Thriving Financially in Business and at Home With Leah Hadley

Thriving Financially in Business and at Home With Leah Hadley

Welcome to episode number 86 of The Determined Mom Show, thriving financially in business and at home. And so we have the amazing Leah Hadley here. She is a financial advisor and money coach at Watched Her Thrive. 

Initially, I lost my job in equity research. We were downsized, and I sought an appointment to fit my life. So I have three kids who have lots of activities and whatnot. And everything that I was looking at was just clear too.

That I was going to have to prioritize the job over my family didn’t resonate with me. And so I wanted something that, mind you, I love to work. I genuinely enjoy my work, but I wanted to do it in a way that allowed me to prioritize my kids and be the one that takes them to the doctor and the dentist.

I’m still looking for something that’s gonna work for me. Let me, see what I can do on my own. I think it was so worth those challenging times because I just, I’ve really created a life that I really enjoy now. It always is worth it. And there’s always that point where you feel like giving up when you’re like, oh, I don’t know if this is worth it. Should I get a real job, quote-unquote, as many people look at entrepreneurs as people that don’t have real jobs, but anyway.

How can we thrive in our business?

I work with many people going through a difficult financial time in one way or another. So in addition to being a financial advisor, I am an accredited financial counselor, so I have a lot of additional training. Some areas your average financial advisor may have less education in are.

Things like managing debt, things like managing the emotions around money, really helping people to work through some of their own blocks around improving their financial situation.

Either feeling less than confident managing their finances on their own or, and kind of what we’re talking about today. I have many small business owners or entrepreneurs I work with, and a lot of it has to do with creating prominent systems in place to manage money.

And personally, and often for a newer entrepreneur or even somebody more established, they have this amazing passion for whatever they do, right? Like I have a lot of creative folks I work with who are incredibly talented, but they maybe never have taken a business or accounting class.

Maybe they just got started with some relationships they had or something like that. For many moms I work with, perhaps we’re trying to figure out a way to stay home and earn some extra money. And they’ve stumbled upon something that’s now growing, which is fantastic, but many business owners don’t take that step back first to lay out the financial plan associated with them.

And their home life separately. And I will briefly discuss why that’s so important in a few minutes. So people come to me, and many of them have made a bit of a mess of their finances, which is fine.

I mean, that’s normal for people who have come to me, and I tell them that like they’re not alone. It’s very, very common. And I see where it comes from. You. Financial literacy in this country.

We only get a little education about managing our finances when we’re growing up. Most people are lucky if they have a parent who sits down and shows them how to, you know, balance their checkbook and things like that.

And that was huge because so many people, don’t get that. And so having those essential financial literary, like not having those basic financial literacy skills, is so common. And I let people know that, you know, that there’s no expectation when somebody comes to have a conversation with me about where their quote should be. Because so many people say, oh, I heard I should do this, or I should do that.

Or they go down this rabbit hole of, like Google, everything they should be doing. Then they get trapped in this mindset of, ” Hey, I’m not doing all these different things that I quote should be doing. And they feel real as it relates to money in many ways. Like they’re failing themselves.

And so that is super common, and we work through that. So that’s what I do in my work. You know, I help people get very clear on their current financial picture. So where do things currently stand, from a numbers perspective, but also like that emotional piece? Like, how are we interacting with money?

What’s going on here? And let’s get clear and create an action. So ultimately, I work very collaboratively with people. I’m a big believer that your financial plan is your plan. It’s not my plan that I’m saying, like, do this.

It’s really about saying like, let me understand what your goals are in your life, what you want to achieve, what you’re trying to do with your business, um, and let’s create a plan that’s going to get you from where you stand Today we’ve called very clear on what the current situation is.

There are all of these independent living skills that people need. And managing money is really at the core. Cause I can’t tell you how many people I work with who don’t get those experiences at all and have created a very difficult situation for themselves to escape.

And as I said before, there is that, like, there’s that shame around feeling like they’re failing themselves because there’s all of this language around what we should or shouldn’t be doing. And the fact is, if you don’t know any better, you don’t know any better, right? And then, of course, like, you know, teenagers and young adults feel invincible.

So nothing’s going to happen to me. I’ll always have money to do my laundry. I’ll always have food. I’ll always. So when you couple that with this kind of developmental phase, you know, it can create a rigid foundation to then, you know, as you’re really transitioning into adulthood to feel good about being financially secure.

The big one they hear from most people is that they want financial security, which is very different for many people. But at the end of the day, like there is, there are very practical core things to financial security. You can establish for yourself once you determine what that means for you.

And that’s something that I work through with many of my clients around that issue of financial security. So one question for you is, people who have made a mess of their finances are probably very fearful of knowing, like looking at that picture of what it is really like. So how do you help them overcome that fear of like?

And sometimes, that is a very eye-opening experience and a challenging experience for people. Sometimes it’s when somebody’s lost a loved one, and suddenly it’s like we have to, you know, figure out the estate and these kinds of things. So most of the time, you’re not going through that difficult, a financial situation that it’s like, I have to deal with it now.

But those are the most challenging times to deal with it. So it’s much better to deal with as soon as possible rather than wait. And again, it comes down to what happens if I don’t deal with this, right? One of my clients recently said they had lost a parent, and he said, you know, I don’t want to leave my kids with the same financial headache that my parents left for me.

And a lot of us feel that way, you know? And it’s the fear of the unknown, and you’re saying just be proactive about it and get it done. Now before something happens and you’re in a horrible situation dealing with not only the emotion of the finances but the divorce and the death, there are so many other emotions that you have to deal with.

That can be enough to set you off. Sometimes, you know, when you’re in a difficult situation, any of those minor tweaks that are kind of out of your control can create a very challenging situation for you where it’s like, suddenly I have to face this and, you know, what do I need to do to deal with it?

But the great thing about 2020 is there were so many programs to help people. And so that’s what I spent a lot of my time over the last year, is just keeping up on what’s available and how can we support people and what’s available for business owners and things like that. So that way, when you have that professional guidance in place, all of a sudden, so many more resources are available to you, right?

Because that’s my full-time responsibility to keep up with that stuff, whereas if you’re trying to manage your business and you know, you’re trying to manage your money on your own, you don’t have time to keep up with everything that’s going on, as it relates to those changes. Yeah, I agree 100%. It’s like catching up from behind, and it’s worse.

Many of the newer business owners I work with are in this sort of feast and salmon mode, right? So they are out there marketing and selling their service, and then they get clients and slow down with that. And then, you know, they, they have the work, and then they.

They need to work again, and then they get busy. So it’s like this up-and-down roller coaster of having an income, but it needs to be more consistent. And so that can be tricky to navigate, especially if you were somebody who had come out of a career where you were paid very consistently. Right. And even some of the sales folks I work with inconsistent income have very similar experiences to some of my business owner clients, and it’s that managing that uneven cash flow.

I think the Profit First strategy is an excellent strategy. It’s like the envelope system for business, right? It’s like setting aside specific dollar amounts for your compensation taxes, retaining a profit in the business, right? Operating expenses. So it’s dividing up every dollar that comes into your business and giving it a home.

And some people really need those separate accounts or something like that, a structure. So the Profit First Method is about creating different accounts to have clear money buckets for specific business purposes. And some people like an immaculate structure that they can follow like that.

You know, for some people, that’s. It wasn’t apparent in their mind. Um, you know, and that’s fine.  Some clients like to get into the weeds with their numbers, and some want to stand back and look big picture. So it’s about finding a system that works for you.

That is a system that works for a lot of people, and it could work for you. If you still need to read the book, checking if you’re struggling with cash flow management is excellent. It’s a perfect one to review. But also, many people need support if they are currently in a difficult situation.

Making the transition to something like that and having somebody bounce ideas off of or think through the challenges they’re trying to solve. But it’s a structure that works well for many people, and it’s great that you offer those types of services too.

There are all kinds of different resources, and I keep adding to them. So lots of free stuff that can walk you through. Some of the things that we’ve talked about today are. I also have a free group. It’s Watch Earth, and people are welcome to come in and ask questions and get support in that group.  I try to offer resources, especially for people who are just starting out and have room for help but aren’t ready to invest.