, so why are so many women under earners? Because men there’s men under earners, of course. But in fact, that’s the only book I wrote where I interviewed men to all the rest of my or only for women. But the reason I believe there’s lots of reasons, but I believe it all boils down to three.
Barbara Huson: And part of what you said is the way we’ve been conditioned for sure. We have been conditioned to give our way are our skills, our knowledge, our experience for free or bargain prices because we don’t believe we’re worth more or we don’t believe we have value. And from that belief that we are not worth more, comes the second reason we tend to be notoriously codependent. We put everybody else’s needs before our own, and not just our families or friends, but total strangers. But ask us to put ourselves first. I mean, it may sound noble, but ask us to put ourselves first. And you know what happens? We feel guilty. Which brings us to the third. And this is the major reason. This is the number one reason people are under earners. Because you don’t want to be uncomfortable going to that next level, doing anything you’re not used to doing. Going outside your comfort zone is going to be uncomfortable, but all success in anything. I don’t care if it’s making more money or losing more weight. Everything lies just outside your comfort zone. So to overcoming under earning is to do what you’re afraid to do. And that is exactly what I learned. If you ask me one thing, there were many things, but one thing I learned from interviewing six and seven figure women. It was be willing to be uncomfortable. So now when I get scared, I go. I panic a little bit, and then I go. I scare myself all the time. I go, oh goody, that means I’m going to the next level.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah, I have an expression that I like to say to myself, which is successful people are willing to do things that unsuccessful people aren’t. Whenever I have that uncomfortable moment, like, I don’t want to do this, it’s like, yeah, but you can be the unsuccessful person not willing to do it, or you can try. It’s like you have a choice. You’re always free to choose. Which would you rather do?
Barbara Huson: Beautiful. So beautiful. So go for the discomfort. So I have been a I call myself a financial therapist and health coach. I’ve been doing this for over 40 years now. And the thing is, this is not how I grew up. I grew up in a wealthy family and.
Miriam Schulman: Oh, okay.
Barbara Huson: My father was the R of H&R block, and the only advice he ever gave me about money was don’t worry, because under that was the unspoken assumption there’ll always be a man to take care of you. And I love that advice. I thought it was great. I didn’t understand money. I just wanted to spend it. And there was always a man. First my father. And then I married a stockbroker. But what I didn’t realize until after we were married is that he was a compulsive gambler. And over the course of our 15 year marriage, I’d find out every year. Many times a year. 15 years. He was gambling away my money, my inheritance. And the insane part is, I continue to let him manage the money. And because I didn’t understand money, it was intimidating. It was terrifying. It was like looking at a foreign language. And finally, after our divorce, I decided I don’t want to deal with money. Money’s not my thing. Well, I have this theory that if you don’t deal with your money, your money will deal with you. And next year, I got tax bills for way over $1 million. Almost $1,800,000. I did not have that money. My ex had left the country and my father wouldn’t lend me the money.
Barbara Huson: And that’s when I knew I had to get smart. I had three daughters. They were young. One was just a baby. I was not going to raise those girls on the street. So I went to the classes. I read the books and my eyes would glaze over, my brain would fog up, and I just figure I was. But I had those girls I knew I had to. And I believe when you are committed, like down to your earth committed, the universe revolves to help you reach your goal. And I was working as a journalist, writing for the San Francisco Business Times, making zero money. And I was hired for a freelance project to interview women who were smart with money. Those interviews changed my life. I not only got smart about my money, but that’s when I wrote my first book. Prince Charming Isn’t Coming How Women Get Smart About Money. And then I had this whole new career traveling over the country doing financial education for women. But I couldn’t make money. Then I wrote my second book, Secrets of Six Figure Women started making money, and then I wrote. So now, seven books later, here I am talking to you as a financial expert.
Miriam Schulman: Hey, managing your mindset is powerful. It really is. But if you want to build real wealth from your art, you know mindset alone won’t get you there. By now, you know you need a coach who not only understands the inner game, but also knows how to get results in your creative business. And that’s what the Inner Circle is all about.
Speaker 4: I had no idea how hard it would be to market. You know my art. I had assumptions, but it’s hard to be able to sift through the clutter and the noise and be able to have a defined strategy. That that is tried and true, tested makes all the difference in the world. I saw results probably within 30 days. I started in February, and by June I had already sold over $30,000 in artwork.
Speaker 5: The number one thing is you taking action based on all the strategies and things that is in Miriam’s program every week? Pick one strategy that you want to try out and focus on that.
Miriam Schulman: Am I right to say you’ve made over $13,000 since you’ve joined?
Speaker 5: Yes. Yes. Yeah. Now it’s like slightly more. Um, but yeah.
Miriam Schulman: The inner circle gives you private coaching, strategic support and a powerful peer group to keep you accountable and on track. If you’re ready to turn your mindset shifts into actual income shifts. It is by application only. And to learn more, go to SchulmanArt.com/BIZ. Eye spots are very limited and to see if I do have room available, you can either email me or like I said, learn more over on my website SchulmanArt.com/BIZ.
Miriam Schulman: It’s so interesting how our childhood can shape us that way. So I had a very opposite experience as you. My mother was also taught don’t worry about money. And she did what her Jewish parents loved. She married a doctor who died when I was five years old and my sister was three. So having that be my early experience, seeing my mother, who had kind of put like had made a bet on having her husband take care of her, find herself widowed at age 27 with two kids. Having that be my early experience, it was like, well, I don’t want that to ever happen to me. So and kind of like, it’s not even what your parents tell you. It’s what you experience. Growing up. You experienced your mother being taken care of. You experience yourself being taken care of. I experienced my mother having, you know, being left with not, you know, not having finished college. He did go back to college. And so that was my early experience was like, well, okay, that’s never going to happen to me. And so when instead of becoming an artist at first I went to Wall Street because I was like, well, I better go where they make a lot of money because I want to make sure that I can take care of myself. So it’s so interesting how these early experiences shape us that way.
Barbara Huson: Our early experiences 100% shape us 100%. We are from the age 1 to 7. Our brain is so impressionable, and we build these deep neural pathways that follow us until we consciously change them. Which is why my last book I wrote, I brought in neuroscience. The book is called rewire for wealth because trying to change your behavior, going against your behaviors controlled by your brain, trying to go against the conditioning in your brain. It’s like going against gravity.
Miriam Schulman: So let me ask you, what does science say about why it’s so hard to change our money habits?
Barbara Huson: So it’s hard to change our money habits because a habit is really something we do over and over again until it gets. It’s like we’re digging these deep neural pathways, these deep ditches in our brain. So every time we overspend, every time we go, oh, but I deserve it. Every time we give ourselves these messages. Oh, I don’t have to save. It’s going to be fine. We dig that ditch deeper or there’s never enough. There’s not enough. We just dig it deeper and our brain controls our behavior. And so trying, as I said, trying to behave differently than our neural pathways are directing us. It’s like going against gravity. It’s really hard. It’s like swimming upstream in a strong current, but understanding how the mind and brain work together because the brain is an organ in our head, but our mind is this non physical, non tangible that that is a source of our thoughts and feelings and is our thoughts and feelings that shape our brain. So if we want to change the neural pathways in our brain controlling our behavior, we change our thoughts and feelings.
Miriam Schulman: Okay. All right. So how do we do that.
Barbara Huson: So it took me about eight years to figure this out. I did a lot of experimenting, working with my clients, working with me, and I came down to three steps to rewiring your brain for wealth and whatever else you want. This works with everything. So let me tell you the three steps, and then I’ll explain them very briefly. And then if you want to ask questions, the three steps are recognize, reframe respond differently. So the first step recognize Start observing your thoughts. Start looking for any negative, any pessimistic, any unhealthy thoughts about, well, we’ll use money or whatever you want, but start observing and let’s say you find yourself saying, oh, there’s never enough or I’m not enough, and you find yourself saying it over and over. So, so recognize that thought is keeping you trapped in financial stress. So what you do is just recognize and you recognize not with criticism, not with judgment. Oh, you dumb idiot. No, no. You recognize with curiosity. Isn’t that interesting? I’m having a thought. There’s never enough. Because what that does is it separates you from your thoughts. You are not your thought. Your thought is just words going through your head. But you repeat them over and over and they become habits. So just recognize this is a thought. It’s not truth. Second step, you reframe it. So how could you see this differently? How could you see it differently? So instead of I’m never enough, you create an affirmation that, oh, I have plenty. I have plenty. Or it’s so easy making money. Whatever it is, it’s an affirmation that resonates with you.
Barbara Huson: And you keep saying, because words are powerful. The words that go in your head or out your mouth are what shape your brain. So you make an affirmation, oh, there’s I’m plenty. I’m enough. Everything happens easily for me. Whatever it is, and you say them over and over again, you won’t believe them at first. You absolutely will not believe them. But that’s fine. It’s repetition that rewires the brain. So you say it over and over and over. I would write it on post-it notes. I would put it everywhere. Then the third step, after you’ve recognized the unhealthy thought, you’ve reframed it into a positive affirmation. And third, you respond differently than you normally would. You respond as if that affirmation was absolutely true. So oh, I have more than enough. You don’t just go spending. What you do is you go, oh, how can I create more than enough? Let me put some spare change in a jar and then take it to the bank and deposit. Open a savings account. You start doing things that don’t feel normal and you won’t want to do it differently. Your brain does not want to change. Your brain is wired for safety, and safety is the familiar. So anytime you do anything that’s unfamiliar, unpredictable, out of the norm, you’re not going to feel comfortable. Allow yourself not to feel comfortable. So recognize, reframe and respond differently. And within just a couple maybe a month if you do this, if you repeat this, you will be amazed at the difference.
Miriam Schulman: I love that practice because it aligns with things that I say and I do. I talk about how your belief is really a habit of thought. So the more you practice a thought, the more it becomes your belief. But I like the way you put it as repetitions, because it’s just like when you go to the gym, like I like to go to the gym and work out. And when you first lift the weight, it’s really heavy and it’s really hard. But the more you practice lifting that weight, it becomes easier and then you’re able to lift harder weights. They call it.
Barbara Huson: They call it resistance training. So because you resist it and that’s what the muscle. So you’re going to resist doing it differently. You absolutely are. But you say thank you. That’s how I’m building my muscle.
Miriam Schulman: Okay. You talk about sacred success. And I’m really curious about how that’s different than traditional success, and especially why that might be relevant for women today.
Barbara Huson: So when was it in 2009 I was having the worst year I had ever had. I’ve been doing really good. I was making high six figures. It was great. And something happened in 2009 that just threw me for a loop. I started to lose interest in my work. I started to feel something was missing. I started not to want to do anything. And so I was very this was very disturbing for me because this is more than a job. It’s probably like you. It’s my mission. It’s my purpose. It’s it’s it’s why I’m here to help women with their money. And so I decided I’m just going to surrender. I’m just going to stop what I’m doing and see what happens. And I stopped everything. I stopped getting on social media, I stopped speaking, I stopped taking clients. I just cleared my plate and I asked for guidance. I asked for guidance, and I did. And I remember I was talking to a coach And she said, Barbara, you’re too into doing you need time for just being. I went on a retreat and I got the idea to interview women who were making millions. And I interviewed those women who were making millions because that’s what I wanted to make. I would make six figures. I wanted to make millions. And this is a year that I wasn’t even making six figures. And what I found in those interviews was dazzling to me.
Barbara Huson: It changed my life. Those women, it wasn’t that they were making such outrageous sums. It was how they were doing it. They were playing a different game than what the world, i.e. men models. They were playing a game which I came to call sacred success. And I defined sacred success as pursuing your own bliss. Pursuing your soul’s purpose, pursuing your soul’s purpose for your own bliss and the benefit of others while being richly rewarded. Mm. And the key? I’m going to put something in here. There’s three levels of financial development. There is survival, stability and affluence. Survival is not enough. Stability is just enough. And affluence is more than enough. Going from survival to stability, you must have a profit motive. That’s the key. You must want to make money. You must love money. Money’s good. It’s a great thing. You can’t have any kind of conflicting beliefs. But once you are financially stable, you give up profit as your primary goal. It’s still an intended outcome 100%. But your primary goal is no longer profit. Prophet. It is greatness, and I define greatness. As I paraphrase a quote by Fred Buechner, greatness is doing is doing what you’re on this planet to do while meeting the needs of those who have less and being richly rewarded. So it is doing what you’re here to do, doing your great joy for the benefit of others and yourself.
Miriam Schulman: I love that. That’s so beautiful. I want to bring our conversation a little bit closer to artist. I see exactly how what you’re saying right now applies to me, but I want to make sure that it applies to a lot of the people who are listening, who may not be service providers. There are service providers who listen. No, no.
Barbara Huson: No, this isn’t about service. Art provides. Oh my God. I look at my art, it soothes my soul. I buy art that brings me joy.
Miriam Schulman: I’m so glad you said that. I am so glad you said that. Everything.
Barbara Huson: Everything that is in your heart to do is of service to another.
Miriam Schulman: So the artists who are listening, who maybe they’re afraid to raise their prices because they’re worried that it’s greedy or they feel guilty. What would you say to them? So you’ve probably heard that your thoughts create your reality. And it’s true. But but without a clear plan, expert strategy and real time feedback, mindset alone can only get you so far. The artists inside my inner circle don’t just think like wealthy creators, they act like them. And here’s how it’s paying off.
Speaker6: Part of the reason I wanted to do the inner Circle is so that you would push me, because I can be a pushover in that way, and you’re a little more no nonsense. And then our latest discussion. We arrived at a price that was comfortable enough for me, but I know I still need to go higher. But you’re helping me get there.
Speaker 4: You had to convince me to raise my prices because I thought living in Springfield, Missouri, you know, that there was a perception that my prices needed to be lower than they would in another market. And so that took a little bit of coaching on Miriam’s part to get me to really believe in myself and my art, but also that people are willing to pay, you know, a little more for your art. But, you know, I was I was selling my big paintings like at $3,500. And Miriam’s like, if they’ll if they’re going to pay 3500, they’ll buy it for 5000. And so raise my prices up several thousand dollars. And you know, still I’m selling paintings. So that’s, that’s the really I think the value that Miriam brought was just sort of get me out of that mindset of, doesn’t matter what market you’re in, it doesn’t matter what type of art you do. It’s about having good messaging and good marketing, and you can sell your art.
Miriam Schulman: If you’re ready to stop second guessing and start growing with an artist business coach who sees your potential and knows exactly how to build your success. Then the inner circle is for you. Learn more and apply now at SchulmanArt.com. As in I as in ice cream, Z as in zebra b, I z. Spots are very limited and it is by application only. To see if you qualify. Go to SchulmanArt.com. And now let’s get back to the show. So the artists who are listening, who maybe they’re afraid to raise their prices because they’re worried that it’s greedy or they feel guilty. What would you say to them?
Barbara Huson: Look at the fear. Look at what’s under that. Because under the fear, there’s something deeper. And to me, what I found in 40 years of doing this, women’s difficulties with money, making it or managing, asking for more has nothing to do with money. It has to do with power. It has to do with their fear of or ambivalence about their power. And I remember when I wrote my first book, Prince Charming Isn’t Coming. I saw that women didn’t get really savvy about money until they could own their power. And I remember asking a psychologist who specialized in money why women are so afraid of their power. And she said something that gave me chills, she said, because powerful women have been burned at the stake. And it’s true. We have been for generations. We have been punished. We have suffered severe consequences.
Miriam Schulman: For.
Barbara Huson: Speaking our truth. My definition of a powerful woman is someone who knows who she is, who knows what she wants, and expresses that in the world unapologetically. So in other words, it’s about speaking up, being true to who you are, and not watering yourself down so you don’t make waves. And this is not easy for women. This is not easy. It is true. It is scary. That’s why we need support. Support is a really big deal for we are so relationship oriented. We need to hang around with people who are playing the same game we are, who are appreciating and loving money and want to make more. We need that support.
Miriam Schulman: Okay, so I’m going to ask you about your wealth connection next. But before we get there, I do have a question about what you just mentioned, because I know you said that power is the ability to not pretend.
Barbara Huson: A powerful woman is someone who knows who she is and knows what she wants. I want to create art. That’s what I’m here to do. I want to make six figures a year. That’s what I want. And therefore, I am going to express that in the world unapologetically. I’m going to get lots of support for doing this. But I am going to raise my prices. And if someone says no. I let them go. This is exactly what happened to me when I was writing that book, Secrets of Six Figure women. And I was making nothing. Well, I was making maybe, maybe 50,000 a year. They all told me, you know, that that they had to raise their prices. They had to do what scared them. They all told me that. So I started raising my prices and no one agreed for three months. Nobody paid my prices. And I remember talking to them about it. They said, just hang in there. Just hang in there. You have to believe it. You have to look at yourself in the mirror and say, I’m worth it. So I would look at myself in the mirror and say, I am worth this, and I’ll be damned if I did that enough times, people started paying and suddenly. Seriously. Suddenly, I didn’t even know. I made six figures. When I did my tax return, I saw I made 100 and some thousand that year and I was shocked.
Miriam Schulman: You’ve dropped so many pearls of wisdom today. First of all, there’s no gatekeepers for reading books, my friends, and we will link up to all of them in the show notes. However, I happen to know that Barbara has a community just for women so that they can practice speaking out and having that safe space. It’s called the wealth Connection. Could you say a few more words about that, Barbara?
Barbara Huson: Yeah. So about eight years ago. Yeah, I think it was about eight years ago. I got the idea that we that one of the things that keeps women stuck financially is our secrecy and silence. We don’t talk about money. So I wanted a safe place to talk about money, but we talk about it very differently than men talk about it. For us, money making more, managing it better. That is a that is a very emotional process. We’re going against years, generations of conditioning, generational conditioning, our own personal conditioning, societal conditioning. And so I created this space where you could ask questions, get coaching, get group support. And we go deep. We go very deep. It’s very loving. It’s very intimate. It’s exactly everything I wanted.
Miriam Schulman: I love that. So we’re going to make it really easy for you to find that because we’re going to link it for you in the show notes wherever you are listening. It was such a so lovely having you here today. I know I learned so much. Are there any last?
Barbara Huson: Yeah, yeah. I just want to tell you something that one of the members of the group was an artist who couldn’t absolutely just couldn’t find a way to make money from her art, and she was getting all these other jobs, and she was not happy. I sent her your book, and she read your book, and she has thanked me profusely. I don’t know what’s happened because of it, but it gave her hope. It gave her guidance. It gave her tools that she did not have.
Miriam Schulman: I love that you’re so kind. All right, so if you like what you heard today, make sure you check out one of Barbara’s books. We’ve linked all of them in the show notes. You can check out the Wealth Connection to see if her community is right for you. And yeah, let’s end right there. All right, my friend, thank you for being with me here today. I’ll see you the same time, same place next week. Until then, stay inspired. Bye for now.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to the Inspiration Place podcast. Connect with us on Facebook, at Facebook.com/SchulmanArt, on Instagram, @Schulman Art, and of course on SchulmanArt.com.
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