Money Mindset, Money Blocks & the Fear of Success: Why Women Entrepreneurs Keep Themselves Small
I once talked myself out of a promotion. I was working as a legal counsel, covering the work of three lawyers who were on sick leave or maternity leave, when I was offered the position of heading the team. "Oh no, I can't do it yet," I said. "Maybe in a few years." Then I suggested they appoint my colleague who was on maternity leave instead.
(I was, at that point, already doing three people's jobs. Just apparently not ready to lead them.)
I told that story on the podcast to my business coach, Masha Goins, and she didn't seem the least bit surprised. Masha has been my coach for three and a half years, and the thing I keep coming back to from our work is that more strategy is rarely what's missing. The real work is dismantling everything we've absorbed about how much women are allowed to want, receive, earn, and also become.
And oof. There is a lot to dismantle.
I've been the woman who redesigns her website instead of sending the email that could actually lead to a sale. I've also reached a new number in my business and, instead of celebrating, heard a small voice ask who I thought I was to make this much.
That's what Masha and I talk about in this episode of the Freedom Pivot Podcast. We didn't do money hacks, and nobody manifested anything. We talked about why it's still so awkward for women to want money out loud.
Money Mindset is More Than a Pep Talk
You've heard the money-mindset pep talk. Swap scarcity for abundance, think bigger, believe you're worthy.
Okay. But what happens when you really do want more money, and another part of you would quite like to give it back?
Masha once had a launch that brought in $90,000. She didn't feel triumphant for long. "My whole self withdrew," she told me. She started asking herself whether her work was actually that good, and whether she was delivering on her promises. The money had arrived before she felt like a woman who makes that kind of money.
And it doesn't happen just once. Every time you reach a new level, the old money blocks find a shiny new place to hide.
What Are Money Blocks?
By money blocks I mean whatever decides your price before you've even opened the calculator. And they sound so sensible. I need another certification first. I don't want people to think I'm greedy. My clients can't afford that. Once I've perfected the offer, then I'll sell it. If I ask more, I’m ungrateful. That last one was mine for decades.
Or the one I’ve heard my clients say out loud for so many times: This doesn't feel aligned. Maybe I need to create something new.
Occasionally that's true. More often, we've reached the part where people get to see the thing and say no. Suddenly, a new idea feels wonderfully aligned.
When “This Doesn’t Feel Aligned” Becomes an Escape Hatch
I asked Masha something I'd been wondering about myself. Do heart-led entrepreneurs use alignment as an excuse not to expand?
She loved the question. According to Masha, we live in a permanent identity crisis. Get anywhere near water, in the shower for instance, and five new offer ideas show up. Meanwhile the offer you already created becomes the stepchild. Creating is fun, and nobody can reject an idea that only exists in your notebook. Selling the stepchild means putting a price on it and asking someone to say yes.
We call it misalignment. Often it's just not wanting to find out. As I said to Masha, uncomfortable doesn't equal bad.
Fear of Rejection Can Look Like Procrastination
A client of mine, in organizational development, knew exactly what she wanted to offer and exactly whom she wanted to offer it to. All she had to do was send the email.
She couldn't.
We talked and talked, and eventually we got there. As long as she didn't send it, she didn't have to know. The idea could stay perfect in her head, with no chance of a no.
Masha said putting yourself out there brings back every single time somebody didn't want to be your friend. When the offer is your ideas, your values and your face, "no thanks" sounds a lot like "no thanks to you."
So we protect ourselves. We procrastinate, take another course, tweak the sales page, make another offer, and wait until we feel ready, which, as far as I can tell, never actually happens. Up close, self-sabotage mostly looks like a lot of very reasonable tweaking.
The Fear of Success Is the Sneakier One
We talk a lot about fear of failure. Fear of success hides better, because it looks like being sensible.
Masha rattled off the thoughts that show up when success gets close, and they're specific in the best way. What if I start making more than my partner? What are my friends going to think if I'm dancing around on the internet? What if I get a stalker? What if I get this big deal and I’m trapped with it for a long time?
And there's the comfort of never starting. If you haven't launched it, Masha pointed out, it could technically still be a huge success.
The Upper Limit Problem and the Income Plateau
Gay Hendricks calls this the upper limit problem in The Big Leap. Masha calls it an income plateau. Maybe you've never made more than €100,000 or €150,000 a year. You want to go past it, and somehow you keep backing up to the number you're used to.
Her explanation is the nervous system. "Your brain wants to keep you safe," she said, "and that means it wants to keep you small."
I'll push back a little here, even on my own coach: not every plateau is your nervous system. Sometimes the offer just isn't selling, and the numbers are telling you something useful. But if you know exactly what to do and still don't do it, I'd ask what about it feels unsafe.
The Good Girl and the Allowance
Masha grew up in a traditional family. Her father earned the money, her mother was on an allowance, and at one point he didn't even let her work. All that cooking and caring was labour, but nobody paid for it, so nobody valued it the same way.
The scripts we absorbed overlap anyway. Masha's version goes like this: be the good girl, be quiet, be the helper behind the scenes, set the table, don't make a fuss. And definitely don't be too interested in money.
She sees where that leads in women entrepreneurs: underpricing, squirming at the word "sell", struggling to receive money. Her own first offer was $27.
Who benefits when women believe wanting money makes them bad people?
Abundance Mindset: the Practical Version
I don't think an abundance mindset means sitting on the sofa imagining a large bank balance. Masha's version involves the grocery bill. Money means you can buy everything organic and all the fancy cheese, take the trip, pay the mortgage, get support, and not depend on anyone else.
"I'm literally my own ATM," she told me. Want $5,000 for a holiday? Go to the bank and press the button. She's the bank, because she knows how to create an offer, sell it and receive the money.
Her Russian grandmother was an engineer in the Soviet Union, with a profession but nothing like the freedom to arrange her days around her life. My grandmother was widowed young and became a single parent, providing for her 3 sons. Neither of them could have imagined this kind of choice. I'd like to actually use it.
Financial Freedom Can Mean Working Less
When I first heard Masha speak in a masterclass, I was exhausted. I was training and coaching lawyers, in what I'd now call a very neat box. I'd built my own business, supposedly for freedom, and somehow created myself another job. A rather demanding one.
Masha talked about launches with rest built in, and about making more without working more. I had never heard anyone talk about business like that, so I booked a discovery call. It lasted about twenty minutes. She told me on the podcast that she'd felt my energy before I said a word about my work and assumed I was a spiritual healer. Then I said "lawyer", and she burst out laughing. Somewhere in that call she suggested I could be a soulful lawyer running a soulful business. I looked at her like she was crazy.
Four or five months later I launched my first group coaching program. I remember posting about it on LinkedIn and being terrified to use the word "soul".
Masha built her own business working part-time around her daughters, and eventually became the main breadwinner in her family. Financial freedom isn't very freeing if you've built the income by removing every free hour from your life.
Your Business Will Show You Your Self-Limiting Beliefs
Entrepreneurship takes everything you thought you could hide and hands it back to you: here it is, please deal with it. Every belief you'd rather leave undisturbed eventually wanders into a coaching call wearing a name tag.
"The strategy part is so easy," Masha said. It's everything else.
What becomes possible when women stop apologizing for wanting both meaningful work and money? That's a conversation I want us to keep having.
Listen: Women, Money and Freedom with Masha Goins
In this episode of the Freedom Pivot Podcast, Masha Goins and I talk about:
money mindset and the money blocks that can appear as your business grows
why fear of success can be just as powerful as fear of failure
self-sabotage, procrastination and the fear of rejection
why "this doesn't feel aligned" isn't always intuition
nervous system regulation and expanding your capacity to receive
good-girl conditioning, money and self-worth
designing a business for financial freedom rather than another 24/7 job
why making money can be an act of agency for women
soul purpose, identity shifts and following the path before you know exactly where it leads
Listen to the episode →
If you're sitting with that question, whether this discomfort is a no or the edge of something, I'd love to hear which it turned out to be.