Once more, I’m taking you with me on the exploration of my money mindset, in the hope it might help you understand and maybe change yours.

I know, I know, I haven’t been around much and I’ve talked about this recently. The thing is… the last piece I published got me thinking a whole lot! And then something else happened.

So let’s dive anyway!

Note: this post includes an affiliated link. if you decide to make a purchase, I might get a commission, at no extra cost to you.

A little recap?

Maybe first I need to give another little recap, in case you don’t want to read any of my previous articles on such topic.

Just like mentioned previously, I think the best summary is in this piece: Reflexions on getting career advice, knowing your worth and money mindset.

In short it goes:

A while back, I was happy with my income and its 15 to 20% yearly increases. It was a decent income, nothing mind-blowing.

Then a little over a year ago now, I got an offer that freaked out, because it was so much more money. Obviously I was scared of what the workload this offer represented would do to my schedule, but the truth is that, I was scared to earn more.

Over the course of the year, the workload increased and the money doubled up. It went slowly enough for me to ‘accept’ it. If last year, my income tripled compared to the year before, this year it will be 5 to 6 times more than what I used to make. This is truly mind-blowing!

However, recently, the payment of my invoices got blocked by the bank. My client was paying me, but I wasn’t getting the money. It was super weird.

You can read all of this and more in my Money talk section!

Obviously, such a strange event got me thinking a lot. One of the thing I realised and stated in my latest article on this topic Money mindset shift – follow up required was:

Indeed, I get what I need, thanks to my money mindset but also, I only get what I need because of my money mindset!

And boy did I tortured myself thinking about that! Because, I was clearly onto something.

And then I found this book…

Finding the information you need is pure serendipity

I don’t recall where I found the recommendation for this book. If I did, I would go back and thank the author.

The book in question is:

Secret of Six-Figure Women by Barbara Stanny

For some reasons, it spoke to me despite being one book amongst a whole list. I added it straight to my Amazon Wishlist. A week ago or so, I bought it and started devouring it almost immediately.

Within the first couple pages, I already had so many aha moments that I didn’t put it down until the end of chapter 4 and the exercises I really wanted to focus on.

So many times I felt she was reading my mind, so many times I was reassured because I’m clearly not the only one to have such issues around money.

Even as of today, despite my income, I could hear the little voice in my head, my negative ego, saying mean things to me. I could hear my under-earner* ego come to the surface. I recognised my limiting believes in the interviews, the author conducted.

I knew I had to work on this! A lot more!

Secret of Six-Figure Women by Barbara Stanny

First, I should mention that this book was written almost 20 years ago or so. Time just flies by.

Since it isn’t a finance book per say, it doesn’t really matter. At least for me, at this point, it doesn’t matter because clearly I still need to work on my money mindset.

Second, I should point out that the author never use the words ‘money mindset’ (at least I don’t think she does). It probably wasn’t fashionable at the time. But truly, this book is all about money mindset!

Other than that, it is well constructed and well written as you can read on various reviews.

* Under-earner and high-earner are the terms used by the author. With the bar between the 2, being set at $100K per year. Technically I don’t think it matters where the bar is set. In some places $100K will be a whole lot, it will mean you are extremely comfortable. In other places, and also depending on your circumstances, it will mean you may be just getting by.

Another thing I realised I should mention is that this book is about women! Yes, it is in the title. No, I didn’t think it was crucial at first. But when reading it, I understood why. My guess is that such reading could also be useful for men. At the very least, they might understand some of the issues women face.

If you struggle with your finances and your own money mindset, I think this is a great book to read. I’m pretty sure you will have your own aha moments!

I sure had plenty of them, right from the beginning but the one that stands out is below…

You don’t get what you want. You get what you desire.

As I said above, I realised fairly recently that I was pretty much always getting just what I needed.

The author has another, maybe more interesting way of putting it:

You don’t get what you want. You get what you desire.

Yes, this comes from the law of attraction but this was a big aha moment for me. Because when I dug deeper, I started understanding.

Because you know what I desired most? Security! All I’ve desired for years was to have enough cash to pay my bills. Enough cash to spend on decent vacations, not outrageous ones. A decent place to live, not a mansion. Enough earnings to be able to save some money, mostly to build an emergency fund. I wasn’t thinking of having more to invest and wasn’t thinking too much of retirement.

I desired to be financial safe and independent and that is what I got. I got what I desired / needed.

But I never completely felt safe, no matter how much there was in my emergency fund. When most people talk about having 3 months, I was moving toward 6 months. When it became popular to say an emergency fund should be more like a year of expenses, I was aiming for 3 years!

Still, I kept earning ‘just enough’ for such goals. Last year big increase in remuneration and especially what I got paid, was just what I needed to cover all the expenses linked to our new apartment. As mentioned previously, it would have been painful to pay such expenses without this additional income stream.

So indeed, I got what I desired / what I needed, never what I thought I wanted.

I knew I was onto something when I wrote my previous article, but reading it in such a book was like hearing a big revelation from a therapist!

So now, I am working on my declaration of intention and the other steps described in the book.

It is a work in progress but I will keep you posted 😉

Go on and read this book! It may change your life!