5 Money Thoughts + 2 Money Blocks That Are Stopping You from Making More Money in Your Business

You’re listening to The Jewish Entrepreneur Podcast with Debbie Sassen, Episode 98.

Welcome to The Jewish Entrepreneur Podcast. I’m your host, Debbie Sassen. I went from being a financial adviser, author and chronic underearner to building my business to six figures as a financial planner and money mindset coach. And then, on to multiple six figures as a full-time money and business coach.

I help entrepreneurs create money making businesses and build wealth, using sales and money mindset strategies in alignment with authentic Jewish values. Now, let’s dive in to today’s show.

Hello, my friends, and welcome back to the podcast. As I record this podcast, I am sitting between the holidays of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Now, by the time this podcast drops and you get a chance to listen to it, it will be between Yom Kippur and Sukkot, the Day of Atonement and holiday of Sukkot or Tabernacle.

I know there’s a little bit of a time warp, always a time warp between when I record and when it gets broadcast, but this 10-day period of time, between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, which we call the Tenant Days of Repentance, are a very holy time. A time when we are really looking at our deeds, our way of showing up and behaving in the world, our relationship with God and making God King.

Our sages also teach us that during this 10-day period of time, repentance, prayer, and charity, remove the evil decree that we might be assigned on Yom Kippur. On Rosh Hashanah we are written into the Book of Life, the Book of Death, or the Middle Road. That decree is sealed on Yom Kippur.

Now, we’re not going to go into, in this podcast, exactly what that means. Does that mean in this world? Does that mean in the next world? Practically speaking, into to the next world. But be that as it may, there is an awareness of money being used for charity, being given as charity, as a way for us to do more acts of loving kindness to arouse within us that compassion and empathy for others who have less than we do.

When we arouse that humanity within us, when we allow money to move out of our hands, to move out of our home, our sphere, the things that we control, and we allow it to flow to others, we nourish other people. That also brings us closer to God.

I wanted to take that concept of money, and the flow of money, and how we can use money for good in the world. That principle is something that I want to talk about in terms of your thoughts about money, and some money blocks, and how they are impacting your business.

And so often, the way we think about money, and where we’re blocked, where we can’t get over the limiting beliefs, or the icky feelings in our body when it relates to money, they stop us from showing up and being visible, and taking up more space in the world. And, when we talk about serving others from compassion and empathy, really growing our businesses to serve more people and make a bigger impact in the world.

Today on the podcast, I’m going to share with you five money thoughts, plus two money blocks, that are stopping you from growing a big, beautiful business.

In keeping with this time of year, the first thought about money that we really have to explore is that money isn’t spiritual. This is a topic that comes up over and over and over again, when I’m speaking with people, my clients, others, when I’m interacting with folks on social media, or when I’m having sales conversations, or consults with them.

There is this belief that money is materialistic. That people who want money are greedy, they’re evil. We are certainly influenced by the books we read when we were growing up. If we think about the wicked stepmother in Cinderella, or Cruella de Vil in 101 Dalmatians, and other evil, wicked people who have amassed fortunes and didn’t share it with others.

We have grown to believe that money is not spiritual. But remember how I started off this podcast? I told you, that in these days, these 10 days of Repentance, we’re being called on to give more money to help others, to support others. In reality, money is a “tool.” We can use money in a way to elevate it, and use money for spiritual purposes.

I can give money to help other people. Whether it’s people who don’t have jobs, and so they need help to tide their families over until they can find a job. People dealing with mental illnesses, needy brides in Israel, and around the world who need help. They haven’t been born into circumstances where they do have mothers and fathers backing them, helping them to get married, and to start up their new home.

There are so many different causes available in the world, and money can be used for spiritual purposes. When we think about what we can achieve, and what we can do with money, it can take on a very spiritual element to it.

Even as we’re going into the Jewish holidays, the holiday of Sukkot, and we buy the four species; the lulav, the etrog, the hadassim, and the aravot; we buy, and we’re even commanded to make it a beautiful mitzvah. When we invest more of our resources, we, again, elevate money to spirituality.

Even the clothes that we buy, the foods that we put on our table, the way we set our table to celebrate the holidays, money can be used for spirituality, for spiritual purposes. It’s not that the money itself is spiritual, or is not spiritual, it is how you, as the person who’s handling money, allowing money to flow to you and flow through you. It’s what you infuse into the money the energy that you put into it, and what you do with it, that is going to elevate money to a different spiritual realm.

Even in just the regular day-to-day material realm in which we live, you must have a roof over your head. I mean, you could live on a park bench, you could live in a tent, you could live somewhere where you don’t have to have a firm roof over your head.

Most people don’t. Especially if you’re listening to this podcast on some sort of electronic device, I imagine. You might be off on a backpack trip or a camping trip, or something like that, but the likelihood is that you’re living in a home, an apartment house, could be an RV, but that requires money.

And so, even in our day to day, our housing, our electricity or water, our food, the clothing we wear, when you are showing up in your day to day and you are serving God on a day-to-day basis, because you’re dressed, you’ve had a good meal, you feel well nourished, well taken care of, that is how you elevate money and make it spiritual.

It is just people who have done icky things with money, right? Those are the ones who get the most press and the most coverage, and the people who are doing tax evasion and exploitation and all sorts of things. We don’t need to waste time on this podcast. But I really want you to explore your thoughts of money, that money is not spiritual.

Because I actually really think that money is spiritual. We can use it for spiritual endeavors. We can infuse just the regular things we do; getting up in the morning, go into work, driving your car, going to work out at the gym, or going for a walk; whatever it is that you do, taking care of your children; Jewish education costs money.

And so, we elevate money and we create spirituality through the money in our lives. In fact, I’m going to bring you one last example, which is such a beautiful example from the Bible. I think the first example of money, if I’m not mistaken, that’s in the Bible, is from Genesis. When Abraham, Avraham, purchases the Cave of the Patriarchs, Ma’arat HaMachpelah. He purchased it from Efrain for 400 silver shekels, which in that time was an enormous amount of money.

But this is the cave where Abraham, Sarah, Yitzchak, Rebecca, Jacob, and Leah were buried, and Adam and Eve. It was a very spiritual purpose. So, I really want you to check out and explore and excavate your thoughts about money if you’re thinking that it’s not spiritual.

Because if that is the case, it will most definitely block you from asking for money in your business and receiving money. Because you’re just going to have this underlying thought that money is tainted, and you don’t want anything to do with it. That’s number one.

Let’s move on to number two. And this really is specifically about your business. And that is, you’re thinking about purchasing something, investing in something, growing your business, but the thought comes to you that it’s not the right time. And this is a very insidious belief, it comes up a lot.

I see it when I’m on sales conversations with people, and my clients are on sales conversations with people. They get to the point where they’re like, “Okay, let’s start working together,” and all of a sudden, the money drama comes up, and it’s not the right time.

And I want you to really think about if you have ever done this. You really wanted to do something to grow your business, you wanted to invest with a coach, you have wanted to create a website, you wanted to brush up on your skills, whether it’s sales skills, or marketing skills, or something else to grow your business.

Now, the funny thing, is that people always are willing to invest in their toolkit and skill set as the thing that they do. If you’re a coach, then you’ll invest in more coaching to get better as a coach. If you’re a healer, if you’re a copywriter.

I had a client who was thinking of doing an art therapy degree in order to supplement her coaching. I recently spoke with someone who wanted to get some yoga training to bring some more embodied healing modalities into her business. All of this was coming before investing in growing your business.

So, here’s what I want to offer you. Just like you would invest in improving your skill sets, as the thing that you do, your profession, your zone of genius, investing in help to build your business is the best investment that you can make.

Because figuring it out on your own costs you time. And I’ve talked about this before on the podcast, when I have mentioned that bootstrapping your business is the most expensive way to grow your business. Because time is nonrenewable.

Time is your most precious asset, other than you, because you are your business. Where you’re not in your business, your business isn’t making money. Unless you’re already at the scaling phase and you have a lot of people who can do what you do in your business.

But for most of my solopreneur clients, or small business clients, they are the face of their business. And if they’re not working in their business doing the thing, the business just isn’t going to grow. And when you invest in your business, again, not in you and your skill set; we all love to tinker and grow ourselves.

But when you invest in people who know different things from you about how to grow your business, you collapse time. You save time. And it’s important that you understand a concept, it’s an economic concept that I learned studying economics, called “opportunity cost.”

And if I go to my friends at Google, and I look up on Investopedia what “opportunity cost” is, opportunity cost is the forgone benefit that would have been derived from an option not chosen.

Right now that sounds like a very convoluted sentence. But basically, it says you could have benefited if you had decided to invest in something. Now, we’ll never know because we can never turn the clock back. Right? If you remember Robert Frost “The Road Not Taken.” We can’t ever figure out how much money you could have made, if you would have invested at that time in your business.

But I guarantee you that if you’re committed, if you’re all in, you are going to do the work. When you invest in growing your business, your business grows. It’s just fascinating how that relationship… there’s a one-to-one relationship between you committing and investing, and all of a sudden, doors open. Paths appear that you never expected to appear.

It’s like Nachshon ben Aminadav jumping into the Red Sea, into the Yam Suph. All of a sudden, the sea split. And in fact, we learned that there were 12 different paths for the 12 tribes. That’s what happens when you take the leap and you invest in growing your business.

Paths appear that you never would have expected, clients pop out of the woodwork. Maybe somebody who was just looking for your services, who was thinking about working with you, all of a sudden, you’re committed, you show up, your energy flow is different, and magic happens.

There are things that happen that you could not have expected. Because when you’re keeping yourself small, and when you’re hiding, clients cannot find you. But when all of a sudden you decide to take your business to a different level, whether it’s serious, because before you were thinking of it as a hobby business.

Or now it’s more serious, or more professional, whatever it is, all of a sudden, there’s just a different energy that you’re releasing out into the world and you’re calling in people from a different energetic state. I’m not going to get too woo woo on you, but I do believe that like attracts like. And when you put energy out into the world, at a certain level, you attract back energy to meet you.

And so, when you invest and you show that you’re committed, I really do believe that God sends you the clients that really want to work with you, right now, where you are. And in fact, I’m just going to add a little bit more from a spiritual point of view here. We have two concepts in Judaism.

One is Hishtadlus, the effort that you put in. The other one is Bitachon, the faith that you have that God is going to support you. And your responsibility as a business owner, is to put in 100% effort, 100% hishtadlus. And at the same time, to remember that God is in charge of everything; in charge of your success, in charge of sending you the clients.

That your efforts, while you have to put vigorous effort into building your business, it’s almost meaningless, because God has everything figured out already. Alright, that’s a little bit of a mind bend, we’re not going to explore that further today on this podcast.

But really, investing to collapse time, to not lose out on that opportunity cost of non-investing is so key. But when you’re telling yourself it’s not the right time, then you’re not giving God an opportunity to send you the clients that he wants to send you. Because again, it’s not the right time.

Let’s move on to number three. Number three is, I can’t afford it. It goes a little bit hand in hand with number two, it’s not the right time, and I can’t afford it. But I want you to just take a moment and feel into your body. When you say, “I can’t afford it,” I feel a heaviness in my chest, my throat, even my stomach, my shoulders sag, my energy drops.

Remember what I just said about energy, right? If your energy is vibrating at a higher level, you are going to attract people at a higher level. It’s like your aura, that vibe that you’re sending out into the world, that magnetism. But when you’re like, “No, I can’t afford it,” that’s scarcity, that’s lack. And where your focus goes, that’s where your energy flows.

And when your focus and your energy is in scarcity and lack, that is what you’re attracting back to you. And you really want to be mindful of saying, “I can’t afford it.” Now, most people probably cannot afford, in a very simple equation, the things that they want to invest in.

They probably don’t have a line item, depending on how you are doing your books. If you’re planning for profit, if you’re planning to have extra money set aside for reinvestment in your business. But especially in the earlier stages of your business, between $0 and $200,000, a lot of people don’t have money set aside for reinvestment. But that’s another topic for another day.

Anyway, when you’re saying that you can’t afford it, you’re just attracting in more scarcity and lack. People will come to you who are also saying they can’t afford to work with you. Because again, like attracts like.

So, here’s a concept that I’m going to share with you from my parenting days. If there was something that we really couldn’t afford… We couldn’t afford to send them to all of the extracurricular activities that they wanted to go to. Or if they wanted a new pair of roller skates or bicycles. I’m making up these examples. I don’t remember anymore. My baby’s 16; I can’t remember what we couldn’t afford.

But we don’t say ‘I can’t afford it,’ we say, ‘it’s not a priority right now.’ Just say those two sentences out loud, ‘I can’t afford it’ and ‘it’s not a priority right now.’ ‘It’s not a priority’ is much more casual. First of all, it shows that you’re in charge. Right? You understand where your expenses are right now, what’s important, what’s the first level importance.

Really, when it comes to priorities, you can only have one priority at a time. So, when I look at my business over quarterly, or over the course of the year, there are things that I want to invest in. But for this fourth quarter of 2023, when I want to invest in the future might not be a priority for me.

Then I’m not exploring, and I’m not talking to people. It’s only when it becomes a priority that I start searching around and looking for the next person who I want to bring onto my team, and help me do the next thing.

So, if you are thinking of investing in something, in someone, in growing your business, you have to make it a priority. And if it’s not a priority, then don’t waste people’s time. Don’t come to a sales conversation with the idea that ‘I can’t afford it.’

Be very clear for yourself, as the CEO of your business, if what you’re looking for right now is a priority or not a priority. We talked about in money thought #2, that time is a non-renewable asset. Don’t waste your time, and don’t waste anybody else’s time, getting on a sales conversation if you are not ready to buy.

You want to do window shopping, go read people’s websites and figure out what they have to offer. Go stalk them on social media, so you get to know their personalities. So that when you’re ready to buy, you can just have a short sales conversation, and you can just go.

Number four, it’s immoral to charge those prices. And this is fascinating, because it has come up several times in the last couple of weeks with my clients. It has come up in different variations on a theme. It’s immoral, it’s unethical, it’s exploiting my clients, it’s betraying my clients.

My clients have expressed, especially as they’re leaning into raising their prices, some of them have already decided they’re raising their prices. But this is where they’re blocked, they want to, but taking that leap to raise their prices is bringing up all of these money thoughts.

And it’s stopping them from going to the next stage in their business. And they’re spinning it out. And that’s why they come to coaching, and they get coaching on their prices. Because when you are feeling, energetically, that you are ready to raise your prices… I really do believe that your intuition plays a huge part here. Because you might have had your prices at the same level for a year, two years, it could be six months; there’s no specific time that you have had to be charging the prices that you’re charging.

But at some point, you will start to feel a little bit like it’s just not the right price anymore. My skill set has improved, the quality of what I’m delivering to my clients has improved, I’m ready to raise my prices. And I always believe in your intuition as the business owner.

I don’t believe, especially as women, that our intuition lies to us. We can really trust our intuition. And when your intuition is telling you it’s time to raise your prices, I think it’s time to raise your prices. And even to go a little bit stretchy, you don’t want to raise them like a teeny, little bit at a time, like $25 or 100 shekels if you’re pricing in shekels, or 25 pounds.

You don’t want to go in these teeny, teeny, little baby steps because that doesn’t stretch you. It doesn’t stretch your clients; it doesn’t help you call in again back to energy. It doesn’t help you call in energetically, clients who are higher caliber, who are at a higher level to meet you where you are, with your honed and refined and improved skill set. Right?

We don’t want to be calling in the same people, we want to be going up a level because that’s where we are. And so, if you’re not raising your prices, you’re going to start resenting your clients. And I really believe that if you think it’s immoral to raise your prices, it’s not immoral to your clients, it is immoral to you. It is unethical to you. You are betraying and exploiting you.

Because you are not getting paid an amount of money that reflects the value of the work that you’re putting into the world. And there’s just going to be, again, this clash of energy that’s going to be very wonky and messy and unclean. And you might actually find out because you’re just not going to be motivated, at those prices, to go out and sell and market and share your gifts with the world. Your business might actually take a downward spiral.

So, really explore that thought about raising your prices and charging higher prices, being immoral or unethical. Because I want you to show up in all of your glory, in all of your genius, to share your gifts with the world and get paid the price that you deserve for the work, the experience, the results that your clients are getting.

Number five is, I need. Just listen to the listen to the way I talk about it. “I need someone else, or somebody else, to help me grow my business.” And this one can cause me to bang my head against the wall. I’ve been saying this a little bit with some of my clients recently.

But, “I need someone to help me with my social media,” this one gets me all the time. Business owners who are just starting out, who are feeling so icky about social media, listen, if you don’t want to be on social media, don’t be on social media.

But when your business is small, when your business is young, if you have not yet reached $200,000 in your business, part of what you do as a business owner is figure out how to talk to people, how to share your message, how to show up and take up space on social media. Or give live workshops. Find people, places; it can be at your synagogue, it can be at the local health club; wherever it is, find ways for you to show up and be the face of your business.

Yes, there are people who can teach you tricks about how to be more visible, how to do reels, how to do TikToks, how to do videos, how to do selfies, how to… There are so many people who can teach you little tools. But don’t hire someone else out to do your social media. Nobody has your voice.

I mean, still today, when in the last four and a half, five years, my business is at a million dollars of income revenue, I still do 90% of all of my marketing. I have an assistant who takes some of my content massages it a little bit and puts it up on Instagram. I also post on Instagram. But all my Facebook, and all my LinkedIn, I do all by myself. Then she just takes my content and makes it just look pretty for Instagram, which is great. Because it’s just one place that I don’t have to be.

But again, it’s my words. It’s being based off of my messaging and my energy and the way that I talk. And that’s what you want to develop. You don’t want to leave your messaging and how you talk about it. This is actually the perfect time, when your business is small, where you can learn how to talk about your business.

You want to be figuring out how to speak to your people, how to call them in, how to be more specific in what you’re talking about, how to get over the on-stage, on live videos, or on podcast or something like that. This is a very critically important stage of your business.

If you haven’t yet crossed over the $200,000 income bracket, annual income bracket, in your business, you must take charge of that, and anything that you want to do in your business, you are the CEO. And some of my clients wanted to hire up people to write proposals for them, do their marketing for them, to do the website.

I mean, I had people do my website. But if you go on to my website, I wrote some of the copy. And of course, I had a copywriter write some of the copy. And then I get to go in and I get to edit the copy if it doesn’t sound like me. But again, it is a co-creation. It’s not like I outsourced, and I said, “Here you do it. I’m just going to rely on what you do.”

You are the CEO, it is your business, and you should always be the one who’s thinking on purpose about your business. I know that in the beginning, trying to figure it all out is overwhelming. So, you just want to outsource some of what you do to other people who will take it off of your hands.

But I promise you that if you take it step by step by step, it will be less overwhelming because you’re just breaking it down, just chunking it down into manageable pieces. And you were learning who you are as the business owner, as you do it.

So, don’t be impatient about growing your business; that you have to do it overnight. You’re really here for 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, 30 years in your business. And so, another three months or another six months to figure out your voice out there in the world, it doesn’t really matter. Now, you might have to figure out how to feed your family in the interim. But that’s a talk for another day.

But always be you. Be the one in charge of your business, and don’t be needy because that scarcity and lack about needing other people on your team in the beginning. Be lean, be mean, and just go and figure out how to show up and talk about your business on your own.

That marketing piece is so important for you to develop. Nobody can have the same passion or compassion, or drive for your business as you do.

So, those are the five money thoughts. One is money isn’t spiritual. Number two is, it’s not the right time. Number three is, I can’t afford it. Number four is, it’s immoral to charge high prices. And five is, I need someone else in my business.

Let’s move on to the two money blocks, and they’re connected. And this is a great workshopping exercise. Don’t do it if you’re driving. Either pull over to the side of the road, pull out your notes on your phone or a journal, if you’re always driving around with a journal and pen and paper.

And if you’re at home listening to the podcast, if you’re in the kitchen, or whatever you’re doing, just stop what you’re doing. Go get yourself a writing implement, because it’s always much more productive to write by hand than to type into a Google document.

I want you to really explore your thoughts about rich people. And just answer the question: Rich people are… It’s not a question, it’s really a fill in the blank. Right? What are the first three thoughts that come up in your mind when I say, “Rich people are…” What are the first five thoughts that come up in your mind? Scribble, scribble, scribble; get them all down on paper.

And when you’re done with that, you might have to press pause if you’re not done. “Poor people are…” fill in the blank. Get all your thoughts down on paper, because this will help you uncover money blocks that are lurking under the surface. That you are not aware of, because of your conditioning, because of the messages that you heard from your parents.

You have subconscious thoughts about rich people. You have subconscious thoughts about poor people. For so many people, their thoughts about rich people are, they’re evil, they’re greedy, they’re selfish, they’re mean, they’re white men, right? Not women, because women have been conditioned and socialized to be givers, to have low paid positions. So, rich people are always the men.

Even my clients who’ve grown up in families where the woman has been in charge of the money, it’s always the man who is the rich one, not the woman. And if she is, then again, she’s that wicked stepmother. She is Alexis from Dallas or Dynasty. I wasn’t a big television person, so I don’t know what television show that is; it’s one of them. Or it’s Cruella de Vil.

So, those are thoughts about rich people. And poor people are noble, they’re hard working, they’re the salt of the earth, they’re spiritual. The poor person who is really toiling all day to learn Torah. We have thoughts about how spiritual and noble poor people are.

Then there’s this idea of noble poverty, which then reveals itself when we’re pricing our services and our goods. We want to keep our prices low because we want to serve a lot of people. We want to be empathetic. We want to be compassionate. We want to be spiritual. Therefore, we must keep our prices low, because only greedy, evil, immoral people charge high prices.

So, give yourself an opportunity to explore your money blocks, and your money thoughts. Because you can change the way you think about money, you can change the way you think about your prices, when you decide to work on your thoughts.

And for that, go back to last week’s episode on changing your thoughts; the thought ladder, goal thoughts, and the 1% shift. Because you can change the way you think about money. To think that money is beautiful. Money is ethical. Money is spiritual. Money speeds things up. Money helps me to support other people in the world who are so much more needy than I am.

I mean, not needy in a bad way, but needy in that people do have health crises. They do have mental health crises. There are synagogue shuls that need to be built, hospital wings that need to be built, cancer research, families who have never had children. There are definite needs in the community that you can support.

But when you’re keeping your prices low, and you’re believing it’s noble to be poor, you’re not taking care of yourself. You’re not well nourished, you’re not well resourced, and then you don’t have what to give, what to share, what to let flow through you and nourish other people. So, explore your thoughts about money.

As we move into the holiday of Sukkot, this is the time of joy, the time of Simha. And I really wish you a beautiful year. A beautiful, abundant year, where money flows, money flows to you, and you share it, it flows through you to other people in the world, in the community.

And because it’s between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I’m going to wish you a Gamar hatimah tovah, that you should be signed and sealed in the Book of Life. We believe that we’re going to seal it, finally, finally, on Hoshana Rabbah during the holiday of Sukkot. So, it is still a valid blessing, bracha, that I’m giving you.

I look forward to seeing you next week on the podcast. Bye-bye, for now.

Thanks for listening to The Jewish Entrepreneur Podcast. If you want to stop underselling and underearning and close more sales, you need to clear the limiting money beliefs that are sabotaging your business growth.

Head on over to DebbieSassen.com/mindset and download my free Money Mindset Workbook. Uncover and dissolve money blocks, like hundreds of other entrepreneurs who are now building six-, multi-six-, and seven-figure businesses and creating true financial freedom.