Episode 259: Why Leadership and Money Matters

Episode Transcript

Steve Haase  0:03  
Welcome to the Superabound podcast with master coaches, Erin Aquin and Steve Haase, where leaders like you learn tools to help you clarify vision, clear up static and overcome challenges. You are listening to episode number 259. Why leadership and money matter? Hello, everybody. It's nighttime at our house, which is not our usual time for recording a podcast. But we're fired up, things have been going down. And we are on a mission to let the world know that leadership and managing money well, and making lots of money matters. What's going on Erin?

Erin Aquin  0:41  
I'm wrapped in a blanket, because it's quite late at night. And I'm just gonna give everybody a warning, I'm pretty nice, usually. But right now, I'm a little fired up is a good way of saying I'm just feeling really strongly about a couple of things that have come across our plate today. Nothing wrong with anything that's going on in our business. I actually, you know, when when things happen around us, sometimes I look at you, Steve, and I think I am so glad we are entrepreneurs, as hard as it is sometimes, I'm so glad we have a team that is very, very small. And we are in complete control of almost every single part of our business. So first, maybe I'll just start with some gratitude. Because I could very easily go off on a big rant right now. It might happen. But that's what's going on.

Steve Haase  1:39  
So an organization that we our customers have recently told us that the products that we purchased, the experiences that we pre paid for our going away, no refund offered, that's not okay. So a couple of things there. First of all, the services were about to begin, when the announcement came that they were cancelled. Like, literally this week, things were about to get started. And they said, Sorry, everything's canceled, you all just have to go away, we're gonna send you things by mail. That means that someone was not keeping their eye on the ball, you do not get to the start of delivering a service having taken not just our money, but many 1000s of other people's money, and say, It's all gone. See you later. So that's the context for what's happening. And that's one of the reasons we're fired up. It's not that much, it's significant enough to, you know, take up a dispute about it, but it's not a catastrophe. But what it brings to light is that there was a failure of leadership, and definitely a failure of financial management along the way, such that 1000s of people are impacted at the moment's notice. And I think that's what really gets me is that it's happening without any transparency, any cooperation, any spirit of being in this together. It really is just sorry, we're done. See you later.

Erin Aquin  3:04  
Yeah, and I think what really gets me about this is especially in, in today's world, where I think sometimes people will say, you know, leadership training isn't, it's like a fluffy extra that you do when you have some free time, extra money when things aren't busy. I see. So many people write off the need for like, good leadership as a thing they're going to do in the future sometime. And then in a moment like this, not only is this a customer service, like a tragedy, that's not only going to impact this particular organization, if they ever recover, which, you know, they probably won't, but it will impact every other business, every other organization that works in that same field. Because now anyone who's going to ever go to purchase that experience ever again is going to think twice. They're gonna say, Do I trust that they're gonna be around? Do I think that they're going to pull the plug a week before? Do I think they're gonna put out hundreds of put hundreds of people out of work, and there's no nice way to say like, screw over all their customers. So it's gonna seed something that is going to have far worse ripple effects. Then this moment, your customer service is a reflection of your leadership, your financial health is a reflection of your leadership. And somebody knew a week ago when they were still marketing Harn and selling all of their stuff. Somebody knew that this wasn't going to happen. And they waited till the 11th hour to announce it, which I just think is terrible business. And it's why so many people I think, don't trust companies and organizations at that scale.

Steve Haase  4:55  
Which brings us to the next part of this topic, which is that money matters. ers. Leadership matters because that is how your company is going to be present in the world. And part of great leadership is great financial management, it is getting your company as wealthy as possible, so that you can deliver the experience that you have promised to everybody with as much impact as possible. This organization was not committed to becoming wealthy. And then they had to say, bye, bye, if you are in that same boat, because you think the mission is what matters. And you know, money's this kind of dirty thing, it's a secondary thing, like, let's not talk about the money, because the thing that really matters is the mission. So we're going to focus on the mission, you could be in trouble. That is spiritual bypassing of a kind, right? When you are connecting your spiritual purpose in the world. And you're saying, well, that's the only thing and you're just kind of skirting around the money side, you are bypassing what is actually going to give that mission real strength, real power to last and have the impact that you want it to. And so that is a big part of what's happening here. As I said, look, the thing that matters is the mission, we're gonna let the money kind of be a side issue. And then the money suddenly closes down the whole mission. I've been part of organizations in the past where that was the case for us, right, Erin and I actually met in a spiritual community. And nothing major happened with it, except it ran out of money. And so it ran out of the will to live right when when the money goes away, you cannot complete the mission, not in today's world, not in the way that things are set up. So if you are a mission driven company, make sure that that mission includes a lot of money so that you can be effective with that mission.

Erin Aquin  6:46  
Yeah, and this was maybe the other piece of this because I saw some really shitty advice today from someone who called themselves a spiritual business coach, who was basically I actually, you know, I rarely critique other people, especially in the same field, because I do think everyone's entitled to their opinion. But I thought the stuff that, you know, we talked about the divisive marketing, it just seems like it's really predatory, to tell people what they should and shouldn't be doing their businesses and all of that. And I just felt like this particular person was giving some very harmful, quote, unquote, truths, which were just their opinion, positioned as truth, and basically saying that, you know, if you're a spiritual business owner, I dare you not to talk about money. I think that that is one of the worst things you can ever tell somebody who thinks of themselves as spiritual, because so many of us definitely, myself included, have been trained that money is this, like a dirty thing of the world. And it it pulls us down and trips us up. And, you know, I'm not denying that there's a lot of problems with some people who happen to have a lot of money and the way some people decide to use their money. But like, money is, is a tool, it's a resource, it's really depends on who's wielding it and why whether that becomes a resource to be used for good or bad. And I just think that when we get to this epic level of saying that money is so harmful, I, you know, I believed that for so long, and there was a some point in my own coaching and my own sort of healing with my relationship with money, where I started to really think about the question, who does it serve? When I believe that money isn't good, when I believe that wealth isn't for me, and wealth is only for greedy people are selfish people? And my answer to that, quote, I don't know what it is for everyone, maybe this person has a different answers. So I should be careful not to be super judgmental about where they're coming from. But I will say for me, the person that serves when I don't believe that I deserve wealth, or that my business should make a lot of money, or that I should personally have a lot of money. Well, let's it doesn't serve me. It doesn't serve me it doesn't serve the causes that I care about. It doesn't serve the children that we have or the life that we have. It definitely probably helped somebody else who, you know, I am not in a spiritual tradition where I believe that the goal of my life is to be meek and humble and be good and maybe there'll be something nice waiting for me at the end of it all. Not what I personally think. So it's really interesting that for a long time, I just sort of bought into the generic spiritual attitude about money and didn't realize that until I was actually making enough money to go beyond just basic survival. and actually contribute to things I do care about, and have breathing room and have enough money to really take care of myself in the deep, deep ways that I need to having money makes self care self investing a whole lot easier. Money is not a bad thing. It doesn't make you less spiritual. It actually, I mean, for me, personally, I've never had so much time in my life and so much energy and space in my life to do spiritual practices, I definitely wasn't doing more yoga, or meditation, or ritual, when I was working as a yoga teacher, I was just trying to scrape by. And unfortunately, if you don't have that resource in your life, and in your business, you kind of are at the mercy of other people. Like I feel for the people in this particular situation who just had their job disappear. Tonight

Steve Haase  11:01  
by email. If you're in a leadership role, I am just going to give one piece of advice here. Don't let people go by email, text, or slack, do it in a humane way, have a phone call, even if it's with several at the same time, nobody deserves to be told that their financial livelihood is going away with a message. So if you are in charge of an organization, it is imperative that you examine your relationship to money. Do you believe that you should be wildly successful and very, very rich. Because if you don't, if you think you should just be wealthy enough to be okay, because to be more wealthy would be greedy to make more money as a business means you're probably doing something bad, you are hampering your ability to make an impact on the world to be a stable organization to bring more jobs to more people to bring more wealth to the world, there is no limit to the pie. It is not a finite system, the pie will grow as you create value in the world. So if you think on some level, as many of us do, that we're not supposed to be really wealthy. We're not supposed to have a lot of money because well, that's not okay. Income inequality, right? Look, there's income inequality, I shouldn't be wealthy, those are two separate things. When the people who are tuned in when the people who are spiritually motivated and inspired and are here for the good of all have lots of money, they can make a big difference, they can put it towards causes that matter, they can support this organization that just went under because of no money and poor leadership. So take a look, take some time to reflect on just how much money you think you should be entitled to, or how much you can create. How much wealth can you create in the world, you probably have an upper limit. And that upper limit is not helping you. It's not helping your company. It's not helping your people. And it's not helping the world. No one benefits from us thinking that we shouldn't make more than whatever number we've been programmed to believe we're entitled to.

Erin Aquin  13:20  
Yeah, and don't believe the thinly veiled argument from so called spiritual people who tell you that talking about money isn't spiritual. For that person, that might be true. But don't entangle your relationship with a very sacred resource like money into someone who has not done the work to figure out how to make money, or how to manage it. There's nothing to fear about having money unless you don't know what you're doing with it. And I mean, actually, to be honest, I don't I don't know if this is necessarily true in every case. But poor leadership is going to make it hard to make a lot of money. But money can cover for poor leadership for a time, well funded. Organizations can take a couple bumps, if things don't work, they're taking risks, or they don't have a good fit for a leader or they're hopefully not doing this. But if they don't have good training, or their leaders. Having money can you know, help soothe some of those mistakes? Not forever, because yeah, eventually the money will run out if it's not being managed well, but we need it right now. The way the world is until we enter into some kind of a society where we find another way to denote value. I would rather see more spiritually minded, thoughtful people who care deeply about the world. Have wealth. Do not listen to the people who tell tell you that, that wealth is not for you. I don't know how you're going to do it. I don't know, your, I don't know every single person who's listening to this podcast. But I know for me, even what you were saying, Steve about, like, income inequality, I remember finding out that a male colleague of mine was with less experience was making more money than me at a job. And that was one of the reasons I became an entrepreneur. I just decided, yeah, you know what, this is total, this, this whole game is not fair. And rather than fight against it, I opted out. And yes, now I'm gonna say it, it's not polite, I'm gonna say I make more money than him a lot more money. I'm gonna say it proudly. Because we have to, we have to be willing to talk about this, we have to take away the stigma. We can't keep believing that it's somehow not spiritual of us, to have wealth and to talk about it and to find ways of using it for good. You know, money is not everything. But it can be a very sacred resource. And it can help you, it can help us fix a lot of problems in the world, not all of them. But it can help us educate the people who can fix the problems,

Steve Haase  16:19  
when it's in the right hands being wielded the right way. It's a powerful tool. And one of the hallmarks of great leadership is that you can take the money that you are entrusted with and wield it. Well.

Erin Aquin  16:33  
You know, this is another reason why we have a free community. It's not doesn't cost anything. But the reason we have a free community, like the superabound Collective is so that entrepreneurs, leaders, spiritual business owners and service providers have a space to come together and talk about this without the stigma and shame that the rest of the world may try to apply to you. Who does it serve? When you believe that success is for other people and not you? Who does it serve when you believe that your own leadership or the leadership of your team can wait one more quarter? Who does it serve, not you? So I hope you enjoyed our late night, rant over tea. And I hope that if you're not already in the Superabound collective that you will come and join us there so we can deepen these conversations as a community over at be superabound.com/collective. Thanks for joining us.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai