Sometimes it feels like human beings love to create a drama and business owners are no exception. But what lies beyond the addiction to drama and what’s a better way to respond?
Sarah:
Welcome to the Spirit of Business, episode number 98, the Drama of Money with Matt Murphy and Sarah McCrum.
Matt:
Hi Sarah.
Sarah:
Hi Matt.
Matt:
Today I want to talk about this concept that sort of popped up a number of times to me, and I heard the words come out of my mouth and speaking about the word, saying the drama of money. And it sort of started to, to sort of be a bit of a thing for me. And I noticed that I started to repeat it a couple of times with certain situations and some of those situations that I’ve seen that arise where that money can sometimes, or lack thereof, can create the drama and a lot of conversation and a lot of noise that goes on. And I couldn’t help think about when I said that about obviously the, a lot of the work that you and I do in this particular space around money and energy and you know, so for example, I have one client that’s trying to raise some capital at the moment. And so therefore there’s lots and lots of conversations as you can understand about, you know, trying to make sure that they secure an investment and try to find investors and those sorts of things. But there’s a lot of, there’s a flow on effect to the rest of the business and the relationships that are around the business because without that money it means things can’t happen and it creates more conversations, but it also creates this angst and then people start to not fight, but there’s a little bit of tension, there’s a little bit of like that drama, there’s drama that’s going on in the organizations because of centered around are fueled by the lack of the money, for example. And, and so I see that sort of happening more and more that, and in, in other businesses that I’ve had conversations about around where they’re trying to do better sales and marketing to, to create more revenue. Because the revenue will then, you know, obviously, you know, help the, the progression of the business, but the lack thereof or all, all the emotion that goes along with this when there’s actually, when things aren’t happening or the plans that you’ve put in place aren’t occurring. And then it just creates this tension and it creates this drama. And that’s why I started talking about the drama of money. And so I just wanted to talk about, you know, that and, and, and get your insights as to some of the conversations you might have had with clients or business owners around you know, this concept of money and drama or, or way maybe you see it a different way.
Sarah:
It’s interesting, I was just before we got on this call, I was looking at an email that was talking about a potential probably, oh, let me think about this. Yeah, quarter to half a million dollar legal bill. You know, it was a quote actually, or a kind of, you know, an early stage quote. And I could well imagine how that could create a drama just thinking about it. Which was an interesting experience because it relates to my business so, but yeah, I totally get it about the drama of money and as you were talking about it, what I was thinking of, because I can get into that, but I know that actually the drama is the problem. It’s not the lack of money that’s the problem, it’s the drama that’s the problem. I see time and time again, and I see this with people, two really interesting things. One is that very often when we want something that you know, is going to cost money, we say, well, I’ll get it when this happens, when I have the money or when something else has happened. And the other thing that is kind of like the other side of that coin is that people often say, I really want this. And it’s something that they’ve already got. I don’t know if you notice that. Like, it’s the, it’s the strangest thing that people say, I’m trying to think of a good example because it’s so common that they talk about something that it feels like they really need. It can be in their business or in their life, but when you actually look at it, they’ve already got it, it’s already happening. It might be they want a bit more of it, but they will say, I want this as if they haven’t got it and actually they’ve already got a lot of it or some of it. And so what they really want is more or a slightly different direction or a variation on it. And both of these things create a drama around money.
Matt:
It’s interesting you talk about that sort of progression or that, you know, they’ve already got what they actually are looking to achieve. I did an exercise with a client and I do this quite regularly with business owners to talk about not only their business but their life. And we talk about this concept of are you doing what you want, when you want in the manner you want with whom you want. And I know other people have spoken about this particular sort of lens that I call it to put it through. And what I do is that I talk to them about their life and say, okay, so are you doing what you want? When you want the money you want with whom you want? And so I get them to rate themselves out of five. Now it’s arbitrary, it’s subjective obviously, because it’s just a personal rating. But, so five’s effectively saying that, you know, you’re so happy with, you know, working with whom you want or what you’re doing, all that sort of stuff that you couldn’t get much better than it. Like it is you, you’re very satisfied with it. And one, a rating of one means that you’re nowhere near it. You’re very, you know, so far away from that whole concept. And so the progression there is, why I get them to do that is exactly what you are talking about is that people might say, oh, you know, everything’s, there’ll be drama associated with each one of those particular categories that they’ll, if I didn’t actually get them to rate them, I’d think that everything was a one. Or there’ll be certain things that they would rate as a one. And when you actually get them to sit and, and do that exercise, you know, typically most people are, you know, typically around two, three or four. Okay. Very rare. There’s a one and very rare there’s a five. And so I look at it and say, okay, and then people want to do halves as everybody wants to have their own ratings system associated with it, which always just makes me smile and I go, yeah, you can, you can do halves if you want to do halves, Anyway, so anything, you know, when, when you get to three out of five, I think, well just like what you just said then, that they’ve got elements of it or they’re, they’re largely happy with what’s going on, it’s just that they want more of it. And really, we know most people won’t really rate themselves as a five because you can always get improvement or always get better at certain things. So really we just, I just focus on shifting between a three and a four for example, in terms of that as a, as a lens. So every decision we start to make about the business has to go through these bigger lenses. Really it’s about saying, well will this serve a purpose to you to get you closer to, you know, doing what you want when they want in the manner you want with whom you want? And then also we check in with, as we’ve discussed before in this podcast, you know, the six reasons why people are motivated to stay in business because, you know, and some of those are creativity and legacy and you know, financial security, independence and work-life balance and those sorts of things. So the point there is that we are trying to ensure that people really get a good understanding of exactly where we’re at by trying to remove some of the drama. Is that, now when I think about it, that’s probably what I’m doing is removing some of the drama. Because what you are saying is that people sort of already got some, largely a lot of the stuff that they’re, they’re looking for, it’s just probably not exactly where they want to be, but they’re still on the road to do so, unless it’s there is something really fundamentally wrong. So is that kind of, am I on the right track with what you’re talking about there
Sarah:
Yes. And the drama comes usually, I don’t think usually that the drama is necessarily about money at all. The drama is that a person is not feeling that great for some reason. And then they look for something, a reason why they’re not feeling that great. Because that’s what we do. I’m not, you know, I woke up, I’m not feeling that great, what can I blame? Because if I don’t blame anything, then it’s my fault that I’m not feeling that great. So it’s much easier to blame it on something outside yourself. And then let’s say, oh, well I’m going to blame it on the fact that I can’t, I, I need somebody else to work with me, but I don’t have enough money to pay another salary, for example. Now I’ve got a story and then that story, I can start to spin that story and it, the story becomes a drama. And then once the story becomes a drama, it becomes, it cycles back into you. It makes you feel more emotional and it actually self escalates. Unless you have a mechanism for calming it down or removing the drama. The drama actually isn’t real at all. And it’s very likely, very often the reason isn’t even real. That’s what I notice. It’s not like even if there is a lack of money or there is a lack of something else that’s not actually really the reason why that person isn’t feeling good. And if that person feels good, they don’t feel the lack of money, even if there’s a lack of money there. So I think what’s fascinating is how we create dramas. It’s, we people, we talk sometimes about people being addicted to drama. And I think in the landmark they talk about the drama hook and I watch, I can see it in my myself sometimes, nothing like it used to be. And I watch it a lot with people, how we can just get hooked into a story and we tell it over and over again and it becomes a drama. That drama then feeds the emotional, the sense of being emotional and then those emotions feed back out into that story again and escalate the drama. So it circulates around and around and you need a circuit breaker for that.
Matt:
I can really feel that because you know, over the years, you know, running businesses as I’ve done and also, you know, advised many business owners is that you can see when the drama attaches to something and then it escalates it, okay. And you can quite easily see that, you know, logically and rationally, okay, it doesn’t have to be the case. You can just look at it clinically or look at it without any emotion, a particular situation and then see it, there’s a problem and solve it. But time and time again, we get caught up in the drama and look, I know this very well because over the years I’ve been caught up in my own business dramas and people dramas and other business dramas from that point of view. But one thing I have learnt, you know, and one thing I’ve tried to practice more and more over the years is that drama just doesn’t serve me. The emotion doesn’t serve me. So what I’ve tended to do is every time I’ve got to the stage where I can see that I’m attaching drama or emotion to something, I try and let that go as fast as I possibly can because I know that it doesn’t actually serve it very well, serve whatever I’m doing very well. It actually just creates you into this heightened scenario. And I can see a lot of it usually does stem around the concept of money. You know, the money might, because you’re worried about paying bills, paying wages, you know you know, potential legal battles, all that sort of stuff, which does still have a core concern around money. Because what that is the money you know, the fear of, of losing that money. And I think that we’ve discussed fears before around, you know, money and that’s probably maybe fueling the heart of the drama. So if we can catch it early, I’m finding personally that that’s helping in a lot of situations.
Sarah:
What I notice about money is that when people are experiencing a lack of money or pressure around money, that always affects things. It it, it creates this kind of, I think of it like a kind of low grade emotional grumbling. It’s just like this constant feeling that something’s not quite right and it makes everybody, even people who are very good at relaxing, it makes people feel edgy and then that can spill out. So in that way, then, then you can start to feel emotional or feel uncomfortable about things, and then that can spill out into that drama creating scenario. I’ve seen that time and time again that when, and I always say to people like, if you’re feeling that edginess about money you like, in a way you can’t get rid of that, you’ve actually got that part you’ve actually got to solve. If you actually don’t have enough money to pay the bills that are in front of you, that will create that kind of edginess and that situation, you have to solve it. You can’t, you can’t avoid it. If you’ve got a little bit of a comfort zone there you have more choice in the decisions you make. But when it’s at that state where it creates this neediness around you and everyone can feel it, it’s a real dilemma because you have to look for money somehow. You have to offer yourself or your services and ask to be paid for it. And you are giving off an energy which pushes people away almost by definition. And it takes tremendous discipline when you really need money to be able to be completely relaxed and not need it when you’re making an offer, for example. But that’s essential, that when you are in that place, you do whatever you can do to solve that problem. First of all, at least get yourself to a place where you don’t have that kind of need and kind of unattractive hunger around you.
Matt:
Yeah. There’s no doubt about that. You know they often say don’t raise capital when you need it, raise it before you need it. And that’s because there’s not so much drama and there’s not so much need and there’s not so much emotion tied to it because the fear kicks in as to say, well, if I don’t have enough money at this particular point in time, then I won’t be able to extend to continue to build a product or run the business from that perspective. So that’s always key. And it’s the same with, you know, as you said before you know, selling services or products. Is that you can, you know that they say that children and animals can sense fear I think. People can sense that, that if you’re needy, then it acts as a repellent at the end of the day. I can certainly see that multiple times over and over again. But having said that, you know, we just discussed both you and I said that historically we’ve, you know, been caught up in this and we can see how difficult it is. So it is not an easy concept that we’re talking about really.
Sarah:
No, but it’s really important because actually this is such an interesting thing, which goes right back to your question. If you cut the drama and you cut all the stories and you allow yourself with your lack of money just to feel good, then you can go and make an offer. Then you can sell things and you don’t have that, you don’t give off that kind of smell of fear and worry and all of that. So it’s the same thing. We make the lack of something into the drama. And that drama then makes the whole situation worse. If you let go of that drama, let go of the fear of lacking, then you’re in a place where you can actually do something about it as well. So the solution, the inner solution is also the outer solution.
Matt:
Well, it is. And so therefore it’s just a concept of having to, I think of it in terms of breaking the connection, I, or, you know, that’s how my mind works to say, okay, there’s a connection there. There’s this kind of like continuation and a lot of people talk about it as catastrophizing, where you sort of keep going down this, you know, but what if, but what if, but what if in a negative sense and end up in a, probably a dark place. And so I often think about this, you know, a breaking the connection so you don’t keep catastrophizing and you know, we know that cognitive behavioral therapy, all those sorts of psychological therapies sort of try to, are designed to break some of that. And I kind of get that concept from that point of view. What are the techniques that you use Sarah, in terms of, you know, maybe stopping that alignment between drama and money and the decisions we have to make in business?
Sarah:
I’m more somebody who has to kind of go deep to get beneath it all and to find what, what’s the root. Usually for me when those kinds of things are happening or feel like they could happen is because there’s a lot of change going on, and I’m looking for, I’m looking for answers and I’m looking for what, what’s the movement forward? I, it’s like, I sometimes talk about putting one foot in front of another and actually not really knowing where I am or where I’m going, but knowing that I have to go in that direction. So there’s a, there’s a general feeling of insecurity and not having. So there are times when I feel like I can see all around me, I can see the view up ahead, I know where I’m going more or less. I know things can change, but I just have that general sense. It’s like, you know, you’re walking in the mountains and you can see, you can see that the, the next destination. But there are times when you are somewhere and you, you don’t really, you can’t see even if you’re going the right way. So you’re having to guess. Those are the things that would make me feel more edgy and then would make me start to say, oh, this is wrong, or that’s wrong. Like, I’m looking for a, I’m looking for something to blame. What I do there is I just, I have to really relax and get into a very deep place where I can see the bigger underlying trends. I can tap into my own inner piece so that if I know that’s there, it doesn’t really matter what’s happening on the surface, but often there are problems to be solved or there is a next level to be reached. That’s very real. And what I found is that if I don’t do that, it gets worse and worse and worse. So sometimes what I’m looking for is like, what is, that’s what I’ve been experiencing a lot recently. Like what is the next level? I have some of it, I have words and I have pieces and I have ideas, but it doesn’t all hang together. And there, there were major pieces missing. And then I just feel like, oh, I know what I want to do, but I don’t feel like I’m doing it and I can’t quite grasp it and I don’t quite know how to structure it. I don’t know what the model is quite, it’s like I’m halfway or three quarters of the way there, but there are key pieces missing in my thinking, in my actual kind of inner structure of what I’m trying to do. So I feel insecure in a way and I accept that, but it’s, I still feel insecure. Because I would like to be able to say, yep, I know this is what we’re doing. This is the plan, this is the whatever, whatever. But I can’t. And I just have to keep going deep, keep going deep and let it come through because that’s the way that I’m built, I think.
Matt:
So there’s no doubt, I mean, we’re not advocating for stepping away from responsibility and problem solving because every business is just a series of problems you have to solve to, you know, to get to put the piece of the puzzle together, so to speak. And from that point of view, when I was listening to you, you were talking about, you know, this sort of like edginess as you’re talking and you can, and I can even hear it in your voice when you can tap into it and from that point of view. It’s almost like you get to that, that place of, of almost going to the drama and then there’s, it’s stopped. If that kind of makes sense because you, you know, that you, you’ve got to feel uncomfortable, you’ve got to recognize that there’s an issue because that creates the motivation and the drive to solve it. If you weren’t edgy about it, you wonder whether you’d actually even bother with it. So there must be something. So there has to be you know, the positive angle of the edginess is that you feel uncomfortable enough that you’re not happy with whatever the situation is or you want to improve it. So that edginess is required for you to actually have the motivation and drive to go and, to go and do something about it. So it almost should be celebrated because you go, oh great, I actually feel uncomfortable because that means I’m going to actually do something. As opposed to not, I know we don’t assign that particular value with that or that particular feeling or emotion with it, but it’s kind of where it needs to be.
Sarah:
I do remind myself of that all the time because I, because I see it so much in other people, I know that that’s what’s going on. It doesn’t take away the edginess, but it enables me to just know that it’s okay to be edgy. And I, that’s really, that’s really important for me to let myself be there and not be trying to get out of it. Because sometimes I like, what I would love is to have a bit less tolerance for it. I feel like I’m very good at handling edginess. I can keep going with a lot of it. And if I could feel like this is too much a bit earlier, I’d probably shift a bit more quickly. When I was born, my mum always says, I just took an awful long time, spent a lot, very, very, very, very long time. And then I came out really quickly at the end. And I always feel like I’m like that when change is happening, it’s like all this kind of, it’s not really agonizing, but it’s just endlessly drawn out this kind of squeeze. And then when it comes through, it’s so fast. I think, well what was all that fuss about? It was like, that was so easy and so obvious. And often what I see is I had most of it right from the very beginning. Like when I get an idea, it’s all there, but I’m not feeling it yet. It’s like the energy isn’t there. It’s the beginning of it. And I have, my language is that it has, I, it’s like I have to inhabit the whole thing. It can’t just be an idea, I actually have to be able to feel it inside me. That’s because that’s the way that I process things. I think that’s what all the edginess is. It’s actually letting go of all the old stuff that doesn’t fit with the new idea.
Matt:
So there’s something, what you just said then around you know, the experience is that you get through it and you go, what was all the fuss or the drama about in relation to that particular scenario? And I look at that and say, well, if that’s the case, you know, you, if we continually draw upon experiences and say, well we’ve, we’ve been there before, so that should give us comfort that we know how to actually get through these particular things and then come out the other side. But yet, time and time again.
Sarah:
The point is you haven’t, the point is you haven’t been here before, it’s always that you’re going somewhere you’ve never been before.
Matt:
Right.
Sarah:
So yes, I’ve been in this, I’ve been edgy before, I’ve been through change before. We’ve all been through change lots of times. But I think what causes it is the fact that I have no idea what it is this time around. I know what it was last time and the time before and I know that I’ll manage it and I’ll be okay. I actually don’t have, I don’t know what it’s going to look and feel like the other side because it’s, it’s new territory always. That’s evolution for me.
Matt:
A question for you, because you speak to a lot more people than I do that aren’t necessarily business owners. I predominantly speak to business owners in what I do on an ongoing basis. Do you find that business owners have more of these things that they have to think about? More problem solving, more drama to deal with? Or is it just day-to-day life for most people that they have to make these particular decisions and have this drama that goes along with it?
Sarah:
I don’t think drama has anything to do with the circumstances of your life. I think it has everything to do with the way that you process things. So if you like drama or feed on drama or drama is a way to distract you from your own pain and or whatever it is that’s not really feeling great in your life. You can be a mum looking after kids and there is endless drama that can be created there. You can create drama around health really easily. And people do that all the time. If you’re in business, it’s easy to create drama around money or around your team or around your investors or around your clients. Like you’ve got lots of opportunities. So I think it’s more in the nature of the person, the thing that business does. Well, I’m going to say this and then I’m going to say something else to qualify it. I was going to say the thing that business does is it gives you a very kind of strong personal development system if you like, you get such fast feedback with everything in business that you can adjust yourself very well. But if I look at the level of drama that is in most businesses, it doesn’t really matter how experienced people are. I think that a lot of people just get better and better at doing drama as well. And they continue to have drama in their life. You get middle aged people, you get people in their fifties and sixties with 20, 30 years of experience living grand business dramas.
Matt:
It’s quite amazing isn’t it, that, that we look at that and say, what have we learned and what have we evolved over the years in terms of this particular issue?
Sarah:
Well you see that, I know you see family businesses breaking up, you see court cases and things like that with people who’ve been in business for years and you think, well really haven’t they learned more about relationships than that? Or, you know, is that really what all of this is gonna come to? You put 20 years work and then you’re gonna fight with your brother and sister around this business. It’s like, why, why? Yeah.
Matt:
You just said something then that really just connected some stuff to me with me because, is it the drama more around relationship? So therefore is the emotion attached around relationship more than it is about and even the relationship with money. So therefore, as we’ve discussed before, and that’s a big part of your work in your book is around this relationship with money. So is it really drama gets fueled by the emotion that gets caught up in relationship?
Sarah:
I think it’s always relational because if you imagine, if you would just experience drama, but you couldn’t observe yourself, you’d just be in an experience and you wouldn’t have any reference point to say, to make it into a drama. It would just be, you know, you’d be in pain or you’d be lacking money. But we have this extraordinary capacity as human beings to look at ourselves and make stories about ourselves and interpret what’s happening. And that’s where the drama comes in. So whether it’s your relationship to yourself, your relationship to money, it’s like how you relate with money. It’s not the money itself. You know, that, I know that like the money can change just by doing things, but the relationship we have with it sometimes stops us from doing the right things. It’s like, oh, I’m afraid of money, or if I have more money, my, somebody will think badly of me. We have all kinds of relational issues with money and then the relationships we have with everyone. Or if you’re having a problem with your wife or your husband or your partner and you don’t want to admit that, then you can turn that into a drama around money because it helps you to escape from the pain that you’re experiencing in your personal life.
Matt:
So there’s decoys, there’s ways of actually moving it away so you’re not focused on the core issue at heart. And you also spoke about earlier in the conversation around blame. And so there was that, there’s that element that comes into it as well, blaming something else from, from happening that why these things didn’t occur. And I say that in business a lot in terms of this sort of assigning blame or not taking responsibility in that. And that frustrates me significantly in, not only in business but in the world.
Sarah:
Yes. Yes. I think there’s a wonderful book called, I can’t remember its name, I can’t remember. But anyway the principle, it talks about responsibility and it talks about that responsibility isn’t something that’s a hundred percent that gets divided up between people. So let’s say you are 50% responsible and I’m 50% responsible, but that each person in everything is a hundred percent responsible. And it makes so much difference when we come from that place rather than ever, ever blaming another person. Somebody can do something bad or somebody can do something that you don’t like, but if we blame that person for our circumstances, we are then controlled by that person and then we’re controlled by somebody we don’t like or whose behavior we don’t like, which is really crazy. Like if you’re going to be controlled by anyone, at least be controlled by a good person.
Matt:
Exactly.
Sarah:
I mean, don’t be controlled by anyone please, but.
Matt:
That’s right.
Sarah:
So irrational, to let a person you don’t like, or a person who’s just treated you really badly to control your emotional state just through blame, blame is the way you give away your emotional power.
Matt:
It reminded me of the legal term joint and several liability in terms of, you know, you can be 50 50 but then you know, the joint and several aspect of it means you can also, if you’ve got more money than somebody else, somebody can come after you for a hundred percent of it. So that’s that joint and several liability aspect that you talked about before. But you’re right, there’s so many of these concepts that come into play. And, and I just see it time and time again and the emotion, and I call it drama that goes on in business and our lives. And I think, you know, what is it that that, that it constantly fuels that. Why do we keep going with these particular patterns if they don’t serve as well? And then going back to, okay, if we recognize that and identify that in our lives, then the mechanisms to stop us from actually going down these particular pathways that don’t really serve or serve you as an individual and actually help you problem solve and get to the solutions that you need to be able to continue to go forward.
Sarah:
And the real solution is very simple. If you want to avoid drama, you have to face your own pain. You have to face your own discomfort about whatever’s going on in your life, whether it’s physical or emotional or financial or legal or anything else. It doesn’t really matter. If you are willing to face yourself your own reality, your own feelings, your own experience of life, you don’t need to create drama. It’s, it’s really as simple as that.
Matt:
It sounds simple, but can you explain that a little bit more in terms of, in terms of how that works? What’s it, do you have a technique to sort of help people with really going into that particular space and feeling it?
Sarah:
So for example let’s say in your business, the pain is around money. What you’re experiencing is not enough money. You’re constantly worrying about it. And what tends to happen is then we create dramas in our minds. We’ll often do, I’ve seen myself do things that will not contribute to solving the problem. Let’s say things that keep me busy or things that actually keep me away from solving the problem. This is really common in business that you do exactly the wrong thing and what you’re not doing is facing what’s actually happening. So if you’re actually facing, okay, this is where I am, this is where I want to be. Excuse me, I want a drink. This is where I want to be with a glass of water. This is where I wanna be with a glass of water. This is where I am, this is where I want to be. Maybe this is how I want to be. Yeah. Not, you know, there needs to be a good feeling about it. And look at that and be present with it. And don’t try to think it away and don’t try to strategize it away. Because what we tend to do then is go into, okay, so I’ve got to have a strategy, I’ve got to have a plan, I’ve got to think about it, I’ve got to control it. Don’t try to control it. Actually let yourself see really clearly where you are and feel, you need to be able to feel. And it takes time just to feel where is it actually that I would love to be. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be like in three months or in one year. Like, people always say, where do you wanna be in a year? And I’ve asked that question and when people ask me that, it, I freeze completely. I have no clue what a year means. But I do have a sense of there’s this place that I’d love to be that isn’t this place where I am. And if I can look at where I am without emotion, just like this is it, this, these are the facts. If I can feel where I would love to be, and that’s not really with emotion, but it’s with a kind of inner warmth. It’s like, really, I would love that. And it doesn’t have to be dramatic and it doesn’t have to be miles away or some kind of imaginary illusionary kind of tropical island with a pina colada or whatever. It’s completely not that. It’s more like, this is what really make me feel good from this place where I am. Now, what happens when you do that is that everything starts to change automatically. There’s something very extraordinary about consciousness. I learned this many years ago and sometimes I forget to do it, but when you look without emotion at what’s going on, they’ve done all these experiments. When we observe anything in life, it changes. And what I realize is it, it evolves. So that means it actually gets better. So when you just look at it, you take all the emotion out of it, it starts to evolve automatically. So if you see, oh wow, I’ve been doing this, I didn’t even realize I was doing this and that’s been stopping us from making money. And it’s like not, oh, you’re effing idiot. Why have you been doing that? You’re so stupid. How come you didn’t see that two years ago? The writing was on the wall and there’s like many guys I’ve worked with, they talk to themselves, they’re so mean to themselves. But you don’t do that. You just say, wow, look. And it’s like, that’s what’s happening. And then you can actually, you have to create space. But from there it becomes quite easy to say, whoa, this would feel so much better. And when you tap into the energy, the feeling of what would be so much better, you start to draw it into your life. You start to attract it into your life, then you’ve done the inner work. Once the inner work is in place, it’s quite remarkable how quickly the outer stuff starts to change. Because once your energy changes your outer your, your physical experience has to change exactly in accordance with the way that your inner state has changed. And the mistakes that people make are usually they take too, they, they try to do it too quickly. They go into their heads so they don’t actually face it. You know, they’re simple things. It is actually simple to do it and anyone can do this. We just haven’t usually learnt how to do it because we learned to avoid pain. We just, we learned from the beginnings like, don’t look, don’t feel it. That’s bad. There’s something wrong. And it’s so intensely uncomfortable, but it’s not, when you actually look at it, it’s like, oh, that’s what’s going on. Yeah, I know that already. You admit it.
Matt:
Yeah. And I think that, I mean, the way you described that is really good, and you know, you’ve taught me some of those techniques in the past that’s worked really well from my perspective. I still haven’t mastered it all the time I’ve got a say, there’s times where.
Sarah:
Nor have I all the time because we’re still dealing with new territory. Sometimes we don’t quite know, it’s like, I don’t know how to do that here. I knew how to do it last time, but I don’t know how to do it this time. And we have to kind of wriggle our way into it.
Matt:
But the thing that one of the words that came up for me is no editorial comment, no judgment when it comes to it. And just looking at it, at the facts of the situation with, with a very sort of objective non-emotional lens to say, well this is exactly where I’m at at the moment. You know, own the own, the feel the pain, own the pain sort of type thing. And then say, but what would I really want from this? And then I, I can feel that that direction and that sort of inner wealth, inner warmth as you say. And, and kind of, you know, we’ve spoken about visual manifestation before too. So there’s, you know, by you sort of saying, Hey, this is what I’d like it to be. You’ve always discussed how that can then lead you onto, you know, that pathway, that overarching pathway. And I’ve experienced that and seen that myself multiple times with me and other people too.
Sarah:
And you actually create it from that place. That’s the thing. It’s from that. No, that was a beautiful description. The no edit, no editorial, absolutely zero editorial, zero commentary, just observation, that is kind of like the breeding ground of this, what you would love. They’re literally, they’re like brother and sister, they’re connected with each other. When you see what you are, what you haven’t got, you know exactly what you want. And so there’s a relationship between it and that, that is just how we draw things. And the interesting thing is it’s often tempting to spend a lot of time saying, okay, why are we where we are? That is a question that keeps you where you are. The more you ask. Like, it’s not that it’s never relevant. Sometimes, you know, you, we just do stupid things. But we tend to just notice those and say, oh, I’ve been doing this. But what I would like is that. The more people drill into, it’s like if you drill into why am I in pain, you keep your pain.
Matt:
I get that. But I still think about that in, in logical terms. Okay. So my logic would suggest that you need to learn from your experiences to then help you then move forward too, so you don’t make the same mistake over and over again. So there still has to be an element where you still have to check in to say, well, I’m here because of X and therefore I need to stop doing X to get to Y potentially
Sarah:
Yeah. It sounds logical. It is logical, but it doesn’t really work.
Matt:
It’s not how it works.
Sarah:
Well, it is, it’s, it’s not that it’s not how it works, it’s the hard way.
Matt:
Yeah.
Sarah:
The easier way is that you connect with where you want to be and it’s like the things that you need to let go of, you’ll either notice, it’s like, oh my goodness, I’ve been doing this, I never realized. And then it’s gone because you’re not going to do it again. Or it, it’s that kind of thing that happens. You let go of the old ways automatically. So some of them will just disappear because you don’t need them anymore because you are, you are moving somewhere else. And some of them you’ll notice it’s like, whoa, I don’t want to do that again. And you might do it again because you are, you know, you are wired to do it, so to speak. But it’s like, no, okay, oh I did it again. Then you have to be really kind to yourself and say, oh I did it again, but it doesn’t matter because I’m going here. That’s the fast way. The other ways are slower and they’re harder work and they involve more repetition of what doesn’t work. You’ll get there anyway. But I reckon it takes about 10 times longer.
Matt:
Yeah. And I certainly have experienced that over the years and we’ve discussed that too multiple times because, you know, working light and working in a, in a, you know, more efficient, effective manner is, is so much more, so much more enjoyable than the hard work. I was addicted to hard work over the years where I, I did it the hard way and learning the easy way now. And as you say, it does, you’re right. It, if you get, you say what you want and where you’re heading towards, a lot of that stuff just drops out way automatically without you even having to address it. And I think that’s the, the key element of the working light principle.
Sarah:
Yeah. And how, I mean, what a wonderful way to let go of drama is you live actually the really beautiful drama of life, which is way more fun than the dramas we create for ourselves. And I think what’s useful to recognize with this is this works. You can do this today for whatever it is today. Or you can do it in relation to, you know, your big thing that’s going to take five years. The principle is the same for all of it. So it’s really quite a remarkable, simple process that works. It just works because life works that way and it makes everything feel good. And I think that that’s a good way to do business.
Matt:
Well I think that’s been a good conversation. I feel a lot better about you know, the, I don’t feel drama in a negative sense. I feel in, in more of, as you say, in a, in a life sort of, you know, giving sense. So I think it’s probably a, a good place to sort of end this conversation around drama, know where we’re going and how we actually can stop some of those older patterns that we can get into to create a, a less dramatic life from that perspective. So is there anything else you wanted to add in terms of this, this topic at all, Sarah?
Sarah:
No. I love the fact that we got from that kind of drama that people get so addicted to, into really the beautiful drama that’s unfolding through all of us that we get to experience. And it does include money problems and all the other things, but there’s just a better way of dealing with it. It just works better. That’s all. It’s, if it works better, why not do it? That’s what I feel.
Matt:
I agree. Well, thank you again, Sarah. Lovely to share.
Sarah:
Thank you Matt. You’ve been listening to the Spirit of Business with Matt Murphy and Sarah McCrum. If you’d like some insight into the spirit in which you do business, a great place to start is by looking at your relationship with money. Find out more by taking the Money scorecard@moneyscorecards.app and we’ll be back next week.
