What Works

What Works


EP 283: Taking Stock Of Our Evolving Relationships To Money with Tara & Sean McMullin

June 02, 2020

In This Episode

* The single most important lesson Tara McMullin learned about money in the last 5 years* How that lesson rippled through her business and personal development as a leader* Why this lesson also led with taking stock of how much her sense of credibility was tied to the money she makes* How Sean McMullin is asking new questions about money and his relationship to it now that he’s a business owner, too* What his experience with collectivism has inspired him to consider as the business (and bank account) grows

Money is always about more than the dollars and cents.

No matter how nice it might be to objectively measure the value of a thing or calculate the salary of a new hire or assess the return on a particular investment, there’s always something else going on. Something that defies the ability to measure it with pure math.

There are the cultural norms we carry, the familial attitudes that are passed on to us, the limiting beliefs we’ve picked up along the way.

There is always so much more to consider about money than the dollars and cents.

This month, we have a series of episodes exploring money and our changing relationships to it.

This is a series we’ve been planning since late last year but as the current global health crisis has blossomed into a global economic crisis, these questions about money and our relationship to it–especially as small business owners–feel more relevant every single day.

Over the course of the month, you’ll hear from What Works regular Marie Poulin about how a surprise discovery led her to upending her business model while finding a whole new sense of ease when it came to making money.

You’ll also hear from jewelry designer Tiffany Whipps who has seen first hand the wild swings in value that a fickle market can create. And you’ll hear from Jennifer Patterson, who runs a large portion of her herbalism and breathwork business on a sliding scale.

Plus, you’ll hear What Works network members share how their relationship to money has evolved over time, too.

All throughout this series, we’re asking you to examine the assumptions and beliefs that you hold about money.

Some of them might be long held… perhaps stemming from how your parents handled money or a story you heard a long time ago.

Others might be more cultural… maybe you’ve picked up some beliefs about money that come from how the news is reported or which business heroes are celebrated.

Others might come from your very own market… I hear tall tales about money repeated as fact in my own industry all the time.

Today, I wanted to start close to home.

My own relationship to money has changed so much over the time I’ve been a business owner. So the first half of this episode is my own reflections on the most important money lesson I’ve learned in the last 5 years and the specific ways it’s played out in my business over that time.

The second half of the episode is a conversation with my husband and business partner, Sean, about how his relationship to money is changing now that he’s a business owner, too.

As I put this episode together, I realized that the whole of it is really a conversation about...