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- Money-Saving Tips
- Need To Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck?
- 7 Ways To Save On Everyday Stuff
- How To Start Creating Wealth Now
- How You Can Start Saving Money In Seconds
- Common Mistake When It Comes To Money
- Simple Solution To Start Paying Off Debt
- Easy Ideas For Free Family Fun
- How To Generate Wealth Even If You’re Broke
- QUIZ – What Animal Do Your Money Habits Mimic?
Should You Wait To Start A Business Until You’re Financially Stable – With Helen Kartika – Ep. 27
We have talked about the benefits and drawbacks of starting a business but what about starting a business when you’re not necessarily financially stable?
Today I’m joined by Helen Kartika as we discuss if you should wait to start that business or if you should take the leap.
I thoroughly enjoyed this interview this one you’re probably going to want to listen to a couple of times because there are so many golden nuggets!
Helen is a certified business mindset and career confidence coach for women, passionate about working with business owners and ambitious professionals to cultivate greater inner confidence, overcome overwhelm, and face the limitations that are holding them back from taking action and achieving their personal and professional goals.
This is the Your Money Your Life podcast where ambitious women come together to have clarity, prosperity, and confidence with their money without sacrificing precious time and well-deserved fun! so let’s do this!
LISTEN OR SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE IN YOUR FAVORITE PODCAST APP:
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Resources:
Budgeting Simplified – https://aimeecerka.com/budget
Connect With Helen
https://instagram.com/_helenkartika_
Connect With Aimee on Instagram https://instagram.com/aimeecerka/
Podcast Keypoints
0:00 – Episode Overview
2:14 – Episode Sponsorship – Budgeting Simplified
5:16 – Starting A Business From Scratch
8:30 – Debt Mindset
9:23 – You Don’t Have Enough Money?
13:38 – Doing It First
15:00 – Doubts About Starting A Business
16:58 – Self Conscious Beliefs
18:08 – Making Money Is NOT A Sacrifice
20:48 – Tools for Mindset & Time Management
23:56 – Challenge
24:29 – Free 60 Minute Mindset Call & Connect With Helen
Frustrated that you aren’t making the progress that you should within your finances? Create an unshakable money mindset with the Money Mindset Mastery Checklist
Read It! Should You Wait To Start A Business Until You’re Financially Stable – With Helen Kartika
SPEAKERS
Aimee Cerka, Helen Kartika
We’ve talked about the benefits and the drawbacks of starting a business. But what about starting a business when you’re not necessarily financially stable?
Today I’m joined by Helen Kartika, as we discuss if you should wait to start that business, or if you should take the leap now. I thoroughly enjoyed this interview and this is one you’re probably going to want to listen to a couple of times because there’s so many golden nuggets.
Helen is a certified business mindset and career confidence coach for women. Passionate about working with business owners and ambitious professionals to cultivate greater inner confidence, overcome, overwhelm and face the limitations that are holding them back from taking action in achieving their personal and professional goals.
This is the Your Money Your Life podcast where ambitious women come together to have clarity, prosperity and confidence with their money without sacrificing precious time and well-deserved fun. So, let’s get to the interview!
Welcome to the Your Money Your Life podcast. I’m your host, Aimee Cerka.
After my husband and I faced three major financial roadblocks in the last six years, I felt like I wasn’t doing all that I could and I had let my family down. It always felt like life was a struggle like I had to work harder than everyone else. It just came easy to them, and I didn’t feel worthy of success.
Until, a coach helped me see the successes in our experiences instead of our failures. This allowed me to create and implement systems to grow our network by 200,000+ while spending time with my loved ones and on my priorities. Now I help motivated women create the happiness, family life, financial security, and long-term wealth they deserve.
If you’re ready to eliminate stress, struggle, frustration and guilt within your finances, you’re in the right place. Welcome, I’m so glad you’re here!
Did you know that April is financial literacy month? That’s why this episode of the Your Money Your Life podcast is brought to you by Budgeting Simplified.
Do you struggle with stress and overwhelm with budgeting? Or do you get frustrated that you spend so much time on your budget. Yet, at the end of the month, you’re not actually getting ahead? You’re not alone. This is actually super common, and I’m here to help.
Inside Budgeting Simplified, I will show you how to budget successfully in a simple manner that sets you up to create prosperity, freedom and security. As you go through this process, you’ll have a budget specific to YOU and the unique lifestyle that you want to live. One of the best parts is, you don’t have to be a numbers person, I did all that for you. I created the system that you can plug and play and finally have the confidence that you’re craving.
With Budgeting Simplified, you have a failsafe built into your budget. So then when life throws you curveballs, as we all know it will, your budget can handle it. Stop the cycle of your bank account draining every month and finally, feel confident and have fun with your money again.
If this sounds like a heck yes for you, then simply visit aimeecerka.com/budget. And of course, if you need that link again, it’s hanging out the show notes for you.
Aimee
Hi, Helen! Welcome to the Your Money, Your life Podcast. I’m so glad to have you here with me today.
Helen:
So glad to be here. Thanks for having me!
Aimee:
Absolutely. So, I always like to start off and ask and yes, it’s the name of the show. But what does “your money, your life” mean to you?
Helen:
Okay, so “your money, your life”. As a mindset coach, my kind of personal philosophy around mindset is that it’s all about personal leadership, and taking agency and responsibility for your life. Right? When we talk about mindset, it’s all about, you know, having awareness of your patterns and your thoughts and feelings and all that kind of thing. But at the end of the day, it’s just self-management, and it’s personal leadership.
So when I think about “your money, your life”, for me, it’s really about money being a vehicle to that, right? Money being a vehicle for you to be able to take ownership and take charge of your life. And I think, we a lot of the time talk about money in the context of freedom and flexibility and things like that. But at the end of the day, money is about giving yourself options, and being able to be that creator of your life to make an impact to build something for your family. So for me, it’s all about just taking charge of your life basically.
Aimee:
I love it. And I totally agree when we get this mindset piece figured out, like, we are able to manage that money and all those things and just a whole nother level. I’m really excited to hear about this. Tell me a little bit about your journey, starting a business from scratch, even when you weren’t in a great traditional financial situation.
Helen:
Yeah, absolutely. So I’ve been in business for four years now and I’m on to my second business. The first one I actually started back in 2018, when I had what I think many would consider on paper, a dream job, right? I was running the social media channels for Netflix, one of London’s biggest creative agencies, it was all great. But at the end of the day, I got so severely emotionally and spiritually burnt out, right.
I was just lacking fulfillment, I was lacking purpose, and that I just had it. You know, when you get to that point, and you’re like, I can’t do this anymore. And that led me to starting my first business. However, at the time, I was actually 13k in credit card debt.
And I don’t know if any of your listeners are in debt themselves, or have been, but you know, when you’re in that space, having credit card debt is so all consuming and overwhelming, it is really, really stressful. And most people wouldn’t even consider starting a business when they’re in that kind of space, but I knew that I could do it. I had a really strong belief in myself and in my idea at the time, I started a marketing agency. And I just had that unwavering belief in myself that I knew I could do it, and that it was worth the risk, right?
The kicker here, and why I love sharing the story is that 18 months into starting that business, I actually completely paid off that debt, right. And so 13k is a lot if you’ve got it on different credit cards, you’ve got high interest repayments, that kind of thing. So what was really awesome for me was not just the fact that I was able to, you know, the reason I started the business in the first place is because I wanted to have more fulfillment in my life, right? So not only was able to kind of do that, and to kind of make ends meet and to break even, I got out of that debt in 18 months.
And I know for a fact that I would not have been able to do that had I stayed in my corporate job, because obviously I knew what my salary was. I knew what my monthly paycheck was going to be for the next 12 months to 2 years, and I knew it wasn’t going to happen, right?
So the message I really want people to take away here, is that like, you know, you don’t even have to be in debt. But if you are kind of on the fence about maybe starting a business or going you know, all in on a business because you don’t believe you have enough money, it’s totally not true. Right? Like you can make it work. And starting a business is all about taking risks, right? It’s a risk no matter what kind of financial position you’re in at the end of the day, because business is unpredictable.
So yeah, that’s kind of, yeah, a little bit about what that journey has looked like for me so far.
Aimee:
Yeah, I love that. When this goes live, we’re going to be in the middle of Financial Literacy Month or actually wrapping up Financial Literacy Month. And I totally love that because I am a financial coach that does not preach for you to get out of debt, get out of debt, get out of debt, because of all the mindset factors behind it. We find that if we focus on that, it’s a negative thing and we end up getting ourselves back into debt.
I love that you took the jump and you did exactly, I mean, honestly what I did too, that you worked on starting a business and doing all these things, even though you had the debt, because it’s not like we don’t want to be there long term, obviously. But you’re not going to get to the place that we want to go if we don’t act and move towards those spots and like waiting, putting your life on hold because you’re in debt. It’s not the way that I want to live and you obviously didn’t want to live that way and our listeners don’t want to live that way either. So I love that you did that and you probably didn’t even know like that was the way that I approached finances so it just lined up perfectly and I love that!
Helen:
Yeah, I was I just wanted to say on that, not saying to anyone to you know, just like be responsible and you know, start a business if you feel like it’s not safe for you to do so, you know. It’s definitely not about being irresponsible or anything like that with your money but exactly like you said. You know, there is a tendency for us sometimes to use money as a crutch or an excuse, right?
Exactly what you said, like in that waiting mentality of like, I can’t do this until I have more money. Whether you’re in debt or have savings, or you’re well off financially, it’s all a mindset thing, right? You can still believe, or you could still have that story, that you’re not never gonna have enough money, right? So it’s when we start using that as that excuse to not do things is, you know, where, like, it’s something that we really kind of need to look at. Right?
Aimee:
Right, we need to be able to be happy and present and satisfied with where we’re at now. Yes, we’re always working towards improving but if we can live life in a place of like presence and being happy now, we’re going to release all that like, okay, maybe we’ll be able to do this one-day thing and totally agree.
Often, when we find that we’re talking to prospective clients, they feel like this won’t work for them because blank, because “I’m in too much that you just don’t get it”, or what’s one myth that you would want to kind of shed some light on today. Specifically, when it came to starting the business, maybe a mindset block that you see come up, something along those lines there.
Helen:
Oh, my God, just that. Exactly what we were talking about, like, the myth is: that you don’t have enough money, that is the myth. Because at the end of the day, and I’m sure as lack of financial money confidence, probably talk about this all the time. But when it comes to money, you can have a lack mindset, or an opportunity mindset, right.
And at the end of the day, money is just a tool. So if we have this lack mindset, we’re always going to be thinking, I don’t have enough money to start that business, I don’t have enough money to do this. If you look at money with an opportunity mindset, you’re able to empower yourself, “I don’t have enough money yet.” It’s like this little cute word that you can, like, add on the end of your language, you know, I don’t have enough money yet. And then you feel empowered to take that opportunity of how do you build that money or how do you build that wealth or that savings pot.
For example, you know, it’s all about prioritizing. And I know everyone’s at different stages of life, everyone has different responsibilities, priorities, family, all that kind of thing. But at the end of the day, you know, could give up your gym membership and work out from home, you could quit takeout, you could quit your, you know, your daily takeout coffee and you could commit to saving 100 extra dollars a week, for a year and you would have 5k there, to put into an investment, to go on a luxury holiday with your family, to put into starting or scaling your business or hiring someone. Right?
You can only do that with that opportunity mindset. How can I use money to my advantage? Not how can I allow money to control me. And I know you, I’ve listened to one of your episodes, I think you talked about this all the time, but you were talking about the eight buckets, the categories.
You have your play fund, you have your like investment fund, you have your business funds. Literally, like it’s all about prioritization and being intentional with where you put your money. And a really easy way that you can do that is put 5% away to building your dream, or something like that, you know?
Aimee:
Definitely. And I’m curious if you see this as well, sometimes if we just do it first, because we’re like, well, okay, there’s not enough, but you just take the chance like what if this is possible? If you make the decision to put that money, move it first, how often do we find like we don’t even actually miss it?
Helen:
Honestly, one of the biggest things, so to share a personal story, I live in Germany, that’s where I pay my taxes and everything. And I moved from the UK and I actually found I paid less taxes in Germany, but I was still putting the same amount of way. Right? And at the end of the year my accountant who does all my bookkeeping was like, “Do you know you’ve got all this money now just in this pot”, because I accidentally saved in my tax account, like 15% extra than what I was meant to be for like all year, and I had like 20 grand, like saved.
And I was like oh my god, like I literally didn’t miss it because in my mind, I was like I must put 40% aside for tax. That was it. It just went straight to another like an account and then I was like wow, it’s like for saving. So yeah, it’s insane what’s going on in our minds and how much our mindset can hold us back because it is so possible to save that money. Absolutely.
Aimee:
What are a couple I mean, obviously we’ve talked about like, okay, if we don’t have enough money to do that, what are some of the other common stories that you see come up with your mindset and running a business? Like, even if it’s not, maybe it’s like a can I even do this? Can I be successful? Am I worthy of success? I’m naming some of the ones that I’m hearing now, I was not trying to leave that question at all.
Helen:
I mean, Aimee, you’ve nailed it. Those literally are and honestly, I think when it comes to business, you know, there are mindset blocks, there are confidence worthiness blockers, barriers. But at the end of the day, a lot of them are so closely linked to your money stories, right?
So think about people, you know, who am I to start a business? Who’s going to pay me for the service I have to offer? Who’s gonna pay for my product over someone else’s? Right, that’s a worthiness block. But that’s a Money Story, right? You know, like, a really big one that I see is, why should I earn all this money doing something that I love that I’m passionate about when my parents had to work so hard for money? That’s a huge word, right?
Fear of success, right? What if I achieve all this? And this is money, and this is worth as well. But what if I achieve all this in my business and I lose it like that overnight? Or what if I earn all this money or gain all this client or clients or gain all this exposure and you know, I don’t know how to handle it, I don’t know how to deal with what comes next. Right?
All these are massively stopping us from taking action. And essentially, you’re self-sabotaging us in business because at the end of the day, you know, you probably obviously, you probably talk about this with your clients as well. But 95% of our brainpower is running subconsciously, right. Our mind is 95%, subconscious belief, deeply, deeply held, beliefs about ourselves, and what we can accomplish.
So if you’ve got any of these subconscious blockers, underneath the surface, you can consciously be like, “Yeah, I know, I know my stuff. I know, I can make this business work.” But if you’ve got all that other stuff bubbling under the surface, time and time again, you’re going to procrastinate, you’re going to let perfectionism getting away, you’re going to self-sabotage, you’re going to tell yourself, it’s not the right time. And you’re not going to be able to, you know, tap into that full potential and really go for it.
Aimee:
Yes, you totally nailed it. Another one that I see often, or hear, often, too, would be a fear of success because they don’t want to make all this money and then not take care of their family not be present with their family, because they saw that modeled growing up. I know, media for us, does a great job of modeling that facade, that it doesn’t have to be that way. Um, I totally loved all that. That was great.
Helen:
Like, we like we are conditioned to believe that making money equals sacrifice. Sacrificing your health, sacrificing time with your family, alienating people that you love. And this is why like for a lot of people, whether you’re in business, whether you’re climbing the corporate ladder, people hit those income ceilings, because they don’t know like, if I earn 100k extra in a year, what does that mean for my life? What does that mean for my family?
And it’s scary, and that’s like, almost like the other side of our comfort zone. Right? And that’s all conditioning. It’s all modeling upbringing, society media and I think it’s really important for us to be aware that that that is happening, right? Because it’s not just you. It’s not just you that is struggling, it’s something that is deeply embedded in so many of us and society.
Aimee:
Yes, I love that. If you miss that, listeners, you’re not alone. If you’re feeling those, that was a really important nugget there. Um, is there a question that I haven’t asked that you feel like everyone needs to know the answer to I feel like the whole time, like, you’re right, you nailed it.
Helen:
Yeah, no, I was just gonna say like, no question. I think the question is, if you need a big fat permission slip to act on something big right now, right, starting your side hustle, or starting, launching going, what the how they call it all in on your business, right? Making an investment with a mentor or coach or hiring someone doing something that you know, will massively uplevel your life, your business, whatever your family’s life, but you’re scared to do it, I just want to say like, it is so possible, and you know, it is possible.
So what I want to offer is just this permission slip, I guess the question would be like, if people aren’t like, can I really do it? Should I really do it? Hell Yeah, like, if you’ve got it in your mind, and it’s even something that you’re playing with, you know, it’s really cheesy, but I believe that it’s meant for you, right, you can only imagine something that is really meant for you to actually create. So that’s like the kind of takeaway I want to leave there.
Aimee:
I love that. So I find that it’s often important to utilize tools resources to make the most of the time that we have, because time is our most precious asset. So is there a specific tool or resource that you find most valuable when it comes to either like managing your time effectively, when it comes to working on your mindset? What are some of the things that you love to use?
Helen:
There are so many tools. I would say the number one thing for me with time management, is energy management. I know that’s nothing new, but it really isn’t about time. You can collapse time and be you know, double productive.
You know, it’s really about that energy management. And I think a really good thing to kind of do is to really look at what your energy drainers and your energy boosters are in your day, right? Because you can spend 10 hours a day doing something you absolutely love, and feel completely lit up, and you’re in flow and you have that momentum.
Even though you’re working for those 10 hours, you feel like it’s a boost, right? You feel like you can do more. Versus doing two hours or something that you actually absolutely hate that drains you, that’s going to completely deplete your energy.
So I would literally like sit down and do it, if you’re struggling with that time management is to do a list of like, what is draining me right now and what is boosting my energy. And I know, for a lot of particularly high performing women, women in business, you know, very successful careers, the energy boosters list is usually stuff like taking walks for myself, having a bath, seeing friends, making time for friends, cuddling my hubby, whatever it is, and I guarantee you, they’ll usually look at their life in the last like month and be like, I’m not doing any of those things, right.
So it’s the conversation of like having priorities, making promises to yourself and keeping them and setting those really, really, really strong personal boundaries, of course. So that would be my big thing with time management. It is it’s all about energy management. And as part of that, really knowing your own performance habits and how you work and what you need to perform best.
And for me, I always say what isn’t measured, can’t be improved. So it’s really important and it’s really simple, but a lot of us don’t do it. Track, audit yourself, have a look at your week and take a look like you know, were you sleeping right? Were you eating? Were you exercising? What kind of things were you doing that were boosting or draining your energy?
And when it comes to those energy drainers and boosters as well, when you have that drainers list, look at what you can delete, or automate. Right? You know, it’s that whole like, what can you literally take away? What can you make easier by automating? Or what can you just give away? Like, what can you outsource completely? So it’s really just about being strategic about those things, auditing and understanding what allows you to get the most out of your time.
Aimee:
Yes, I love that. So listeners, we’re going to make your challenge today to make a list of the energy drainers and the energy boosters. And if you’re feeling bold, of course, we’re going to tell you where to find us in a minute.
On Instagram, Helen and myself would both love to hear what you discover, because every time I go through this exercise, even myself, I always find something that surprises me when I really stop and think about it like oh, you know what, like, I really am drained when I do that, or I really am not drained. I really had that boost of energy when I go through that. So you’ve got a pretty incredible gift for our listeners today. So why don’t you tell us a little bit about that. And then of course, we’re gonna find you online as well.
Helen:
Yeah, absolutely. So Aimee, thank you so much for having me on your podcast. I absolutely love the work that you do. And I want to offer your listeners if they’re in a position of feeling like they want to go all in on their business and maybe they’re side hustling and don’t really know how to really take the leap to kind of transition or if they’re thinking of just starting that that side hustle, right? But they’ve got all those mindset blockers, I would love to offer a 60-minute free kind of like mindset breakthrough session, so that they can kind of get that boost that they need to really take the first step or that leap, right?
Because when it comes to starting business, everyone kind of you know, you need the strategy in place and all that. But in my experience, it’s the mindset challenges, not having that self-belief, lacking that confidence, feeling overwhelmed having all the fears around money, or what if it doesn’t work out? What if it fails? What if people judge me?
So if that all resonates with you, and you are feeling like you just need that mindset boost that mindset breakthrough, I’d love to offer you a 60-minute session and you can contact me about that by going to my website. So helenkartika.com and you can contact me directly through there or you can send me a DM on Instagram as well and that my handle is just @_helenkartika_
Aimee:
Of course, listeners we’re gonna have all those links for you in the show notes as well in case you missed it. Thank you so much for joining me today Helen this has been amazing. And listeners, we’ll see you next week for another episode of the Your Money Your Life podcast. Bye for now!
Thank you so much for listening to the Your Money Your Life podcast. My favorite place to hang out is on Instagram. You can find me at @aimeecerka. Send me a message or post a screenshot and tag me! I love hearing from podcast listeners.
When you’re ready to master your money, go to https://workwithaimee.com. You and I will work together to ditch financial stress and struggle for good with a customized plan that works for you, your goals, your priorities, your life. I’ll see you next time on the Your Money Your Life podcast.
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