Episode #57 Let’s Talk About Spending with Emma Edwards

This transcript is computer generated and may contain errors and not be an exact representation of the audio

Hi, this is Welcome to Self ®. And I’m your host, Dr. Hayley D. Quinn, fellow human business owner, and the anti burnout business coach. I’m here for service based business owners like you to help you increase your own self care and self compassion. Change the relationship you have with yourself and your business, and help you elevate your business to a new level. So you can live the full and meaningful life you desire.

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Hi, and welcome to another episode of another awesome guests chat. Before I introduce my next guest I just want to remind you that waitlist for our Welcome to Self®: time to thrive group coaching programme is open and doors to the programme will open very soon. So get yourself on the waitlist to be among the first to hear the details and get an action taker bonus as well. You can find the link to join the waitlist in the show notes.

I’m excited to introduce my next guest Emma Edwards. Emma is a content creator, podcaster, financial educator, and author of good with money. She has run her online platform The Broke Generation since 2018, producing educational content that encourages people to get financially engaged, break unhelpful spending habits and build a positive relationship with money. She recently completed graduate study in financial psychology and behavioural finance, and obtained a designation as a certified financial behaviour specialist. Having experienced her own challenges with spending, saving and budgeting.

Emma is passionate about making it cool to manage your money with intention. She says that getting to know yourself is an act of financial empowerment. And that breaking out of the conditioning that keeps us spending and finding your flow with money is the ultimate form of self care. Emma grew up in the UK and has lived in Melbourne since 2015. With her husband and cat, Emma and I agreed we could have chatted together all day. Luckily, we did a podcast swap. So if you love this episode, you can go and check out my episode on her podcast, The Broke Business. She also has a podcast called The Broke Generation.

Join me as I welcome Emma to the podcast and buckle up. You’re going to love this one. Hi, Emma, welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for joining me.

Emma Edwards 03:55

I’m so excited to be here, Hayley. Thanks for having me.

Hayley Quinn 03:57
That’s great. I’ve been following you on socials. I don’t I don’t remember how I first came across you. But I’ve been following on socials for such a long time. And whilst I am somebody who I think I manage a budget, well, I manage my money quite well. I think like many people, I still fall into the traps of you know, consumerism, particularly in my business, you know, another shiny thing, perhaps I need that software, or perhaps I need that platform, or perhaps I need to buy that course. So I do like everybody get caught up in that. And I think you manage these things really well. But before we get into all that, could you just start with kind of telling us who you are, what you do and why you started doing what you do?

Emma Edwards 04:38
Of course, and yeah, just a quick nod to what you said spending in business. The whole like if you’re a natural spender in your life like me, you will massively spend in business too so that’s kind of Yeah, a whole other thing that I want to get into on on my own podcast as well. So thanks for the reminder. In answer to your question, I started doing what I do in 2018 When I was on my own financial journey, I was in my like, mid 20s had always been a bit of a hot mess with money. I did sort of the right things in like, I didn’t not pay my rent and things like that.

But I did get myself into a bit of credit card debt, but I just had this kind of chronic problem that it was bad, but I didn’t really feel like it was that bad. It just allowed me to defer the responsibility to further responsibility or pay it off when I get such and such a job or when I’m done with this, and this and this. And you know, when this when that. So I started to get serious and started really breaking down. You know why all of these budgets I was scribbling on the back of a napkin weren’t actually translating to my behaviour. And that’s when I kind of uncovered that it wasn’t so much resources or structural problem, obviously, More money’s always going to help to some degree, but it was more of a behavioural emotional thing. And that’s really where the change happened. So I started talking about it online, kind of varying levels of, of being general, sometimes I was a bit more like practical financial literacy budgeting. I spoke a little about investing for a while, but then there was some legal changes in Australia. So I had to stop doing that. But then sort of in since 2020-2021, I’ve really moved more into the behavioural aspects. I went on to study financial psychology through a college in the US really emerging field over there fascinating field of research. And yeah, now I really focus on that, why we do the things we do with money, and why it’s actually an ongoing, almost personal development journey to become good with money. And that is the title of my most recent book that came out.

Hayley Quinn 06:41
Fantastic. So what did you do before all this? Like, what was your background? You’re obviously from the UK like myself? When did you come over to Australia? What were you doing for work before you did this?

Emma Edwards 06:55
Oh, no one’s ever asked me this story before. Yeah, it’s I came over to Australia in 2015. Because I was in a long distance relationship with my now husband. So long distance can work. And I kind of love that we we had met when he was travelling in the UK about 18 months before, and, you know, visas and things like that he’d had his working holiday visa there, I had never had one here. So I kind of came over for seven months or something six months, we had a return flight. Because, you know, I didn’t know if it would work out or not, it would have been delusional to be like, I’m moving to Australia forever. So I came over. And at that point, I sort of made job decisions, it was right at the point.

So I was 23-24. At the time, I’d finished uni when I was 22. Because I did a four year course. And I was just at that point, when I started this long distance relationship, I was just at that point where I was starting to apply for proper jobs. And I was also working in a restaurant at the time, and I was living in London. And salaries on those entry level jobs are really low, obviously, as they are everywhere. I studied Marketing at uni. But all in a very kind of last minute situation I did, I probably shouldn’t have gone to uni in the rush state that I did. But everybody around me was doing it. So I did it. And I really wanted to move out of home. So that was like my drive. If you go to uni, you can get a student loan and move out of home. And I don’t regret that from a life experience perspective.

But yeah, career wise, all a bit fuzzy at this point, I ended up getting offered a job that I turned down because which is you know, everybody would tell you don’t do this. But I turned it down. One because there were a few red flags, that it would have been a really great place to start a career. But I need I knew that I wouldn’t be able to maintain this long distance relationship, I didn’t have flexibility. Whereas at my restaurant job that actually didn’t pay probably paid a little bit more by the time you factor in tips and things like that in UK tipping culture. I was kind of like, oh, I can get more flexibility here. I can take time off and just not get shifts, go and visit my partner or have time off or my partner was visiting. So I did that, which I think if you had, you know, a high achieving pressure from parents that probably would have, you know, people probably would have talked you out of it. But I was you know, I was pretty knew what I was doing. I was like, Oh, I’m doing it, whatever, you know.

And so that meant I came to Australia when you know that year and a half later when I said well, I’ll go over for a period of time and kind of see I was then yeah 24 with kind of no career experience. I was a fantastic waitress, but that was about it. I had had like a placement year in my uni course thank God so I had some like working experience but yeah, the biggest thing for me was coming up to Australia with with really nothing I thought how am I going to get like a “proper job” and I shouldn’t say that, but that was going through my head. So I just went kind of wild on. I sent out a bunch of emails before I even came over trying to get work in sort of marketing, social media, digital, whatever, because by this point, I really wanted to be a copywriter and use words, I didn’t really know that existed. But that’s what I’d wanted to do. And so I got a bit of traction in that area.

Thankfully, I did a couple of sort of internships that eventually became jobs. And so by trade, I’m a writer, which, or I guess I’m a communicator. So that’s kind of what propelled me to take this financial journey and communicate it online. At that point, we were really seeing a rise of social media, we were learning about, I was thinking, what do I learn about social media? Well, celebrities, and workouts and winged eyeliner and things like that. And I thought, well, maybe we can learn about money, too. And yeah, and that’s really, you know, it’s really boomed. The money management has really become into the mainstream in the last few years, which is so helpful compared to what you and I probably would have had when we were early in our lives.

Hayley Quinn 10:50
Absolutely, I love that I love your story, I love as well, that you made a choice to stay in a job that perhaps wasn’t seen as the path you should be taking. Because the relationship in your life was important to you. And I love that when we actually tune in and think about what’s important to us, and make decisions that are aligned for ourselves. I mean, you’ve got where you’ve got, you’ve got where you want to be, you’re running a successful business, it didn’t matter that it looked different to what perhaps society would tell us, like go to university, and then get a job in relation to what you studied in university and work now until five and be in an office and those sorts of things. I love that.

And in terms of the long distance relationship, I mean, you can’t get more long distance. Can you remember when I moved over here, my dad said to me, gosh, if you’d moved any further, you’d actually be on your way back. You know that you’ve made that work. And then you came over here, and I was 25 when I came over, very similar to turned up like, yeah, what am I going to do? And then you’ve kind of seen this need a real gap, isn’t it? Particularly I think, for women, I think women have not been encouraged over the times to think about money, or think about making money, certainly not think about making good money, or saving or investing and those sorts of things. So I think the work that you do is fantastic. And I think the way you put yourself across as well on social media is so fun and engaging. I mean, we really see you and your personality and and that sort of stuff.

Emma Edwards 12:32
It’s funny when you say about women, because I think that there’s so many facets of that conversation about how women had been left out of financial conversations, you know, the, I guess, the top level of that is, you know, women aren’t taught to invest women are taught to coupon cart, and things like that. But I think what’s really necessary particularly now is not only are women taught to be financially independent, we’re taught to hand over our money for all of these other things. It’s actually both ends of the scale, we’re not included in that top end where you you know, you invest your money and you grow your money and you build financial independence, we’re actually taught the exact opposite. It’s not only exclusion by omission. It’s deliberate exclusion. Because if we’re not doing those things, we can be buying cellulite creams, slimming clothes, you know, all of the overconsumption that is conditioned into us, particularly now on social media.

Hayley Quinn 13:28
Yeah, oh my gosh, absolutely. I’m not a big shopper. I was raised by a shopper. So I’m not a huge shopper. But like I said, Before, I do get caught up in stuff. And you know, things come across our bow constantly online, on the telly as we’re walking around. And it is hard for people isn’t it. And so I work with business owners, and I always talk to them about the importance of knowing their numbers, not just the business numbers, but also the personal numbers. If we don’t know how much money we’ve got, or how much money we need, or the expenses that we have, both in life and business, I think it’s really, really hard to make decisions. What are your thoughts on that?

Emma Edwards 14:14
I completely agree. And I think that there’s a lot of, especially in modern times, every time I say that I’ve spelt like a dinosaur, but I don’t know any other ways to describe it. Where business is very accessible. You don’t need a business plan. You don’t need to go and present a bunch of numbers to a bank to get a loan. You know, you can start a business with very, very little and I love that. However, you can also blow up very quickly as well in terms of success, and also failure. But you can be managing a lot of cashflow quite quickly with not that necessarily that much planning.

I think knowing your numbers is really really important. I really like the book Profit First, whether you implement the system or not. It really kind of speaks to almost what I would call a personal finance approach to your business finances, it really gets you to because that’s what I say to individuals. And it applies to businesses too. When money comes in, whether that’s through your salary, or through an invoice being paid, you have to do something strategic with it, got to organise it, because otherwise you just don’t know. Otherwise, all y’all know a lot of people in their first year of business don’t understand tax implications. Which actually was a huge advantage for me, because I had to learn the tax system coming over to a new country. So by osmosis, by extension, because I had an ABN very early on in my time over here, because I was freelancing, and whatever. I learned the tax system really early. So I didn’t make all those mistakes, which is almost unusual. Usually early in business, you don’t know. But I was, you know, on the phone to so much.

Hayley Quinn 15:45
Yeah, I was a single parent when I first finished uni here and started a business. And I got somebody from the ATO to come out and talk to me. And I was so glad I did. Because now when I’m working with people, I hear the story so often that people I’ve got this tax debt, I don’t know how I’m gonna get on top of it. And I didn’t have that experience. Because I was always I guess, being a single parent for a long time was very mindful of always having enough money to pay for things. So I made sure I was like that in my business as well. But this is such a thing for people, isn’t it that they don’t understand about you need to put away money to pay back the GST? You’ve got to pay tax, not all the money you make is actually your money.

Emma Edwards 16:30
Yeah, especially if you start something on the side, and you’re on an income. You know, in Australia, we have quite high taxation brackets. So even if you’re earning a very modest wage, particularly living in capital city, the income you make on the side, you’ll be paying 32 and a half percent tax on that. That’s a lot. It’s not more tax, it feels like more tax. But it’s funny you hear when you’re talking about tax and money. With other business owners, you have very experienced very high income earning business owners or high revenue generating, I should say, still making tax mistakes, still misrepresenting what a deduction is, it’s not free, you still got to pay for it. Tax is, you know, is so important.

And knowing your numbers are so important, knowing what they say there’s two most important numbers in business that are what I’ve always carried through and why I always have my eye on your bet is, particularly if you’re a sole trader, I’m still a sole trader, so slightly different, but your base running costs that come in every single month, and also the minimum you need to be paying yourself, you know, what is your rent? What are your bills, what is a small amount of groceries, like? Because then you know, okay, I need five grand to feed myself and keep the lights on in the business, and then add tax on to that. And I think that really helps a lot of people because something that I found when I went into business from being employed, is that your view of numbers is distorted. Because you might go, you know that example. So you need two and a half grand for your base running costs. And you need two and a half grand to pay yourself.

So you pay rent and groceries or whatever, just I’m picking around numbers, then you go okay, I need to make $5,000. And then you go, Oh, hang on tax. So I really need to be making 7k. Before there’s any whipped cream on top. Yeah, which you might go well, I wasn’t making 7k a month in my job, like what? And I think that’s how a lot of people get stuck, they think, yeah, I’m bringing in five grand a month, like I’m doing really well. But you have to pay to earn that money, and you have your own tax and your own superannuation. And suddenly, you know, and no 10k months, that kind of narrative in the business campaigns, kind of a lot of it comes out of countries, the AUD numbers, you know, the math doesn’t matter, but it’s AUD. But again, you can be making 10-15k a month and still be really struggling because of you know, well 15k. Well, five of its gone already to tax and expenses.

And you know, there’s not I think you really need to completely forget everything you know about numbers and get into the business mindset of numbers. Yeah, I’ve had people say to me, you know, when I’m coaching people, do you think I need to put away money for sick pay and holiday pay? And I said, Well, if you want to pay yourself when you’re sick or you want to go on holiday then yeah. Absolutely. And it’s funny you think about you know, a lot of people go into and it’s not a bad goal to have a lot of people go into business trying to match what they were earning in their in their job, but as a starting point.

But I said to somebody other day, I’m thinking, you might earn $78,000 on that job, but you get paid $78,000 plus super plus sick pay for 11 months of work, sometimes 10 and a half, not 12 whereas we don’t ever be able to leave, and we’re probably working way more hours than we were in the job anyway. And it’s I think it’s really funny to think about that when you take it on face value. There’s one pathway to get there and then when you actually break it down, there’s a lot more it can be overwhelming to say God I’ve got to make 150k But when I’m by myself 100k salary like, Oh, that’s a lot.

Hayley Quinn 20:03
Yeah, absolutely. And I think we can lose track. You know, you said at the beginning if you’re a spender and thankfully I’m not overly a spender, but I still have stuff. I went through my Xero account the other day and looked at all my reports looking at everywhere that I’m spending money, you know, my hosting things, platform subscriptions. Whoo, that’s always a fun one. And looking at, you know, what’s on there and making a note of things like, Okay, when does that due for renewal, make sure I’ve cancelled it by then because there’s stuff I just don’t need to have, that I’m spending in my business.

Emma Edwards 20:37
That’s something I’ve really battled with, especially I think everybody battles, but I think it really your own relationship with money and spending outside of your business really plays into it, because something that I still struggle with to this day is trying to decide what is and isn’t worth being spent on in your business, particularly when it comes to things like events, or marketing or promotional photography, updating your website, like, it’s not as simple as personal finance when you trim all the fat when you need to.

Because what is it costing you to cut those things. But at the same time, I’ve gone through a lot of my, you know, when I’m reconciling expenses and stuff and being kind of scratching my head a bit being like, do I need to cut out those two events that will maybe $129 a ticket when meeting those people is a core part of my business? No, I haven’t necessarily got a contract from that. But it’s, showing up and being part of the business community is not only good for business, but also good for your sanity.

Hayley Quinn 21:47
Absolutely. And that’s the thing, like you say it’s not black and white. Thinking, sometimes the money being spent is actually it’s a cost, and you’re just spending it. And sometimes it’s an investment.

Emma Edwards 22:00
Exactly. I always find this with like work travel, particularly being between Melbourne and Sydney, a lot of stuff happens in Sydney. And I’ll just go you know, we all go to Sydney. And then I’m thinking to go to Sydney overnight, even if you stay in a very cheap hotel, I’ve got to get to the airport, I’ve got to get from the airport, I’ve got to get to and from the airport on the other side, you need to eat something you need to do. It adds up really quickly. And it’s so hard to it’s very easy to justify its business expense. But yeah, it’s really hard to discern when is it an expenses problem, when is it an income problem? Because, yeah, that’s what’s very different to personal finances, because you do have control over how much you earn as well. And often people go, it’s not your expenses, you just need to add more money, but you don’t want to keep earning more and more and more and spending it all on other business expenses. You know, lifestyle creep, business creep, it happens maybe normally, you stay in the Ibis styles, Sydney Central, but then when you start making a bit more money, you stay at a nicer hotel, and then all the fat gets trimmed in the same way as with personal it’s, it’s a minefield, honestly.

Hayley Quinn 23:05
It’s like when you said before, sometimes earning more money can help. But like you say, sometimes only more money just means you spend differently. We do we do tend to live to our income, don’t we we do tend to live to the lifestyle we can afford to live to.

Emma Edwards 23:19
Exactly, especially when it comes to convenience, or visibility or marketing or that kind of thing. It’s very normal to go, oh, well, I’ve making more money. Now. I’ll reinvest it back into the business to get photos and to get this and to go to that event or to do that course you mentioned courses before such a big, such a big trap for so many people like a lot of people upskilling. But, I mean, I won’t go into too much detail. Because it’s, it’s a whole other conversation. But having studied financial psychology, there’s, you know, a lot of that can be driven by other beliefs that we have about holding on to money or about success. And sometimes that kind of, I’ll do this course. And then I’ll be this and I’ll do this course. And then I’ll be this and I found it myself, I’ve done a graduate diploma in financial psychology that cost me $25,000. I’ve written a book, and I still think I’ll just do one more credential, and then I’ll be good enough, one more credential, and then I’ll be good enough.

Hayley Quinn 24:17
Everybody. Listen, you don’t need it. Unless you are completely starting out. And you’ve got no experience and you’ve got no knowledge, then yes, go and get educated. Learn some stuff. Be good at what you do. But I see it so often. Because I’ll just do this, I’ll just do a training. And, you know, you and I are going to talk on your podcast as well. And I’ll probably talk more about this there. But we come from this threat base drive position, where like you said, “And then I’ll be good enough, and then I’ll be credible”. But we need to kind of really just settle down and think about well actually you already are I mean you’ve done your training. You’ve written a book.

You’ve got all that information. It’s obvious you know what you talking about when people follow you on social media. So I think we do need to be really mindful of that. So there’s different challenges in business. And I guess we’ve spoken about how this isn’t just an easy thing, it can be complex on some things, it is worth spending more money and not doing it on the cheap. Some things, it’s better looking for a really cost effective way to do things. And sometimes it’s worth saying, you know, what, I don’t actually need to spend money on this at all. What are some of the other challenges that you find you have in business? And how do you navigate those?

Emma Edwards 25:35

I think the key challenges I have, that aren’t directly financial, but they’re all financial, because everything to do with business is financial, self doubt, the future uncertainty. And just, I think, the intersection of mental health and being a business owner, it’s really interesting when you have mental health experiences, to varying degrees. And then you also have everything resting on your shoulders, whether that’s because you are literally a solo business owner, or even if you’ve got a team of 50 people, it’s still all on you. It’s an awful lot when we and I know that people have been running businesses for decades, centuries. But I think that’s been the biggest challenge, because you need to build it into your business model, you need to not only have a business that functions when you’re like 10 out of 10, doing great from a physical and mental perspective. But also the way that you know what I mentioned before, “I’ll just do one more course. And then I’ll be good enough”, or the you know, having a social media presence, whether you’ve got 100 followers or 100,000 followers, people can get to you with their opinions, their reviews, rightly, you know, however accurate they may be, in a way that is that we’ve never seen before.

And it’s really, it’s sort of like, you know, we look back on particularly being from the UK, we look back on what the 90s were like for pop stars and things like that with tabloid media. And everybody watched the David Beckham documentary and saw how the tabloids absolutely ripped him to shreds, we’ve almost got this tabloid level of criticism for everyday people just trying to put food on the family’s table, and the degree to which you let that get to you. And the comparison between other people like every social media is a highlight reel, but it doesn’t stop you having a really bad day, or losing a client or getting a bad review. And then seeing just It’s as though the universe has its own algorithm and it will go, “Oh you got 1 star review I’m just gonna make sure that you’re aware that everyone else got 1 star reviews of their book. It just comes in it’s confirmation bias. We’re seeking out the evidence.

Hayley Quinn 27:53
Absolutely. You see that stuff because it fits with how you’re feeling right. Everyone else is successful. Everyone else is doing really well. I’m doing really badly, I should probably give this up and go do something else.

Emma Edwards 28:04
I think about that a lot. And I hate that I think about that a lot. But it’s just the outcome of the overwhelm. I’m just really, it’s just that feeling that we all have where we want to relieve that anxiety. So they go, Oh, I’m just gonna go back to a job. And it’s like a rash decision. And we never very rarely do we actually do it. I think it’s like a relief mechanism, in a way just to be kind of like, you can go back to a job. And then we forget all the reasons why.

Hayley Quinn 28:30
Absolutely? I mean, this is the brains way of problem solving. Right? It’s like, How can I, you know, we are 24/7 we don’t really have a default system or threat system that we can default to and all it cares about is getting safe. And it’s that thing of like, I don’t feel safe, I feel uncertain, or I feel really crappy, because I’ve had a bad review or something. How can I get safe? Oh, I’ll go back to what I know. But then when you sit and think, Well, actually, I left that because I didn’t enjoy it, or there was whatever reasons. I think in terms of taking care of our mental and physical, this is something I’m really passionate about and people I work with, in terms of how can we build thriving businesses whilst we’re thriving ourselves. And that doesn’t mean we feel great, every single day of the week, but really holding our own well being as a core component of our business.

Emma Edwards 29:22
Yeah, it’s, I think, I mentioned social media before and how it can distort the reality of people’s businesses and their finances. But it’s the same with what a thriving business looks like. We’ve sort of almost come accustomed to seeing a thriving business as loads of travel, working by a pool or carrying a Louis Vuitton bag or being on really high profile podcasts or public speaking, which is literally the number one fear and like show me somebody who is really calm and has a really calm day and gets their work done in a reasonable amount of time. It has enough money in the bank to do the things that they need to do and the things that they want to do. It’s actually it’s the same with personal lifestyle as well.

It’s actually a lot more muted as it seems, but I think it can keep us yes striving for things that we don’t necessarily want and comparing what we’ve got or where we’re at to other people, or when you say, building a business where we’re also thriving businesses thriving, where we’re also thriving, it’s the most important thing, isn’t it? Because really, you’re the best asset in the business, you’re doing.

Sadly, a lot of the time, a lot of what we’re comparing ourselves to is not other people’s external world, it’s their way of being able to express themselves confidently, it’s like, everyone looks so confident online, everyone’s so good at public speaking. That’s not because there’s something external, that’s because they are, you know, don’t get me wrong, there’s a degree of natural talent for certain people. But a lot of the time, it’s because they’re not doubting themselves, they’re not comparing with others. It’s not because they’ve got all these external things, or all these invoices being paid, it’s more of an internal thing, where there they are, well, and they’re okay.

And they can do their work better, and they can express their message better. And I think there’s a lot of people out there, and I dip in and out of being that person. I’ve been on a bit of a business journey, in the last few months, last six or seven months, where I’ve really kind of started to turn things around. But for a long time there, I was one of those people that felt like I had this really important message that I wanted to get out there. And it just felt like I was like, gagged, almost.

And I couldn’t express myself and do my work, whether that’s on social media, or in public speaking, or at running workshops, or communicating with clients or customers or whatever. I was like, Why is everybody else able to do this, and I can’t, why is everybody else getting all of this return and positive feedback and impact that I’m not getting, even though I really believe in my message, but then I go to put it out there, and it’s just not translating. And it’s because I wasn’t, I guess, in a position to do that. And you strive for all the external things, I’ll get that client, I’ll get this, I’ll just done this much. And then I’ll feel better, or I’ll do that course or whatever. But actually, you know, having a business is the greatest personal development experience you’ll ever go on. And I think when you lean into that, and go, I actually need to work on myself, the business is the business and the better I am, the better the business will be.

Hayley Quinn 32:18
Absolutely. I mean, we are our greatest asset in our business. I mean, at the end of the day, if you don’t have your health and well being you’re not showing up to run your business. So your business isn’t unless you’re going to hand it over and pay lots and lots of money for other people. And you probably won’t have lots and lots of money, because you’re going to be too ill to earning it. We need to take care of ourselves.

And, you know, when I always worked with people and say, you know, what is your definition of success? Let’s think about your definition of success. Not what we’re seeing, not like build a six, seven figure business, do this work from everywhere in the world travel every five minutes, you know, earn lots of money and work four hours a week. I mean, yeah, maybe when you’ve done a decade of building a business, and then earning enough money to pay everyone else to run it. So you can work four hours a week. But what’s your own definition of success? And how can you take care of yourself, not just you know, when you’ve finished all the stuff, but as you’re going along, so that you, you are feeling in a place where you’re aligned with what you’re trying to do in your business and what you’re trying to say, I love that you’ve been on that I say to people all the time, you know, a business being a business owner is more of a personal journey than a business journey. Oh, absolutely.

Emma Edwards 33:32
There’s it’s actually easy. Exactly. The business is a skill that can be learned and can be taught. Yeah, and you can get better at the constant evolution is you. And I mean, I can attribute I’ve worked with a business coach, and she’s more of a creativity confidence coach. And that’s what really spoke to me because I’m like, I don’t need not to toot my own horn, but I’m not looking for that kind of like, you know, scale and this much revenue, I need someone to help me as a business owner. And that’s really what I love about what you do, because it’s you’re combining your knowledge of your clinical psychology knowledge and experience and understanding with a view of business. And it’s like every business owner should have a therapist that is business informed, because it’s such a unique experience.

Hayley Quinn 34:18
I mean that that became my passion of working with people who wanted to set up businesses. And it’s like, well, let’s do it in a way that you’ve set it up from the start with your well being as a core component. You know, we need to look at business strategy, we need to look at, you know, what do you need for your business? And what software’s do you need and this, that and the other and what kind of legal documents do you need, but let’s actually add in, what do you need for yourself so that you can thrive and have a long term business that you actually love? Yeah, like I’ve been evolving my business and I love it. I look forward to doing the work that I do. You know, I don’t get the sort of Sunday dreads like a lot of Be able to or, you know, that anxiety on a Monday morning. And it is possible, it’s about the choices we make.

Emma Edwards 35:08
Definitely it is it’s possible. But it does require work. And I think that’s, you know, a lot of people escape, it’s the same kind of conversation as money, you know, people start a business or leave their job to escape the rat race to have freedom to have security. People want money to have freedom have security, but then they build themselves a nine to five, a nine to nine, or they don’t define or talk to people about like, what does money mean to you? And it’s the same with business. What does business mean to you? What do you want those things for? Because every bit every single person says freedom and security. But to one person freedom means bouncing around Southeast Asia and working on a laptop with a working holiday visa or a nomad visa to somebody else freedom means being able to have a slow morning with their baby. It’s not the same thing. And if we’re all shooting for this, you know, Google Images version of freedom and security play, we end up with somebody else’s life and then we wonder why we’re not happy

Hayley Quinn 36:07
Absolutely, I mean, that’s the premise of the work I do with people is, you know, build the business you want to be owning, don’t build somebody else’s business, and then wonder, like, what the heck yeah. And like you say, don’t leave a nine to five to create yourself another nine to five that actually doesn’t pay your superannuation doesn’t give you holiday pay, and doesn’t pay sick pay.

Emma Edwards 36:28
And the boss is horrible.

Hayley Quinn 36:30
I’m rather the best boss in the world. I think she’s great.

Emma Edwards 36:38
You have to be kind yourself.

Hayley Quinn 36:41
She’s fair, firm, but very compassionate.

Emma Edwards 36:46
And we can period leave.

Hayley Quinn 36:51
Well, I’m on the other side of that I’m postmenopausal now.

Emma Edwards 36:54
Postmenopausal leave!

Hayley Quinn 36:55
Yes, I’ll give myself anyway. Fantastic. But I’m mindful, I do want to talk, I want to ask you about your book, before we kind of run out of time. I mean, I can keep talking about this stuff forever. And thankfully, we are actually going to do a pod swap, but I’m going to we are going to be able to keep talking so people can tune into this and tune into yours. So what is it then that inspired the book? Did you always wanted to write a book? How did that come about?

Emma Edwards 37:27
Yeah, I’d always wanted to write a book in like a, you know, as do 80% of the population. And I’ve tried a book, I don’t know what about, there was like a brief time. And like 2016, when I decided I wanted to write a novel about long distance relationships that did not last very long. Novel writing is incredibly difficult.

And I don’t think that that’s my thing. But this book, look, in all honesty, I don’t know, maybe from a PR spin, I should romanticise this a little bit more. In all honesty, the way that a lot of modern publishing opportunities work is if you have a social media following that’s a warm audience, if you have a message, that’s how you’re more likely to get a book deal. So I was approached for this particular book.

And then you kind of reverse pitch it they go, you know, would you think about writing a book and you kind of go, this is what I write about. And off we go. The so yeah, I don’t want to kind of, you know, give pseudo tips on how to get a book deal, because I got a book deal through my social media following, but the book itself was its own complete learning experience. Because again, I think a lot of authors would probably say the same thing. It’s not actually the book writing itself. It’s the transformation that you have to go through in order to not only do the thing because it is a lot of work.

But to put your message out there, and this is where in this last six, seven months, I’ve really, and that’s why I hired a creativity and competence coach, because in sort of October of last year, the book was basically done. It goes to the printer, it’s a very long process before it comes out. And it was coming out in March. And apparently it’s very common, but I honestly felt like I was the only person on earth experiencing this. By the time the book was finished. I hated every word. I didn’t want anybody to see it. I would stand in the shower, just staring at the wall with just words floating through my head of everything that everybody could say was wrong with it. I was panicking that like my first reviews would be my own insecurity, like would mirror my own insecurities about the book?

And then I’d be like, Oh my God, you know, this is terrible. Everybody’s gonna hate it. Like it wasn’t that nobody would see it. Because when you have an audience, some people will see it. I would almost have rather like nobody would see it a lot of if you’re putting a book out to the world with no warm audience. You’re like, what if no one reads it? I was like, What if everyone reads? It’s awful. Nobody can read this. And I knew that I needed to turn that around because you can’t market a book unless you care about it and unless you believe in it.

Hayley Quinn 40:01
And also the suffering that you were experiencing as well. I mean, that’s painful.

Emma Edwards 40:05
Oh, it was really painful. And it really, you know, going through the book writing process that I got myself in a lot of spirals and I had to push my deadline out because I just like mentally, could not do it. The writing itself is very easy for me to write very fast. I was always that kid at school that wanted more paper in the exam, because I just can’t shut up. So writing it wasn’t difficult. The word count didn’t particularly scare me. I was like, I’ll hit 80,000 words, no problem. But it was, you know, there were logistical challenges in terms of how do you structure 80,000 words, that’s a lot, I’d gone into it. And I’m just going to start writing because that’s normally what I do. As a writer, I’ll just start writing and I’ll shape it later. But I just wasn’t prepared for how many pages and how clunky a word document with 80,000 words and track changes in it is to handle you know, you can’t?

How long does it take you to read a book 5/6/7 hours sometimes, for at the absolute least you can’t mould it in the way that you can an article or an email or a social media caption, believe it or not. So I found those logistical challenges. But the the biggest thing was I just kept coming up against this block of like, this shouldn’t you know, you don’t need to write this book. Nobody needs this. You don’t know anything. This has already been done. Who on earth for you to write this book? What’s everybody gonna think? People go, Oh, write your book for the person that needs it. I was just for so long, I was writing it for my critic, and trying to soften everything I was saying. And it was just like a protection thing, I guess. But I did like it, I was really able to, I had to do a lot of work around forgiving myself for how the book process went. Because even to this day, and again, everybody will say this, about their book. But to this day, I have things I would do differently, I have things I would add in I have things I would change. I wish I had started the serious writing bit earlier in the process, like I was about eight, it was a full year, I think from signing the contract to submitting the manuscript.

But most of the actual work happened in the last three or four months. And now having had a break from the book, or having, you know, having the book been in my life for a while and thinking of things that I wish that was in my book, especially the way I’ve the type of book I’ve written, I’ve really written a like a signature message of what I do, it’s not a lot of people go, you can put that in the second book. And I’m going well, not really, because this book is not about one specific thing, it’s really a container of all of my body of work, I won’t really get the chance to add to that in a second book without repeating myself like that’s why I want it in this book I what I wish it was in this first version of this book, and it’s good with money book. So there’s those regrets. But I had to really forgive myself for the fact that I didn’t start earlier as I kept regretting because I didn’t really have a choice over whether I started earlier, I didn’t start earlier because I couldn’t start earlier because I had tried and it wasn’t coming out. And I had to stop wanting to add things in, you know, on an intellectual level, I would love to but I had to emotionally accept what the book actually was.

And accept that even though I knew there was all this stuff that I would love to go in, it is still packaged up 80,000 words of work, a full year of back and forth editing, cover design studies that I was doing concurrently with writing the book, my own experience, like I’m vulnerable in the book at times. And that is good enough. And that will help people. And nobody’s ever going to know that such and such a framework that I thought about later on didn’t go into the book.

Hayley Quinn 43:54
Yeah, I work a lot with people about bringing compassion into their lives. You know, I work, I live my life through the lens of compassion. And I think it’s times like this, that it’s so important that we really realise that in any situation, whether it’s business, whether it’s writing a book, whether it’s life, we are doing the best we can with the skills and knowledge we have, under the circumstances we’re in at the time. And like you say you would have liked to start earlier, but you couldn’t. You couldn’t.

And we can’t change that. And I love that you got to this place of being able to be more forgiving of yourself and understanding that that’s where you’re at. And you know, will you get some reviews that aren’t great for your book? I imagine you will because everybody does right and there’s people out there that seem to love just giving negative feedback to people which is a little sad, but and I’m sure you you’re you will get amazing reviews and help so many people. And the reality is the work that you do can absolutely change the trajectory of somebody’s life in terms of their spending, which can change so much about their life, about how they feel about themselves about the problems and challenges they will or won’t face because of the decisions they make around their money. I think it’s absolutely fantastic. What would you say is like, you’ve talked a lot about the stuff you’ve learned through that, but what do you think is the key thing that you’ve learned about yourself? Through writing that book?

Emma Edwards 45:29
Oh, huge question. I think I’ve learned that I think it really taught me and pushed me to realise that I can do big things and hard things, even at the beginning of that journey with that coach that I had worked with, when I was, for all intents and purposes, fairly broken experience and terrified about it coming out. I did still have this dilemma of, well, I did it. And there were points when I really thought I actually don’t know if I can do this. And I really had to push myself through that. So I think it really taught me perseverance, and brought me back to I think my roots of being really determined. You know, I told that story before when I came to Australia. And before I even came out here, I was bashing out 20 emails a day to any copywriting marketing digital agency, I could find saying, Can I come in and work with you paid, free, whatever, I don’t care, can I come in and get experience with you? And I think through just, you know, we had COVID, and we had lockdowns. And I had a bit of a job fiasco where I was in a job that was breaking my soul every day.

And I’d gone into business, and I’d written the book. And I’ve been a bit battered about by life, I think. But I think completing that process really, kind of almost sounds a bit naff, but brought me back to myself almost like you actually can do this. You don’t have to give up on things because you can’t do them, you actually can. And if I can do that, and I don’t say if I can write a book, I can do anything because of books a book and people do much harder things. But if I can push myself through the battles, I went through writing that book, I can do anything. And you know, for anybody listening, that’s kind of like, oh, that’s a really complete sort of like turnaround.

Don’t get me wrong, I have doubts all the time. Still, it’s about it’s kind of that analogy about mental health being well doesn’t mean you’re 10 out of 10 every single day, it’s that you have more good days and bad days. And eventually they you get more and more organised and less and less bad days. And that’s kind of where it’s at. I’ve had the last few weeks really kind of rocked by business related mental health stuff, I guess, self doubt, comparisonitis. But I kind of know the process very well now. And I come out of it quite quickly. And I can you know, I’m already feeling a bit better today. I love having these conversations that really kind of peps me up. But yeah, I don’t want to I say this, because I personally found that hearing other people’s experiences of overcoming battles and self doubt, and then feeling better, it can feel like oh, well, I’m never gonna feel like that, because I feel so bad now. But it’s not, you don’t need every problem to go away to feel better. I am so much further on. But things aren’t perfect. And I don’t feel confident all the time. But gradually, you can get a bit better. So I hope that if anybody relates to that experience, whether you’re writing a book or running your business, or in a job or whatever, it can get better.

Hayley Quinn 48:33
Absolutely. And oh, it doesn’t sound nice. But you know, that reminds me of me in some ways. I did a PhD when I was a single mom. And I didn’t speak to my supervisor for a year at one point, because I didn’t want to show him, I thought was so crap.

Emma Edwards 48:48
But that’s a huge achievement, at the best of times, let alone being a single mom.

Hayley Quinn 48:52
I dropped out of school, early, I’d see myself as stupid. But I really resonate with what you’re saying. Because before, literally weeks before finishing it, I was like, I don’t need a PhD and I’m not stupid, why do I even need a PhD? And I nearly dropped out of my PhD. And then handing it in and graduating for me was this message to all these younger versions of myself that one, I’m not stupid. And two, you are capable of doing hard things. If you want something, go for it. And like you, I have my doubts about stuff. I turn things down sometimes still, because I think oh, no, I’m not quite the person for that. And then afterwards, I might think, Ah, why did I do that? I could have done that. Now, I tend to say yes, more than I would say no to stuff. Within reason. I don’t say yes to everything that comes across my bow. But I think it is those things, those experiences. We go through that really show us who we are. So we can come back to that on those days where perhaps our mind is telling us with somebody else

Emma Edwards 49:59
yeah. Oh, that’s so true. And I think it’s about having a toolkit as well, you know, I say, I still have those doubts just three days ago around a workshop. That’s about everything I know very, very well. And I feel like it went terribly. And I’m not going to toxic positivity myself and go, No, it wasn’t, it was perfect, because it wasn’t perfect. I know, it wasn’t, there were certain things I didn’t say. But you have you learn when you’re trying. And a lot of the time, you are actually serving yourself by not trying to take steps to get out of it, you’re kind of there you’re serving something, serving you by being in that kind of like, wow, mentality. But when you get a little bit of breathing space to build in those tools, you can sort of learn to gradually accept whether on a macro level, like a book, or a bad workshop, you can learn to accept the experience for what it was and see that there was value even last night, I was kind of lying there.

And I was like, oh, you know, it was bad. But I know that I gave them that really good technique that that I invented, and they won’t have heard of that before. And so that’s really good. And actually, they probably haven’t heard what I said there before. And that will be really interesting to them, even though I didn’t deliver it the way that I have in the past and a way that I wanted to. And I think you gradually learn to, I guess shift your perspective, you allow yourself to feel horrible about it at the time. And then whether it’s over a period of days, or hours or days or weeks, you can gradually accept that the work that you’re doing is all valuable, and you are valuable, and you are worthy. Even if the expression of it is not 100% bang on the way you wanted it. Because it happens to everybody. And it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t mean that you’re not improving and growing and getting better and sharing your impact.

Hayley Quinn 51:50
Yeah, I think an important piece on that as well. And is the language we use with ourselves, because you’re telling yourself you ran a bad workshop. It’s such a global thing. It was a bad workshop. And then you give examples there of things that were actually really helpful. So it’s like I ran a workshop and parts of it didn’t go as I wanted. Yeah, I perhaps didn’t present this thing the way I wanted.

Emma Edwards 52:12
Exactly. And that’s how it’s evolved.

Hayley Quinn 52:16
So we do we need to be mindful, don’t we have acknowledging how we feel and then being mindful of the language we use around that and then moving on and saying, Well, what can I learn from that, then? And how might I want to do that differently next time? Or what might I add in differently? And keep going? Because the work you’re doing needs to be out there. It’s so valuable for people…Yeah, people.

Emma Edwards 52:38
Just one last thing on that I think I’ve noticed the difference is where I would have you speak about global language. And also, I think, for me, I’ve, the real difference I’ve seen is previously when I would run something that was “bad” or I would have an experience where something didn’t go the way that I wanted it to, I would kind of box that off as that experience and then vow that everything was going to be different from then on. Whereas actually, the benefit is unpicking that experience, not not dwelling on it. But unpicking it and seeing it as part of the process. And part of being a human being. It’s so easy to be like Well, I’m not going to do that again, or this is what I need to work on, or I need to take this course and then it’ll be better.

Hayley Quinn 53:27
Oh, my goodness, we have tricky minds, right?

Emma Edwards 53:30

We really do.

Hayley Quinn 53:32

I have two more questions I want to ask you. One of them is what would be the key things for you in how you take care of yourself as a business owner.

Emma Edwards 53:46
Time management is a really big thing for me. I really like to on a Sunday or sometimes a Friday kind of depends how my week goes. Look at what’s ahead for the next week, so that I have my head around kind of what kind of week it’s going to be, you know, I do have a bit of a chill week, do I have a real hustle week? “Hustle” you know, it’s a dirty word. But sometimes you’ve got to hustle week, and then trying to kind of look a little bit ahead of myself so that I don’t have to hustle weeks back to back like knowing my own capacity.

Getting to like I said, business greatest personal development experience. You get to know yourself on such a deep level that you start to learn when you do like really, again, not boxing off your feelings and trying to change them forevermore. Leaning into your feelings and trying to spot patterns when I go into state. It’s actually exhausting. Even if it shouldn’t be, you know, you might go well, it wasn’t that exhausting.

You went to Sydney for one meeting and came back. But if you learn the pattern that you feel crap, the day after you’ve been interstate don’t then book a presentation that yeah, obviously if somebody says Can we do it on the 17th then you’re going Oh, God, I’m gonna be interstate, don’t feel like you have to say yes, go, actually no. So that’s been a big like the time management and organisation and trying to work with myself rather than against myself. And then that example kind of feeds me into the second one, I think trying to build boundaries. And this is really, really hard because especially as a female and especially as a people pleaser, and in the industry like finance, when you set boundaries, the biggest barrier I’ve come up against, aside from like, my own people pleaser tendencies, is, it’s really hard as a woman to be seen as difficult to work with. And the pull to be seen as really easy to work with is really difficult. And I found it very hard to find the line between being great to work with because especially when you’re working with maybe sponsors, or corporate clients that you’re presenting a workshop for, you want to be good to work with, it’s not about you know, you can have the best boundaries in the world.

But if people think you’re an asshole to work with, that’s not you know, for whatever reason you want to be good to work with, and you want to be responsive and take the back on board and add in the things that they want you to add in or whatever. But I found it really difficult to find the line between when am I people pleasing?

And when am I genuinely being good to work with? And also, what is that definition for this relationship, and that particularly around money, I find it very difficult to, particularly whether you’re charging for something or you’re chasing up an invoice or something, I always find that when women are seem to be in it for money, the way that is received isn’t necessarily the best. Particularly when when you’re asking for your worth, or you’re charging what you charge, women are battered down very, very easily. of, well, this is our budget, and then you go, Whoa, these are my prices, pay them or don’t.

And then suddenly, you’re difficult to work with. And it’s been having boundaries is a really big way of taking care of myself, because I found so much that through trying to be good to work with and taking on every single edit and every single piece of feedback. And working with their budget rather than mine. It might serve you in the short term, but in the long term, it just adds to resentment and it burns you out. And it’s no good.

Hayley Quinn 57:33
Narratives for around women. And I think you and I need to have another and he’s getting back on the podcast because there’s so much we could delve into around this. Yeah. Oh my gosh.

Emma Edwards 57:43
I think the biggest thing for me with those conversations is not replying. Like thinking about it before I react. Because often I’ll find that I will. My first reaction will be either Yeah, okay, I’ll do it. And I need to think about it. Or it will be. I’m not doing that. That’s ridiculous. You know, depending on what kind of mood I’m in so ridiculous.

If you’d asked me that, particularly if it’s like an edit or something. And then I need to think about it and come back to it before I respond. Because otherwise you’re not going you’re not gonna respond in the way that honours your boundaries. And yeah, boundaries can be blurry. Sometimes you kind of want to say no to absolutely everything that isn’t exactly perfect for you, is having good boundaries. I think social media fosters that thinking a lot.

Hayley Quinn 58:32
And you make a good point. Because you know, when we do respond immediately, where often, often times, depending on the mood can be from this threat based thinking. And if we slow down and we give ourselves time to respond, not react, we access our wisdom, we come from a calmer mind, we’re actually more likely to be values aligned, we’re more likely to be flexible, where it’s helpful for us to be flexible, and just make better decisions.

Right? Yeah, exactly. Completely agree. That’s such good points. These are things I teach in my course around time management, boundaries, all sorts of stuff values. Because they are so important. We really need to get to know ourselves well, so we can run our businesses in a way that that work. So my next question I asked to all my guests, and I’m always curious about the answer on this one. If you could meet your 80 year old self today, what do you think she would say to you? 80 year old self?

Emma Edwards 59:39
Well, I don’t think about I thought I usually think a lot of the time it’s like if you can meet your 18 year old self. usually think about being old. I don’t know why. I think she would say that was fun, wasn’t it?

Hayley Quinn 59:56

I love that! That’s fantastic

Emma Edwards 1:00:01
I hope anyway

Hayley Quinn 1:00:03
Brilliant. But I mean that speaks to that value for you of of life being fun for you. And I think when we can connect with that, when we make decisions in our lives, we can we can tune in and think you know, whether it’s you’re 50, or you’re younger than I am, you know whether it’s your 50 year old self, six year olds, old, 80 year old self, what would they thank you for doing today? So they’ve lived a good life. Yeah. Having fun? Yeah. Oh, Emma, it’s been an absolute pleasure chatting, I could keep chatting all day with you. I’ll put things in the show notes where people can find you. But where’s the number one best place if they want to kind of jump on and follow you?

Emma Edwards 1:00:42
I’m on Instagram far too much. So you’ll probably find me there. You trying to put my phone down and read a book, but scrolling anyway, so I’ve got broke generation on Instagram. And also my book is called good with money. It’s bright yellow with pink text. You can’t miss it. It’s in all major retailers, and many independents as well.

Hayley Quinn 1:01:01
I will put a link to that as well, in the show notes. Thank you again so much for joining me today. It’s been an absolute pleasure. And I just know that people are gonna get a lot out of the wisdom that you’ve shared.

Emma Edwards 1:01:12
Thanks, Haley. It’s been so great to chat. I’m so glad we’re doing another episode on my show.

Hayley Quinn 1:01:17
I’ll see you on yours.

Thank you for sharing this time with me today. I hope our time together has been helpful and supportive. If there has been something in this episode that you have found helpful, I invite you to share it with another person you think might benefit. If you’ve benefited in any way from the podcast, please do me a favour and share my pod some love by giving it a five star rating and review. Ratings reviews and shares really helped to increase awareness and reach of the podcast, allowing this helpful information to be spread more widely.

All Reviews are welcome and much appreciated. And if you do share on socials, remember to tag me so I can see who’s listening because you never really know overhearing podcast. And I can reach out personally to say thank you. If you’d like to be notified when the next episode airs, please use the link in the show notes to join our mailing list. If you have any particular topics you’d like to learn more about, or guest you’d like to hear from, please reach out and let me know. I’d love to hear from you. Music and editing by Nyssa Ray. Thanks Nyssa.

I wish you all well in your relationship with yourself and your business.

May you go well and go gently. And remember, if you thrive, your business will too

Emma Edwards’ Links

Website: https://thebrokegeneration.com/?v=518f4a738816

Instagram: https://instagram.com/the.brokegeneration

TikTok: @the.brokegeneration

Order Good with Money https://amzn.to/4b3RFmP

Links to Dr Hayley D Quinn Resources

Website https://drhayleydquinn.com

Link to podcast mailing list: https://bit.ly/WelcomeToSelfPodcast

Group Coaching Waitlist: https://drhayleydquinn.myflodesk.com/timetothrivewaitlist

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drhayleydquinn