Life teaches us a lot.

Some of it is good and helpful—the skills that help us make our way in the world.

And some of it… well, some of it ends up getting in our way.

But we might not realize the friction that it’s causing or the opportunities that it’s blocking until things come to a head.

Once you’ve discovered that there’s a problem with what you’ve already learned, what do you do?

All this month, we’ve been talking about leveling up and learning new skills. But this week, we’re going to talk a bit about unlearning.

Marga Biller, program director at the Harvard Learning Innovations Laboratory, defines unlearning like this:

“Unlearning is learning to think, behave, or perceive differently, when there are already beliefs, behaviors, or assumptions in place (that get in the way), at either the individual or organizational level.”

Often, we try to do or learn new things without addressing the beliefs, behaviors, and assumptions that we already have—even when those things are contradictory.

For instance, it’s hard to speak up on social media and share your big message if you’ve learned through social conditioning or personal trauma that you can only be safe when you’re silent.

It’s hard to ask for testimonials or write effectively about your offer if you’ve learned that humility is always playing down your achievements or ability.

It’s hard to charge more for your services or products if you’ve learned that money is the root of all evil.

Here’s what I’ve learned over the years: the job of entrepreneurship is so different and foreign to most of us that we don’t realize all the things we’ve learned that block our ability to do it effectively until we’re deep in it.

Entrepreneurs have to unlearn trading time for money. They have to unlearn old management habits. They have to unlearn perfectionism. They often even have to unlearn old identities.

Truly, the list could go on and on.

But I won’t—I want to get to this week’s conversation because it’s a good one.

This week, I’m talking with financial coach and the founder of Wealth Over Now, Keina Newell.

Keina and I started this conversation with the frame that we were going to be talking about learning mindset skills. And we definitely talk about that.

But after reflecting on this interview, I think what we talked about the most was unlearning many of the habits and patterns that she’d learned along the way.

Keina and I talk about what she thought the problem was and how she tried to fix it before landing on learning and unlearning key mindset pieces, as well as the self-coaching system she used to finally start the reprogramming. We talk about the process she uses on a daily basis to examine what she’s thinking and how it could be holding her back. And, we get into the extraordinary results she’s been able to create as a result of this work.

Now, let’s find out what works for Keina Newell!