Energise Wealth

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Welcome to Episode #2 of Feminine Wealth TV! My guest for this episode is Debbie Spellman – a Mind Detox Therapist and Coach who has been featured in such publications as Cosmopolitan, Australian National Health and fitness publications worldwide.

Debbie shares her story with us in this interview, and it’s a journey that many women will relate to! We explore the connection between self-worth and net worth – how do these interact?

Check out today’s episode in the above video and help stimulate positive change in your life – improving your current situation always begins with your mind…

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Barbara Turley: Hi there, I’m Barbara Turley, and you’re watching Feminine Wealth TV, the show that uncovers the diamond tips on creating truly conscious wealth from change makers, world shakers, and wealth creators. Today I’m super excited to have the gorgeous Debbie Spellman with me on the show. Debbie is the founder of debbiespellman.com. She’s an advocate for positive body image, by helping women recognize their inherent value and conquer feelings of low self worth. She’s a mind detox therapist, a coach, writer, and speaker. Her message reaches women over 60 countries, now how fantastic is that? She’s also a regular columnist and think fit expert for women in fitness magazines around Australia and around the world. She’s also been featured in Cosmo., Women’s Day, and Australian National Health magazine. If that wasn’t enough brings. Debbie is also the creator of Detox Your Mind TV, and a master trainer in the mind detox method. Debbie, welcome to the show! Thank you so much for being with me today.

Debbie Spellman: Your welcome, it’s a pleasure to be here.

Barbara Turley: Yes. I just wanted to start the show today with a bit of a funny story about how Debbie and I met. I always like to start my show with how I meet some of my guests. So for all of you out there who think that you can’t make friends watching business on Twitter, think again. I actually met Debbie on Twitter. I sat there, I was writing a blog at the time about exploring a sweeter life, and I found Debbie’s work on Twitter, connected with her there and since, we’ve actually been doing some work together.

Debbie Spellman: Yeah.

Barbara Turley: We’ve become friends.

Debbie Spellman: Mm-hmm. (affirmative)

Barbara Turley: It’s blossomed from that. I’ve been following her work closely. So Debbie, we’re here today to talk about the connection between self-worth and net worth, and why people’s or women’s self worth in particular might actually be affecting their network. To get things kicked off, I mean, self worth, it’s a little buzz word out there at the moment. What do exactly is self worth?

Debbie Spellman: Self worth is, it comes down to how much you value and find worth in yourself. So, essentially what self worth is, it’s self worth. So, for women in business, I think it comes down to how much you value the information have inside, and how you give that out in the world. So it what holds women back, and we’ll go into this more in detail later, is that if women don’t value their self, they won’t value the information, and they’ll be struck by fear and procrastination and won’t be able to serve.

Barbara Turley: Oh yes I know, I’ve even suffered that myself and it’s just a common thing. What drew you to an area of expertise like where you work?

Debbie Spellman: Yeah absolutely. Well I’m a big believer that your story is your testimony, and your past is the perfect platform to which that all stems from. Without going into too much detail, went I grew up, I had major self worth issues but I never actually realized it. It wasn’t until I went through a mental and emotional breakdown at about age 28, when everything I knew fell apart around me, and I found myself asking, who am I, what do I want, what’s important to me? Everything I had set my mind on for all of my twenties was about wealth and success mindset. So it was no coincidence that it attracted to me the world leading concierge to the rich and famous, because it was what I epitomized as I made it, I’m important, I’m significant.

Barbara Turley: Wow, the concierge to the rich and famous, tell me about that, what was that?

Debbie Spellman: It was something I was working for at the time and it was everything I aspired to be, because for me, my belief system told me that if you had money, then you’re important. I grew up with a lot of money, so I thought if I knew I’d find this belief inside, then I’ll be clear it, make money, and then I’d be significant. And then everything would be perfect.

Barbara Turley: Yeah.

Debbie Spellman: When I reached that place, life wasn’t perfect, and in fact, it went the opposite but it was the biggest blessing. What it made me recognize, it allowed me to reevaluate how I spent my time, who I surrounded myself with, and what I was doing, and where my actions were being driven from. I think at that time, I was very ego driven.

Barbara Turley: Yes.

Debbie Spellman: Very external driven.

Barbara Turley: I think a lot of us would suffer from that. Especially when it comes to money and wealth, we’re driven by our ego rather than what we truly want.

Debbie Spellman: Exactly. When you get all what your ego wants, you still remained unfulfilled because you’re waiting and aspiring to the next big thing that’s going to make you happy. So, outside of the mental and emotional breakdown, I did a lot of reflection. I did a lot of work over two years, and that lead me to the path of where I am today. What I recognized, is that, from starting from my teenage years where I would starve myself so that I was skinnier and prettier, so that boys would like me, and I had all sorts of emotional eating problems right through my twenties. I stayed in a relationship for far too long even though it wasn’t serving me.

Barbara Turley: Lot’s of women do that.

Debbie Spellman: I stayed in the relationship for far too long even tho it went against all of my values. So, I recognize the one thing that hit me, in all of these places where I didn’t necessarily want to be, was my lack of self worth because I didn’t have the courage to speak up, and what was important to me and to communicate my values.

Barbara Turley: Did you know what was important to you? Was there a disconnect between what was important and actually knowing what’s important to you?

Debbie Spellman: Yeah and that’s a really great question, because when you experience a lack of self-worth you’re so driven my other people’s expectations and people pleasing and approval seeking, that you don’t end up doing what is right for you. You don’t even know what is right for you, because…

Barbara Turley: And then you’re running around unhappy…even if you have money, you know, I mean there’s a thing about having a lot of money but being miserable.

Debbie Spellman: Yeah. Absolutely. That’s the core thing I work with with my clients, really finding out your inherent value, and what is truly important to you and what your priorities are, and creating that as a foundation to then live your life and to grow from, otherwise you will be driven from your ego and you will be driven by other people’s expectations and doesn’t leave you to a positive vibe.

Barbara Turley: And Debbie, the hundreds of new coach hunches from all this now in your business, how big of a problem is self worth? You know?

Debbie Spellman: I would say it’s 100% because every woman that comes to me experiences it, however it’s my key tool. How big a problem is it. From my experience, both with the women I’ve worked with and women who have just come to me and talked to me, there is an element of all of us worrying about what other people think of us, huge issue with comparison, huge issue with not being good enough, and not seeing our value. So how big is it? I think it’s worldwide which is why I’m such an advocate for changing the way women see themselves because I’m going to this shortly, I feel that we hide behind these social masks and we’re not really being real about who we are.

Barbara Turley: Or we’re afraid to be, afraid to know who we are. Until you’ve explored who that is.

Debbie Spellman: We have no idea who we are.

Barbara Turley: Do you find that even strong women, probably speaking for myself here, who casts myself as a strong woman, a lot of what your saying resonate with me, for things I feel. Do you find stronger women or women who come for you have this perception that they want to be strong, they find it’ll be difficult to actually admit that these are some of the issues they’re facing?

Debbie Spellman: Absolutely. Well first thing, let’s touch on that element of masks. I believe that we all leave behind our social masks, whatever they are. Introvert, shy, or maybe you have a mask of affection, where you appear that everything’s good on the outside, but on the inside, you’re falling apart. I know many women come to me who have a picture perfect life, and to some extent have success, but they’re so miserable because their internal life doesn’t reflect their external and then they think something is wrong with them. So, I think that’s the huge issue for one.

Secondly, sometimes when I speak to women, they don’t really think there’s much wrong in their life, they just think they’re unhappy. When we start digging, there’s a huge amount of limiting beliefs that are skewing and affecting the way they behave. For example, one client, she recently had an issue where she could only see one friend at a time. She’d only allow herself to see one friend at at time.

Barbara Turley: No groups?

Debbie Spellman: No definitely no groups. She got anxiety, she didn’t like it at all. So, then she thought well it’s just a personality trait. And I said to her, well let’s explore this, and what we discovered, is that when she’s in a grouping environment, she gets the anxiety, we allow the anxiety to take us back to childhood and it took her to a memory when she was one4 years old where she had an eating disorder, she was cutting herself and she hated her skin. She said I hate myself in my own skin. At that point, she decided that she wasn’t good enough. What she would do, was she’d only work with one friend at a time, therefore she wouldn’t feel worthless, because she could control the situation.

Barbara Turley: That’s fascinating. We don’t even know these things that are going on, did it take her awhile to remember that particular event?

Debbie Spellman: Not when I coached her through it, but before that, it was almost like a non event. She’s like, this is just a personality trait, I don’t know why I can’t experience more connection with people and why I can’t enjoy group social situations. For her, she had no idea it went deeper.

Barbara Turley: I’m just interested, what are the triggers for a woman to come and seek your help? I always think they’re coming and looking online or looking for something. Do they come in with, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I’m just not happy, and I don’t know why.” Is there a lot of that or do they typically know what the problem is?

Debbie Spellman: I think they still may copy with it on my website they can resonate with it. One of the key things is self talk. Every woman knows she beats herself up, she puts herself down, and she doesn’t speak well with others.

Barbara Turley: Why do we do that? I do that. We all do that.

Debbie Spellman: There’s the inherent I’m not good enough belief that’s in all of us. I think that’s really where it starts, is the way they talk to themselves, and it’s different for every person. Maybe they’ve been successful, but they’re unfulfilled, maybe they’ve never been successful because they’ve been holding themselves back all of their lives out of fear and procrastination.

Barbara Turley: They’re ready to change.

Debbie Spellman: And they’re ready to change. They’re really ready to change. I think more often, women in their thirties or forties are recognizing that they have stuff, and don’t understand why they’re self sabotaging, they’re clear of their patterns, their clear of their self talk, they just don’t know how to change.

Barbara Turley: They don’t know how to change. It’s because so often we’ve done work on our selves and we know what the problems are, facing the problem is the hardest part. Now, I see you coach women, and your main focus is women. Is it just women that have this problem? Is it a very female problem? Or do men suffer from this too?

Debbie Spellman: Do you know what I believe. I believe men suffer from this too, but they wouldn’t dare share it. I’m not exactly sure where this comes from, but there’s an element of, when you’re a little boy, and your mom says, “you’re not allowed to cry, don’t cry, big boys don’t cry.” Or “strong boys don’t cry.” From a very young age, in some parenting styles, I think men are conditioned to not show their emotions and to be strong and not cry. So I think there’s an element…

Barbara Turley: You’re told to be a man.

Debbie Spellman: You’re told to be a man from a very young age, but they still have emotions and feelings and I think that puts the ceiling on where they can’t express. I do have a male client that has been with me for a number of years, and he does experience exactly the same stuff, except how his comes out is through drinking or gambling or shutting down, is how he dealt with what was going on inside. That was the catalyst for change, because on the outside he has a picture perfect life. Picture perfect. Successful, everything. Inside he was crumbling, and that’s where maybe they all go while women, we just hold ourselves back.

Barbara Turley: Yeah, because I think it’s been something I’ve been playing with recently, is this whole masculine paradigm. Us women are trying to live in a very masculine paradigm and that’s our generation. For example business, politics, money, health, these are all very masculine paradigms, as women we’ve only entered this feminine leadership, we’ve already entered this arena in the last couple of generations. I’m just wondering whether, you know, as women, because we’re entering a new domain and things are so different now, these issues are more coming to front in a stronger way for us as women than maybe men, because things have changed so much for them? Do you feel that with the way this is all coming up now for women?

Debbie Spellman: Yeah I’m not sure, maybe it’s just the way that that history has gone, where we’re really starting to recognize that one, we really can be, cool with men, and although we don’t feel that way, what are the things blocking us.

Barbara Turley: Yeah so we know we can in our mind, but maybe we don’t feel quite as close as our brothers, or cousins.

Debbie Spellman: We need to go about it differently and I believe their way of operating is the best way for us to operate. We’re always balanced and we need both so it’s not…

Barbara Turley: Because we’re trying to operate in a more masculine way, it has brought up issues from us and we need to start working.

Debbie Spellman: Absolutely, men and women aren’t the same, we bring different things to the earth, so yeah, trying to be that masculine, powerful woman that represses all of her feelings, and keeping on.

Barbara Turley: Last week in thinking about this interview and what we were going to be talking about, I stumbled upon a money confidence survey that a bank here in Australia did. It’s fascinating because from the results from the people’s surveys, it was quite a large number of people who did this survey. They found that women are less confident about money than men, and that men have twice the amount of savings as women, which I found that to be quite astounding actually. Women, we like security and we like savings, but we actually don’t save more money. So it got me thinking about this whole thing of, as women we all say, it’s more expensive being a woman. Manicures, pedicures, I can’t possibly wear the same dress twice to the races or to the wedding and all of the above. Do you think that’s more, is that a symptom of lack of self worth that we actually value things like manicures and hair and looking perfect more than financial security?

Debbie Spellman: I think you hit the nail on the head, it comes down to your values and it comes down to what you prioritize. What is driven by our values, yes definitely a sense of lack of self worth. We spend our money and time of what we value, however, and it’s not blanket, it’s not in all cases, but I would want women who are guilty of doing that to really look in to why they need to have the nails perfect all the time, and why their hair needs to be perfect before every outing. Just how much their activities are being chosen from the wrong place.

Barbara Turley: Yeah and what their definition of being perfect is.

Debbie Spellman: Yes.

Barbara Turley: All women, we’re beautiful and perfect just the way we are, and we seem to have this drive to always want to improve ourselves, we just want to understand it.

Debbie Spellman: I think a lack of self acceptance is a huge driver in that. When you don’t value yourself, you don’t accept yourself, then you change the external to appear more perfect.

Barbara Turley: I was interviewed by Wendy Mak, who we both know, she’s the go to expert for female entrepreneurs, and she was interviewing me on startups, and women want to start up businesses. I hear a lot of them say to me, they’re dying to start a business but say they cannot afford it, so they don’t have the money to get started. I feel, because I did this for myself, I know that if I went in and looked at their finances, I could find hidden money everywhere, and I know I could make it happen for them. The problem is I might have to strip costs that would challenge their sense of self. So my question to you would be, do you see that in your current practice? If they cannot achieve certain things but that self worth is holding them back in every area of their life.

Debbie Spellman: Absolutely, I had a client recently, she’s a young woman, and she wants to launch a health coaching business, because it’s important to her, and I believe it all comes down to your priorities. I asked her, how do you spend your time, because her excuse I suppose was, I don’t have time, I am lacking motivation, and I can’t seem to get moving on what I need to get done. I said to her, share with me what your priorities are, and she listed them down, and work was from the bottom last, and then I said, show me how you spend your time? It was very much linked to how she currently prioritizes her life, and I said, if your business is that important to you, you need to move it up to number 2. Just that simple mindset of how she spent her time, and how it was linked to a set of priorities that wasn’t ideal changed around. She reported back to me this week and she’s just gung ho on what she needs to get done.

Barbara Turley: Yeah, isn’t that fantastic, just unblocked that barrier. I know for some women, they would think, I think I went through a patch through this as well, but thinking about how much can I really cut back? But you’re right, when I started realizing that what I was spending my money on, actually, wasn’t on what I truly valued, and what I really wanted. It was a mind set too for me because I wanted to run my own business, and I had to cut everything else out for awhile. There was no dinners out, there was no getting my hair done, and I just, it’s strictly bare. It did challenge my sense of self, that’s why the question has come. It’s something a lot of women would struggle with, but it’s definitely a growth experience.

What’s really interesting about this topic, with the rise in awareness of self worth, with us women, it’s coincided with the rise in what I like to call the fem-entrepreneur movement globally, where women are leaving the corporate world in droves, I think it’s a problem in the corporate world to launch their own businesses. The rise in female entrepreneurs is outstanding. It’s great for the global economy. There’s this push-pull going on. We’re taking the leap of faith, we’re starting businesses, but a lot of female entrepreneurs aren’t making a lot of money. It’s like this sense of, like I said, push-pull, taking the leap of faith, launching the business, but trying to run when the brakes are on. How much do you think self worth and beliefs come into that problem?

Debbie Spellman: Absolutely, I believe mindset is everything, because running a business is not easy, but there’s a plan to follow, there’s strategies, and it’s a numbers game. There are steps, people can tell you how to run a business. The actual doing, the action steps, where female entrepreneurs, or the females I work with anyway just haul themselves back out of fear and procrastination. I believe it is directly down to self worth, because if you don’t value yourself, you won’t value the information you have inside to give to the world, which means that you won’t pull it out, because of your fear of rejection or not being good enough. That hugely prevents women from getting their unique message out there into the world. I know Max Simon, and he’s the marketer for entrepreneurs. He mentioned he wanted to serve in a big way doing meditation, and he ended up broke. All he did was serve. He didn’t run it like a business, and he didn’t do it strategically, he just wanted to save and help the world.

Barbara Turley: The value exchange, this is something I talk about a lot in my vlogs and programs, there is a value exchange with money. If you’re giving constantly and not honoring the value exchange by allowing people to give back to you in the form they have to pay you for what you’re serving them, the value exchanges don’t honor it, and then what happens is, you become resentful. Resentment, internally, if you don’t know, that really can shun money even more.

Debbie Spellman: Absolutely, and I know from my own personal experience and from the women I work with as well when they’re selling their business. When they start giving away for free, clients don’t get results, because there’s nothing in it for them. I know when I’ve doubled my practices years back, women, nothing changed, in terms of my program, but all of the women got results. They had something in the game, they did the work, and they valued it. You’re doing yourself a disservice if you don’t charge.

Barbara Turley: Charge what you’re worth and knowing what you’re worth. It’s tricky. Would you say, what are the tips for valuing yourself that you can come up with? Have you got a couple of quick tips that you would say to really value yourself?

Debbie Spellman: What I would say is, if you’re doubting your ability, perhaps you need to study that more. Perhaps you need to craft your skill and master your skill just a little bit more. The second is, your clients are always one step behind you. You always know, you just have to know a little bit more than your clients and you’re serving them. You don’t have to be the expert or master straight up.

Barbara Turley: You’re the expert to them.

Debbie Spellman: You are!

Barbara Turley: You’re already an expert to them.

Debbie Spellman: Absolutely. You just have to take them to the next step. Everyone can only go that next step forward. As long as you feel that you can offer your clients that next step, then that’s all you need to focus on.

Barbara Turley: I wanted to touch a little more on emotions. Emotions and self worth, and particularly money. I’ve done the mind detox training with Debbie, I was actually trained as a mind detox therapist because I wanted to help my clients unblock their own subconscious beliefs about money, and the emotions that are there, and often don’t know are there. What I found, with some of the women that I’ve been coaching, through this, the emotions that come up particularly around money, are shame, and guilt. Massively. These are really heavy low vibrating emotions. What do you think emotions, like, when you’re trying to charge somebody, or value what it is that you do, but you have resentment or shame or guilt attached to money, how do you think that impacts your business and your ability to really make money?

Debbie Spellman: Yeah, I think energetically, I think it pushes clients away before they’ve even gotten to you.

Barbara Turley: They can feel it, like the vibration goes out.

Debbie Spellman: Absolutely. Even in your marketing, your voice, and the way that you carry yourself, the way you talk to people, it all shows if you don’t value yourself. So how do you work through that? I believe that first, you need to do a lot of reflection. You need to look over your patterns in life. Patterns show a lot in your deep subconscious beliefs. Secondly, ask yourself, I can make a lot of money or I can serve this client. As soon as you say that, recognize the self talk that gets triggered in your mind and start writing it down, because you’ll have a verbal diary of self talk that’s all limiting and fearful. When you’ve got that, if you keep reading over that self talk for a moment, you’re going to feel something in your body, it’s normally going to exist between the chest and the tummy. It’s going to be tight or heavy, and I would dig into that feeling and try to identify what that feeling is.

Barbara Turley: And what the emotion is attached to it?

Debbie Spellman: Yes. The emotions, so fear, guilt, shame, and then if you’re quiet and mindful, and if you identify what that emotion is, and you ask yourself, what is it trying to protect me from, and the self talk will come on. If you ask yourself where that began, it will take you back to childhood, to a point where you’ve picked something up from your family system around money.

Barbara Turley: That has become your truth.

Debbie Spellman: That has become your truth, and once you know that, you can see from an adult perspective versus your 6 year old self, is that really true? It might be true but is it truth?

Barbara Turley: This is so important because we don’t realize that this work, doing this work actually leads to business growth, personal growth, it’s so important to do it.

Debbie Spellman: Hand in hand.

Barbara Turley: So many people skip over, they don’t even know it’s there. I had Heather Porter from Autopilot your business on the show last week, and she had traveled with Tony Robins on the world mastery tours. I asked her what were the biggest tips or things she learned from being on the tours with those kinds of mentors. She said, when you’re emotional, do not make any financial decisions. Do not buy anything, do not invest in anything, because logic goes out the window. I think what was important for me to understand was, sometimes we don’t know those emotions are there. You actually don’t know that that emotion is driving you. Get really deep and feel that.

Debbie Spellman: Absolutely, one of the big principles that I teach with my clients is to never speak if you’re feeling emotions.

Barbara Turley: Yeah, I find that very difficult to do.

Debbie Spellman: When the external event happens, before you even think about responding or reacting, just have a pause. If there’s any type of defense signals or emotion that’s going to drive that language, you’ll just share with that person, I’ll come back to you, or let me think about that. Whenever you act from that place, it’s always an undesirable outcome.

Barbara Turley: Obviously women with spending, I mean this is a big one for spending. When we go out and spend, there is a rush of emotion. You either have fear, terrified of buying something expensive, or you have a rush, like I get, because I’m a big spender. I try not to be, but I know the feeling that I get, of like the rush of excitement, that I’m going to buy something. It’s a bit like a drug, so I have to have rules in place to get like that, where I’d say to myself, if I still want it tomorrow or next week, I’m allowed to come back and buy it. Usually it’ll dissipate, and I’ll be like, “No I don’t really want it now.”

Debbie Spellman: Absolutely. How many times have you heard that term “retail therapy?” It’s so true, because as women if we’re not wanting to deal with what’s going on for us or we’re trying to distract ourselves with an emotion, many of us go out and buy something to make ourselves feel better. It doesn’t get to the root cause. Then they go through bank balance and that’s the reason they’re not saving.

Barbara Turley: Sometimes you lose your business. Sometimes your business. The same thing happens in people’s businesses, they might be spending on themselves, but spending on stuff they really don’t need in the business or whatever, so it’s really important.

So Debbie, speaking of business and wealth and playing a bigger game through business, what does the future hold for Debbie Spellman, inc.?

Debbie Spellman: What does the future hold? Well having been consistently booked out for a year now, I’ve recognized that I need to leverage myself in order to serve in a much bigger way. I’m taking a lot of my knowledge and wisdom online, and I’m creating certain programs so that I can start reaching a global audience.

Barbara Turley: Oh that’s great, and you can start reaching more women that way. And get your message to more women.

Debbie Spellman: Absolutely. I find women that come to me are at all different levels, and some people need to understand their negative self talk and how to overcome that day to day, and other people need to know who are they on an identity level? What are they born here for, what is their bigger purpose or legacy? There’s a vast gap in between. That’s what I’m focusing on at moment, creating those services that is going to fit each of those levels. Also really delving into my retreat to mastermind. It’s really important to go deeper, so that the women I work with can go bigger.

Barbara Turley: Yeah to really go deep. This is a really like peeling back the onion type of process.

Debbie Spellman: Yes absolutely.

Barbara Turley: So if our viewers want to find out more about this amazing work, where can they find out more about you?

Debbie Spellman: Absolutely, you can go to debbiespellman.com and on there, I’ve got my blog, my mind detoxing TV and my podcast, and I’m also on Facebook daily, so come on over and say hello.

Barbara Turley: She’s great on Facebook actually, she’s on there daily. Debbie thank you so much for discussing this such important topic today, it’s been an absolute pleasure.

Thanks to our viewers for joining me again, you can catch as always, my key takeouts on the Wealth Unplugged podcast, which is on iTunes. It’s fantastic, it’s really quick and you can listen it on your commute or when you’re cooking dinner at home. Remember to tune in next week, where I’m going to be joined by Fiona Cosgrove from Wellness Coaches Australia, and we’re going to be talking about wealth and wellness. See you then.