Energise Wealth

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Welcome to another episode of Feminine Wealth TV! This week’s guest is Dr. Nikki Goldstein, an expert on all things relating to sex and relationships.

She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology, a Postgraduate Diploma in Counseling and a Doctorate of Human Sexuality from San Francisco’s esteemed Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality. Nikki is a highly credible authority on the topics of love, sex, dating, romance and relationships.

In this interview, Nikki initially talks about her profession as a sexologist. She talks about how she educates people with human sexuality and how she normalizes the subjects of sex and relationships. She explains how she educates people with a credible and relatable approach.

Further on, Nikki gives her views on money, sex and power based on femininity. It has been a norm that money, sex and power are all masculine. In this interview, she talks about her views on how women handle or deal with these 3 vital terms in our society.

Watch the full interview above to learn more from Dr. Nikki Goldstein‘s credible insights!

Prefer to read? See full transcription below!

Barbara Turley: Hi there, I’m Barbara Turley and you’re watching another episode of Feminine Wealth TV, the show that uncovers the diamond tips on creating truly conscious wealth, from change makers, world shakers, and wealth creators. Recently, I was talking to an energy healer that told me that the second chakra is where money, sex, and power come together. I thought that would be a really interesting topic to have on the show, and who better to get than a sex expert on the show. Today I’m joined by Dr. Nikki Goldstein and she is a sexologist who has appeared on Channel 7, she’s been in many publications, and she is a renowned expert on this particular topic. Please welcome Nikki to the show.

Nikki Goldstein: Thank you for having me.

Barbara Turley: You’re very welcome.

Nikki Goldstein: Thank you.

Barbara Turley: So excited to get into this exciting sizzling topic.

Nikki Goldstein: The topic that’s boring now for me and interesting for everyone else.

Barbara Turley: Right. Okay, so you’re just talking about it every day, constantly.

Nikki Goldstein: It’s become normal and that’s what I think that’s really interesting, is that I could talk about sex so easily and I only wish other people could as well, without having to be a sexologist.

Barbara Turley: Wow. It sounds like money.

Nikki Goldstein: Yes.

Barbara Turley: People find it difficult to talk about money as well.

Nikki Goldstein: Yes. I haven’t quite grasped politics as well, but sex is definitely become an every day topic even amongst my friends and my family, it’s just something we discuss and we talk about. We’re not sitting there dishing the dirt on our personal details, but we can have an intellectual debate about a sexual topic without it being taboo or scary or any one of those things.

Barbara Turley: Isn’t that funny, because even as you were saying that, I was still feeling like, “I can’t imagine my family talking about that.” It is a taboo topic still.

Nikki Goldstein: My mother will watch documentaries that I’m watching on TV. She watched My Granny the Escort the other night. I’m watching it here and she’s watching it in Queensland, and she wants to call me up in the ad breaks and say, “What do you think of this and what do you think of that?” The next day she’s continually talking to me about it and she’s like, “What would you … How would you feel if I did that?” I think these are conversations that I might not have had with her if I wasn’t a sexologist, but I’m so happy that I can discuss this with my mother. I can discuss my own relationships with her as well because that gate has been opened.

Barbara Turley: In an intellectual way, not a slutty way, or you know.

Nikki Goldstein: Yes, and someone who has my best interest at heart. It’s not someone that’s competing with me or trying to put me down. It’s someone who really generally cares about me. When it comes to getting advice, I wish all girls could go to their mothers for sex and relationship advice. Because these are the people that A, have been there, and B, really care about you, but everyone thinks it’s too awkward, because how will I talk to my mother about sex?

Barbara Turley: Something like that, yeah. Tell me, how did you … This is your full-time career now. You are a sex expert, you speak on television about this regularly. How did you get into this? How does it start?

Nikki Goldstein: There’s no sexology description, and then you go to school.

Barbara Turley: You go to school. “My career guidance teacher told me to be a sexologist.”

Nikki Goldstein: “I was really sexy as a teenager and they said, “Why don’t you be a sexologist?”” I started off in the industry of wanting to help people. I started studying psychology and I thought I’d be a psychologist, and I’m going to have a private practice. I got through the whole degree and I went, “Hmm, I’ve learned a lot of statistics, and a lot of research methods,” but I still didn’t feel that I had the skills to be dealing with people. I went off and did another degree in counseling, and within that I started working as a relationship counselor. I quite enjoyed those dynamics and I also enjoyed dealing with sensitive topics.

I was sitting in rooms with families that were dealing with all sorts of demons and battles and it was really intense, but that’s where my forte was. Then I got into family mediation. I found that very empowering and I was in there at a really good time because the government had just put a lot of money into opening up new centers, but it was divorcing people for a living. After a while …

Barbara Turley: Was it people already going through divorce or helping them to get through the divorce?

Nikki Goldstein: It was going through divorces. As an alternative to going to the family courts, the government turned around and said everyone has to try and work this out between themselves, not to reconcile …

Barbara Turley: Yeah, but to make it …

Nikki Goldstein: … But to make your own parenting plan and work at how you’re going to split your assets, and here is a neutral third party that will you help you do it. Then they are the ones that decide whether you could go to court or not. I was sometimes a certificate factory.

Barbara Turley: That’s a position of power.

Nikki Goldstein: It is, but it comes with a lot of negativity, because you have a lot of people who don’t want to be there and just want to pull the wool over your eyes, and have a signature on a piece of paper to say they can go to court. You see everything from child abuse and domestic violence, and it really does start to get you down as a human being, because you lose faith.

Barbara Turley: Yeah, I would find that hard.

Nikki Goldstein: You also see these people in distress and you seat there and think, “What are we doing that we have a divorce rate of 50% these days.”

Barbara Turley: Yeah. What are we doing? What is that?

Nikki Goldstein: I think we’re trying to fit into a mold that wasn’t meant for us. We have this should be curse, and I would say this time and time again. Clients would come in and the story was, well, they started dating and he was the partner, or she was the partner I should be dating. Then we got married because that’s what you should do when you’re at a certain age.

Barbara Turley: Probably the family would agree with this particular person and approve and all that stuff, yeah.

Nikki Goldstein: Yeah, and we’ve been brought up with that fairy tale, you find a Prince Charming, you get married, you have babies, and everything is going to be perfect. Not to say that it can’t be, but people never stopped to think about what they wanted as an individual. Away from everything else, away from religion, away from society, how do they want to live their life and their relationship? Eventually, the cracks start to form because we have this lack of education, a lack of communication, lack of empowerment for a lot of people to go out there and live the lives that they want to live. Then they end up in my office with kids and …

Barbara Turley: A disaster.

Nikki Goldstein: … Debt, and a lot of turmoil so you start to get motivated to come up with a solution.

Barbara Turley: It’s interesting that you actually … I just picked up on what you said there about they never figure out what they really want, and then they end up years down the track with the shoulds and all these sort of stuff. I see the same in the money world, where people go … Two things either happen; either people end up very wealthy with no fulfillment, or they end spending their whole lives chasing money and never really getting anywhere, and never having the life that they actually want. They don’t think about … They always think … People say, “When I earn this much money, therefore this is the life that I can have.” I say to people, “Well, how about we flip that on its head and go, “Here is the life I want to have, here’s my dream, my vision, my creation, how much money am I going to have to go out and get to create that?”” It’s a much more empowering position to come from, so I’m assuming it’s the same, I’m sure, with what you are doing.

Nikki Goldstein: It is very similar, because everyone wants to have a better sex life.

Barbara Turley: Yeah. Everybody, I know, and everyone is afraid to say it.

Nikki Goldstein: What does that look like?

Barbara Turley: What does that mean?

Nikki Goldstein: Does that mean five orgasms a night? Does that mean five times a week? Does that mean laughing and having fun with your partner, connecting with them, and experiencing intimacy? The problem is, just like we all want a different figure for how we want to live our life …

Barbara Turley: Or what does success mean to each of us. It’s different things.

Nikki Goldstein: Yes. It’s the same thing as sexual success. For a lot of people, they place a higher importance on things like companionship, fun, and intimacy, than having mind-blowing sex five times a week. There’re other people that are really highly sexual and need to be having mind-blowing orgys, and things like that. One is right for someone and it’s not right for someone else, but yet as a society we’re trying to conform and people want to know the stats and the research, because they want a level of normality to compare their own lives to. The ironic thing is …

Barbara Turley: That’s right, yeah.

Nikki Goldstein: … There is no such thing as normal when it comes to sex.

Barbara Turley: Is that what drives you a little bit to try and get people to realize that? Because actually, we are all … We read in the front page of Cosmo and it’s going, “Here’s how to have mind-blowing sex,” or it’s four orgasms at a time. You sort of think, “Is that what everyone’s doing. Is that what I should be doing?”

Nikki Goldstein: This is where you try to get people to think differently about the subject of sex. It is very difficult because you have to work with traditional models of media, but when you’re in there, you can encourage these journalists and producers to say, “Hey, why don’t we do a segment that’s based on this,” or, “Why don’t we do a story that’s based on this.” It takes a long time because you really need to build their trust and build those relationships, and give into a lot of stories that are, “10 Tips to an amazing Blowjob,” and, “How to [inaudible 00:08:24] Having Sex.” Then you can say to them, once you’ve gained their trust, “I’ve come across this really great story idea, would you run it? I’ll give you help with that.”

Barbara Turley: That’s interesting, yeah.

Nikki Goldstein: You can’t just come in with guns blazing and say, “I’m going to change the world of sex and everyone has to be thinking this way because …” People are going to shut down.

Barbara Turley: No one is going to listen.

Nikki Goldstein: It’s very confrontational. This is why I feel doing what I do as opposed to other sexologists that I’ve studied and worked with, they can be very confrontational in a bad way and people will retract from that. It’s really about trying to work out who your audience is, what they need to know, but how you are going to challenge them and how you’re going to deliver that information, whether you’re connected. Think about what you’re saying rather than either loving or not being scared of it.

Barbara Turley: It’s that whole concept, and I think I’ve said this to you before, it’s that whole concept of sell them what they want, and then give them what they need. Because nobody is going to buy what they actually need, in terms of selling books and like TV shows and stuff like that. You have to kind of plant the seeds in. It’s like giving kids food that they don’t want to eat.

Nikki Goldstein: Exactly.

Barbara Turley: It’s trying to plant the vegetables inside some chocolate or something to get it into them.

Nikki Goldstein: Yeah, and I’m trying to put sex into chocolate.

Barbara Turley: Not a bad idea.

Nikki Goldstein: You’ve got always to be mindful of your audience because I’m a 28-year-old female, who’s single, and not married, I don’t have kids. Now, I need to be mindful of … Some of the things that I’m going to say are going to be influenced from my personal life, and that is going to be relative to an audience like me. However, I also need to think outside of the box and say, “Okay, when I’m addressing the mommy market, I need to go and do my research. I need to go to my girlfriends that are married with kids …”

Barbara Turley: And ask them.

Nikki Goldstein: “… And get their personal perspective on it as well,” because it might actually change my professional outlook. Because I can’t get up there and say this is the way it should be from personal experience.

Barbara Turley: You haven’t lived it yet.

Nikki Goldstein: I haven’t, but I can still educate them on some manner, but you need to understand every piece of the puzzle. That’s what happens with human sexuality, it’s such a big industry.

Barbara Turley: It’s a huge area.

Nikki Goldstein: You need to understand health, you need to understand money, and family dynamics, all these bits and pieces …

Barbara Turley: All come together.

Nikki Goldstein: … To be able to give the message that you’ve go to give.

Barbara Turley: What about then … After the counseling your did the mediation, and then you went and did your PhD.

Nikki Goldstein: I did actually what they call a DHS, which is a Doctorate in Human Sexuality, so they call it a professional doctorate. I found this school in San Francisco called The Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality.

Barbara Turley: You were like, “That’s it. That’s what I’m going to do.”

Nikki Goldstein: I’d never heard of it. I was interviewing a woman in Paris who had gone there and everything she said just clicked for me and I was like, “Wow, this sounds right for me.” Started off with a certificate program via correspondence, so I got all my work in the mail, thinking, “What am I doing? Everybody is just great.”

Barbara Turley: You’re thinking Australia, with this San Francisco thing.

Nikki Goldstein: Went over to San Francisco and just fell in love with it and transferred into the doctorate. I found that … I kept following what I loved. I was totally clueless. I had no idea what I was actually doing. I just knew that I wanted to get out of mediation and I wanted to do something that was helping people more, for a cure for what I was seeing.

Barbara Turley: Do you want to comment … With the mediation, were you thinking, “Oh my God! Look at all these people. I’ve gotten them at the point where it’s falling apart.” Did you want to take a step back and say, “How do I get to them before it gets to this?”

Nikki Goldstein: Yes.

Barbara Turley: Right. Okay. Yeah.

Nikki Goldstein: I think also from a personal satisfaction job it was very difficult because you don’t … There’s not really much you can go further. You’re either a mediator or you’re a supervisor. There wasn’t a lot of room to …

Barbara Turley: That doesn’t sound as sexy at all as sex expert, or a sexologist.

Nikki Goldstein: There’s not a lot of challenges in front of you. Your work is challenging on a daily basis but I’ve always been the type of person that wants something to be able to … I want to accomplish something and I want to keep going in life. I found it was very negative for me personally because you’re taking on everyone else’s negative energy.

Barbara Turley: That’s hard, yeah.

Nikki Goldstein: It was really important to me to find something that I loved, and I took a big risk because I literally quit the job without anything, and went …

Barbara Turley: You followed your heart though. Were you that intimate … Was it a strong sort of intuitive decision, do you think?

Nikki Goldstein: Yes. I was determined to get out of that job and I had my mother on the phone saying, “Well, why don’t you stay there and look for something else.”

Barbara Turley: God love our parents.

Nikki Goldstein: The problem was you’re in a negative head space, how can you look for something you love when you’re miserable in your current every day life.

Barbara Turley: There’s a lot of people that are going to be watching who are going to be in that situation right now, and you know what? It’s that whole thing of saying at some point you have to jump, you have to make the decision, but then you have to commit. Because once you decide and you leave, then you are in that situation where now it has to work. Sometimes that’s a good thing, because it has to work.

Nikki Goldstein: It is a good thing. I think it’s very scary because you leave the world of structure. I haven’t had somebody … I haven’t been working for somebody on a permanent paycheck for a long time. I have to get out there and …

Barbara Turley: Do your own business.

Nikki Goldstein: … Contract a contract. It’s a very scary idea to be there on your own and at a young age, but the satisfaction that I get now from my work and the direction my work is going in, I would never think of …

Barbara Turley: Is all worth it.

Nikki Goldstein: Yeah. All the tears and … There were moments where I would sit there and go, “What am I doing?”

Barbara Turley: “What am I doing?” I know, we’ve all done that.

Nikki Goldstein: The good [inaudible 00:13:36] always outweighed and I have had people stare at me in the face and say, “What is your plan B.” I’m thinking, “Plan B?”

Barbara Turley: I don’t think … Like I said earlier, I think you go into it and it has to work. You’re going to find the root, you’re going to keep pivoting, changing, and moving until it works.

Nikki Goldstein: I think you have to take on certain criticism, but you need to block out others, because a million and one people will tell you along the way no. They’ll tell you it’s not possible, you can’t do it, or it can’t be done. I think you really need to be that type of person where you just stop and go, “Why? Why are they telling me that? Is this something that really can’t be done or …”

Barbara Turley: Or is it just, they’re limiting your beliefs.

Nikki Goldstein: Yeah, and do I need to work around them, because I’m not going to be focusing on the person that keeps saying no and stopping me. I’m not going to be focusing on them. Maybe look at the person next to them, or the person around them, or the person above them, maybe they have a different vision on the whole aspect. It took me a long time to be comfortable with the nos and the knock backs, because when they first came in …

Barbara Turley: It’s hard.

Nikki Goldstein: It’s difficult, this idea of rejection and failure.

Barbara Turley: I heard this … I was talking to a sales expert the other day and I actually used this with a client of mine just today, and she said to me, “You know, in sales,” she was American and she goes, “We were taught to celebrate the nos because every time you get a no, you’re one step closer to yes.” Then I thought, “I love that,” that is just so powerful because …

Nikki Goldstein: For every door that closes something opens.

Barbara Turley: … We find no really difficult to take, but actually … When you’re trying to forge ahead with a business or doing contracts or whatever, you’re going to get nos. It’s just part of the game, and you have to be able to take the nos, but early on it’s very hard.

Nikki Goldstein: I look at it now that if I have a contract or some work that I really want to do but falls through, it actually opens up my time for something that comes along that I might not have been able to do if I would have taken that contract.

Barbara Turley: Absolutely. Yeah. You don’t know what’s coming.

Nikki Goldstein: Because I can only work with so many people and a lot of my contracts still I have to be exclusive to a brand or a company for a certain period of time. Instead of beating myself up and going, “Oh, that would have been great,” I try to be optimistic and say, “Okay. Well I now have that time free and open, to potentially work with someone else.”

Barbara Turley: To see what other opportunities come my way. I want to get on to the topic now, we were talking about this all affair of this money, sex, power thing. The three of those things are such masculine concepts, and what is it about women that … We actually do struggle with all of those concepts, women in particular. I’m interested to know, I’ve been looking at the money thing obviously, but what you’re seeing in the sex world. When it comes to women, are they uncomfortable when you talk about it or …? How does it all play out?

Nikki Goldstein: Some people are and some people aren’t, but I see the parallels with sex and money that we have not educated women enough in a way to control them with sex and money. Because it’s been one of those things in the past that women were meant to get married, be monogamous, virgins till married, and have babies, because it ensured procreation. It ensured the fatherhood …

Barbara Turley: The children would be looked after.

Nikki Goldstein: … And the father would know who the babies were. All of that, we’re not living in that world anymore, but we still have that idea in a lot of situations.

Barbara Turley: We do.

Nikki Goldstein: This idea of maybe saying to women, “Have you thought about sexual pleasure. Have you thought about what you want in the bedroom?” Some people find that quite intimidating because we’re giving women the control. I feel that there’s a parallel with money, especially as a woman, that’s … Growing up, no one ever took me aside and said, “This is how you manage your bank account.”

Barbara Turley: Or, “Are you even interested in how money can …”

Nikki Goldstein: “Do you want to know?”

Barbara Turley: “… Fuel your …” Because the view is, not so much anymore, but some of our parents would have this, where that generation would be thinking, “Of course you want your daughter to marry well.” Every father wants their daughter to marry well because the feeling they have is they want you to be looked after, that you don’t have to worry about money, and that you will never have to think about it, and you’ll have children, and all that sort of thing. Yeah, I definitely see that with money as well. Women were not taught to think about it.

Nikki Goldstein: It’s a way to keep women in a certain position. I hate to say it at the same time, but I think we’ve got to be honest, that when women are not financially independent …

Barbara Turley: They’re disempowered.

Nikki Goldstein: They are.

Barbara Turley: They are not powerful then.

Nikki Goldstein: It’s a very difficult situation because there is a ying and yang with men and women, and feminine and masculine. I think it’s really important that you hold on to feminine energy so you’re able to have a masculine energy in your life, but then, I have a very masculine energy as well, so I need to be very cautious with that.

Barbara Turley: I do too, yeah.

Nikki Goldstein: Because you need to make sure that you’re not being threatening to a man, but at the same time you need to makes sure that you’re looked after by yourself. That if worse comes to worse, and my father always brought me up this way, he said, “Whatever happens in life, if you end up on your own,” he’s like, “I can’t guarantee that a marriage will work, that a partner won’t pass away, that you will always have everything around you.”

Barbara Turley: Yeah, security.

Nikki Goldstein: “If you end up on your own, I want to know that you’re okay, and I want to give the tools to make sure that you can fend for yourself.” I think that’s what we need to be teaching women, is those basic tools. Even things like how do you change a tire in your car. What happens if you end up stranded?

Barbara Turley: I know, so true.

Nikki Goldstein: I would call [inaudible 00:18:43] here …

Barbara Turley: I don’t have a clue, yeah.

Nikki Goldstein: … First thing, but, if was in a situation where my phone was dead, I couldn’t call, I would want to know that I could do it.

Barbara Turley: What would you do? Yeah.

Nikki Goldstein: It’s the same thing financially is, I may not need to be in a situation where I’m paying the bills for a household I don’t know. If that situation comes across where I am or I have to be the breadwinner, or my partner get’s sick or my partner is no longer there, I want to know that my safety network underneath is me. That I’ve got the skills to do it.

Barbara Turley: Yeah, and that you feel empowered and you go … Because the other one is, and we always think about the, “What if we had no money,” but the other hilarious one, well it’s not funny, but like if you end up on your own because of a death, or even later in life, and there is a lot of money, that can also be a huge problem. Because as women, we don’t focus on how to manage money in terms of investments and things like that, and what often happens, the stats are really high on this, the amount of women who end up financially worse off five years after a death because they ended meeting a bad advisor. They didn’t really know what they were doing and they give their power away, because they want to trust somebody, and then they usually trust somebody who is a shark, because there’s lots of sharks out there. It’s that whole thing of you need to understand money so that you can fend for yourself, if the occasion arises.

Nikki Goldstein: I think if you spend the time earning that money too, I want to think that the money that I, that the time that I’m spending, all these I’ve gone through, yes I love what I do, but I also want something to show for it. I think really importantly for me at the moment, I want to be building my business from my money that I have earned. I don’t want to have to be going to other people and having other people come onboard. Maybe one day I will have to, but I love at the moment that I can say, “Well, my hard-earned money built my website and my hard-earned money paid for my own business cards.” I need to be smart about that because I’ve learned the hard way that you can get caught with certain people, even with things like websites.

Barbara Turley: I know. There’s lots of sharks out there.

Nikki Goldstein: You’ve wasted a lot of money, but I think the important thing is you need to be able to make those mistakes sometimes, but learn from them.

Barbara Turley: And to know that you can make the money again, because this whole thing is … I mean, you’ve spent a long time educating yourself, studying, doing research, and getting to the level that you’re at, and that’s … You’re building inherent value in yourself and now you’re giving that out into the world, and the way you get return value for that is in the form of money. A lot of people, I was actually thinking about this the other day, so many women are out there not valuing themselves enough so they’re getting underpaid, they’re not making enough money, they’re discounting, all that sort of thing. In the end, it leads depletion, resentment, overwhelm and all these things. Even though you’re doing what you love, you can end up becoming depleted because the value exchange is not being honored properly. Lots of women will resonate with that.

Nikki Goldstein: I think that’s really difficult when you start off in anything new because I think, especially with what I did, I had to do a certain amount of free work. It was a struggle because I needed to find … You struggle because you want to be valued for what you’re doing, and you want someone to say, “Do you know what? You were worth what you are doing.” It’s that toss-up because you don’t want to be sitting there and putting a dollar sign on your head and saying, “Well, these are my limitations.” At the same time, it’s very difficult sometimes and we’ve spoken to this before saying, “This is what I’m worth and this is what I’m going to charge.”

Barbara Turley: Rather than waiting for someone to tell you what you’re worth, sometimes we have to realize our own worth, and then what we’re going to charge for that over time. In the beginning you do have to build up experience and all that sort of thing.

Nikki Goldstein: It’s the same thing in relationships. Sometimes we need to stand up and go, “You know what? I’m actually worth more than this.” You find yourself in a relationship with a guy …

Barbara Turley: You decide that yourself.

Nikki Goldstein: You have to, but that’s a very difficult step to make because for a lot of women they get comfortable, you know, someone’s interested in them, and they settle. They settle with someone that might be in toxic relationship, so to get that confidence to say, “You know what? I’m actually worth more than this and …”

Barbara Turley: And to walk away.

Nikki Goldstein: “… I’m going to leave you and find something else.” It’s the same thing when you have to say to a potential employer, “This is what I’m worth financially, and I believe so, because I’ve done X, X, and if you’re not happy to pay this then I’m sorry I can’t work with you.”

Barbara Turley: Yeah. Actually, just on the relationship thing as well, I think for a woman to be able to walk away, particularly from a toxic relationship, and know that she’s not financially bound to that person. Because a lot of people won’t leave because they think, “What if I leave, I don’t know how to be by myself financially.”

Nikki Goldstein: I’ve come across that a lot with women that are stuck in relationships because they can’t fend for themselves, and they can’t stand on their own two feet.

Barbara Turley: Absolutely, yeah.

Nikki Goldstein: My heart goes out to them because they’re not happy, and they think that …

Barbara Turley: They’re disempowered as well. They’re not in a position of power.

Nikki Goldstein: Very much so.

Barbara Turley: That’s that whole money, sex, power thing. It’s jut this whole intertwining of these things to disempower someone.

Nikki Goldstein: I also sometimes question whether some people use this excuse, when people …

Barbara Turley: There’s that too.

Nikki Goldstein: … Want an excuse not to leave, because there are certain situations, and you know what? You can go out there and you can get a job, but it may not be the lifestyle that they’re accustomed to with a particular partner.

Barbara Turley: Yeah, if they’re with somebody who is completely loaded and they’re living the lifestyle of luxury and they think, “What is I leave …”

Nikki Goldstein: They’re compromising on theirself for a life that actually isn’t making them happy anyway.

Barbara Turley: Yeah, just for the … I know. It’s such a complex area. It really is. Tell me a little bit about … The future for the Nikki Goldstein brand, what … How long have you been doing this sort of sexology, sex expert stuff now?

Nikki Goldstein: About four years.

Barbara Turley: Tell me about the future. What’s your big vision? What do you see, that you’d love to give to the world with this call?

Nikki Goldstein: I’m going along the path of finding avenues to educate people and at the moment it is media. It’s TV, it’s radio, it’s books, it’s magazines, but I’m also hoping to do something that is more accessible by the every day person sitting at home on the computer.

Barbara Turley: Excellent.

Nikki Goldstein: Being able to bring the information to them, being able to bring bits of what I do to them because the interesting thing is it’s what I do and what I’m teaching. It isn’t always safe on mainstream media, and people don’t always want to have it on mainstream TV shows. You get very limited to what you can say and what you can do.

Barbara Turley: You get your three-minute segment or five-minute bit and …

Nikki Goldstein: There might be kids that are watching and there might be kids in the car. We can talk about love, sex, and relationships, but often there’re these subjects and these topics that people want to know about but …

Barbara Turley: You can’t get into the deeper stuff.

Nikki Goldstein: No, I could never get on to TV and talk about anal sex.

Barbara Turley: No, no. You can’t do that, yeah.

Nikki Goldstein: Funnily enough I did an interview for a magazine last night and it was exactly on that subject. We were talking about how this is an act that has gone from women doing it because they wanted to impress their boyfriends, to now something that we’re saying, “You know what? We actually like this and we choose to do it for our own pleasure.” There needs to be people looking for more answers and things like that.

Barbara Turley: Yeah, and they don’t want it … That’s something they don’t want to discuss. Actually it’s funny, I was just thinking of the parallel with money there.

Nikki Goldstein: Money and anal sex.

Barbara Turley: Nobody wants … Well, you think about like your purse, and you think nobody wants to discuss their own … The sort of details of their own spending patterns and their own issues around money, and how much money they actually have, versus what they think they should have. It is; it’s a really silent topic and people don’t even want to be that vocal in forums or live webinars and things like that, asking questions, but they will if you get them on their own.

Nikki Goldstein: Yeah. I think it has something to do with the issue of normal as well, because again, what is a normal spending, owning for someone. Should there be a …

Barbara Turley: Everyone’s actually, are all on the same boat.

Nikki Goldstein: Should we be …

Barbara Turley: When I see people individually, I think, “We’re all on the same boat.”

Nikki Goldstein: Should we be aiming for the same thing? Because we don’t know what is … If we go back to the analogy that you were saying, what life do you want, we don’t always want the same lives, so do we need the same amount of money to live a different life?

Barbara Turley: The truth about that is absolutely categorically no, because success for one person, or a dream life for one person could be … I always say … An eco farm in New Zealand where they grow their own food and they’re writing a book, for someone else it’s like, they want an apartment in Manhattan, they want a Maserati outside the door, and they want that really, really big lifestyle. Those two people need entirely different levels of money. Really for one person, how much money is enough money? That’s the other thing, and which sex is enough sex? Which power is enough power?

Nikki Goldstein: This comes relative, where do you think your validation is from? Where do you get that energy, that high? Where do you get your happiness from? I think it’s interesting being a sexologist but also working in media and playing in that world, and I’ve seen a lot of people who value fame as …

Barbara Turley: That drives them, yeah.

Nikki Goldstein: … As their validation, and for me I’m very happy to be at home with my family, in a onesie, chilling out.

Barbara Turley: Yeah, I know, I do want the same thing.

Nikki Goldstein: That’s what makes me happy and my work is just a blessing on top of it and I feel that I’m privileged to do what I’m doing, but I need to be very cautious that my happiness is not solely from that, because you go through ups and down.

Barbara Turley: Yeah, because it can be taken away or you just …

Nikki Goldstein: Exactly.

Barbara Turley: I was talking to somebody recently, he was contemplating leaving a very long-term career, that they’ve had for a long time. It was a guy actually, and I said to him, “You just want to think about what you really do want, because the minute you leave that,” he has really taken his own value over the years from his role, and that is what has validated him and it’s his whole personality. I said, “If you leave, all of a sudden fall off a cliff, then you’re self-worth could go downhill because you haven’t defined what it means for you.”

Nikki Goldstein: I really think for women especially, and I use this analogy, you need to be able to be stripped bare, in a plain room, with no internet, with no phone, no social media, and be happy with exactly who you are. Then you have the power to go and do all these other things, because as soon as you get sucked in to these negative spirals of, “If people are liking my Instagram photo,” and …

Barbara Turley: Yeah, that really true.

Nikki Goldstein: … “If I’m on TV,” and “If I’m doing this …”

Barbara Turley: “If I have the most perfect body, and I have the most perfect this, then everything will be great.”

Nikki Goldstein: “… I’ll be happy.” Then that goal tends to moves, and that’s what I think the danger is by putting all the focus on a goal and saying, “I’ll be happy when I get to there.” I did use to do it with my job. I’d be happy when I got this, this, and this, and then you start to get there and you go, “Hmm.”

Barbara Turley: Well that’s the problem with goals.

Nikki Goldstein: I’m not as …

Barbara Turley: You have to set more.

Nikki Goldstein: Yeah.

Barbara Turley: Then it keeps driving all the time.

Nikki Goldstein: It’s the same thing with this marriage idea, and I’m not trying to say that marriage isn’t important. I am still a traditional female. I think what the problem is for a lot of women is they say, “I will be content and happy when I get married and have kids.”

Barbara Turley: I know.

Nikki Goldstein: Then they get there and you know what, they still are content and happy, but there’s still more to life, and there’s still more room to explore different things. I feel the same way with our careers. Sometimes we just absolutely stress out about and say, “You know what? I’ll be happy when I get to this point.”

Barbara Turley: “When I make director or make partner, make this much money.”

Nikki Goldstein: Exactly, and I’ve learned along the way to stop and smell the roses, and enjoy every day of my job. When I do reach those goals or something does happen, I think, “Wow, that’s amazing,” but I could also turn around and say, “I had a great time getting there.”

Barbara Turley: That’s what you really want to do actually, because it’s … Everybody, and I always say to people … You know, the goal setting thing, people go, “Well should I set a goal that I want to buy a house?” I go, “No. That is a goal, but you want to set like a vision plan, of how I want to feel.” Like how do you want to wake up and feel every day. Sometimes you don’t need the big house or all these things, or that amount of money, or whatever, to feel that way. Getting really clear on that then takes the pressure and the stress away because you think … Unless you want to feel totally loaded and wealthy, and you’re broke, but then you got to do something about that, I think, then you got to get on the path to doing that.

Nikki Goldstein: That’s the thing, I try and focus very hard with my work to be happy every day and enjoy it. Then when you do across something that doesn’t make you feel good, you really have to stop and think why.

Barbara Turley: Yeah, and why am I doing it.

Nikki Goldstein: You have to think about the motivation behind certain work, because you have to go, “Is this a personal motivation? Do I want to do this work because I want to be seen there, I want to be published there, or is this a great opportunity to reach my audience?” I’m always pulling myself back to look at that difference and think, “Is this a personal motivation for doing this or is this a professional?” There are some situations where it is a personal motivation. I’m working with the Cancer Council again this year and I did it last year, and that’s purely about personal motivation, not about professional. At least I have to acknowledge it and know when I’m doing something that might not fit in to the other things I’ve done, but it’s something I feel really passionate about.

Barbara Turley: That light’s you up, yeah. I have one more questions before we go. You’ve been really successful in the PR area; you’ve gotten in great magazines, you’re on Channel 7 all the time, how do you get … Lots of people out there are going to be wondering, how do you do that? How do you get into the media, PR, how do you get that all moving for you and is it worth it, that’s the other thing?

Nikki Goldstein: It depends. I was very fortunate that I had no media experience and I was taken into Channel 7 and within two weeks I was on air, scratching my head going, “What do I do? Which camera do I look at?” I didn’t know anything, but I soon saw the value in being there, because for what I do it’s really important to have a platform, to have the credibility, and to be able to reach a mainstream audience. The first question is, why do you want to do it? Is it a personal motivation of, “Great, I’m on TV,” or will this actually help your business?

Barbara Turley: Is it goal-driven or is actually … Yeah.

Nikki Goldstein: Exactly. I would encourage people too to look at nontraditional forms of media. By that, don’t be focusing on, “I’ve got to get on morning shows and the news,” and things like that, because really that’s only reaching a smaller population. With those morning TV shows, I’m very lucky because a lot of the things I talk about relate to new moms, and parents, and things like that.

Barbara Turley: Who are watching.

Nikki Goldstein: They’re watching, but you have to think about, is that the audience that’s right for your business. Sometimes you’re better off by reaching out to people that have blogs, reaching out to websites, doing articles for things that are online, because I’ve seen the difference between online campaigns that can absolutely spread like wildfire. We did we did one with Gilette last year that was a perfect example of that, but it was very difficult to put it on to mainstream media. No TV wanted to touch it, no magazines, no radio.

Barbara Turley: Too taboo.

Nikki Goldstein: Online it went like wildfire and it reached to the US and we were doing interviews for online magazines and online blogs. We ended up to be a very successful campaign. I always think you have to look out …

Barbara Turley: You can’t get too hang up on this kind of sense of you know, “I need to be in Marie Claire Magazine or I need to be in some of these things.”

Nikki Goldstein: Yeah.

Barbara Turley: Because actually, I know we’ve talked about this, but I’m not sure sometimes the return from those. It’s great for your credibility but at some point you have to get stuff that’s a bit more of a lead generator I guess.

Nikki Goldstein: Exactly. I think you’re always going to have a point of difference. I think if you are going to be approaching producers and journalists, keeping in mind that they are busy these days and under a lot of pressure because it is a struggling industry. If you are approaching them, I think one of the biggest things is manners as well. Understand that they are busy. Understand that they get bombarded by so many different people. You need to ask around and find out if you’re pitching a particular person, how do they like their pitches done, how do they function and how do they work?

Barbara Turley: That’s a good tip.

Nikki Goldstein: Because some people don’t want you calling up their phones and leaving messages. They want an email that says subject heading, what’s it about, study, idea, this is my hours when I’m free to do it. You try to make their jobs as easy as possible.

Barbara Turley: Make it easy, yeah.

Nikki Goldstein: Then I think you also have to give them your point of difference because if you happen to be a personal trainer or a vet, or …

Barbara Turley: So many of those out there.

Nikki Goldstein: Or fashionista, there are so many different people, so what makes you different to everyone else that’s there? Why should you belong on TV?

Barbara Turley: That’s the hard part.

Nikki Goldstein: Why should you be in the magazine? You really need to look at that from an outsider point of view and display that to them, because that’s what they’re going to be looking for. If you [inaudible 00:34:23] profile.

Barbara Turley: Otherwise you’re kind of wasting your time, aren’t you? Really.

Nikki Goldstein: You can.

Barbara Turley: I mean, you got to get that right and rather than put so much work into this and get nowhere with this.

Nikki Goldstein: A lot of energy goes into it and I think that’s why you need to ask those questions, you know, “Is this the right thing for me to be doing? Is this the right thing for my brand?”

Barbara Turley: “Is there a better use of my time?”

Nikki Goldstein: Exactly.

Barbara Turley: Because actually it is that return on it.

Nikki Goldstein: You have to follow up and you have to deal with rejections and you get hang up about it. You really need to look at the motivation first, and then do your research about, “Well, how am I going to tackle this.” I think for anybody who is an expert or has something to say, you need to be that person that people will call you up for a comment.

Barbara Turley: That’s what you want to get to.

Nikki Goldstein: Yeah. I think you know, give them ideas, work with them, build relationships with them, and that’s how you’re able to PR yourself, because you can’t just call someone up and say, “I’m an amazing person [inaudible 00:35:15].”

Barbara Turley: “I’m so great you should …” Yeah.

Nikki Goldstein: “Let me write an article.”

Barbara Turley: “You should know me.”

Nikki Goldstein: Everyone’s busy and if you could help them out, then if you’ve got something interesting to give, then eventually the tables will turn.

Barbara Turley: [You chip away 00:35:26]. Thank you so much for being on the show.

Nikki Goldstein: Thank you for having me.

Barbara Turley: If anybody wants connect with you, they want to further see more of your work, where should they go? Your website?

Nikki Goldstein: I would say website first, so drnikkig.com.au. I’m also very big on social media, so Instagram and Twitter which is just dr_nikkig.

Barbara Turley: Great.

Nikki Goldstein: I’m always open to people’s feedback, Facebook comments, and I think it’s really important that people do chime in and contact and say, “I agree with something that you said, or I disagree.”

Barbara Turley: Yeah. Absolutely. Comment on the show, I think that’s the thing. Anybody of you who has agreed with some of the things that Nikki has been saying today, definitely comment, because this is such a huge topic.

Nikki Goldstein: Because there is no normal at the end of the day and I might be an expert, but I’m also just one person and one opinion. I find it really fascinating what other people have to say because that’s how I feel I grow, and because at times I need to be challenged and think …

Barbara Turley: Other perspectives.

Nikki Goldstein: … Through different perspectives, yeah.

Barbara Turley: Absolutely. Nikki, thank you so much for being on the show. I really wanted to get this topic on. I know I’ve been chasing you for a while to come on the show. It’s been a real pleasure having you.

Nikki Goldstein: Worth the work.

Barbara Turley: Yeah, worth the wait. Thank you to everyone for watching again for another week. As always, you can catch me later this week on my Wealth Unplugged Podcast, where I’ll be giving you my key takeouts from my chat with Nikki. You can get that on my website at energisewealth.com. Until next week, have a great week and I’ll see you then.