A Personal Note From Orion

My husband Stephan just came back from a talk, and one of the speakers shared this statistic: “80% of men die married, and 80% of women die single.” Mindblowing. Most women relegate their financial management responsibilities to the men in their life, and that is a dangerous thing. Because what happens when the guy dies or leaves the relationship, and they have no clue how to manage their finances?

Barbara Huson is the leading authority on women, wealth, and power. As a bestselling author, financial therapist teacher, and wealth coach, Barbara has helped millions take charge of their finances in their lives. Her extensive research and her personal experience with money give her a unique perspective and make her the foremost expert on empowering women to live up to their financial and personal potential.

 

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About Today’s Show

Hey, Barbara, and welcome to Stellar Life Podcast. It’s a pleasure to have you here.

I’m so glad to be here. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Before we start, can you please share a little bit about yourself?

I am a wealth coach and a financial therapist. I empower women financially, which is so hysterical, if you think about it, because for the first 40-some years of my life, I didn’t know anything about money. I come from a wealthy family. My father was the R of H&R Block. The only advice he ever gave me about money was, “Don’t worry.” Of course, under that was the unspoken assumption that there’ll always be a man to take care of you and I just thought that was the best advice in the whole world. I didn’t understand money. I just wanted to spend it.

Then, I married a man who was a stockbroker. Of course, he took care of everything, but what I didn’t realize is that very early in our marriage, I found out he was a compulsive gambler. Over the course of our 15-year marriage, he continued to gamble away. I found out two, three, four or five times a year, he was gambling my inheritance. Do you know something? I let him. I let him take care of the money. I let him manage the money. I let him do everything. He paid all the bills because that’s how intimidated I was. I was terrified about anything to do with finances.

Finally, after 15 years and three children, I decided, “No way, I can’t do this,” I got a divorce. I decided money’s not my thing. I do not want to deal with money. I have this theory now, that if you don’t deal with your money, your money will deal with you. In the next year, I got tax bill over $1 million, $1,875,000 for back taxes he didn’t pay for illegal fees he got us in. My signature was on everything. I did not have anywhere near $1 million, not even close. He had left the country. My father wouldn’t lend me the money.

You have three kids.

Right, three kids. One is just a baby and I decided, “Okay.”

If you don't deal with your money, your money will deal with you. Share on X

Oh my God.

I know. Aren’t you sorry you didn’t read about my story? It’s a good one, huh?

No, it’s nice to hear you tell it.

So, I said, “Okay, I’ve got to get smart about money.” I’ve got to get smart. I did not want to raise my kids on the street. I took classes. I read books and my eyes would glaze over, my brain would bug up, and I just feel I was just terminally stupid. I made a commitment. It’s like, “I was not going to raise those girls on the street.” Really, I was not talking to my parents, not at all. I was terrified.

I decided, I made a commitment and when you make a commitment, down to the toes, commitment, where the universe will revolve to help you reach your goal. I was living in San Francisco. I was a journalist writing for the San Francisco Business Times. I got hired for a writing project to interview women who were smart with money.

Nice. That’s kind of like what Napoleon Hill did.

He did one person.

No, he interviewed many wealthy people.

For Think and Grow Rich, for his book. That’s how he wrote Think and Grow Rich because Henry Ford gave him an assignment to go and over 20 years he interviewed the wealthiest people in the world and come up with wealth principles.

Well, I didn’t do that. I just got smart women. Women who were smart about how to manage money. Those interviews changed my life. I not only got smart about money, when I wrote my first book Prince Charming Isn’t Coming: How Women Get Smart about Money. Suddenly, I had this whole new career and I was traveling all over the country, doing financial education, seminars, and lectures for women but I couldn’t make money. No matter how hard I tried—you can ask my kids—I was never home. I was on the road all the time. I decided to write a book on women who are making lots of money. I’ll tell you, I started making six figures before I finished my next book, Secrets of Six-Figure Women.

Because you learned the secrets.

I learned the secrets. Then I decided, I wondered if I could teach this to others.

Actually, it’s not about learning the secrets. It’s about implementing the secrets and knowledge.

Yes, we can talk about that. Let me just finish my story and then we will. Then I wanted to see if I could teach others. I started giving overcoming underearning classes and then I wrote my third book, Overcoming Underearning. Then I wrote my fourth book, Sacred Success: A Course in Financial Miracles. Now, I’m working on my next book called Rewire for Wealth, which includes neuroscience, psychology, spirituality, and personal finance.

That’s my story now. Now it’s your turn.

That’s amazing. That’s a wonderful story. Let’s go back to you interviewing those women. Did you have an imposter syndrome when you’re interviewing them, like did they feel better than you or smarter than you? Did you feel smaller?

No. I felt I was a student and I was sitting at their feet learning. That’s exactly how I only write books about what I want to learn about. I always will interview women who have gone through it and who are playing where I want to play. That’s how I learned. What I learned from these women, which was a real game-changer for me, it wasn’t just what they were doing. It was how they were thinking. Each of these women had come to a series of realizations and when I integrated those realizations into my thinking, that’s when I got the part about money.

It was the same thing with earning. It’s the same thing. Really, what I’ve learned is that financial success is a three-pronged process. Financial success, making more money and managing it wisely. It’s a combination of the outer work of wealth, the inner work of wealth, and the higher work of wealth. The outer is the practical, the inner is the psychological-emotional, and the higher is the spiritual. I believe we are all on this earth for a reason. We are all here for a reason. We can’t possibly pursue our purpose, do what we’re here to do, if we’re drowning in debt or struggling to make ends meet.

When you look back at those interviews, what was something about their inner world and their type of thinking that was different?

This book came out in 1997, it is still selling today. I think it was one of the first books that put the inner and the outer together. What I realized is that there are so many things, but each of these women didn’t pop out of the womb knowing how to manage money. What they did is they all came to the realization at some point, “No one will do this for me.” Prince Charming isn’t coming.

Now, Prince Charming doesn’t need to be a man. Prince Charming could be anything that rescues us financially. It could be a lottery. It could be an inheritance. It could be an amorphous something, “Something’s going to save me.” I think it’s giving up the rescue syndrome. It was really important to me. Just because no one could do this for me, I don’t have to do it alone. Each one of them had the support groups. They had support. They had their people supporting them, who knew what they were doing. They had their financial support teams. That’s two of the most important things I learned.

Another one was that all the answers aren’t out there. I kept reading books and going to classes. It wasn’t until I made an appointment with a therapist. I said to him, “Daniel, I really want to get smart about money. I mean this is like, no fooling, I’ve got to get smart.” He looked me in the eye and he said to me, “No, you don’t.”

I couldn’t argue. It’s like the air went out of my balloon. That’s the first time I realized there was a part of me that didn’t want to get smart. As we went and explored it, there was a part of me that was scared. I screwed up, made all these mistakes, and lose everything, the little bit I have left. I was scared my parents would be mad at me because it was against their value system for a woman to be smart. I was scared that a man wouldn’t love me if I was successful.

It’s harder for a woman to be more successful. Actually, in reality, it is, sometimes.

It depends, but I believe that it’s harder because of what’s going on inside themselves. It’s not because it’s a fact.

What you learned from them was to take responsibility, but you don’t have to do it alone, you can get support.

What I realized is you don’t need a lot of money to create wealth. You don’t need a lot of time to get the smart. It’s better to start when you’re young but you’re never too old to learn. It is so much simpler than you think. The whole industry wants to tell you otherwise.

But if it’s so simple how come you wrote seven books about it.

Because it’s so simple. What it is, is our minds, it is our peers, it is our internal blocks that makes it difficult. Money is very different for men than women.

How so?

Well, you tell a man to make more money and no matter how much he makes, he’s all over it. This is a generalization, mind you, but men are very much motivated by perks, prestige, and…

Respect.

Maybe respect, that too. But what they’re motivated by is profit. We, women, once we have enough to put food on the table, to have a roof over our heads, take care of our kids, get a mani-pedi, we are no longer driven by money. We may want money but what really drives us is our desire to help others, to give back to our communities, and to get back to the world.

This is a very different conversation to have with women than the financial industry is having. The financial industry wants to motivate us through fear tactics, but that just paralyzes us.

That’s such a good distinction. That’s such a great distinction, what really pulls us is completely different.

Not only that, but what I have learned, now that I’ve really studied neuroscience that I’ve been doing for the past four years and created a whole new body of work, I’m not just interested in helping women pay their bills. I don’t know if you ever heard of Michael Beckwith.

Yeah, of course.

Yes. He said, “You can’t be the light of the world, if you can’t pay your light bills.” I don’t want to help women just pay their light bills. I want to help them be the light of the world. To be who they came here to be. To be the best version of themselves. It’s not just about having money. I want to help them create wealth. It’s because it’s who they have to become. To become a container that could attract money, hold it, and grow it.

Preach. I can listen to you for hours. You’re amazing. That is so powerful, talking about Michael Beckwith.

See, because I believe what I realized in my last book, Sacred Success. I thought my last book, Sacred Success, was going to be about women making millions because I had made six figures. I made good six figures. Well, I wanted to make seven figures. I thought, “Well, I’ll just write a book. I’ll just interview women who makes seven figures or eight figures and that’ll be my next book. That’ll be my next goal.” I started interviewing all these women who made seven and eight figures. It was great fun, but three years later, I had nowhere near. This was in 2009, nowhere near making seven figures.

The worst year I ever had. I remember I had a coach and she said to me, “Barbara, you’re too into doing. You need time for just being.” I took my transcripts from those interviews. There must’ve been 75 of them and I went on a four-day retreat. I looked at those interviews and I wanted to see what I missed. I thought, it wasn’t so much that these women were making this remarkable amount of money. I was so dazzled by it and my desire to do it myself, but it was how we were doing it. These women were achieving financial success in a very different way the world models.

I call this sacred success. Sacred success means pursuing your sole purpose for your own deep gladness and for the world’s deep hunger. Your deep gladness meets with the world’s hunger because that is a sacred success while being richly rewarded. What I found with these women, it wasn’t so much. What I found is women’s difficulties with money had very little to do with money per se. It has to do with our fear of or ambivalence around power.

Let’s talk more about that.

My definition of a powerful woman is someone who knows who she is, who knows what she wants and expresses that in the world unapologetically. Because that means we have to stop watering ourselves down in order not to make waves. That we have to speak up. We express who we are, say yes to what we want and say no to what we don’t, despite what feathers we ruffle.

I realized that it was about money and power. When I wrote my first book, Prince Charming Wasn’t Coming, and I remember interviewing a psychologist who specializes in money issues. I said to her, “I’m seeing this thing that women have to get over their fear of power in order to be financially responsible and financially successful.” And I said, “Why do you think women are so afraid of their power?” She said, “Because powerful women have been burned at the stake.” And that, I think, is part of our collective unconscious.

Okay, so that is a part of our epigenetics, our collective unconscious. How can we rewire that? You talked about our neurology. How can we rewire our brains to think differently?

Well, the way you rewire your brain, there are three steps. I have a free eBook on my website, which talks about it, it’s called Rewire for Wealth. It talks about the three steps and everything you need to know about rewiring. Well, not everything, but almost everything. You first have to understand the three steps are to recognize, reframe, and respond differently. We are afraid of our power or we have this fear, and it’s our fear that holds us back.

The first step is to notice when you get in fear. When you are not at peace. Even if it’s not fear, when you don’t feel at peace. When there’s something wrong. That is our internal guidance system saying, “Stop. Pay attention. Something’s not right here.” Just recognize that you’re having a thought about fear, whatever that is.

Then, whatever is scaring you, you reframe it. There’s a line in the course of miracle that says, “Above all else, let me see this differently,” and that is my prayer when I get scared (and I get scared all the time). “Above all else, let me see this differently. If nothing else, it’s an opportunity to rewire my brain.”

Then you respond differently, which will feel like crap. You won’t want to do it. I have greatly simplified this explanation. I have greatly simplified it. What I realize is our thoughts get wired into our brains and our brains determine our behavior. What’s wired in our brain becomes these deep neural pathways. They become habitual, automatic, and it takes a lot more than will power to go against them. It took rewiring for me to even start getting smart about money and to be able to talk about it.

Financial success and managing it wisely is a combination of the outer, inner, and higher work of wealth. Share on X

I took a 40 Years of Zen from Dave Asprey, have you heard of it?

No.

Dave Asprey, he was a guest on the show and he’s a biohacker and he’s the owner of Bulletproof Coffee, the host of Bulletproof Radio, and is majorly, majorly successful. One of his companies is 40 Years of Zen, I think he’s maybe a partner, maybe it’s his company, I’m not sure.

You go to a retreat for a week and you do neurofeedback. You sit on this amazing anti-gravity chair, and it’s almost like a marathon for your brain. It’s a small exclusive group of people, maybe about five in a house, in a beautiful house. You get a private chef that cooks for you brain foods, very rich in fats and you actually take brain supplements, because your brain is going to go through a lot throughout the process.

You’re going to an alpha state, sometimes theta, and you process the traumas. When I was doing that, I had memories come up that didn’t show up in 20 years maybe. One of them, because I grew up very poor in a very wealthy neighborhood.

That can really damage and scar you.

For sure. I remember one birthday, we had his birthday party and I went with my mom to buy a gift and it was a toothbrush with the little unicorn on the bottom and I thought it was a great gift because I thought it was beautiful. Then we sat around the table, all the little girls and she opened the presents and I was sitting across from her and then she opened my present and she is holding and she’s like, “What? A toothbrush?” My heart broke at that moment. It was like, “I give you everything that I could,” and it was not good enough. It was devastating for me, the little girl in me.

When I was doing the neurofeedback, I did this almost like an NLP exercise, I forgot the name of it, but it’s a pattern interrupt, it’s almost like inventing a new memory. When I was in that deep state sitting on this antigravity chair, listening to the neurofeedback, pumped with all those brain drugs, I had this vision of me as a little girl sitting there and then she opens the present, instead of a little toothbrush unicorn, it’s a big unicorn, not like stuffed animal, with diamond necklace on it. She’s like, “Oh my God, this is so beautiful,” and then I’m taking it from her and I’m like, “Yeah, you’re not going to get it.” In the subconscious mind, those images and creating a new memory can really help heal a lot of this old trauma.

In your quest to learn about neural pathways and our neurology, what are some exercises that you learned that you teach, that can help somebody with a painful memory or painful beliefs around money?

I’m so glad you brought that up, trauma. I work with pretty high-income women and I’ve been doing this for a long time, 20-25 years. I noticed that they make a lot of money and how many of them, I noticed this when I interviewed six and seven-figure women, how few of them had anything to show for it. It didn’t make sense, because these are really smart women. What I realized is how many women create financial chaos as a distraction from the pain of unhealed trauma and repressed memories.

I don’t know that there’s an easy exercise, but I’m a big believer in working with trauma therapy, like neurofeedback, like EMDR, like EFT tapping. I don’t think you can heal, but I believe that you cannot heal trauma with talking therapy. You just can’t. You have to get into the brain. You have to get in there and actually clean out of clogged up pipes and start building new neural pathways. What you did was so powerful. How? Let me ask you, Orion, how do you think that changed your life or what you do or how you feel?

I have a tendency to give a lot, buy gifts for people. I never think that my gifts are good enough. I mean, they’re great. I always bring the best gift I can bring, but (a) I’ll forget that I did that, and (b) it will never be enough. I always have to give more and give more.

You don’t feel like that after that experience?

Much less, a little bit. I’m still kind of like a pleaser, but much less. It was very healing, for sure.

Let me suggest a follow-up for that because rewiring requires constant repetition, constant. You have an amazing experience and still, the shame comes up, the embarrassment, whatever that feeling is, that’s not enough. I’m not really saying this to you, but can I use you as an example?

You can use me. Yes, imposter syndrome and I’m not enough shows up in my life a lot and also in the lives of a lot of people that I know that are mega-successful.

Well, I’m going to tell you why I think the imposter shows up. Imposter syndrome is so alive and well, and epidemic among successful women, because whatever we go against, how we’ve been wired, how our brains are wired, we don’t feel like ourselves. It was all very explicit. There was nothing subtle about it. I was wired not to deal with money. Women do not make or manage money, that’s a man’s job. To this day, I still feel like an impostor just because I’m going against generations of conditioning. I think whenever I feel the imposter syndrome, I get excited. This means I’m rewired, this means I am going against the hard-wired crap that was fed into me that I no longer want.

That’s beautiful. That’s a great way to reframe that instead of like, “I feel like an impostor, boo hoo.” You’re like, “This is amazing. I am changing. I’m having a breakthrough. Awesome.”

A miracle according to A Course in Miracles. I don’t know if you ever heard of A Course in Miracles.

I have and I love Louise Hay’s work as well.

A Course of Miracles is very different than Louise Hay’s.

They’re always linked because they linked in my mind because I heard about The Course in Miracles from Louise Hay.

The course says a miracle is nothing more than a shift into perception, is nothing more than you choose to see something different, and when you change your interpretation of what you see because everything is an interpretation. When you change your interpretation, that’s how you create miracles.

Let’s say you’re giving somebody a gift and let’s just say, it’s a great and wonderful gift, but that old wiring rear is trying to feed your subconscious, starting to feel it’s not enough, it’s starting to feel bad. The first thing you just recognize that you just noticed, you just noticed not with judgment, analysis, or anything but curiosity. “Isn’t that interesting? I’m having a thought about my gift is not enough. I know where that came from. It came from a hardwired neural pathway when I was 5 or 10 years old,” whatever you were. Just notice. The idea is to separate yourself from the thought. I am not my thoughts. I am having a thought. I can think differently. That’s the first step.

The second step is how can I see this differently? How can I reframe it? What I do is I say that prayer, it’s a line from A Course in Miracles, “Above all else, let me see this differently,” and then my mind starts looking for ways. What you do is you say, “This is an opportunity for me to rewire, this is an opportunity to not give in to those things, but to feel excited, feel joyful about the gift I’m giving. I’m not that 5-year-old. I am different. I am excited. I can’t wait to see what she thinks.”

Then you respond differently and you’ll be the first one to give her the gift and you get all excited when she opens it, no matter what her reaction is. You keep doing this over and over again. Every time you notice that sinking and visceral feeling, you go, “Oh, isn’t that interesting? That’s a hardwired pathway that I am changing.” It’s really important to keep up with it, to keep on top of it.

Beyond EMDR, neurofeedback, or I guess tapping is just for healing. But how do you actually go into and really understand what were those stories, those traumas? How do you dig deep? I cannot go in 40 years of Zen and just spend days on end doing neurofeedback to figure out what were the stories and where the pain was. Is there a way to heal without understanding the stories or knowing the stories?

You don't need a lot of money or time to get financially smart. It's better to start when you're young, but you're never too old to learn. Share on X

Yes. I think what’s important for healing is not an intellectual, it’s an emotional thing. To be able to have and create time for doing nothing but self-reflection. I think that our society does not recognize, does not respect, does not treasure the time between, because we need to be so productive. The productiveness is what keeps us away from healing because we get so busy. It’s just another addiction.

It’s busy work first, then deep work.

Yes, and the deep work means getting to the feelings. It is not about understanding. That is irrelevant. It is getting to the feelings. To heal, you must feel. It’s getting the feelings because all the anger, pain, shame, and trauma that we have repressed and held down because we’re too scared, is going to overwhelm us. It’s what is overwhelming us. Any addiction, I don’t care if it’s going to exercise all the time, or working all the time, or substance abuse, whatever. Any addiction has one purpose, to keep you from healing and feeling. The challenge is to allow yourself to feel. Either with a professional therapist, or with your journal, or with your girlfriend, or with yourself in meditation.

One thing that helped me with healing a lot, because I do believe we have issues in our tissues. We store stuff in our bodies and especially the female body, she needs to move, and she needs to move in a different way than the male body. She needs to moving curvy ways. We use to store a lot in our shoulders, we store a lot in our hips, we store a lot in our necks, so one of my more healing journeys was when I was studying with Sheila Kelley. Do you know her? She brought pole dancing into the mainstream.

I went on many retreats with her and just being there and being in the moment with my body. Her methodology is all about feel all your feelings and the whole environment is a safe space to show your anger, rage, disgust, bliss. All your emotions are valued and the ladies around you will applaud all your emotions and whatever you’re expressing. It’s okay to express because if you don’t, you die inside and you cannot release. I feel like movement and nature is so helpful.

It’s a sign of what works for you. For me, pole dancing did not work. A lot of my clients have, but for me, kickboxing and boxing with a bag, that was wonderful.

I did that too. I mean I studied mixed martial arts, aikido, and krav maga. I did both masculine and feminine arts, and I like the balance. I mean, that’s what they teach. They teach women about how to gain more power from not only their masculine side but their feminine side, and seeing both and integrating both as a source of power.

Beautiful. For me, what really worked for me is when I go away, and there’s no phones, there’s no nothing. I just have time to myself which is really hard to do. Everybody has their own temple, their own pace, their own way of getting that stuff out of their bodies.

What were your breakthroughs for yourself? Points in your life where you’re like, “Oh my God, I just healed that, or I just got this,” I just did that, I’m moving forward.

Are you kidding? I’m 71 years old, do you know how many breakthroughs I’ve had?

Well, you don’t look like it at all. I would never imagine that.

I’ve had so many breakthroughs. I mean about one breakthrough after another, breakdowns and breakthroughs, breakdowns and breakthroughs. I think my latest breakthrough is, we all have a story we tell ourselves, like yours with the unicorn. Mine was, I’ve known this for a long time, but I started noticing how insidious it was everywhere. When I was three years old, it’s a really interesting exercise, I’m going to give it to you. Okay, let’s try this and I’ll tell you what mine was. Do you want to do this exercise with me?

Yes.

Okay close your eyes and I’m going to ask you to imagine something. Can you imagine what the first thing that comes to your mind? If nothing comes to mind, that’s okay, because it will when you’re falling asleep tonight or driving to work, whatever.

I just want you to imagine your earliest memory of money. Your earliest memory. I’ll give you a few seconds to get it. Then I want you to freeze it like a photograph. In that moment, I want you to get in touch with what you were feeling because, in that moment, you made that decision about yourself and money that may still be running you today if you haven’t worked on it. It is probably a totally irrational decision that had nothing to do with reality.

Mine was, I was three years old, I’m standing in my parent’s house, outside. My parents just brought home my younger sister from the hospital who was just born, and I’m standing there all by myself. My parents are inside with her and I decide I’m not important anymore. This I’m not important became what motivated me. It motivated me to write books. It motivated me to stand in front and talk. It motivated me to do all the things I wanted to feel important but I never could. It was only when I started doing EMDR and I really started getting under that.

I went back into EMDR just last year. I thought I had healed this but it was still showing up. I was sitting with my husband one time, this just happened I think about a month ago. I was talking about something really important that happened to me that day. I was really excited. He’s listening, and then his phone beeps. He gets s text. He takes his phone, he looks at the text, he responds back, puts the phone back, and changes the subject. I’m going like, “What am I? Chopped liver?” I’m finding myself getting really mad. He keeps on talking and talking.

Because you’re not important. The text message is more important, whatever that other subject was more important.

And then I thought, I need to reframe this. This is that old wiring that I thought was healed but it was still showing up. I recognize that feeling of not being important. My husband loves me more than any human being could possibly love another human being, I know that. It is beautiful.

You’re very blessed. My husband is the same.

Anyway, I knew that he loves me and I’m important to him. So I thought, “I’m going to reframe. How can I do this differently?” I went, this just happened, I went, “Oh, the text was more interesting to him than what I was saying. It didn’t mean I am not important, it’s just that the other text from his fishing buddy was more interesting.” I just completely rewired it. I not only rewired it, but I told him what had happened. We got to have this amazing conversation. It brought us even closer.

What I realized is that those old wounds will keep coming back. But every time they do, it’s an opportunity to heal, grow, and become more of who you are because all those old wounds are just lies. It’s our interpretation of the situation. It is not a healthy interpretation.

It reminds me of the five questions from Byron Katie where you actually question your questions. You question your thoughts. “Is this thought true? Is it 100%? I know 100% it is true. What life would be like if this thought would never exist in my mind?” So, you rewire your conditioning. That same automatic pattern you always go to, because we think thousands of thoughts every day, but they’re usually the same thoughts over and over again.

It's not about learning the secrets to wealth, it's about implementing them and making things happen. Share on X

The studies show that we make 60,000 thoughts a day. 85% of them are negative and 95% of them are repetitive, I don’t know how they came to that, but the National Academy of Science said that. It’s really important to catch our thoughts and not just catch our thoughts, but know that our thoughts teach our brain, and once our thoughts go in our brain, our self release these chemicals and electrical impulses that wires in.

For us to change a behavior or habitual thought, it means that we have the toxic chemicals of that thought produces. We are actually going against the gravitational force about the hard-wired neural pathway. And anytime we are stressed or retired, that we don’t have a prayer, it just will suck us in. It’s really important to be aware of that. That it’s not, “I just have a mindset.” It’s also being aware of the physical responses we are having, that when we go against that, we feel like an impostor. To me, the imposter is a sure sign that I’m healing.

Nice. You talked about A Course in Miracle. How can we tap into that zone of miracles and manifestation to attract more abundance or maybe more healing?

It’s really important to heal. It’s really important to heal the wounds, to get rid of the anger. Anger is a common human emotion and I respect it. Anger repressed is toxic. You know that saying, “Being angry at someone is like taking a poison and expecting them to die.” It’s really an inside job. It’s really an inside job of healing your feelings and shifting your thinking.

The course has three volumes. I’ve been studying it for almost four years. The course has really made the biggest difference for me. The course has a workbook. It has 365 lessons. Those lessons, if regularly repeated and studied, are there to reprogram your brain. The very first lesson is I don’t know what anything means. Everything I see, I have given it its meaning. That’s the beginning of mind training. That is the beginning of the healing.

Barbara, can you share some success stories? Some shifts that happened to women that worked with you?

I’m just ending up a rewire mentorship program now. This is my last week of it. I’m not doing the rewire program for a while because I’ve got to finish writing my book, but I just talked to two clients today. One of them realized that she—this is after months of coaching—had gotten an inheritance but she was giving all her power away to her mother and her mother’s advisers. It really is important to take your power back and it was scary for her. It was very scary but she learned how to take her power back so that she could run the shots and she got her mother onboard with her. Her mother was supporting her in finding her own financial team, learning, going to classes, inviting groups for inheritors so she would understand it. It’s all about taking your power back, that’s 100% of what it is. It’s all about taking your power back.

Nice. Anything other major that happened that you’re like, you completely changed someone’s life?

It happens all the time. I’m sure it does with you. I’ll tell you another one, her name’s Susan. She came to me and she was living with a man. For 30 years she had a husband, 30 years, three children and she just couldn’t stand him. She has given all her power away. He was handling all the finances. She had her own business. She had a real estate property management firm. She ran it, very successful, she had money, but she gave all her money to him.

After 30 years, she wanted to separate, but she couldn’t. He would not answer her questions. She couldn’t get the information. What she realized is she had been so traumatized as a child by rape by a relative. She has been to therapy, but she had never really worked on it. She was afraid and terrified of men. She didn’t feel safe. We worked with her. We used money because money is always a metaphor. Money is never the problem. Any problem with money is never the problem. It’s something deeper.

We used money to allow her to safely go deeper into her trauma to see how disconnected she was with herself and her power. Last I talked to her which was two days ago he’s long gone, he’s out of there. This is just in six months. She has her own financial advisor, she has her own bookkeeper, she just hired somebody. I forget who it was. She’s got her own team. She is managing her money. She realized that she’s doing a lot better than she thought she was. I think the most important work, the work I do is what I found, is women learn to trust themselves and that I believe is what power is.

You can't pursue your purpose, do what you’re destined to do if you’re drowning in debt or struggling to make ends meet. Share on X

That’s extraordinary. Before we say goodbye, for now, two questions. One, where can people find you, work with you, read your books, join your retreats, all of that.

Go to my website barbara-huson.com. My name was Barbara Stanny, all my books say Barbara Stanny. I’m Barbara Huson, formerly Barbara Stanny.

And the hyphen is really important because if not, you’re going to get to another website. What are your three top tips to living a stellar life?

I’ve got one tip. I could probably think of a lot more, but the most important thing is to do what you fear. Whatever comes to you that you’re scared to do, that is exactly the thing you have to do next to go to that next level. Joseph Campbell said, “The cave you fear to enter is where your treasure lies.”

Lovely. Yes.

Do what you fear. I wrote it in crayon on a white sheet of computer paper and I have it framed. I thought, do what you fear, that’s how you grow. Every time I get scared, I go, “Oh, good, I’m growing.”

I get scared a lot.

Me too.

I go it anyway.

That’s what I learned from successful women. They feel the fear, they feel the self-doubt, they feel the impostor, and they do it anyway.

Lovely. Thank you so much. This was wonderful and I really appreciate you.

Thank you. I enjoyed it.

Thank you and thank you, my dear listeners.

Your Checklist of Actions to Take

{✓} Be smart about money. Take classes and read books that can help you become familiar with financial and investment topics.
{✓} Make a commitment with yourself on earning more wealth in your life. Learning the secrets to financial success means nothing when there’s no implementation.
{✓} Manage your money wisely by setting aside money for savings, expenses, and investments.
{✓} Remember the three-pronged process of financial success. It’s a combination of the outer, inner, and higher work. The outer is practical, the inner is psychological-emotional, and the higher is spiritual.
{✓} Don’t succumb to the idea that someone or something is always going to rescue you. You have to take matters into your own hands and carve your own destiny.
{✓} Find your own definition of “sacred success.” It means pursuing your soul’s purpose, for your own bliss, and the benefit of others, while being richly rewarded.
{✓} Don’t resist abundance or fear gaining immense wealth. Instead, embrace it and use it as a means to help others.
{✓} Rewire your neurology, especially if you’ve experienced trauma. Consult with a therapist if you feel like a traumatic past is what’s blocking you from becoming successful in life.
{✓} Check out Barbara Huson’s free eBook, Rewire Your Wealth. It talks about the three steps you need to take to start acquiring great wealth.
{✓} Grab a copy of Barbara Huson’s book, Overcoming Underearning: A Five-Step Plan to a Richer Life.

Links and Resources

About Barbara Huson

Barbara Huson (previously known as Barbara Stanny), is the leading authority on women, wealth and power. As a bestselling author, financial therapist, teacher & wealth coach, Barbara has helped millions take charge of their finances and their lives.

Barbara’s background in business, her years as a journalist, her Master’s Degree in Counseling Psychology, her extensive research, and her personal experience with money give her a unique perspective and makes her the foremost expert on empowering women to live up to their financial and personal potential.

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