#42: Manage Your Wealth the Right Way with Erinn Bridgman
How can creators and small business owners build a profitable business and manage their revenue the right way?
Welcome to The Creator's Adventure where we interview creators from around the world, hearing their stories about growing a business.
Today we are talking with Erinn Bridgman about how creators should manage their finances and how they can grow their wealth in today's world.
Erinn Bridgman is a money management and mindset coach. With her coaching business, she empowers female entrepreneurs to design a business that is not just ‘profitable’, but actually grows their personal wealth.
Learn more about Erinn: https://www.erinnbridgman.com/
Transcript
Bryan McAnulty: Welcome to The Creator's Adventure, where we interview Creator's from around the world, hearing their stories about growing a business. How do you design a business that not only helps you make a living, but actually grows your personal wealth? That's what we're gonna talk about today. Hey everyone. I'm Bryan McAnulty, the founder of Heights Platform.
Let's get into it.
Hey everyone. We're here today with Erinn Bridgman, a money management and mindset coach with her coaching business. She empowers female entrepreneurs to design a business that is not only profitable, but actually grows their personal wealth. Erin, welcome to the show.
Erinn Bridgman: Yay. Thanks so much for having me, Bryan.
Bryan McAnulty: Yeah, of course. So my first question for you today is what would you say is the biggest thing that either you did or you are doing that has helped you achieve the freedom to do what you enjoy? Hmm.
Erinn Bridgman: I think, you know, this is something that I preach as well, is figuring out how to, two things. One is figuring out how to live and work in both creativity and Following your intuition.
So how can I be tapping into what feels aligned, what feels creative, where my intuition is leading me, and then also figuring out how to have money work for me so that I don't have to always spend. Time working for money. So for myself and for my husband, we have worked to have our dollars go to work for us in real estate.
We have a, that's like half of my life is building a real estate empire and running that company. And so that has allowed me to then have the freedom that allows me to do. Have more spaciousness, have more time to do things that feel aligned both in business and in my personal life.
Bryan McAnulty: Awesome. Yeah, that's a great answer.
I wanna go into more of that here and hopefully give some good lessons to everyone who's watching or listening. Yeah, but I, I wanna say also, I really like the, the idea that you're talking about of like creating the leverage for your time. So this podcast is gonna be all about you, but I wanna take a moment to brag about ourselves that like we, we talk about that as well, so much that we're we're able to now be the the number one result I believe in Google if you search leveraged income.
So like, yeah, definitely believe that's important to create some leverage in your business. So it's not all dependent on. So can you tell us a little bit of the story of how you started your own business and became a Money Mastery coach?
Erinn Bridgman: Yeah, well, I don't know how long or how, how much of the story you wanna hear, but I started into entrepreneurship almost, I think it's been over 10 years, and my husband and I were newlyweds.
And we took our graduation money and bought a camera and started working in photography. We did wedding photography and videography for almost seven years. So I always say we're like grandparents in the a wedding industry space and. In that time, we started to invest. We invested in real estate. Then in 2014 we had $18,000 and saved up in our, our bank account.
And at the time, that was a lot of money for us and we decided we could take that money, we could pay off one student loan because at that time we were crippled with student debt. We had almost a hundred thousand dollars in debt there. And so we said, Hey, we can do that, or we can go and. Purchase an asset that would produce enough revenue for us to then eventually pay off all of our student debt.
So that's how we started getting into real estate and seeing like our money work for us there. And I have this photography business going and we scaled that pretty quickly to six figures. And through an evolution of time in my journey, I found myself. Starting to do business coaching and as I was coaching female entrepreneurs and we were really focusing on like sales and pricing and all that, I kept seeing this common theme with creatives having massive blocks around money, about their, like thinking around money and their worthiness around money and their management of money.
And back in the day I would like take out a Google sheet and be like, okay, let's like whip up this like debt pay down plan. Budget plan. And over the years I have now developed like a money matrix. So it's like a spreadsheet system, a whole system to help you be the CFO of your life and your business.
And so I think that like the way that I've found myself in this position is just like the many, many years of entrepreneurship and the lessons I've learned and then just. As I've coached people seeing just this common need, and I'm able to sort of bridge the d the gap, being like a very creative person and, and doing the photography thing and doing the interior design with real estate and being a total nerd and loving spreadsheets and loving math, being able to sort of like bridge that gap for people.
Bryan McAnulty: Cool. Yeah, so I want to go back to the point you mentioned of how you took the savings from the photography business and then decided to like purchase this asset of a house instead of paying the student loan debt. So what, where did you get like the idea to decide to do something like that? Do you feel like you always had this, like, strong thinking around money and, and everything, or was it like really having a student loan debt made you think about like, well, what's the best way to to handle.
Erinn Bridgman: You know, I've always been an entrepreneur at heart. Like I feel like I was born with that and so was Brent. And so I think inside of that there's like a level of like, Healthy engagement with risk like and understanding with making an educated risk, you could have an incredible roi. So I think that was definitely part of it.
But I would say like, I mean, Brett and I did, we drank the Dave Ramsey Kool-Aid, which Dave Ramsey would be very against this type of a move. And you know, I don't believe that he is speaking to an audience that is of the entrepreneur mindset or. The capabilities to leverage the themselves. You know, he's speaking to people that make that are nine to five.
They have a very specific level of income. And so I kind of like to say like, why I don't believe in Dave Ramsey. And while I'm really grateful for a lot of the foundational messaging and like the, the budgeting and things like that, and I agree with some of it, he's not speaking to the. And the entrepreneur's superpower is that we can go into the marketplace and we have the power to go and generate more money.
So oftentimes we need to be focused more on that than on like, how do we like save? How do we make sure that we manage what we have really, really, really well? And so I think that like as I lived into sort of my entrepreneur, Yeah, allowing myself to live into the risk. I had the backing of like this Dave Ramsey teaching and I had to sort of like push against that.
And I think the, the crippling of like how much debt we had and how restrictive that felt like, we wanted to make sure that we were being most strategic with how, how could we tackle that as quickly as possible. And it wasn't through just like paying down. You know, like we would have to restart all over again.
And so in purchasing the real estate, we were able to have it cash. Enough money that paid our monthly payments. And then it actually, it's a crazy story about we were able to do an insurance claim and that allowed us to have a very large amount of money and then when we sold the asset, we were able to like net out.
So it actually ended up basically giving us a hundred thousand dollars over the time. So we took something that we could either have done 18,000 and pay off one load, or like I say, we were able to pay off all of our student debt.
Bryan McAnulty: Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah, I think there, there's somebody who says it a real lot.
I forget who, but it's what you were mentioning that like if you wanna focus on saving and all that, like that's great, but you can only save so much. Where as an entrepreneur, like the income potentially you have is potentially unlimited. So it, it's easier to, to grow your income than it is to save more.
So yes, I like that. Yeah. So you help women, you help business owners better manage their money, grow their income. Can you describe more about like what would this money management be like? What does it mean to have like a money mindset?
Erinn Bridgman: Yeah, so let's, I'll give like high level of sort of the components of the money management part of things.
There's a whole nother conversation we could have around the mindset stuff if you'd like. But particularly, and I wanna just say that particularly I. Speak to women and women entrepreneurs, and if you are male listening or watching, you know, I encourage you to lean in for all the women that you support in your world and the power that you have.
So particularly my calling I think is to women because. I just believe that we're in a very specific time in history that we have made massive progress with money and our relationship with money, but we have a long way to go. So it's crazy to me to like look at the stats to see that in the past hundred years, it wasn't until like the sixties that a woman could open her own credit card without a man, or that in the seventies it wasn't like legislation for equal pay for equal work, you know, it was just in the past like 60.
And so, and we know that like access to money is like access to power. And so I believe that the more we can get money into the hands of heart centered women the better the world will be. And so that's sort of my mission, my work. And I think that we are up against a history that is suppressed us. And so and, and just been, you know, ingrained certain beliefs in us that, you know, women aren't good with money.
We don't know how to do math. We, we use sort of like, oh, that's a man's job. Or we kind of like, and as business owners it's very important for us to take that cfo. Seat, and it's not something that can be outsourced. Yes, we can outsource bookkeeping. We can outsource accounting, but we cannot outsource being the CFO of our companies and our lives.
And so what that looks like high level is that. You understand the numbers inside of your business, not just in a PNL sense. So PNL is very present to past oriented. And so you're, you're being very reactionary. You're doing the work to reconcile accounts and certainly you can analyze and see patterns.
But as a woman who's empowered with her money, we understand the present to future. Sort of snapshot. And so I like women to be able to really strategize what is your revenue in the next six to 12 months, what are your expenses? What are your tax payments? And you should strategize your tax payments monthly so that you're saving for those quarterly payments and you're not surprised.
And this is a huge thing. Our goal generally is to continue to make more money and more profit, which means the tax payments you made last year are not going to suffice for this year. And so you really need to be making sure you understand that percentage that you need to save monthly. And then my biggest piece is that you are strategizing your salary.
And this is huge because this is how your business injects money into your personal life. And I found that many times as entrepreneurs. Particular female entrepreneurs, we pay ourselves least last and inconsistently. And I'm talking like very successful entrepreneurs as well. And so it's important that think about what that's teaching your subconscious first of all, and how that's also setting you up financially for success in your personal world.
And that's the whole. Point of starting a business. Yes, it's about mission, it's about impact, it's about passion, it's about all those things. But we're not running a hobby. We're running a business and that means it needs to pay us. And so that sort of high, high level on the business side of what you're gonna be able to manage.
And then on the personal side, you really understand how much money does it cost for me to LE live on a monthly and annual. 65% of Americans do not know how much it costs for them to live. And so you understand what that is as being the personal cfo. And you also know what your financial goals are. You know specifically the amount of money that you need to reach those and what type of emotion you're trying to generate, because that's a lot more inspiring and motivating to do the work inside of your business, to raise your salary, to give yourself bonuses because.
Exactly where that's money, money is going and what it will produce for you. So high level, that's sort of my money matrix and what I work to help people do. Awesome. Yeah,
Bryan McAnulty: I like that. I like the the point of like, it sounds so simple, but figuring out like what are your, your living expenses going to be in all of that, especially as an entrepreneur, because it's hard to, especially, I, I remember starting out myself as an entrepreneur that.
I started my first business. I was I guess about 18 years old, and I had no clue about like, what is it gonna cost to like live somewhere and insurance and taxes and all these things. And so like I tried to come up with a number, but like over time, like that number has gone up and up, not, I don't think necessarily, like, maybe partially because of comforts or things I've realized I wanted.
And that's fine. That's a good reason, I think. But also just because of realizing like, these are the things that I've always wanted. What is actually like the true cost to achieve that? And it, it requires thinking and research and understanding. Definitely. But I also wanna mention about how, you talked about the point of like paying yourself as an entrepreneur.
And I think there's a lot of discussion around this and people saying, well, if you're the founder, Should you pay yourself last? Should you pay yourself first? And it sounds like you're kind of with the idea of not paying yourself last. And I, I agree with that as well. I think it's important as an entrepreneur to be paying yourself some money, because like you said, it's not supposed to be a hobby.
It's you're trying to build a business here. And if I think also you're mentioning about the mindset, like if you decide to not pay yourself, if you decide to pay yourself last, In some small way, it has to be unhealthy for the business because then it's always okay. It becomes always okay for you to not have money.
And then that's how it turns into a hobby that you've built this business. Maybe you even have employees, everyone gets money, but, but you don't. So, so what do you, what are you doing there with that? So I would agree that it does make sense to, to make it a budget and a goal and say like, just like you have to pay some other bill, you have to pay yourself.
Would you agree with.
Erinn Bridgman: Absolutely. And what are you telling yourself subconsciously? If you're paying all these other people, you're paying your marketing team, you're paying for software, you're paying for all of these things, and yet you aren't counting able to count on, you know, money yourself. Like what does that say about your own worthiness, your own x.
Expertise, like all that. And then on top of it, you know, after a while you are going to burn out. Like if you are giving so much time, so much energy, and you're not receiving the energy of money back into your world, that you're gonna burn out no matter how much you love it. Like, it's just not gonna be a lasting thing.
And I am in, I am in the business of helping people run the marathon of entrepreneurship, not the sprint. And that requires that you have an. Energetic exchange that feels equal with money. And of course there are seasons in our business. There are times where we should be reinvesting a lot back into the business.
But what I find is I need to push against the tendency of many of us, which is we tend to already do that. Oh, I'm gonna stockpile, I'm gonna put back in the business. Put back in the business. And that's not, that's. Pattern that can be upheld forever and no matter what, like you can pay yourself, even if it's a hundred dollars a month to start or whatever, like building that habit is huge.
And it's also, it's, it's healthy for the business, it's healthy for ourselves in preventing burnout and it's healthy for our, our like mindset.
Bryan McAnulty: Yeah, totally agree. Because then it becomes something that if it's a, if it's a non-negotiable thing that you have to do, then at the end of the year, instead of saying, okay, well I didn't pay myself, and then that's okay to earn that same amount next year, then you're saying, okay, I did pay myself like I have to, I have to still sustain this or grow this to continue to pay myself.
So yeah, definitely. I like that. Let's see. Can you share maybe some tips for like a new entrepreneur just starting out and like how they can better manage their finances?
Erinn Bridgman: Yeah, so something I always tell people, like if you're like at the very, very like basis, a few things I would do is one, I would start to get comfortable with numbers or to get comfortable with being somebody who's a business owner who's in touch with their numbers.
And so, Just in a, in a sort of like habit formation mentality, learn like start signing in and just looking at your bank account every day. Like a super simple step takes like one minute, like 60 seconds. And this is just like helping you recognize like, Hey, I can handle money, I can look at numbers. I don't need to be avoided.
Many times people sort of just like close their eyes, hope it all works out. And so this. A simple practice of you saying, I'm gonna be engaged with my finances, I'm gonna look at them. I'm not gonna kind of just hope for the best. And then I would say too, on the topic we just talked about Putting some sort of salary on an auto pay.
So whether, whatever you're at, like if you, if it's $50, a hundred dollars or whatever it is you should be able to kind of, if you're brand, brand new, then you're gonna have to like find something that feels aligned in is something you feel you can sustain. If you've had a year of. Business. You can look at your p and l sheets, you can see what your owner's draw was.
You can kinda think about, well, what do I think my profitability's gonna be this year? To kind of come up with a, you know, estimated amount of money that you can put on autopay. If you have, aren't able to do all the projections and cashflow and all that type of work that I do with people, that's a simple way.
And I said put it on auto pay because that is eliminating the human part of us. That tends to be emotional. That tends to Be forgetful or whatever. And so if you have it on auto pay, you're not gonna think about like, should I pay myself? Can I afford to pay myself? It just becomes a, a, a way to create habit and like eliminate your own emotions.
And so that's the second thing I would do is figure out what that could be and put it on auto pay. and then this is something I think is really, I'll say this last thing is get in touch with one financial goal that you have for yourself. Personally. I always say that piles of green cash are not very inspiring.
Like, okay, cool, I'm gonna make a hundred thousand dollars. Like, we have these, like, I hear these a lot of like arbitrary goals. I wanna be a six figure entrepreneur, I'm gonna have a, you know, 5,000 or five figure month, or I wanna have a six figure launch. Whatever these things are. Well, like who really cares?
It's just like a status or like a number, but what if you got really dialed in with your finances and your goals? And so that's what I would say is the last piece I'd love for you to do is figure out one financial goal that you that lights you up, figure out what that would produce for you. What emotion would that bring for to your.
And the exact amount. So if it's paying off your master card or whatever, figure out the exact amount. So many times I hear people, I think it's like $10,000. People will say, I'm like, Uhuh. Like if we're doing, if we're in the money matrix, I need to know the exact amount because they're going to, we're gonna figure out dollar for dollar, how you're going to pay that off or whatnot.
And so write that down, that goal on a sticky. Somewhere you'll see every day and, and write the emotion it will produce, this is gonna bring me power, this is gonna be free. Bring me freedom, this is gonna bring me whatever. And knowing that exact amount is gonna also help you work to manifest more into your business and strategize for paying towards that or paying that off, or whatever that is.
Bryan McAnulty: Yeah, that's great. There's a quote that they say that things that are measured, And so even the, the first step of saying, okay, I'm gonna look at these numbers in my life can really make a difference. And I can attest to that also, like when I started as an entrepreneur we were making enough money that like everything could sustain itself and everything.
But for a few years when I first started, I didn't really pay attention to the numbers and I didn't really grow. It kind of just stayed there. And once I. Briefly, like paid attention to say like, okay, this is how much came in and went out this month and, and that month. It really made a difference because it let me see like, okay, well this is the current reality and if I want to increase it from here, then it let me take the next step of figuring out what's going to make that happen.
Erinn Bridgman: Yes. I love it.
Bryan McAnulty: Awesome. So how about then like a more established entrepreneur? Like let's say we have somebody who they're really successful, they've got a six or a seven figure income. In your opinion, what should they do to be handling their money?
Erinn Bridgman: Well, you know, this is, like I say, like financial advice is so particular and so individualized to the person, to the person's goals, to their financial, you know What, where do they sit financially?
I think one thing I'd love to bring to the surface is the idea that as entrepreneurs, we are in charge of our own retirement. So we do not have a 401k. We don't, we're not inheriting something from the company or whatever. And so if you are a more mature entrepreneur and you've been in that while I would say, Still, we need to work on that.
Like increasing profitability, increasing salary and bonus. And then like what we do on the personal side of is figuring out what is your overflow and how can you strategize towards that and making sure you have a really solid investment plan. And so whether that's like, you know ba, whether you're doing it in the stock market, whether you're doing it in other, inside of other companies or startups, whether it's inside of real estate, but that you're working to set yourself up for.
Allowing your business to cash your current lifestyle or upgraded lifestyle, but that you have a plan for retirement is something that I would say is huge for the, the more mature entrepreneur. And then inside of like kind of money management stuff on the business side, you, I, I would want you to have a really clear 12 month plan of like your cash flow, your position.
And that you would be working towards strategizing that both on what you think is your current, like booked or safe number. Some people in co in their business, like you have like wedding photographers, you know, your kind of general like bookings for the next year or whatnot. Some people it's gonna be more of like, well, what were your safe numbers?
What's generally industry standard? Or what did you do inside of your last year and your PNLs? And kind of like cash that out and then create projections. So think about how can I strategize to bring more money into my world? Put it inside of the money matrix, we put that per month. And what it actually.
And then if you are assigning that overflow into your personal life, hey, this is gonna allow me to max out my Roth ira. This is gonna allow me to start to invest inside of real estate or whatever. You're gonna be pretty motivated to get that done inside of your business and you're gonna be able to sort of strategize that house based on the fact that you can see cash flow, you can see increases in salary, and you've got assignments for that.
Bryan McAnulty: Awesome. Yeah, I think that's helpful. I. Our audience is, tends to be really creative, maybe not as much analytical. And so being able to project that out and look at it for yourself and see like, how does this align with what I want? And then once you see it, then figuring out like, okay, well what can I do to make this increase?
And I, I think that's a, a really important thing and the exercise that people should go through because otherwise, it, it's easy to focus on all the other tasks in your business that may not directly actually bring you income.
Erinn Bridgman: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What is it? It's like the 80 20 principle, right? Mm-hmm.
you spend 20% of your time getting 80% of the results.
Bryan McAnulty: Yeah, exactly. So I wanna talk,
Erinn Bridgman: I think, and the nod towards, yeah, go ahead.
Bryan McAnulty: You got, you go first finish.
Erinn Bridgman: No, I was just, Okay. I was just gonna say like on this, like I'm a creative as well, and so I have that part of my brain and I totally get like, oh man, like I just numbers and blah, blah, blah.
And I just like love my, my greatest like joy is when people say, oh my gosh, Aaron, like numbers are sexy. I agree with you. Or like this spreadsheet, like, I love spreadsheets now, and I know that might sound like a stretch for people listening or watching, but. It's true, like if you, the beauty of it is like if you have a goal, most of the time our goals have some sort of monetary value attached to them.
Like if it's going on a vacation, okay, that's a certain budget. If it's having time freedom, whether that, okay, that probably boils down to like you can hire, outsource a lot in your business, in your personal life. Like there's generally some. Financial, like tie to our values and to where we're headed and what we wanna do.
And so like the more you're in touch with that and the more you, like, like I said earlier, you dial it down, you have a specific dollar amount, like. Numbers are sexy. They can show you that. Or if people are like part-time in their business and they wanna like quit their full-time job. Well lots actually.
A lot of times when I'm working with people and that's an answer that numbers can tell you. I'll be like, you can, you can quit right now. Like you have the cash flow, you know how much it costs for you to live. You've got the savings. Like what are you. For, and so numbers just can like, tell us a lot and they can help us live out like our goals and our values that we have.
So even if you're creative numbers are super sexy and you've gotta start to have like this relationship with money and numbers, that's gonna like bring you that freedom and desire that you, that you have.
Bryan McAnulty: Awesome. Yeah's super. So you, you mentioned a little bit I've read in your intro how like you're focused on helping make a business, it's not only profitable, but actually grow somebody's personal wealth.
And I think we're like touching on small pieces here, but can you go into a little bit more of like what you mean by that and, and how you see that? .
Erinn Bridgman: Sure. So we've talked about salary a lot, and that's the first piece is having a salary that you can count on and that you can increase. And inside of the matrix, I, I will be like, okay, so yeah, we're like strategizing all of this over here on your business and they're strategizing all this over here and in your personal life.
And I'll point to the one cell and I'm like, this is the one cell in the spreadsheet where it connects because. All this, what we're doing in your business is computing a salary, like a financial number every month. And we get to like change that number over here in your personal sheet. If we can like get your business to be more profitable and we can understand the cash flow and things like that.
So that's a first piece for sure. And I know I've like said this a million times, but that's how literally your business. Is going to intersect your personal world is the money that it brings into there through salary, bonuses, owners draws, whatever. So that's a first piece. And then having a financial plan is the, like how we create personal wealth.
And so, We understand how much it costs to live. We have a budget and then we plan for the additional money. So we need to have overflow, we need to have a balanced budget, a budget that is either zero or positive. It needs to be positive in order to have additional money. And then I teach the five financial goals that we should strategize for that help us to build wealth.
And so the first two are the first ones we should work towards. They are a part of your world, so you need to have a savings plan. Everyone's savings plan is going to be different, but depending on who they are and their leverage, like how much they're leveraged. So if you don't have a business savings plan a business cushion, you should have that, and that should be.
Based upon your expenses, based upon like how much does it take cost to run your business? What does that look like? And then also your personal, and also I always say with the savings thing, you need to know your own tendencies and you need to leave yourself here. So if you're like a overs saver, accumulator, like hoarder, then you probably need to push against that a little bit and like.
Sa like have a smaller savings goal because you need to do some other things with your money. So just know yourself when it comes to understanding your savings plan and then debt pay down. So those two are the first two goals that are gonna help us work towards growing our wealth. If we're in deficit, we need to figure that out, both on a psychological, like the weight of debt and also.
That's like the biggest thing, especially if it's credit card debt. The amount of money you pay in interest is astronomical, and so we need to create a plan there. So those two are first, and then the next three are kind of interchangeable based on where you're at and what your goals are. So investing, lifestyle improvements and generosity are the next three that I work to help people strategize.
And so that looks like, you know, we've talked about investing, whether it's wherever that's going to be, but working towards retirement, lifestyle upgrades. This could be you. Doing things inside of your annual budget that bring you more freedom, more joy more time hiring a housekeeper or signing up for the meal service.
Or it could be like buying a second home, getting a boat. Like things that we expand our life and then generosity, I believe, like I said before Money in the hands of heart centered people is so beautiful because there's so much that we can do with this to make it our world better. And so strategizing and thinking about like, okay, what do we wanna do?
Where do we wanna put our power that we have in our money? Where do we wanna put it to work for good? And there's all different ways that we can do that. And so those are the five financial goals that I like for us to strategize and work towards as we work to build personal.
Bryan McAnulty: I like mentioning about placing the money into these different goals and I think anyone who's started to study finance and, and get into all of this has, has probably heard at some point that like you have to put your money to work for you.
And I think that that's so true and so important because if you're just going to save everything then. The money that you have really is losing its value because it's not doing something every, all, all the money that you earn should have some kind of purpose. And just saving all of it is not necessarily the purpose because unless it's specifically for retirement or lifestyle upgrades giving back all of those things that you mentioned there should be a reason.
And then that way you can let the money flow into those correct places and improve your life, improve the life of others. And all that. So definitely I think that's super important.
Erinn Bridgman: Yeah, and you have to be careful, right? Mm-hmm. , like with, with the savings thing, like what you're saying, I think, you know, right now we're seeing what's happening with inflation and.
If people are holding, you know, all of their assets in cash, you're losing money. So if you have a million dollars in cash in a year, if, if our inflation rates are gonna be around that 10%, like next year, you'll have $900,000. So that's why he is very important that you're working to invest your money.
Like for. This is why we're considering even like selling some of our investment properties because we have the ability to then take piles of cash that we would get because other investors are eager to like purchase some, maybe some investments that were like, Hey, we could go take this cash and make more money in real estate since we're in the game.
But people are needing to take their cash and put it in assets that are going to continue to rise and, and, and beat the inflation, right? And so I think having that mentality of like actually like just. Putting our money in savings. It's not strategic. And I think also I'd say that we need to work to make our money work for us, not just work for money.
And so this is another, I think this is another big mindset thing, especially for entrepreneurs. We know how to hustle. We know how to go and work really hard. And then we have to get to this point where we're like, okay. And I also have to get comfortable and start working towards like having money work for me without me having to.
Bryan McAnulty: Definitely, yeah, the, the money doesn't have its value until it's used in some way. And just like it would be bad to waste all of your money, it's also bad to just have it all sit there and not do anything for you. So you mainly coach women as you mentioned. Apart from like some of the things you mentioned before about mindset and things like that, would you say that there's like any other differences like between women and men in terms of like our relationship with money and how we approach finances that like maybe the women watching or listening to this show could keep in mind?
Erinn Bridgman: Yeah, I think generally, like I kind of gave some context for just like, History and sort of the story that we're up against as far as like the power that we've had and the suppression we've had around money, and just generally, I think women, sort of our confidence and our worthiness generally is very different than men.
Like I know there's a stat that says a woman will only apply for a job if she believes she's 100% qualifi. and a man will apply for a job if they believe that they're 60% qualified. And so I think that that type of, you know, posturing like is, is very important for us to think about, like our confidence, our worthiness as women, like really working on our story there, working on our blocks there.
I think those are some obstacles in understanding also society and patriarchy and like what we are up against is really important cuz it is different than you know, a man and a man's story and a man's positioning and his power around money and So I think that's really, really important and how we think determines how we act, which determines our results.
So working on our money stories and our money blocks, especially as women, is so important.
Bryan McAnulty: That's great. So I have one more question for you. We like to ask all of our guests if they had anything that they could ask our audience, what would that be? So is there anything that you're curious about? Anything you want our audience to think about that you would ask?
Erinn Bridgman: Yeah, I'm gonna actually tee up a question that I always ask my people on my podcast that come on. So I just want you as you're listening to think about this. If I were to give you a hundred thousand dollars right now, what would you do with it? And I want you to actually think for a minute and like strategize.
Cause I think that'll give you some insight into what are the values, what are the goals, what are your hopes? And have you start to tap into your motivation to then draw in more money into your world.
Bryan McAnulty: Awesome. That's a great question. I think that's a really good good exercise as a way to figure that out for.
Great. Well, Aaron, thank you so much for coming on the show. Before we get going, where else can people find you?
Erinn Bridgman: Yeah, I'm most active on social, on Instagram, so you can find me there. E r i n n, Bridgeman Bridgeman with no e on the bridge. And then definitely come over to my website. I have tons of different resources.
You can learn your Sacred Money Archetype. I have a, a Wealthy Woman Checklist, which I would really encourage people to download. It helps you work through what are, how do I become a CFO of my. Phase of my business and of my personal world. I've had people print it out and have conversations with their partner, really helpful resource.
So hit me up on Instagram and go check out some of those resources.
Bryan McAnulty: Awesome. Thanks Erinn. Yeah. If you enjoyed this interview and want the chance to ask questions to our guests live, tune in on Tuesdays when new episodes premiere on the Heights Platform Facebook page. To learn more about the show and get notified when new episodes release, check out The Creator's Adventure dot com.
Until then, keep learning and I'll see you in the next episode.