Abundance Bound podcast  /  episode twenty-one: Balance

MIATA:

Abundance is not about the amount of money you have. It’s about the quality of the relationship that you have with your money.

KRISTINE:

And no matter where you’re at right now, you can decide to become someone who is bound to abundance. Someone who is committed to having a healthier and more compassionate relationship with your money. And you can decide to become someone who is bound towards abundance, someone who is stepping into a more expansive financial future.

MIATA:

We are here to help you become abundance bound.

KRISTINE:

So who are you, Miata Edoga? 

MIATA:

I am someone who once took myself to Las Vegas – all by myself – to see Celine Dion Live in Concert – and I’m the founder of the Abundance Bound Financial Education Company. And who are you, Kristine Oller? 

KRISTINE:

Good for you! 

MIATA:

It was wonderful! 

KRISTINE:

I am a woman who accepted her husband’s wedding proposal one year after he proposed to me – and I’m the developer and coach for the Creating Cashflow Program that lives inside of your Abundance Bound Financial Empowerment Program. 

MIATA:

We are definitely going to talk about that at the end! 

KRISTINE:

But now we’re going to talk about balance. 

MIATA:

Balance. I’ve been thinking that – as creatives, as entrepreneurs, non traditional earners – we tend to be people who are up to so much… a whole lot of stuff in the world. I look at my own life: I am a coach, I’m a speaker, I’m a business owner, I have to manage a team, I have to be a marketer, I need to lead the management of my business and personal finances. I’m also an actor, a writer, a mom, a wife, a daughter, a friend, and I am so not alone. This is all of us that have these lives that are so full. And so balance ends up being a word that we throw around a lot. As always, I went to the dictionary to help me explain what I think we generally mean when we say: “I need to create more balance.” And so we strive for this thing, believing that achieving it is what is required to feel more fulfilled, to feel less overwhelmed. So it was really interesting, because the initial definitions – the first one was: “an even distribution of weight, enabling someone or something to remain upright and steady.” And I was like: “Okay, yeah, right, we’re looking for this steadiness.” And then the second definition was: “a condition in which different elements are equal, or in the correct proportions.” And I was like: “Okay, that one gets closer to what it is, I think we mean, when we say ‘I need balance’.” But that’s really tricky, because we think about that list I’ve just fired off that are all the things in my life – and everybody think about their own list – and the idea that I could somehow get those things in equal or correct proportions. Ooh, that feels incredibly inaccessible. So I had to go all the way down to the fifth definition before reaching the one that I believe is where we find what we can actually strive for. I found it to be a much more powerful and supportive definition of the word in terms of its ability to help us create lives that have a texture of joy, and a texture of abundance. And that definition was: “mental and emotional steadiness.” That’s something that is much more within my control. How do you seek to approach the long list of things that you’re up to in the world? How do we seek to approach those things with a mental and emotional steadiness? 

KRISTINE:

This is an interesting word. And it’s not a word that I use a lot when I’m working with my clients. And here’s where I think we veered off track with the word – in self help and in spiritual growth: “We need to have a balanced life, a work-life balance.” I think for a lot of listeners, if you’re like me, it doesn’t ring true. Like: “A balanced life? What what are you even talking about?” But here’s why I think it doesn’t ring true, because that word has been co-opted and the definition altered to mean a static balance. In actuality, balance is a dynamic experience. Think of it – if you are on, like, you know, one of those little, like, wobbly boards (that fitness trainers use) where there’s a ball at the bottom, and then there’s a little board on top and you are like: “Okay, stand on the board and balance on the board.” You don’t reach a point where you’re just standing stockstill perfectly and now you’re like: “Okay, I’m balanced!” Balancing means you’re just making these tiny micro-adjustments constantly so that you can remain on the board, able to handle standing up-right on the board. And then everyone looking at you, we go: “Wow, she’s balancing.” So the goal with drawing in the texture and the feeling of a balanced life isn’t one about finally reaching a certain point where you’ve got two feet on the ground, and you’re steady and you’ve figured out the combination of things that takes the wobble out of your life. I’m saying the wobble doesn’t go out of your life. But you can still be having a balance where things aren’t throwing you off. I mean, sometimes life throws you a curveball and will blindside you and wipe you out and you fall off the board and you get back on. But more often than not, you want the kind of everyday stuff of life not to keep throwing you off the board. Every time you get a bill in the mail to not have that discombobulate you and throw you off your balance. You want to be able to be like: “Ah, okay, I can figure out how to pay the bill.” You just need to learn to surf the waves. 

MIATA:

Oh, that’s so true. And of course, in our last episode, I talked about my surfing experiences. And I love the image of surfing, because I am definitely finding that it requires you to be constantly adjusting your balance. And it also requires you to stay as emotionally steady as possible. The moment that I freak out I fall. The more that I practice staying steady on the board, in the face of all of the waves that are coming at me, the more that I see and recognize my ability to stay steady, which then feeds my sense of steadiness. This is so critical when it comes to our financial relationship, because it is one of those relationships that often has us feel extremely not steady and extremely emotional and sad and angry and frustrated and scared. From that place, our financial decisions end up being negatively affected. Our ability to keep learning tends to get shut down – I can’t hear anything or absorb anything from that place. It’s very hard to stay on the board. So the reason why I chose this word is because I am hopeful that it can serve as an anchor: “How do I rebalance myself in this moment?” 

KRISTINE:

And mindset plays such an important part in balancing. Because another way to think about balance, a visual we often associate with that word, is a set of scales. 

MIATA:

Yes. 

KRISTINE:
And very often for you to feel balanced in life, you have to get good at holding two opposing or differing perspectives at the same time. Because life isn’t black or white, it’s shades of grey. And there’s contradictions in life. And we’re often told the goal is to feel only one thing… confident!… trusting! But in our human experience we’re usually feeling several emotions at once. And so part of having emotional steadiness is to be able to acknowledge that you’re scared and also tap into your feelings of trust or your confidence in yourself at the same time that you’re feeling scared so that you’re not thrown off the balance beam by the fear. But you’re not expecting that the way you find balance is to only feel something without the other feelings. And you have to get good at stretching your mind so that you can see things from different perspectives. That’s what I’m always trying to do in the work in our Money Mindset sessions. 

MIATA:

And we see this at play also in our Money Management sessions, when we have members who are really eager to pay off any debt that they have. A lot of the messaging out in the world is: “You’ve gotta pay off that debt before you can do anything else! You better not start a business, you better not have a child, you certainly should not be thinking about investing or building wealth until you pay off that debt.” What happens for many people is they become very static, because all they are thinking about and focusing on is the debt. And the big part of what we talk about and work on is how can we create the balance between absolutely creating and executing a debt plan while simultaneously building wealth. A member very recently shared how much she struggles to spend any money on herself. There are many of us who might have celebrated this member: “Oh, look at how well she’s saving! And she puts money away for everything! She’s putting away for her retirement and she’s got, you know, six months of living expenses saved and wow, look at her!” However, she questions whether she can treat herself to a dinner out, whether she can take the class that she really wants to take. That, again, is an example of imbalance. Because we’ve decided it’s black and white – “good” is saving and “bad” is spending. 

KRISTINE:

Yeah, if you’ve decided one thing is good, one thing is bad – “I’m only going to save” – you’ve stepped off the board. And that static-ness can feel so safe. That’s why I tell my clients: “You have to get used to surfing. You have to get used to what that feels like and not get so scared of it or or take it as a symbol of instability and unsafety.” It’s like: “No, you’re there – you’re just doing your little micro-adjusting – that’s success! Not never getting thrown from the board or never putting the board in the water.” And balance doesn’t mean 50/50. We work on this a lot in Cashflow because balance between the creative career you’re pursuing and the side job you have to generate income… it’s rare that you’re going to have 50% of your time devoted to one thing and 50% of your time devoted to the other. It’s going to be a ratio, and that ratio is likely going to change from season to season, month to month, quarter to quarter. If you need more income, then you’re going to be focused a little bit more on the side biz, a little more time and energy devoted to that (or if you’re getting it up and running). But then you can readjust because if you get a project that comes in from your creative side, you’re like: “Okay, we got to dial down the side biz, because I need more time.” So it’s constant readjustments. And that’s part of what I’m teaching people is how to enlarge your business or shrink it so that it supports and fits in your life. But 50/50 is not a goal. 50/50 doesn’t equal balance. 

MIATA:

Yes, I think that’s so important because we don’t necessarily think about all the ways that we’ve been trained to believe it ought to be 50/50. So whether you have two or four or ten elements of our lives… well then is it 10% each? And I have to be figuring out the exact amount? Or if it’s four things – 25% each? That is never going to feel empowering because we’ve set ourselves up for something that is actually not possible. It’s going to be constant adjustments. And that is why when I focus my seeking of balance to my internal state, that is what then supports me in being able to listen and see what’s happening and what’s coming at me and what I need to give a little bit more to while dialing down the other areas. But when I am fraught that becomes an impossible state in which to have the clarity that allows me to be making those decisions. 

KRISTINE:

I love balance as the literal and the metaphorical in this conversation, because when you’re literally trying to balance on a board – an exercise board or a surf board – you’re using two primary things: your core muscles (around your torso) and your vision (because if you try to stand on one leg and close your eyes, it is way more difficult, so you need the vision). And then it’s the core muscles that are handling the micro-adjustments. And in the metaphorical sense of that which gives you safety and stability –emotionally and with, you know, the other things that are going on in your life – is your core values… what you’ve decided are your priorities, and what’s important to you, and the personal policies that you live by… and your perspectives (which is like your ability to see other people’s perspectives, multiple perspectives, and the flexibility of mindset to shift your own perspective). 

MIATA:

I really love that the idea that it is my physical core that helps me physically balance myself. And it is my core values that helped me stay emotionally and mentally balanced. And strengthening those things is a really important part of the work. 

KRISTINE:

And what’s interesting, if you go back to the guests we’ve had on the podcast, we’re telling stories where people were very unbalanced in their relationship with money and they found this inner stability that makes them feel so much more abundant, and positive, and that it’s possible. And they’re bound to abundance, and they’re on the way towards even more abundance. But that abundance is a feeling and a texture way more than an amount in their bank account that allows them to never worry, again. Every single one of our guests are still and will always be constantly keeping their lives in balance and making those adjustments. But they’ve all become so much more confident about their ability to do that. And trusting in the tools that you and I have given them. 

MIATA:

Absolutely. And the thing that strikes me the most is when I listen to their stories, I have a very strong sense of the way that they speak to themselves. These are people who are doing a really good job of speaking to themselves in ways that are supporting them, that are lifting them up, that are allowing them to move forward. When we view balance as meaning that: “Everything is black and white, and I have to be giving equal attention to everything that is happening in my life” – when I approach balance that way, I am not going to be speaking to myself in that loving and supportive way. It’s an approach to the word that leads to a constant self criticism, because it is simply not achievable. And so, if nothing else, my hope is that we can practice taking this word and owning what it can actually be for us. Because the more that I learn and practice steadying my emotions, the more available I am to all the other people and ideas that can help me move forward. And so balance is remarkably critical to being abundance bound.

So as someone who got married three months after I met my husband, I need to hear about the year between proposal and acceptance – and then I need to go celebrate your amazing husband for waiting!

KRISTINE:

Not only did he wait – but this is one of the most amazing things about him – he never once asked me during that year: “So are you thinking about it?” I don’t know how he did it. I don’t think I could have done that. So that’s like big kudos to him. But here’s the thing – and it kind of goes back to our talk about core values and stuff… we had been together eight years when he proposed to me. I wasn’t unsure about our relationship. I figured: “If I’m gonna get married, it’ll likely be to this guy.” But here’s what I knew, and this is what I said to him: “You know, I love that you just asked me that. And when I say ‘yes,’ I want you to know that I am saying yes, with every fiber of my being. That there is no doubt in my mind, and it is a 100% ‘yes.’ And I just don’t have that yet. Not that you’re not the right person. But this isn’t the right time for me.” His proposal was saying: “I’m ready.” And he was ready. But I wanted my “yes” to be equally ready. And if I had said yes in that moment, hoping I would get myself there – and I thought I would have – but I just felt like: “I just don’t think that’s what this moment is really about.” It’s not being pressured into something. You want to go into a marriage certainly with like an equal-ness about the thing. I was driving down the freeway and I just felt this rush that was just like: “I’m gonna marry him!” And I felt the “yes” from the hairs on my head to my toes. And that was in August. He had asked me in early October, and I just waited, and then I took him out to dinner (on the same day a year later that he proposed), to accept. 

MIATA:

You want an example of mental and emotional steadiness – both from you and from him. I love it.

KRISTINE:

I love talking with you. I’m glad we get to do it next month.

MIATA:

Talk to you then.

This podcast is our invitation to you an invitation to accelerate your progress towards a more expansive future by joining us in the Abundance Bound Financial Empowerment Program. It’s an invitation to develop a healthier relationship with your money, one that is less conflicted, less neglectful, less desperate. Our program offers a warm, friendly environment where you’ll have the space and time to work at your own speed and get the hands on support you need. You’ll receive step by step guidance that will help you strengthen your money mindset. Practice consistent money management and create additional streams of income to fund the life you want to live. Your next step is to learn more. So take a moment today and visit: AbundanceBound.com/financial-empowerment.

KRISTINE:

All of the show notes for this episode are available at AbundanceBound.com/the-podcast. We are delighted you are listening. Please keep taking very good care of your very talented self.

•••••

Download Transcript