BLOG

Episode 86: Are You Focusing On The Right Things When It Comes To Money?

Jody: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of Online Confidential. I’m

Jody Milward

Jody: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of Online Confidential. I’m so excited to bring our special guest to you. A very, very fascinating background and helping us to get more awareness of getting financially secure as we build our businesses or even if you don’t consider what you do a business.

Helping you to get some sort of idea of like how you can get financially secure with whatever income or revenue that you’re generating. So without further ado, our special guest today is none other than Dr. Portia Jackson. Hello, Portia! Welcome!

Portia: Hello, hello! Thank you so much for having me, I’m very excited to be here.

Jody: I’m so excited that you’re with us as well, because this is such a crucial topic of conversation because many of us don’t learn about financial education from our parents and school as well, as somewhere that we’re not taught these kind of things.  [00:01:00] And as we were talking before the recording, I was just fascinated by your drive and how it all came about for you.

But before we dive in, tell us a bit more about yourself.

Portia: All right, like you’ve mentioned, my name is Dr. Portia Jackson. The doctor part comes from my traditional educational background of being an aerospace engineer slash rocket scientist, depending on who you’re talking to. And I did that. I went all the way through, got my PhD was in the aerospace field for a while, but the entire time I was doing that, I was always helping people with their finances.

It’s just something I’ve always really been interested in, decided to go ahead and get certified and that involved a career change. So that’s like the professional side. And then the process of doing that, I ran an agency, I did Facebook ads for quite some time and then narrowed even with that agency, narrowed that down into financial professionals.

And then at that time I was like, I it’s time for me to launch my own thing. I had a few financial coaching clients on the side as I was also doing it in corporate.  [00:02:00] And so I launched Wealthy and Fulfilled. And so I’ve been doing that for a couple of years, helping entrepreneurs basically take their money that they’re making from their business and turn it into long term financial wealth.

Outside of business I’m a wife, I’m a mom to three girls, ten, eight, and four. And then my boy, Vino our golden doodle, who is two. I love Dodger baseball. I’m located in Southern California. So I love my Dodgers and I also love college football, so American football. So really into that as well

Jody: Awesome. Love those sports there as well.

And I’ve seen photos of your puppy dog. So I’d say probably you’re more of a dog person than a cat person, right?

Portia: Oh yeah. No cats make me sneeze and I’m very allergic to them. I won’t die, but I feel like I come very close to it. So cats are totally not my thing. And my dog’s like 50 pounds. So he’s literally like another child.

Jody: How gorgeous. Now with that as well you were a, as it says here, a former financial wellness coach for Fortune 500 companies as well. [00:03:00] So all that you’ve done, you know, rocket science, all those things, it’s not something you get from the back of a crackerjack box. Right? So you’ve gone through, you’ve done the study, you’ve worked with people, you’ve implemented, and helped them to get success and get that financial security in place.

So with regards to that, tell us about your background. Like I mentioned before, how did you get started? Was this something that your parents instilled in you? Tell us a bit about how it all happened for you.

Portia: I’ve always loved reading. My parents used to take me to the library.  If you all remember what those are, like right back before we had Amazon. And so I remember, I don’t remember the book specifically, but I remember reading a book talking about saving, spending and giving some away. And so, I had my own little envelope system that I created. So it was like saving, spending, charity or giving it away.

And that was probably around six or seven years old. And so it’s just something I’ve always just [00:04:00] naturally been into. I was very much into saving, like my birthday money, Christmas money, all the things, so much so that my dad actually borrowed money from me. I don’t know if that was his gifting.

He’s gifted in a lot of things. Saving money, probably not one of them. And I was charging him interest at like a very young age. Cause I’m like, wait a minute. If you’re borrowing my $10, you’re giving me like $12 back. And I had high interest rates. Okay. Very high interest rates. Cause I had goals. And then from there it’s just something like, that’s what I read books about.

I wasn’t really into a lot of fiction. It was books about personal development or like the stock market, real estate. Like how do wealthy people get wealthy? It was just a natural draw I think that that was just placed in me. And I do believe that people have natural tendencies and natural skill sets and stuff that they’re born with.

And others, others can be developed. I feel like money is mine, right? So like we have people who are great at gymnastics and basketball and all these business things, and I feel like mine is money. But I got my first mutual fund when I was 17 from them hanging something on the door. I had to take my mom with me because I wasn’t old enough to open it on my own.

[00:05:00] Had my first rental property when I was 22, which in itself was a blessing and a curse! I definitely learned a lot of lessons through that, but it’s just something I’ve always been drawn towards. And then people started asking me questions about what I was doing. And I was also naturally drawn towards teaching.

I love teaching other people. That’s why I got my PhD. I wanted to be a professor. But while teaching them about money, I was like, well, I don’t want tojust teach what’s in books. I want to start developing my own frameworks and my own philosophies. And that’s when I went out and got my certificate in financial planning.

And when I was doing that, they’re like well, you might as well become Certified. I’m like, well, what does that take? So essentially it takes three years of experience and exam all this stuff, right? So that’s what really led to the career change out of engineering, which I still use today because engineers essentially are just problem solvers.

It’s just, instead of launching rockets, I’m launching, people’s wealth plans. So I feel like it’s, although my resume is like 20 pages long and very diverse, I feel like it’s all come together as just a beautiful creation of having the background of data and teaching and [00:06:00] understanding the online business space and all the things are working together with what I’m doing.

Jody: Awesome. And I love that. Nothing is wasted, right? It’s all come together to this point. And just so fascinating that from a young age, you were just into it and it was a natural instinct. For a lot of us it’s not that. And it’s something that we realized maybe later in life, as we’re heading towards retirement years and going, wow, what are we gonna do with this?

And then for us with online businesses or who have built a business and we are doing things online, we can get so focused and so consumed by this one business that we forget the value of diversification and maybe allocating some of that budget over to other revenue streams.

So I know there’s a lot to it. But where do you get started with going? Wow, I do need to diversify. What do I do? Shall I go off and buy a rental property?

Where do you start?

Portia: So, I have a four part framework, but the first [00:07:00] part is understanding your money personality. Then we get into your lifestyle design.

What does a successful and fulfilled life look like for you? This is the second stop before we get into the personality, because it’s so important for people to find what success looks like for them, because that is going to help us determine what your financial goals are.

So our timeline might be saying the Lamborghini and first class and red bottom shoes and all this fancy stuff, but somebody else might be like, you know what being wealthy to me means I’m working 10 hours a week. I can cover all my bills. I can take my kids to and from school. And I’m not stressing out about launches all the time, or I don’t have crazy clients or, or whatever, or the fancy stuff.

Right. So we start there and I have them take a look at well, what is it that you’re earning now? What’s your current budget? So what are you currently spending now? What are you currently making now, then taking a look at well, what is that dream life? What does that successful life? What does that fulfilled life look like for you?

And let’s start putting some [00:08:00] numbers behind that, because then we have a number to aim for. So if we’re adding in a personal chef or a driver for your kids or a house manager or fancy vacations. Well instead of just saying ‘fancy vacations’, we’re now saying, you need $20,000 a year going into travel.

Great. We can break that down into a monthly, or let’s just say 24,000 to keep the math simple. So now we know we’re adding sn extra 2k per month to our budget. Well then as business owners, we just back that out, right? So obviously it’s gonna change from country to country but add in your taxes, your business expenses and now you actually know what you’re shooting for in your business to have as take home pay to support your fulfilled life.

Then after that, we get into the personal financial planning and I feel like a lot of people want to start there, where it’s like, oh, I should invest in rental property because I heard I need cash flow or crypto, everybody’s talking about crypto. I should do crypto.

What I really want to remind people is these are [00:09:00] all tactics, right? So it’s like throwing spaghetti on a wall. Some of it will stick. Most of it will fall off. What you want to do instead is actually create a framework. Like you’re building a house, you’re building that frame of what you need to fund what you outlined before for your fulfilled life.

Then, you know, what type of income you’re looking for and how much you need. So if you’re going for saying, I want to work five hours a week and still maintain my current lifestyle. We know you’re looking for cash flow. And for those people, I would say about 80% of people, it’s gonna be cash flowing assets because essentially the goal is if I ever want to sell my business, get out of my business, close down the business, whatever, I’m still getting taken care of.

It just makes you a lot more cognizant around what it is that you’re looking for. So you can say yes and no to all the millions of opportunities that will pass through your timeline, your friends, your masterminds, all these things that we’re inundated with, YouTube videos TikTok, and you can start to say, that’s not gonna work for me.

I’m sure you’re making a bunch of money [00:10:00] buying land, but right now my goal is $10,000 a month cash flow. So I’m looking to buy cash flow producing assets. So that’s how we can start to filter through the noise and make sure we’re seeing true to what we want, which at the end of the day, is that fulfilled life that we outlined in step two.

Jody: I love that. One of the key points there, like you’re saying is looking at what does success look like for you? Because like I know in this online space, there can be that hustle and the success is that hundred thousand dollar month, right? $10,000 months.

When it comes to, like you know, I work with ad managers and help train up ad managers and for some, yes, getting to a $10,000 or $20,000 a month is their goal and that’s their success, others it’s an extra $2,000 a month. Right.

Portia: Exactly.

Jody: So that they don’t have to put the kids into daycare. So it’s taking a look at it personally, and then also [00:11:00] it’s that time for money exchange. Right? So if you are, you know, making $10,000 a month, but you’re working like 80 hours a week you know, that’s not so ideal.

So yeah, identifying this and, and nailing that in so you know what you’re shooting for, and yes, a hundred percent, cash flow. Because we’ve only got a certain number of hours. Right. So if you can find that, I love the sound of that.

Portia: And as entrepreneurs we’re always progressing, we always like, we’re just natural people who are looking for growth.

And sometimes that growth can help us lose sight of why we got into this in the first place. Right. So it could be that $10,000 month. And then it’s like, well, so, and so did $20,000. I’m going to do $20,000 and it’s like, if you actually sat down and looked at it, maybe you only need $12,000 a month. So I think it is really important to be true to what you want, what your family wants and what means the most to you.

Because I mean, unlimited money is out there for everyone [00:12:00] time, not so much.

Jody: Yep. A hundred percent. I think some people go ‘what unlimited money?! You’re crazy!’ But yes, it’s out there, but, and like you said, our time is limited.

Now with that I was in America and I heard you speak and it was just amazing.

And one of the topics that you covered was talking about shame with behavior that we’ve had with money in the past. And that’s where some people have a block because they look at their history of debt and such. How do you get people to acknowledge it and move on from that, or for people who are in that situation?

How do you get over it?

Portia: Yeah. This comes up so much because I mean, you know, raise your hand if you’ve never had any financial mistakes or things you wish you could have had like a take back on, right? No-one’s going to raise their hand. That’s just part of the game, we just make mistakes and we learn from it.

But one of the things I walk my clients through a lot [00:13:00] is the Ho’oponopono I can’t say it. Right, but it’s the Ho’oponopono prayer. It’s based in Hawaii. I can spell it better than I can say it, but essentially you’re just saying Thank you. I’m sorry. Thank you. I love you. I’m sorry. And something else.

I forgot what it is at the moment, but basically it’s you’re forgiving yourself. You’re forgiving whatever the situation was that allowed you to get into debt or whatever the financial situation was that you have a shame around, but you’re also thankful for the lessons that were learned.

Right. So, I mean, at one point when I started my business, I was debt free, ended up going to this coaching program. They’re like, well, if you want to make money, you have to spend money. First of all, biggest lie ever, like ever. But that started the whole thought pattern. Well, if I want it, I could just put it on credit.

I’m gonna pay it off because I’m building my business. It’s not going to be that big of a deal. Well, before I knew it, I went from being debt free to having like $50,000 of credit card debt. And I’m like, well, whoa, wait, where are all the clients? Right. So I had a [00:14:00] lot of guilt and shame around that. So I’ll just use myself as an example.

And with that, I had to learn to one say, I’m sorry, like, I’m sorry that you got yourself into this position. But you know, thank you for the lessons, because without that, I wouldn’t have been in programs that did actually teach me about how to get clients and then led to doing ads and then having an agency.

And from that, niching down into going into coaching. So it all led to something. But then I also have to say, I love you. Like I still love myself. The numbers that are out there are not a definition of my worth and who I am as a person. And that’s really what I like to emphasize outside of the prayer.

But it’s also just recognizing that these are just numbers, they’re just numbers. And what might seem like a lot to somebody else is a little to somebody else and vice versa. Somebody will come to me and say, I’m so ashamed of what I have. You won’t believe it. And I’m like, how much is it? And they’re like, it’s [00:15:00] $8,000.

I have some people who come to me and they’re like, it’s 50,000. I’m like, yep, I can relate. Then there’s some people who are like I have $250,000 and this is US dollars, because I’m American. But you know, it’s from law school, or like a life coach, or something.

It’s not about the numbers. It’s about how do you view yourself? Can you separate yourself from the scarcity mindset of, I have to pay off the debt. I have to pay off the debt. I have to pay off the debt and to the abundance viewpoint of how can I serve more? How can I serve more in my business? How can I serve more in the world?

The more I can start serving, the more value I’m giving to people and they in turn pay me for that value. So if you focus on how you’re helping people, how you’re bringing value to them, whether it’s as an ad manager for, you know, multiple clients or two clients or whatever it is, the more value you can give them, the more clients you’ll get or the higher your retainer can be.

And through that, you can then pay off the debt. I find that with my clients, and even with myself, the more you focus on the debt, the mistakes, the [00:16:00] things you’ve done wrong in the past, the more those tend to happen. The more you focus on the debt, somehow it’s like, oh, I got a new client, I paid something off, but then it was time to re-up on a mastermind or do something else for travel.

It’s like I went back, I paid off 8,000. I put 12,000 back on the card or whatever it is. So it’s like focus on what you want to happen. Not what you don’t want. Focus on more clients, focus on bigger retainers focus on, I don’t know, members in your membership, focus on giving value. And I promise you, I promise you, I promise you. I’ve seen it time and time again. The debt will take care of itself.

Jody: That’s right. And so often it’s getting into that scarcity and like, again, as I normally deal with ad managers getting into that fear and that scarcity, and then you end up lowering your rates and taking on anyone as clients.

And so then you’re working massive hours. And it’s like, oh, well, I might as well give up on all this and print off a resume, right. You’ve just really [00:17:00] compressed your world. It’s challenging and it’s a mindset thing for sure, to, when you do get those fears and you do think, oh man, I’m just hopeless with money or whatever, to turn it around.

Like you said, like that Hawaiian prayer. Just accepting yourself. This is how it is, but you know, and Denise Duffield Thomas is another one, you know, shows the tapping on I completely love and accept myself, right. So loving and accepting yourself through all of it, because there are people out there, whatever service you provide, there are people out there that need it.

So it’s like putting all that aside, focusing on serving. You know, opening up that abundance mindset. So if you do feel these things, if you do feel this shame from money or, you know, oh, I’ve got bad spending habits, or I just can’t do a budget. I hope this has assured you that you are not alone.

Portia: For sure.

Jody: For sure, and that you can turn it around. It is never too late to turn it around. So Portia, where do people start when they decide I do [00:18:00] need to get this in line. Because I want to get my spending under control, I want to be able to do a budget and I want to have some money to put aside and retire financially sound.

So tell us when we are wanting to get our finances in order and start putting some money aside and taking care of our debt. Where do we get

Portia: I always use the closet analogy. So if like you’re cleaning out your closet, you want to pull everything out so you can see and work from like a blank space.

You can see what fits, what doesn’t fit. What’s working, what’s not working. Same thing with your money. It’s the same process I lead all my clients through. So I have them first list out everything that is their income. So we’ll start with what are you making per month? So whether you’re still in a job, if you have a contractor position that’s steady, if you have some irregular income that comes in, list it all out, so you can see what is your monthly income, [00:21:00] then we’re looking at what are your expenses?

We start with the monthly expenses so we can see what you’re actually spending money on, but also including those irregular expenses. So maybe it’s something that you only pay once per year or once every six months. Not forgetting those as well because sometimes they’ll sneak up and it’s like, oh man, I have that $1,200 car insurance bill or something.

Well, we could budget a hundred dollars a month for that and not have to worry about it. Then I have them list out all of their assets, the things that they own. So checking accounts, savings, accounts, home equity paid off, cars, things like that.

And then listing out your liabilities, what do you owe? Whether that’s student loans, mortgage, medical, debt, credit card debt, all the things that you owe, your next door neighbor of $20, whatever it is, list it all out. So that way we can get a clean slate of what do we have?

Then we start taking a look at what are the goals? So if you’re someone that’s like in a lot of debt, we most likely will figure out what’s the method of debt management?

I’m not necessarily on the zero debt train. [00:22:00] Cause I feel like debt can be used as a tool to build wealth. If you’re in the position to do so.  If you’re debt free and your next goal is savings, or I want to start investing, well, we have to figure out how much do you actually have to invest? Is that per month? Is that per year?

So getting it all out on paper first provides clarity, because a lot of times people will be like, oh, it’s not as bad as I thought, or oh, I have a little bit more work to do than I thought. Right. But either way it tends to be something different than what they initially thought.

But we need that clarity to start. It’s very similar to if you’re like, if most people here in America on January 1st, you’re stepping on the scale, like, whoa, got a lot of work to do here. Right?

It’s the same thing with your money. Just starting with looking at the numbers, logging into those accounts that you might have been avoiding and just look at the numbers and then working through whatever feelings come up with that.


Jody: So it’s a matter of hugging the cactus, right?

Portia: Yes.

Jody: It’s that unpleasant stuff that needs to be looked at and addressed and [00:23:00] acknowledged so that you can go, right, and make that plan. I’m sure that when those plans get made, it’s kind of like, you know, oh, phew, a sigh of relief.

So how much do people need? This might be a bit of ‘how long is a piece of a string kind of question’ but how much do people need to start putting some aside for financial security?

Portia: Very little, I mean, you can literally start some accounts with like $20 and again, this is US dollars. Now how much do you need to actually hit your goals? It depends.

What’s your goal, right? I have a client and one of their goals is to save a million dollars per year, but they’re a very well established business. He’s been in business for a while. So it’s like, okay, his plan is going to be a little bit different than someone who’s saying, hey, I want to max out, in America we have 401k plans, the retirement plans, and there’s a certain limit that you can put in each year. So it’s going to be different. How they invest that can also be different. Sometimes people want to put it in the stock market.

Sometimes it’s within real estate other [00:24:00] cash flowing businesses, cryptocurrency, a lot of different ways in which you can do that. But it doesn’t take a lot to get started. And that is kind of one of the myths that I want to debunk because it’s like, hey, you don’t have to wait until you’re financially secure, whatever that means to you, you know, quote unquote, to get started with investing, you don’t have to wait until you’re out of debt to start investing or to start saving. You can do both of those simultaneously.

A lot of times that’s what I have people consider because some people might be in debt for a while, or the debt is not something that is bothering them or is not inhibiting their financial growth for whatever reason.

So it doesn’t even make sense for them to pay it off before they start saving. So I never want anyone to feel like they’re too small or they’re not making enough, or they’re not rich enough to start thinking about building wealth, because it’s something that we all can start doing.

Jody: Excellent, get started.

They say the best time to plant a tree if you wanna sit in the shade is 70 years ago. When’s the next best time?[00:25:00] well now. Yeah. So it’s like get getting started now, because like you said, you, maybe if you’re in debt, you may in debt for a while yet, but get started on the savings train and all that.

So with regards to that, there’s ones that are like budget, budget, budget. Cut back, cut back, cut back. What’s your sort of view like on that versus like, well, just go out and make more in your business?

Portia: Well, you’re definitely not going to hear me say stop having your daily lattes to get wealthy because that, I mean, first of all, I kind of need the latte or the coffee to get started in the business for the day. Right? Like, can I get an amen?

I’m not about the scarcity mindset. I feel like having that restrictive thought pattern of, I can’t have fun or I can’t do this until… it’s like, life is too short for until…

I always feel like there’s a way to have a life of abundance now, whatever that looks like for you and still be on track to hit your financial goals.

So if you want the latte, have the latte. Now, can you have it every day? Maybe, [00:26:00] maybe not. At some point we have to start seeing, well, what are we giving? Not necessarily giving up, but what, you know, it’s kind of a cost benefit analysis. It’s like, do you want the daily $10 latte? Or whatever. Some people are like, I’m just gonna make more. It’s very personality based, which is why step one is figuring out what is your relationship with money?

For some people it’s very easy to just go out and make more. Other people have stories around that. Like, oh, my clients all want a gazillion ads per month for, you know, a $10 management fee. So it’s like what?! Like, no, no, thank you. Not in Jody’s world. So it really just kind of depends.

I’ve come from a place of abundance, overflow. There’s always more than enough. And how can you work that into your system? So even if it’s like, hey, I want to go to the fancy restaurant. Maybe you go during happy hour and you get it half price. So you can still be in that atmosphere of abundance. And this is the life I want. But at the same time, it’s not costing you the full $50 or whatever it might be during regular hours.

Then also with that is thinking about the feeling you get from [00:27:00] some of these things, right? So it’s not about cutting back on the avocado toast or whatever, but maybe it’s the feeling of convenience of, oh, I just love stopping at this cafe and getting something healthy and nutritious.

Maybe, instead of paying $15 every day for avocado toast, maybe you meal prep on the weekends or you get a meal delivery service that brings $10 avocado toast. There’s so many different variations of what this looks like, but really start thinking about what’s the feeling you’re going after with your purchases and how can you still have that feeling in your life, in a financial way that’s going to support your goals.

Jody: Ooh. I love that because you know, it can be that sense, you know, that feeling, right. That hit that you go, oh, when you get something that you know, that you really like or admire, or it’s just, you know, like I’m all about the experiences, right. You know, I love flying first class,

Give me the points. You know, [00:28:00] being a business owner, there’s the advantage of that and running Facebook ads. Yes. You can get some good points, but then instead of paying $10,000 for a ticket, you can just buy your economy points and then upgrade with your business points.

Portia: Yeah, exactly.

Pay $30 and go sit in Delta sky lounge and get the free food and then walk yourself back to coach for right now. Right. And while you’re in coach visualize yourself in first class and the next time you fly, maybe you’re in first class. There’s ways to experience this luxurious and abundant feeling in your life without having to be quote unquote “there”, you know what I’m saying?

It’s like drink it up, eat all the free stuff and, well, it’s not free, you pay for it, but you know, sky lounge it up and then enjoy coach for right now.

Jody: Yep. Yep and be inspired to go out and create more, have that discipline with your money so that you can have more of that. So I love that.

So thank you, Dr. Portia for being with us today and for just, maybe just for some people, just helping them to [00:29:00] breathe a little bit, to realize I’m not alone in this struggle. Get rid of some of that money shame, and then be inspired to take control of things and start moving forward. So where can people learn more about you?

Portia: People can learn more about me at wealthyandfulfilled.com that’s the hub for everything. You can learn about my programs or Facebook group. A bunch of freebies are there. Podcast coming soon. So yeah, that’s going to be the hub of everything. There’s also a contact form. If you ever have any questions, I’m not at the point where I have a 500,000 person email list so I love replying to emails and getting in touch with people and just helping because again, that focus on value.

And I just think it’s really important because I’ve worked with thousands of people at this point with their finances and trust me, behind the shiny smiles that you see on Facebook ads and, you know, the boasty type post in Facebook groups, a lot of people have issues with money.

So you’re not alone. Everything is [00:30:00] fixable and everything is available for you if you believe it is.

Jody: Fantastic. Fantastic. Thank you so much, Dr. Portia. So guys head over, check out Dr. Portia’s site there, and especially if you’re wanting to take control of your finances and if you have a business and you’re wanting to capitalize on that so that in three years time, you’re not going, oh my gosh, I’ve been working three years I have nothing to show for it, Dr. Portia can help you to get it all together and make a plan.

Thank you so much for your time today everybody. We look forward to seeing you next episode. Bye for now. Bye.

Blog

I love to share practical information to help you improve your skills, learn something new or help you avoid the mistakes that many Ad Managers and I have made to help fast-track you on your journey as a well-paid and in-demand Ad Manager.