Passion to Profits: Interview with Denise Duffield-Thomas

I had the pleasure of talking with Denise Duffield-Thomas, money mindset mentor of Lucky Bitch about how she turned her passion into profits. You can also find an audio interview with Denise on my podcast, The Sigrun Show.

Denise’s Passion to Profits Story

She remembers having a lot of frustration around finding her passion. She spent her 20s in London trying to figure out what to do with her life and at one point finally heard this voice saying “stop asking”. Denise started to take action and make hard choices in her life. She downsized her career of consulting to give her time to explore her passion.

Later she left her job and went to work for a charity near her home – strictly 9 – 5 - which gave her a lot of mental space. She got clear that she wanted to help people and started doing coaching. Her first company was Raw Brides, for brides who wanted to lose weight with raw food before their wedding. That business allowed her to learn a lot about blogging and putting content out there. She finally had the space to be creative.

With more time and space she figured out what she wanted and started telling people about her dreams to travel. She told so many people, that she started to believe it would happen. She told friends she was going to travel for 6 months. And because she shared her dream with the world, a friend thought of her, when she learned about a blogging competition looking to find a couple who would blog about a honeymoon trip for 6 months, all expenses paid. It was the perfect opportunity. Denise won the competition and saw that this could lead to bigger things.

How did she decide to focus on money?

Denise Duffield-Thomas became as a life coach after the 6 months blogging, helping women to lose weight. It turned out that she was more interested to help with motivation and setting big goals and achieving them. She also realised she wanted to work with entrepreneurs. By taking action made things became clearer to her. Then the money stuff kept coming up for the entrepreneurs she was coaching. She at first resisted the calling to deal with money, didn’t like it initially. But then she realised how much it made a difference to work on your money mindset.

Why do women have such a problem with money? Why more than men?

“There are cultural and historic reasons – women who had no power around money, didn’t earn their own money – up until fairly recently couldn’t get a loan or buy property. We’re still at such an early stage so we can’t beat ourselves up about it too much. We’re still working on it. It’s our responsibility as entrepreneurs to not play the traditional game and start our own companies.”

Denise Duffield-Thomas explains why women in particular have a problem with money.

How do you stop the guilt when you haven’t made a penny yet and you’re not known at all. How to get out of nobody-will-buy-from-me?

“Everyone starts from scratch. Comparing your journey to someone else’s is not a good idea. Here are some ways to stop the guilt:

1. Be so single-minded on the inevitability of your success. Don’t let the doubting thoughts come in as negative thoughts won’t serve you. Interrupt those thoughts and pretend that there is no other possibility than success.
2. Act “as if” in so many ways. You send out your newsletter as if tens of thousands of people are waiting for it at the same time every week. Take consistent action with the assumption it will be big.
3. Keep one eye on now and one eye on what it’s leading to. Be the keeper of the vision. It’s not always easy but what’s the alternative? It’s a game of persistence.”

Despite all affirmations and action-taking how do you get rid of the nasty habit that keeps crawling back?

“We all have bad habits. We beat ourselves too much. Whatever your habit, sometimes you can succeed anyway. You can realise that success and money don’t have to do with deserving and you can be imperfect and successful.

Release negative thoughts and habits – it’s like taking shower or brushing your teeth. Do it every morning. Same with any habits you want to break. It’s a daily thing. If you skip a couple of days you can sink right back. Keep going.”

How do you break through the feeling about how much you can earn when you have trouble feeling you can earn more than you currently do?

Denise Duffield-Thomas has spoken to successful women and every 6-12 months they hit a new income ceiling. Each time it happens it feels real. Even though they broke through last time the next time seems more ‘real’.

“Look around at was is symbolic about your income ceiling. It could be getting into the next tax bracket, someone else’s income, what you had in your previous job, parents income or mentor’s. It starts to feel unsafe to earn more – if I earn this, bad things will happen.Once you have the information, you can clear it. Put a plan in place or start to give yourself permission. Always look at what stories you’re making up. Many of us are in survival mode. What are you only allowed to have? How much saving we’re allowed to have. How much excess are we allowed?”

What is your income ceiling? Look around at what is symbolic about it. #mindset @denisedt

For how long do you keep doing mindset exercises? When do you know your internal fight is over?

“It doesn’t have to be a fight. You get to a point where you don’t struggle as much but it is a life-long practice and work.

You only have to look at what’s happening to you right now, not stuff that hasn’t happened yet.”

Tweet or Instagram us your AHAs and call us out @denisedt and @sigruncom.