A conversation with Kelly McCausey, mindset coach at Me Skills. Kelly is dedicated to helping individuals discover their inner strengths and embrace personal growth.
Are you feeling stuck in old patterns and yearning for a more fulfilling life? Join mindset coach Kelly McCausey as she shares her inspiring expert story of transitioning from a raging dumpster fire (her words!) to a life of deliberate joy and personal growth. Listen in and thrive as Kelly offers expert insights from her decades of experience in coaching, healing, and personal development.
Kelly reveals how her challenging childhood, marked by abuse and a complicated relationship with money, shaped her early beliefs and behaviors. She candidly discusses the coping mechanisms she developed to survive and how she ultimately transformed those patterns through self-love, faith, and a playful approach to personal growth. This episode is packed with practical advice and inspiring anecdotes for women who crave more freedom and flexibility in their lives.
Kelly also shares her unique approach to mindset coaching, inviting listeners to embrace "me skills" – small, playful challenges designed to unlock personal superpowers and foster self-discovery. Discover how these simple yet powerful exercises can help you shift from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset and create a life aligned with your true self. She also shares her insights on abundance, reminding us that there's always a path to having our needs met, no matter where we are in our journey.
Key Takeaways:
💡 Me Skills for Mindset Mastery: Learn practical and playful exercises to cultivate a growth mindset and unlock your potential.
💡 From Fixed Mindset to Growth Mindset: Discover how to shift from limiting beliefs to empowering perspectives and embrace change.
💡 The Power of Play: Understand how a playful approach to personal development can lead to profound transformation.
Kelly McCausey, mindset coach and creator of the Me Skills method, empowers women to embrace their inner strengths and create a life they love. Her mission? To guide others toward greater fulfillment, freedom, and flexibility through playful self-discovery.
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Laura Rotter
Today on Making Change with Your Money. I'm speaking with Kelly McCausey, a mindset coach about embracing change and having the autonomy to direct one's own life. I think you'll find Kelly's story a testament to the power of transformation when one is willing to embrace both the challenges and synchronicities life.
Presents.
Narrator
Welcome to Making Change with Your Money. A podcast that highlights the stories and strategies of women who experienced a big life transition and overcame challenges as they redefined financial success for themselves. Now here's your host, certified financial planner, Laura Rodder.
Laura Rotter
Welcome Kelly to the Making Change With Your Money Podcast.
Kelly McCausey
Oh, thank you Laura. It's great to be here.
Laura Rotter
I'm going to start, as I always do with the question, Kelly, what was money like in your family growing up?
Kelly McCausey
Oh, money wasn't a big problem. I know that, you know, my dad was self-employed when I was young. My mom stayed at home. I just don't remember them fighting and arguing about money.
I know we, we didn't have a lot, a lot, but it didn't feel like a problem. It was interesting though, as I grew into my teen years, my mom made, my mom was working, my peers were divorced, my mom was the primary provider and I often felt like she was trying to control me with money.
Laura Rotter
Oh, interesting.
Kelly McCausey
But. But that was kind of like a side effect.
It was, you know, she was abusive, she was an alcoholic. Mm-hmm. Um, but one of my, when I think about like love languages, you know, gifts is a powerful love language and, but it is not one of mine. Gifts have always made me feel a little suspicious.
Laura Rotter
Ah.
Kelly McCausey
And it goes back to how my mother used money. She would take me shopping and she expected me to smile, have a good time, and be really grateful for whatever she bought me.
And if I didn't, then of course, you know, there was, uh, hell to pay because I wasn't buying into the idea that gifts make us happy. So that's funny. That's how I, that's that's what I think about when I think about money growing up.
Laura Rotter
Interesting. Thanks for sharing that. And you're reminding me, Kelly, that when I do first meet clients, one of the things I ask is I ask about, you know, money stories growing up is, was money used to control or
Kelly McCausey
Mm-hmm.
Laura Rotter
Otherwise, um, leverage or change your relationship. And as you reflect back, Kelly, how, how did that impact you and your behavior around money?
Kelly McCausey
Everything that my mother wanted to be important to me, I did not want to be important. So I, I think I romanticized poverty, ah, in my teens, like. I had this, I had, I had this sweet little boyfriend when I'm 13 and we fan, we fantasize about moving to the upper peninsula and living in a little camper and running his Christmas tree farm.
And we'll be broke and we won't care. Like I romanticize poverty and. Um, that didn't, like, that didn't last into adulthood. I continue to romanticize it, but I, I definitely just never wanted money to run me.
Laura Rotter
And one could go either way with messages from parents, either you can buy into it or reject it.
And it sounds like mm-hmm. You definitely rejected the money message. Do you have, you know, memories as we go onto this journey of where you now are today of, um, your first job? Or were you working as you were a teenager? Um,
Kelly McCausey
Yeah. My first job was at a restaurant, uh, a Bonanza restaurant. Here in Michigan.
Um, went to work there as soon as I turned 16 and ended up dropping out of high school within a year. So I actually worked there full-time for a little while.
Laura Rotter
Wow. Did you go back, um, and get, and finish your education?
Kelly McCausey
I went back and got an equivalency in my early twenties. I, um, I wanted. I thought I wanted to be a social worker in, and I did enter into a social work program, but then I dropped out of that too more intentionally.
As soon as I got into the program, my advisor and I came to a mutual agreement that, no, I'm not really designed to be part of a, a government organization. Not, not, not gonna do well in that. Kind of an environment, a little too wild at heart. Um, so I didn't go on to pursue any other education.
Laura Rotter
So it brings up so many questions for me.
Kelly, first of all, what, what about you? Clearly there was a sense when I hear from people that they wanna be a psychologist or they wanna be a social worker, it's a sense of sort of experiencing dysfunctional people and wanting to help. Yeah. You know, other, that dysfunction. Is that, yeah,
Kelly McCausey
I wanted to, I wanted to help people.
Um, I felt, I felt like I needed so much help when I was growing up, but there was no safe place to get it. And, um, the, the desire to be a social worker was, was a desire to fix problems and help people and, and ultimately. That never changed. That's still who I am. That's still what I wanna do. But that was, that was.
The picture, when I thought of helping people, I thought of social workers. That's what tv. TV made social workers look like. Little angels, you know, they sweep in, they, they rescue people, they fix them, they set them up. Right. You know, and their lives are great from there. Like that's back then was my perspective of what a social worker would do.
But then the reality of it is that social workers. They, they are actual like superheroes, but they're, they're operating in, in systems that are deeply broken and that require a certain mindset and attitude that that allows them to create something good in the midst of a lot of dysfunction. And that was never gonna work for me.
Laura Rotter
So say a bit. I would be too bit more about, about your, your wild side that you refer to.
Kelly McCausey
Well, I don't know if you, you know much, you probably did on some stuff around personality types.
Laura Rotter
Yes, of course. Um, certainly for me, many types. Yes.
Kelly McCausey
Yeah. So classic hot type A. The, there's a book called Personality Plus by Florence Littauer. Mm-hmm. Um, the correlation to type A and her system is Cric. Um, I think I'm right.
I wanna fight you till you think I'm right too, you know? Um, thankfully balanced by some matic. If it's not my circus, not my monkey's energy, like that's what keeps me from going nuts. But, um, you know, the, I'm just, I can be very contrary. I can be very stubborn growing up, being both physically and emotionally abused.
I'm adopted by the way. Mm-hmm. So there's a whole nother. Vibe in there of having felt unwanted. And, um, the, if my, if my overall personality makeup had been a little different, I might have become very, very meek and very submissive and gone along. But my response was always like, you know, big old screw you like.
Um, and that I'm grateful for it. I'm really grateful for it. It, it didn't, it hasn't always served me really well. Laura, imagine, as you can imagine, imagine like, yeah, I'm, I'm much healed and much softened by lots of inner work and, and self-love and self-compassion to recognize how those coping mechanisms that help me survive an abusive childhood.
Made me an absolute raging dumpster fire to deal with through most of my twenties.
Laura Rotter
Wow.
Kelly McCausey
And like, you know, then like solely coming to realize like what we learned to do to survive is probably not gonna help us thrive in the long run. And so like. I'm still wild. I'm just a little more intentional and purposeful about it, you know?
Laura Rotter
Yes. And, um, whether or not one has your personality, I think it's very true. We all, I. For those of us who are seekers and are always learning about ourselves and the world, when we look back on the mechanisms we used to cope when we were still in our parents' home, and still as you put it, really, I mean.
We're all in the matrix, we're all in the culture, but how much more so when we're young and have to conform to the school system and how to conform. And so those mechanisms and what work for us then are not gonna going to be what work for us as we get older and, um, have other things. Yeah. So, so, you know, there are resonant terms.
You used Kelly. What, what came up for me, both through the introduction and um, and just now was you used the word safe several times. Mm-hmm. So what, what was, what created, I'm going to assume that there was something that created a safe environment for you that helped you along on your path to where you are today.
So what was that? Yeah. Yeah.
Kelly McCausey
Um, well, my, my childhood was very isolated. Alcoholism has a way of, of isolating families. And then,
Laura Rotter
Um, you, were you an only child growing up?
Kelly McCausey
No, no one. Well, I had, I grew up with two brothers, but then there are three half siblings that are older that I, you know, did not grow up with.
Um. But I'm the youngest. I'm the baby. I was the last one left at home. I was not the only one to experience abuse. My, one of my brothers experienced a lot of abuse too, but he got out. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, ahead of me. And, um, I found my first safe place to do some growing was in a church in my late twenties.
Laura Rotter
Wow.
Kelly McCausey
I, I met a woman who loved on me, and I was a chronic complainer at this point in my life. I was one of those people that like every conversation ended in a rant. I. I was angry and I was, and I was complaining and there was trouble. Being a high school dropout meant I was financially struggling, was a broke single mom.
I felt like life sucks, so all we can do is complain about it. She was a single mom as well, but she was, you know, about 10 years older than me, and it occurred to me after we'd been friends for several months that she didn't complain nearly as much as me. And, and I asked her at one point, you know, why are you happy?
Your life sucks too. You know? And she's just like, I don't know. She's like, I find a lot of peace at church in my, in my relationship with God. And that made me curious. So I joined a church. I ended up becoming a Christian. I ended up on staff for seven years, and I had a warm safe. Circle of friends where I, I look back at it as my adolescence..
I had a safe group of people where I could mature. I think maybe a part of me was like stuck at 13, angry, rebellious, angsty. And, you know, over that next 10, 15 years, I slowly came out of my adolescence and started to take responsibility for myself. Got myself outta debt. That's what, that's when I started, um, building a business online, which ultimately set me free from the day job.
'cause I paid off all my bills and started to experience. Having more than enough for the first time in my life. So, so that was the first safe environment that, that let me grow and try something new and, and experience something different. Thank, thank you,
Laura Rotter
Kelly. I mean yes, you're, you're describing. As you went through this, you know, the, the negative parts, right?
That you're angsty, that you're strong-willed, and yet I also hear that that strong will propelled you to make changes in your life when you were ready. Mm-hmm. And that there also is a lot of creativity. I mean, what was that first online business that you created? Because. Not many of us would, would think to do that.
Kelly McCausey
Um, at that age. The, the funny thing, when I, I had been operating a home daycare. My son, my son had just turned eight and he was tired of sharing me with all the other kids, and that's what led me to go ahead and take the job at the church. As an, as a office manager. And it was funny 'cause there was a young man at the church that had to teach me how to do a little bit of graphic design for my job.
Laura Rotter
Mm-hmm.
Kelly McCausey
And that, that opened up a creative side of me that I had never even had a, a, a glimmer of prior to that. And then people started asking me for help. Would you help me? Like I need a wedding invitation. I need a graduation announcement. That's what led to like, I think I'll make a website like, you know, maybe I'll help people with that.
I can make some extra money that way. 'cause I didn't get paid a lot at the job, but that, that tipped me over into a community of work at home moms. Um, it was the wild, wild west of the internet. You know, in 2002 I had bought some hosting from somebody who scammed me and a work at home mom who owned a little hosting company, rescued my website and that that just.
It's one of those stunning moments. If that guy hadn't screwed me over, I never would've met her name was Amanda never would've met her, never would've tipped into the work at home mom community. And then like my eyes were open to all the ways moms were making money at home. And like a year later I had a little PO little internet radio show called Work at Home Moms Talk Radio.
That just propelled everything forward. I was.
Laura Rotter
I love these synchronicities that you're talking about, if you will. Even that, you know, you had to learn to do graphic design for the office manager job and, and yeah, that was a light bulb and, um, yeah, I, I, I have named, I have, I. Um, chosen a mantra for 2025 of, um, my year of opening to receive ease and synchronicities and Nice.
I love your stories of others that have experienced that in their lives. So you're saying about there's,
Kelly McCausey
Well, there's just, there's so many moments like that over the years where. I, I really love it when somebody tells me, you know, I knew from the youngest that I wanted to do this, and I relentlessly chase that path.
That's not my story. You know, I've had long periods of chasing a particular path, but then there are these moments that just go er and I head off in another direction, and that. You know, constantly being surprised and delighted by life is.
Laura Rotter
What an amazing thing to hear you say is, you know, which is so like 180 degrees from how you started off by being like pissed off and showing finger to life and now you say you're, you're constantly delighted and.
I also have, um, every time I see a quote I like, I tape it up in my closet and I'm not gonna remember it directly, but this idea that we grow up thinking that life is a chess board, you know, we are plotting our next move. Yeah. And that. You suddenly realize that it's a painting and you're not really sure where the next brush stroke will take you.
But it, you know, it's, it can't be planned in advance. So, um, so 20 years ago you found the internet and started this, and then, um, how did that continue to evolve?
Kelly McCausey
Well, I. The work at Home Mom community back then, this is pre most social media sites, so we're getting to know each other in Yahoo groups and private forums.
And I met, uh, Alice Siba. She was a another want to be work at home mom up in Vancouver, Canada. She's the one who really encouraged me to start the internet radio show. She sponsored it. Wow. We started a membership site together the next year, and that that was the big financial impetus to leave the day job was that the membership site was so successful that it, it just allowed me to absolutely crush my debt and Wow.
And get, get to that place where I could choose something different and not be reliant on a paycheck anymore. Um. I did, I was focused on the work at home mom community all the way up until my son turned 18 and moved out of the house. And over the next year or so, I started to travel more, do more, and I just had less resonance with the idea of being a, I wasn't a work home mom anymore.
And so I transitioned over into, I called my brand was Solo Smarts. For about five, six years, just being focused on being a solopreneur. And then I had another transition where my business had grown to the point where I wasn't a solopreneur anymore. I had business partners and projects and I couldn't run it light and tight all by myself.
And that's when I transitioned again to a brand called Love People and Make money. Oh, and uh, and then I had another big transition this last year where I retired from business coaching and decided to invest completely in mindset coaching and lots of, lots of changes over, lots of changes.
Laura Rotter
Kelly, can you point to a particular or. Um, or describe a particular catalyst, both that led to this recent shift, and perhaps you did talk about the fact you were no longer a stay at home mom, so there was that shift. Um, and you did talk about that you were no longer a solopreneur, so there was that shift. So what led to this most recent shift?
Kelly McCausey
You know, going back to the wanting to be a social worker, always wanting to help people, um, I had a dream. For over a decade of being a foster mother. Oh, wow. And potentially adopting a teenager. I had, I had this very glowing Pollyanna perspective of, I'm gonna, I'm going to like, give someone else what I needed.
A fresh start, you know. And so in, in 2020, I started to pull back from some of my projects settled in. Um, the pandemic helped that significantly, just being able to stay home, settle in, and I pursued my foster care license. And, um, and I started, I, I had, uh, I had three different foster daughters over the course of a year and a half.
Oh, wow. And, um, there's no regret. Absolutely no regrets. It was an important experience, but it was hell for everyone.
Laura Rotter
Well, first of all, you chose teenagers, right?
Kelly McCausey
Yeah. It's, it's hell. For the teenagers. Yes.
You know, my, my first, my first foster daughter was a 14-year-old refugee from Congo. You know, her life was really, really stressful, really hard, and I just wanted more than anything to be that loving, supportive, safe place for her.
But she wanted nothing to do with any of it. You know, from her perspective, she was grown and ready to go do her own thing. She didn't want to be parented, so that was. That was six weeks of feeling completely inept every day. Um, my son never made me feel that way. You know, he was a good, he was an easy kid.
Um, but, but the next two foster, foster daughters, um, you know, the, all my best efforts, the struggle, the, the desire. To be the, to be the solution, to be the one that would make all the difference. Um, and, and I want, I want you to hear, I want y'all to hear this from that. There's two sides of me. There's one side of me that just says, I am an utter failure at it.
I utterly and completely failed to be what they needed. And then there's this other part of me that's very self-compassionate and loving and knows I gave, I did my best. I tried. I know I was never going to be enough for their level of trauma and for the lack of support in the mental health community.
And, um, the. For as young being 12 and 14. Wow. Um, for as young as they were, they're, they were making their own choices. And it's all, you know, driven by trauma and, um, coming through that experience coming out the other side. I dreamed about it for 10 years and coming through it and going, I can't, I do not have what it takes.
I cannot create what I want here. The devastation, the, the, the failure of it all was, that was so fucking hard to go through, and yet it was a constant invitation to keep working on myself. You know, you can't rescue someone else when you're still triggered by your own shit. And so it was, it was a incredible self-growth experience.
It was really difficult. But on the other side, I was ready. I don't know if anyone else can relate to this. When I've dreamed about something and had such a plan to do something and thought this is what the next decade of my life is about, and then that's not in fact happening. It, it just made, it just shook the et of sketch.
It gave me a blank page, and it gave me an opportunity to say, okay, so what, now what, what the hell do I wanna do?
Laura Rotter
Yeah.
Kelly McCausey
With the next decade of my life and, and I decided it wasn't business coaching anymore. You know, it wasn't, it wasn't more of the same. It was, I wanted to do, I wanted to try something new, and I did, and I'm so glad, like it's, it's, uh, I love it.
I love what I'm doing. I don't. It's a lie to say don't miss some of the business coaching stuff. 'cause I still love like business and entrepreneurship and content marketing and all that. I just focused it on my own projects and at the same time my life went through, I was single for 35 years and I've, and I've started dating about a year and a half ago.
Oh. You know, so part of me is a teenager right now.
Laura Rotter
And Kelly, what I'm hearing you say, and. Yeah, we read about it. But you are SI can feel how devastated you were that you really thought that this was the next path. And it's often from a sense of just being at the bottom, like, this is what I thought my next path was, and isn't there, is how, how we're reborn and how we're we created.
And I do also hear you saying how important. The mindset work is for you because you realize that there was still not surprisingly right. Residual trauma that you hadn't worked through. Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about what you do now for others so that our listeners can have a good idea?
Kelly McCausey
Yeah. So me skills is a, is an invitation to play with trying something new, basically. Um. The, I did a content marketing challenge for 15 years and I took that same challenge container and created some self-development mindset boosting challenges that people could undertake to try something new, to approach growth playfully.
There's, you know, I started coaching with other people. I, I hired my first coach over 10 years ago and, and I threw myself into coaching knowing I've got, I. I've got shit going on in my head that's limiting me, sabotaging me. Old, old cycles and patterns I just can't seem to pull myself up out of. So I threw myself into coaching saying I'm broke, fix me.
And fortunately the coaches I worked with all over the years is like, you know, you don't need fixing. You know, there's, there's. You're just still, you're just still growing. Let's find, let's find your next area of growth. Let's find your next opportunity to try something new. Um, and so that's, that's, I'm an invitation to that with others from really common themes.
The most important themes that draw people to me are self-love, because that was, I had, I had to admit. To myself that I didn't like myself very much, that I didn't feel lovable and worthy. Um, and so self-love, self-compassion, abundance is a really big, uh, theme and pattern that I love to invite people to play with.
We all have shit. We all have fears, insecurities, dust yield, programming. Stuff. Stuff that, you know, we may or may not be aware of running us and limiting us. And I, I think that the different things I invite people to play with, whether, whether it's little decluttering challenge, uh, or a spending freeze.
Like there's so many fun little challenges that I like to invite people to play with. Because I don't know if you, if anyone can relate to this, but if you've got a broken heart, if you've got, if you've got a deep seated sense of unworthiness and someone comes right at you and says, I'm gonna make you feel worthy, you know, you're just like, hell no.
And you run in the other, you just like run screaming in the other direction. But let me, let's play with. A decluttering. Let's, let's choose five areas of your house to, to go through and let some shit go and make some decisions about. And it's like sneaking in sideways to, to, to open up conversations that are meaningful.
Um, and that's me. Skills are little skills that you can pick up and play with and grow with, and you just never know when one of them. Just unlock something that you wanna talk about and experience some fresh healing from. Does that make sense? Does sense? I don't think I'm describing best. Um, it's all about being playful.
Laura Rotter
Which we lose the ability to do sometimes as we're, as we get older and we feel like we need to be serious and we need to be grownups and we need to focus. I mean, I have started in the morning, um, I used to, I. Journal, um, after I meditated and I found that I was just writing the same things over and over again and, um, yeah, not particularly from a place of self love.
And then, um, I. Probably about a year ago started to draw. I'm not visually gifted in any way, but I have, um, a three minute sketch that comes into my inbox. I set my timer and I'm sketching birds and plants and I, and it's fun. And sometimes I like, you know, re let the timer keep going and do it longer than three minutes and.
Just to have those moments of fun or putting on music and dancing around the room, um…
Laura Rotter
It is so important. And I, I'm curious, Kelly, what, you know, if you look at the people who come to you, how would you describe them? Who are they? What age, what gender? And do you work one-on-one with people or, or is this, are these groups?
What, how does me skills work?
Kelly McCausey
Well, it's 99% women. Yeah, there's, there has always been a dude or two that show up. And, you know, so I don't ever say I'm just for women because I do like working with guys as well. Um, but the, I do offer one-on-one coaching. Um, but the, the Stretch Yourself Mindset Challenge is a group experience.
Uh, there's a few different group experiences. The self, the Stretch Yourself Mindset Challenge is. Just wrapping up for January. It runs again in April. It's, it's gonna run about three times a year. It's a group month long container where we get together in Zoom for sessions. We're all choosing our, our individual challenges that we're playing with and interacting with each other.
We do little triad sessions that I'm not part of, so it's just a cohort thing of sharing with one another. Um, the goal, the goal being to just create a safe space where you can try something new and have, have other people that are stretching and trying something new too. Um, be there to support and encourage you.
Um, I, there's this, I have a self-love workshop that I'm gonna also do probably three times this year. Um, and then there's always. Some, some kind of invitation around playing with an attitude of abundance. A mindset of abundance. Um, I do, I do have a weekly podcast. Ah. Um, and, you know, I share, I do some blogging.
I do whatever I want. You, you said, you said your, your intention is to, is to lean into ease and flow. I have a what if it were easy?
Laura Rotter
Oh, I love that.
Kelly McCausey
A bracelet. I wear my, my first coach, Therese Sparks, she always asked that question, what if it were easy? That question used to annoy the hell outta me because I like to make things hard.
Um, but, but she won me over, like, let it be easy.
Laura Rotter
Yeah. I, I. Once, I guess I had this again mantra in my head that someone had put of like, you know, do something that scares the shit outta you every day. And I was sharing at the end of a week long silent meditation retreat where everybody debriefed that. I was sort of thinking about that as maybe as I, and everybody looked at me quizzically and like, why?
And now I've really come to believe that. You know, I would always set a goal of like, ease. I wanna find ease. You know, you can even see the way I'm saying it. I'm making a fist and, and, and realizing that like, ease is always here and it's about me opening up to it. And I feel like that view is, I too see myself as someone creating a safe space that people come to me to talk about their money, right?
Like, I wanna know that I can leave my job. Do I have enough money? Or I just got this inheritance, how do I invest it? And they're all coming for the dollars and cents and the spreadsheet, and certainly that is part of the server service I provide. And I feel like sort of in a sneaky way. I'm bringing a different head and a different vibe to the conversation.
Mm-hmm. And to the intentions that I hope I help people set.
Kelly McCausey
Yeah.
Laura Rotter
Um, I guess as we're getting ready to wrap up, Kelly, and I'm going to make sure to provide a link to your podcast in the show notes. Um. I always like to ask my guests, how has your definition of success shifted over time and maybe even financial success?
Kelly McCausey
Having choices still, back when I was a broke single mom, when I first started my business, when I was, I was never buried under a massive amount of debt, but it was enough. You know, to really screw things up and limit my options. Um, so when I got to a point where I started to have choices, I really celebrated that I am not driven by massive amounts of money.
I, the, it was wonderful when I started to make more six figure more than six figures. And, um, there was a period when I'd been doing a lot of self work, a lot of mindset work, a lot of self love. I didn't change a single thing about a single strategy. I wasn't working harder, I was just working on myself.
And when I did my taxes the next year, I just about screamed because I had doubled my income.
Laura Rotter
Wow.
Kelly McCausey
And I hadn't realized it just, which is as a money person, you're like, you're not tracking like you should, are you? Exactly. No, I was not. I was not. But when I was like, oh my God, I made so much more money. And then a friend said, well, how are you gonna double it next year?
And I was like, what the hell? What kind of question is that? Like I didn't do anything for this, right? I just like started loving myself more and believing in myself more. And that was making everything I offered more compelling and. I still define my success as having choices and being able to do what I want.
My, my life essence statement is I do what I want. Visualize a little 4-year-old stomp in her foot.
Laura Rotter
Yes. It's like I say like, oh, there's the young Kelly, but in a positive.
Kelly McCausey
Yep.
Laura Rotter
Yep. Driven way.
Kelly McCausey
I success is being able to do what I want and. Maturity is managing the feelings around all the times when I can't, you know, like I've had a lot of experiences in recent years where I haven't been able to do what I want, create exactly what I want, fix everything that I want, like, you know,
Laura Rotter
Yeah.
Kelly McCausey
But, but having choices. And, you know, take, doing something with the choices that are available to me is, is just, it's, I have to, I love being able to exercise some autonomy, you know, the world, like, I didn't get to, I didn't get my choice about everything this year, you know? Mm-hmm. So rather than fuss and bother and, and rail against everything I couldn't control, it's turning my attention to what can I choose, you know, and how will I celebrate that and, you know, create more of what I want in my world.
Laura Rotter
So choices equal success, I love that as, uh. As a corporate refugee myself who worked for close to 30 years on Wall Street at different institutions. And um, I'm a little bit over a decade out of there and, um, I think it continues to be, to use perhaps an overused word, a journey because mm-hmm. You know, I'm sure you've worked with solopreneurs who.
Become the worst bosses they've ever had, and that's who I'm, yeah. When I first started my business and really coming to feel like, like having more choices and having the ability to live a life that truly serves me is a goal worth having and worth working. Yeah. It's, um, Kelly, is there anything you wanna make sure you share?
Our audience. Any message or, um, or resource?
Kelly McCausey
Uh, there's, there's a book that I've been loving. Um, Deepak Chopra has a book called Abundance. I, there's something I highlighted in here that, um, I don't know if you're familiar with that concept of dharma, like being in your dharma, being in the center of your purpose.
There's a, there's a little thing I highlighted in here, says, take a snapshot of anyone's life anywhere in the world, and there's a path of dharma that Spirit will support. And I, I've been leaning on that a lot, being 58 and not always having made the best financial choices. Um. That can invite me to feel like I'm behind the eight ball.
Um, I've missed some opportunity. I've blown it. Like I love that reminder that right here, right now where you are, where I am, where everyone is, take that snapshot and there is a path to abundance. There's a path to your needs are being met. Your future can be. Be made more secure. There's something that you can do right now and none of it includes freaking out about what you didn't do yesterday.
Laura Rotter
So beautifully, beautifully said. And I, uh, I like the word abundance. I did name my firm True Abundance Advisors and um, yeah. When I named it, I had, um, a relative of mine say, I don't understand what true abundance means. And I said, well, you're not my target market. Um, 'cause I do think. That abundance, of course, includes, you know, physical wealth includes money.
You need that as a support for your life. And if that's all you have, um, then your life will not feel abundant. Because we have other scarce resources, including time, which as we get older, we recognize how important that is. When we're younger, we feel like it's unlimited as well as energy and true abundance in my mind encompasses all.
Three and we're always trading one off for the other and making sure, and it's a constant balance, right? The word balance doesn't mean you set it and forget it, you know, you're,
Kelly McCausey
Yeah.
Laura Rotter
You're always iterating and figuring out what works for now, and it, yeah. Sounds to me, Kelly, like you are, you found your balance and continue to develop it, um, and help others develop it as well.
Kelly McCausey
Yeah.
Laura Rotter
Thank you for being my guest. I enjoyed our conversation.
Kelly McCausey
You asked great questions. Laura. Thank you so much.
Narrator
Thanks for listening to Making Change with Your Money Certified Financial Planner, Laura Rodder specializes in helping people just like you organized, clarify, and invest their money in order to support a life of purpose and meaning.
Go to www.trueabundanceadvisors.com/workbook for a free resource to help you on your journey. Disclaimer, please remember that the information shared by this podcast does not constitute accounting, legal, tax, investment, or financial advice. It's for information purposes only. You should seek appropriate professional advice for your specific information.