In today’s episode, I continue the conversation about under-earning. Money is a tool that can get you anywhere you desire to be, so regardless of your current position or financial status, I want you to make more money!
I guide you through a series of exercises to help cultivate a six-figure mindset based on achieving your dream salary. This concept isn’t about making more money for the sake of making more money. Building a six-figure mindset is about establishing goals, exploring possibilities, and confirming the belief that your earning potential is limitless. By clearly outlining your vision for the future and reaffirming a positive financial mindset, no goal is too big.
Whether you’ve just landed a promotion or are currently at your highest income level, this episode is for you!
Stay tuned for insights on these topics:
- [02:49] Introduction to a 6-figure mindset
- [05:20] Reflecting on the past and imagining the future
- [08:46] Exploring possibilities
- [10:00] Establishing beliefs around a 6-figure mindset
- [12:17] Leveraging a dream budget
- [15:21] Setting goals
Tune into this episode of Money Files to learn how to create a 6-figure mindset around your dream salary number.
Are you ready to start asking for help with your finances? Apply to work with me, and let’s start working towards your financial goals.
IF YOU LOVED THIS CONVERSATION ON, HOW TO BUILD A 6-FIGURE MINDSET, CHECK OUT MY EPISODE ON EXPLORING A NEW MINDSET TO MAKE MORE MONEY: THE OWNERSHIP OF YOU!
Transcript for “How to Build a 6-Figure Mindset”
Intro: Hi and welcome to Money Files. I’m Keina Newell from Wealth Over Now. I work everyday with professional women and solopreneurs to help them get out of financial overwhelm and shame so they can experience more flexibility and ease with their finances. Are you ready to gain confidence and learn to manage your finances intentionally? Tune in and grab financial tips that will help you master the way you think about and manage your finances.
Keina: Hello and welcome back to another episode of Money Files. So this week I am talking to you and continuing to talk to you about underearning. And regardless of where you are in your financial journey, even if you just got a promotion or you are making the most you’ve ever made before or maybe you even just had to take a pay cut. No matter where you are, I think this podcast episode is for you because I want everyone to be making more money and I don’t just want you to be making more money for the sake of making more money. I want you to be making more money in relation to your goals that you have for yourself, for your family, for future versions of you because money is really something that can be used as a tool to help put you in a place where you desire to be.
And I come from the nonprofit space. I was in education and there are just so many things that I heard other people talking about when it came to money, people never negotiated their salary. I had other friends that they would tutor and when I would tell them to charge, $75 or $100 an hour, they would like clutch their pearls. And it all comes back to our thoughts about money. I know I’ve shared this before, but even for myself, like just thinking about pricing in my business, which if you are in a space where you’re like, yes, right now I have a W2 job, but eventually I want to get to a space where I have a side hustle or maybe you currently have a side hustle. If you don’t address your thoughts about underearning, you are going to take the same underearning mindset into your side hustle, your business and you’ll negotiate on how much you will charge people.
And in the beginning of charging, you will definitely undercharge. Like there is no doubt about it. I remember the first price that I told someone was that I would charge them $100 for a two hour session and the person still told me they didn’t have the money. So I just remember that I was like, oh my goodness, they like need to be able to afford this, etcetera. And there are so many other things that go into pricing, but that’s not what this episode is about. It is really about helping you find out like how do I build a six figure mindset? And when I’m thinking about you building a six figure mindset, I want that six figure mindset to help you think about where you desire to go next professionally.
I’m actually really excited. I’m going to record a podcast episode with my friend Leah, who is a career coach and we met in coaching circles, but I’ve had so many fun conversations with her about finances and about money and she is a woman and I love the fact that she has made over $200,000 a year and she can roll that number off of her tongue. And there’s nothing that comes with it except for the fact that like, yeah, I made $200,000. And so being in different spaces in my life in the past decade, especially, like I have been able to be around high income earners and I’m talking about people that make well above $100,000 a year and I want to share any lessons that I can with you because where you are right now doesn’t have to be your stopping point, regardless if you’re in your twenties, if you’re in your thirties, you’re in your forties or your fifties.
And just thinking about like if your brain knows that you can earn more money, what does that do for you? What does that enable you to think about? I was actually having this conversation with a close friend of mine and I was just saying like, if we can think about where we want to be next in terms of earning and we can shoot for that number, even just our brain being like, oh, okay, what if I could make $220,000 a year regardless of where you’re starting at right now. Like, if you just can get yourself to a place of belief that you can earn more, you are going to land somewhere. So let’s say you’re making $120,000 right now and your next goal is to make 200,000 and your next job you land at 150, that’s $30,000 that you wouldn’t have had if you didn’t have the goal of making $200,000 a year.
And then when you’re at 150, you’re going to be like, wow, okay, I can make another $50,000 and put myself in the position to be a six figure earner, a multiple six figure earner because I’ve already gotten a $30,000 raise. So let’s just go ahead and dive into it. So this podcast is about really creating your six figure mindset around your dream number. And I want you to assess like where are you right now? Like how much money are you making right now? How old are you? You don’t need to tell me, right? But think about your own career path and your own journey. Where did you start when you first started working out of college? Maybe you didn’t even go to college, but you’ve still been able to be someone who you’ve started a career for yourself, because also PS yes I was a teacher, but I also know that you don’t have to go to college to earn more.
So that might be a belief that you also need to work on, but think about where you are right now and think about where you started. So for me, I’d be thinking about like I started out of college making about $30,000 a year and I in my business have made over a million dollars in the last five years of being in business. When I was a W2 employee, my highest salary was like $115,000. So from $30,000 to $115,000 in 10 years. And think about from the place of where you started, what does that person think about what you’ve achieved. They’re probably so proud of you. They’re like, oh God, girl, you’re make 100k. You’re like so excited and you’re thinking about the fact that I never, I never, never, never thought that I could make this much money.
That is something that I hear from so many people that they’re at a place where they never thought they could make this much money. And maybe you just started making that much money, like you just started making the amount you’re making right now a week ago. Maybe you started making it a year ago or even two years ago, but just like get intimate with yourself and did you ever think that you’d make as much money as you’re making right now? Now I want you to think about, alright, so think about 10 years from now, what does that person think about what you make right now? Interesting question, right? Because maybe you’ve never sat to think about like what will be my story in 10 years from now.
If I am making $115 right now, in 10 years could I be making $215,000? What if you could make that big jump and you could make that big increase in your salary? And I just want it to be something that you consider. Because when we think about our future self-interacting with our current self, it can be just a positive transformation that you have. It’s also going to bring up a lot of gunk for you. You might be thinking right now, how am I going to get there? 215, I have never known anybody that makes that much money. It can just be a lot of different things that come up for you. But I want you to just think about like if in another 10 years you were able to make another $100,000. That’s only $10,000 a year that you would need in order to increase your salary to be $100,000 more than it is right now. And what I’m walking you through right now is an exercise for you to be thinking about possibility.
We have to be thinking about what’s possible. I need you to have the belief that it’s possible for you to make multiple six figures. It’s possible for you to make six figures. Maybe you’re like right on the cusp right now and you’re making like 70, $80,000. I need you to have the belief that you can make a hundred thousand dollars, you can make $120,000. If you’re at $120,000. I need you to have the belief that you can make $170,000. Maybe you’re making $170,000 I need you to have the belief that you can make $250,000. I want you to seed possibility for yourself. In seeding possibility for yourself, you are going to start looking for opportunities. You’re going to start having different conversations. You’re going to go back to like, okay, Keina told me to build a money team. Like if I want that team to get me to that number, what does that team look like?
If I am thinking about the nos and the yeses that I’m going for, how am I going to be strategic about that? What would need to happen in order for me to get to that number? So beliefs that you need to have with your six figure mindset are, I believe I can make more money. I want to make more money, I will make more money and I know the purpose of money in my life. So just ask yourself out of those four beliefs, like what do you have? What do you not have? Are there any other beliefs that you want to have as you are thinking about creating that six figure mindset?
So I was talking to one of my clients recently and my client wants to catch up on their retirement because they feel really far behind. And I told them that the easiest way for them to catch up on their retirement was to earn more money. And on this call, my client’s face is looking at me like, I can’t earn more money. I am already at the top of what, anybody with my job title makes, like insert all the reasons the brain was like actively firing at me about why they couldn’t earn more money. And so your brain is probably in a very similar place when I talk about earning more money. And when you’re in this situation where you’re thinking about earning more, I want you to be thinking and asking like, okay, brain and get really intimate with your brain. Sit down with a piece of paper and write down all the reasons that your brain is telling you what are all the reasons you can’t earn more.
And then I want you to basically create a T-chart. And on the other side I want you to ask yourself, but what could be true. What if it could be true that I could get a $30,000 raise this year? What if it could be true that I could start interviewing for new positions and specifically look at jobs that were within a salary brand, that were 30 to $40,000 more than what I’m earning right now? What if it were true that when the next person asked me about where I’m going career wise, I could also talk to them about how I want to be compensated? What if it were true that I could negotiate my next offer? Like what if it were true that I could make more money and it wouldn’t make me a bad person? Okay, so I want you just to take some time and challenge yourself on what could be true.
For this particular client, they make $170,000 and we started creating a dream budget for them. And so a dream budget is simply a budget that includes your dreams. It includes all of the things that you want to be able to spend money on. And I encourage everyone to make a dream budget for yourself. I have like four or five of them. I basically have like a bronze, silver, gold version. And when I think about how much I want to pay myself as a business owner. And with your dream budget, you want to look at what are the things that you want to be doing? So for my client, my client was talking about wanting to own a home. My client also talked about that potentially adopting a child at some point with their partner, traveling with her partner, also wanting to invest in like a separate brokerage account to catch up on retirement and then being able to accelerate the six month emergency fund goal that they have.
So I was like, alright, let’s just play with all of these things. Like these are things you want to be able to do. And let’s just say that all of these things. We’re checking this off, like let’s name how much you would be paying for your mortgage. You want to be able to adopt a child, let’s just assume that we want an additional $2,000 a month in your budget for that. You want to be able to travel, let’s make sure that your travel budget is where you desire it to be annually. You want to be able to invest in a brokerage account. Let’s think about how much you would want to be putting into a brokerage account and you want to be able to accelerate your emergency fund. Let’s think about how much money you’d want to be contributing to your emergency fund each month.
So we put all these numbers into a template, their spending plan, we just blew it up and made it their dream budget. And I was like, alright, you just need to make $250,000 a year. And my client’s like, oh, okay. And how am I supposed to do that? I’m like, we don’t need to know the how right now, but we want to know that you want to make $250,000 a year.
And not only do we know that you want to make $250,000 a year, we know the purpose of that $250,000. The purpose part is so meaningful because for my client it’s about creating a family. It’s about creating a place to call home. It’s about also being financially secure in the future. And this is going to help my client navigate. My client’s already on a trajectory right now where they’re looking for different professional opportunities.
And so I was talking to them about let’s actually make sure that as we are talking to different people in your network and you are networking, that you also keep in mind how much money you want to make. So you are going to be talking about your skillsets, you’re going to be talking about the things that you love in the role that you currently have and we’re also going to be talking about compensation. I don’t want you to be scared of talking about compensation. And yeah, at first it’s going to feel really weird to be talking about, I want to land somewhere in between $220 to $250,000 annually. That might feel really weird, especially as you’re like, but I only make 170 right now, that might feel weird, but what’s going to happen is you’re going to land a lot closer to $250,000 than you would’ve landed if you didn’t have a goal.
It’s like, I’m going to get the analogy wrong, but they talk about like shooting for the stars and you’ll land somewhere. This is exactly what I wanted my client to do because in shooting for the stars, like if my client gets a job for $200,000 a year or they are able to increase their salary with their next performance evaluation. Let’s just say that my client lands a job for $200,000, that is a really nice increase. It’s $30,000 that they wouldn’t have had and over 10 years, that’s $300,000 that they simply made by setting a goal based on where they desire to be with their numbers, by being intentional about not being someone who’s underearning. And so I want you just to remember that it’s so important and I told you this about home ownership as well.
It’s so important to set goals for yourself because when you set a goal, you can work towards the goal and hold yourself accountable for building your belief. And then when opportunities arise, you are going to know exactly how you want to position yourself within that opportunity. You don’t want someone to say like, hey, basically I’m giving you a blank check. How much do you want to write it for? And you’re like no, no. You want to get your dream number down so that way you know how much you want to write that blank check for. And that blank check can come in a number of different ways. It’s going to come in the form of opportunities. It’s going to come in you negotiating your job, your like next salary raise at work.
It’s going to come in you intentionally putting yourself out there and looking for new roles and being able to negotiate in between multiple offers. I want you to be prepared to write that blank check and you’re going to be prepared to write that blank check when you actually have that six figure mindset and you know your dream number. So don’t fall victim to thoughts that are like, oh, but I don’t know anyone that earns that much money. Oh, that’s so much money or my favorite, especially when I talk to my friends who are also educators about making more money, they’re like, but I don’t want to have to do more work. I’m like, who said you had to do more work? It’s the funniest thing because the people I know, like my friends, I’m like, y’all already working hard. Why can’t somebody just actually pay you for what you’re already doing?
What if you could make two times more money and just do the same amount of work? So just challenge yourself too where you think like you’ll have to do more work if you earn more money because that’s really on you, it’s not anybody else. And then the other piece is like, I don’t want to have to overwork. Friend, I know that you are already working. And if you are listening to my podcast, I know that you are like a type A individual and you are already working. So just know that you moving and positioning yourself to earn more money does not have to equal working more. Those two things aren’t synonymous. So just challenge yourself on where you’re thinking that if you earn more money, then you’ll have to work more.
So that’s all I have for you today in building your six figure mindset around your dream number. And just to kind of recap, I want you to actually think about your past self. What do they think about where you are right now in terms of what you’re earning? How are they so proud of you? And then I want you to think about yourself 10 years from now, what are they earning? What do they tell the current you right now? How are they celebrating you? What advice do they have for you? What would they tell you to do this week that you’re scared to do?
Then I also want you to get clear on what is my dream number? What’s my dream number? So take some time and think about your goals, write that out. And if you want to own a home, you’re thinking about having a baby. Like what do those numbers look like in your budget and what would you want to be bringing home every single month to make that true? And get like, what would you need to make annually and make that your dream number. Also, like post that dream number somewhere, get really, really clear and intimate with that number. And lastly, like when your brain wants to tell you you can’t do it and you can’t create that number, I want you to tell your brain like these are the things that can be true. These are the things that can be possible so that way you just continue to seed and water possibility for you to increase your earning potential.
Okay, friends, thank you so much for tuning in this week. And if you want to take this work deeper, because earning more is one of the steps to drama free spending. You can go to my website and you can book a call and apply to work with me, one-to-one in my five month coaching partnership. You can also go to the show notes and right there in my show notes, you will find information to book a call. So thank you so much for tuning in and have a great week.
Outro: Thank you so much for listening to Money Files. If you’re ready to take the next step to reach your financial goals, head to www.wealthovernow.com/appointment and let’s get started.
