Unlocking Women's Financial Potential

What a powerful conversation we just had with Sarah Walton. You are gonna absolutely love it too. Sarah is a a business coach and sales expert who's been featured on the Today Show. She's known for helping women start and grow businesses that they love. She works with select one on one clients, runs the sales mastermind, and leads the Abundance Academy as host of Game On Girlfriend podcast, which was awesome and I got to be on it.

The creator of Sarah Uncuts on YouTube. She delivers no nonsense coaching and real life abundance strategies. You can see why she's right up our alley. From growing up low low income and to empowering women to turn passion into profit, Sarah's mission is clear. Put more money in the hands of more women.

I love it. She is committed to changing lives, families, and communities one business at a time. Here's Sarah Walt. Hello, and welcome to the Power of Your Life podcast powered by GoFund and Swim In. I'm Mandy McAllister.

And I'm Kelly Resendez.

And we have a guest that I'm super excited for today, my new friend, Sarah Walton. Sarah, hi. How are you? I'm awesome, Mandy. How are you today? Thanks so much for having me on. Just living my best life. You know?

Her podcast, Game On Girlfriend, she's just gonna feel like your girlfriend by the end of it, I'm sure. So, you know, tell us a little bit about your journey, your story, what you're up to.

Yeah. I mean, look. My whole my whole goal in life is to put more money in the hands of more women. That I consider that kind of a personal goal. Women are so good with money. We're so good with money, and we're such naturals at business. It's just extraordinary.

And so my my job on planet Earth is to help as many women as I possibly can understand what their unique combination of expertise, experience, and talents is so that they can deliver that to the world. Because I happen to believe that, you know, we're not here with these gifts, talents, and expertise so that we can hate our day job.

That's not what we're here to do. Yeah. Oh, I love it. Spoiler alert. I I love everything about it, and it's very much what we stand for in this idea of abundance, and there's so much to go around.

And, you know, there is a wealth transfer, of trillions of dollars that dollars will be coming into women's hands, and there's a ton of data that we're great at handling money and that everything becomes better in terms of decisions when more women have more money.

So, you know, tell me tell me a little bit about what the day to day steps look like in terms of if I'm a a woman who is not yet dealing with my money. What are the first things that you're gonna tell this woman to do?

It's kind of like Weight Watchers. Terrible analogy. I know. But you gotta know what you're doing. Right? Like, the first thing they'll do is, like, can you attract what you're doing? So that is just the first thing I think so often.

I mean, look, money is the most powerful tool we have access to. We touch it every single day, and nobody talks about it. Right? So I think one of the first things we have to do is understand how we're currently using it and to do that without shame or judgment, but just to gain information, just to understand.

And I think so much of it we do on impulse. So much of our purchases, every single purchase we make is emotional. Regardless of what anyone tells you, we're always an emotion there. And I think we can build up kind of a residue on top of the clarity that's actually there.

And so what I love to do is just gather information about how the tool is currently being used in your own life so that you can then kinda clean off any residue that's hanging out probably from other people's beliefs, other things you've heard, examples you've seen, lies you've been told through media, all those things that we can sort of wrap our hands around, get some data, and then start to change what we're seeing.

Oh my gosh. That's so great. Well, I'm I'm hoping maybe through this, you can tell me how not to get emotional when I'm scrolling social media and accidentally buy a pair of expensive shoes.

What is that? Yeah. I know. No. It's like know what I love. I know. I know. And those algorithms are just they're brilliant, aren't they? They'll just put it right in front of your face. Right. Or Or your face. Completely. Yeah.

And I think one of the most important things I tell people is create a splurge budget every month. So whatever that is for you, like, once we get data and we understand what you have, there's a pocket of money you can just blow on whatever you wanna blow on. Like, oh my god. And then what's so great about that is if you blow it on one pair of shoes, good on you. Good for you. Hooray. Yeah. This second pair of shoes comes in that month. You're like, oh, maybe next month. Yeah.

But you don't feel, like, deprived or stupid or like, oh, I shouldn't be doing this or why did they get me over to like, all that goes away because now you're in control. Yeah. Mhmm. And that's the biggest paradigm shift. Right? It's like, oh, money doesn't control me. I control the money.

Even if it's a bill that comes in, you generated the bill. Right? Like, oh my god. You're using the Internet. You're using the electricity. You're using your phone. And if it's a bill that you've generated that you didn't actually need, we can just not generate that anymore. It's like, really it's like, oh, I can do that. And without shame or judgement.

Yeah. Yes. I love the idea of having the splurge budget because women don't celebrate in big ways. I I know that when I go into builder mode, I don't ever spend any fun money. So if I've got that preexisting budget to go do something fun with it, then I'm gonna cause myself to have to do it. So, Kel, back to you.

Yeah. You know, in my abundance formula, I do 10% tiding and 10% fun and adventure and splurge. And I and I make it a point, and there's been some years where I'm like, oh my gosh. How am I gonna spend this amount? Somehow I found a way, but it's been a formula that's worked really well for me.

So that wasn't actually my question. But I'm gonna dig into another one super quick since, you know, a lot of women when you think about money, you know, you think about what happened when we were children. Right? What would you say are some of the biggest ahas that somebody can glean from the way that they were raised and how it translates into their adult relationship with money?

Oh, I just got chills. I mean, especially as women, most of it. I think the most important thing when we look at childhood around money is to look at the unspoken family rules. And the reason that's where the biggest are is because it's rarely that someone said, having money is bad. Every once in a while, we get, like, if you're rich, you must have stolen it. Once in a while, you'll get that sort of outward verbal thing.

Mhmm. But most of the time, it's subtle. It was an eye roll. It was a, like, rent Rick oh, rich uncle Jack. You know what I mean? Like, there he goes again. Like, you'll hear something like that, but it wasn't specifically said to you that wealthy people are lazy. Or if you're rich, it means you're actually a cheater. Whatever those are, those unspoken family rules, there is so much power in knowing what the unspoken family rules were and then noticing how much you are holding them as true.

Right? You're, like, actually reinforcing those rules as real in your own life, and no one ever told you to do that. Right. No one ever sat you down and said, listen, here's the deal. But you pick it up. You know, we pick up so much as children, you know, did dad have the money and mom got yelled at for spending money. Did mom sneak money?

I will never forget my grandmother constantly hiding clothes in the closet so my grandfather wouldn't find out. I mean, that was, like, one of my first memories of her running upstairs with the bag, hoping to God he didn't see. And I was like, okay. So women hide money, and men are always mad about money. Got it. Right? And, like, no one said that, but we pick that stuff up.

And if you actually can get it out of your head and onto paper or verbalize it, it instantly starts to lose power. It's actually quite fast how quickly things start to shift once you understand there were things you picked up, no one laid down.

Oh, yes. The the you gotta put more truth to the problem. That's a thing that I say a lot. And the undefined rule, gosh. That's brilliant. So I you are an expert in sales. You are an expert in helping women scale businesses that they love. So I there's got to be a pattern in all of these women that you've worked with. Tell me some things, like, the most common thing where women get in their way in terms of sales or hitting some sort of a ceiling in their business. Are there some patterns that we can look out for and actionable ways around it?

Yes. Oh, gosh. What a good question. Oh my god. Okay. So first of all, let me say in business, there are some

really specific thresholds because I wanna kind of lift the mystery out of the way because business coaches, we have a really bad name. I'm so sorry for all the entrepreneur porn that's out there. I personally apologize for that. I am so sorry.

So here's what I want you to know is there are some true thresholds. So you'll see a lot of us, myself included, talk about your first six figure year. Now a lot of people have screwed that up and said, make your first six figures. It's like, let's talk about the business and what the business is generating in a year. And that's really the way I like to look at a business, and I can tell how much someone has personally grown based on where the business is getting. Right?

So that first 6 figure year, there's a mindset shift, and it's usually around abundance. To take that 6 figure year and turn it into a half 1,000,000, that's a different mindset leap. Right? And then from half 1,000,000 to 800,000, it's so funny that it's 800, not $7.50, but it's 800,000. There's another mindset shift, and then the final big push before you go from 1,000,000 to 10,000,000 is the push between 800,000 to 1,000,000 in top lane revenue.

I'm not saying you're pocketing that every day, but I'm saying is running a business. Those are where a lot of the mindset issues come up, and they start and are all founded on abundance, which is why I love you guys. Right? And then it's built on freedom. And then from there comes the lack of fear. This idea that you don't have to burn it all down and work as hard as you did in the beginning in order to scale. And then from there, it's about your own lifestyle and your legacy.

And they're all different focuses, so people can kinda get wonky around that, and they're like, why can't I hit this? Why can't I get past this? Why am I stuck at 300,000? Those are real things that are happening to you, and just know that's normal. So I just wanted to put that out there as, like, kind of a a broad stroke. So because a lot of people are like, there's something wrong with me. I'm broken. No. No. We just as humans have certain moments where we have to flip our mindsets. It's totally normal. You're right on track.

And then the other thing you would say around sales, it's so interesting. And to hit these new milestones, right, is there is always another layer of, I don't want to bother people. And switching that from, I don't wanna bother people to I'm helping. It's like the biggest mindset shift ever.

It's like, let's go back to Instagram. Right? Let's talk about this, Kelly. Right? The shoes. So let's say you're actually so you've got a wedding coming up or some awesome event, and you're actively looking for shoes. It's so helpful when you're getting thrown a lot of shoes, and we're all gonna see shoes in our advertising later today. You know how your hats and glasses doable. But, you know, like, that's helpful. Like how helpful is it? Honestly, when your doctor is like, Hey, it's time for your checkup. I haven't seen this. It's actually helpful. We're all busy. We're running around in 59,000,000 things. That's an important thing for us to do. It's helpful. Right?

If I've somebody runs into me and they're like, I cannot hit that first a $100,000 year and they see something I say, that's helpful. That's not annoying. I didn't interrupt their day to do it. I wasn't like, Hey, stop everything and listen to me for three hours. That's annoying. Right? But if it's like, oh my god. This one little thing might help you pop something today, that's amazing.

Yeah. So if we can flip our mindset from I'm bothering people, I don't wanna be salesy, to don't be salesy. Just help people. Yeah. That's literally I know that sounds like obnoxiously simple, but it really is like, trust yourself. Don't be salesy. If you don't wanna be salesy, don't be salesy, but go help people. Right. You wouldn't want to be the doctor who walks by someone bleeding out and go, well, I didn't want to be salesy. It's like, no, you stop and you help. Oh my God. That's what you're here to do.

Right. And so it was just sort of that understanding like, oh, right. I do have these gifts, these talents, these expertise so I can support other people. Like, oh my gosh. Let me not get in the way of offering that to people. And that switch is almost sweet. It's almost kind. It's loving. It's generous.

And when we get to the truth of it, that it's not a tactic, it's not a trick to get your head on straight, it's like the truth. Wow. Do people shift when they actually really feel that when they embody that change Right. And become who they're here to be. Boy, does everything start to change.

I love it. And you're way nicer than me because this is how I feel. Like, you are a badass, and it is your responsibility. Like, we weren't all raised the way that we were. We didn't all have these gifts, and there are women out there that feel like they're not enough. And there are women out there that haven't actualized their potential. And if you have these gifts, like, we are responsible for sharing.

Mhmm. And so there's so many of these subtle shifts that we can make to really get there. So, you know, I'm sure there's been a point, Sarah, in your business journey and and also in helping others where you just felt like giving up or feeling stuck. Like, what are some of the actionable steps that you take yourself through when you're like, I just wanna go, you know, like, check out, like, this is too much as an entrepreneur, whatever that might be. What what are some of those things for you?

Oh my goodness. There's so many, and there it's it is let me just be straight with people. I'm always honest about this.

It's so often that you're like, I'm gonna go work at Starbucks. I don't even know what the hell I was thinking. Right? Like, it it doesn't even matter how successful the business is. You're like, I'm an idiot. I don't know why I thought I could do this. Like, I just wanna normalize that for people because Yeah. Our brains just say things to us as long as your ego. Right? They're not real. Like, you're gonna hear that. That doesn't mean you have to pay attention to it.

So just to normalize, that voice is gonna hang out all the time. And that tiny step alone of going, oh, it's doing that thing. It's running that record. It's not even you. It's just it. And the reason we all know what it says is because we all have the same one. Like, I just I really wanna normalize that for people. So that's step one.

And then step two is to really separate yourself from your business. And what I mean by that is if let's say you were working at Macy's, okay, and you're like, you're in charge of selling a pink lipstick. I I'm totally making this up. Right? Like, you're in charge of selling that pink lipstick. You come up with a campaign, right, and it doesn't do as well as you thought. Like, maybe you thought there would be a 50% conversion rate on the sales page, and there's only a 30% conversion rate on the sales page.

Well, you wouldn't cry. You wouldn't freak out. You'd go into work that day. You'd pull your team together and be like, listen. I'm seeing this. What can we try? What's worked in the past? What hasn't worked in the past? What's shifted in the market? And you start to study it, and you just look at it, but you don't take it personally. Right. Right? You just do it. You're like, oh, these are numbers. I can I can play with these numbers? I can figure out what's going on here, and you have that power when you're in a corporate job.

You go at it that way. Yeah. You might be like, flip. I really thought this one was gonna work. You might get frustrated. You might be annoyed, but you don't take it personally. Right. You're not like, oh my god. I should quit. I'm a dumbass. I don't know what I was thinking. You get back in there and look at what you need. You pull in the right people. You talk to other people. You talk to your colleagues. And you're like, what did you guys do about that mascara? Well, we tried that. Like, you get in there and you just figure it out.

And I think when we really understand that confidence is just believing you can figure it out Yeah. Like, that's really all it is. Right? You're super confident when you walk in a room and be like, I'm gonna figure out how to talk to every one of these people. Right? And you're like, I can do this. Right? That's confidence.

And so Mhmm. whatever we can do to tap back into the truth, again, not fluffy, not like I love woo woo. I'm as woo woo as you can get, but that's not where this lies. This is in truth. This is in foundation. And so when we can come at a moment like that and really say, okay. How many times have I figured something out like this before? And if I haven't figured this specific problem out before, who has? Yes.

Because out of 7,000,000,000 people on the planet, you're not the only one going through what you're going through. I hate to break it for all of us. We're not that dang special. Right? So someone out there has figured it out. And with our weapons of mass distraction that we all carry in our hands all the time, you can find them. You can find them.

Right? And exactly what we do at GoBundance Women. Right? This making a community of people who have done the thing that you are running after doing because if you can see it, you can be it.

And I I I used to be in medical device sales, and what I would always say, I would get to train new sales reps. And in this world of sales, like, the I would always say the person with the figure it out gene is the one who's going to, you know, succeed in really big ways. So that's exactly what you're saying.

And, again, putting truth to the problem. You know, if you can't detach your self worth from whatever the problem is at your work and and when it's your baby, then it's really hard to detach yourself. But, again, we're putting truth to the problem. And when I feel that way, when I feel like, oh my god. I'm done. Why did I do this and sign up to run this business on my own? Well, the I put truth to the problem with numbers because there's nothing more truthful than the numbers, and that really helps me detach my brain from that ownership.

Gosh. I love that advice. In the world of entrepreneurs, we're unconventional. We're very unconventional thinkers in general. Right? Like, to to zig when everybody else is zagging. I'm I'm curious in terms of your success and, again, the the women that you help, what is an unconventional strategy that most people would say, gosh, girl, you're crazy, but you know to be true.

Oh, boy. I hate to say this out loud sometimes when people go, oh, come on. But it is do what's fun. And hold on. I don't mean go get frozen yogurt when you're supposed to be writing a marketing campaign. That's not what I'm saying. What I mean is when you're in your business and it starts to feel crunchy or it starts to feel heavy, or it feels like things aren't going the way you want them to one trust yourself, you're gonna figure it out. So that sort of alleviates the pressure. You can kind of drop your shoulders and come back in.

And then the next question to ask yourself, I swear to God is what would be really fun to do with this? And when you get in there and you're like, oh my God, what if I sent everybody who signed up a necklace And then they can touch it every time. I just made that up. That's a pretty good idea. Anyway and then they can touch it every time they're feeling x y z. Right? Like, what else does somebody need, you know, when I give them a meditation? Well, maybe they do need a stone. I'm making all this up as I go along. What happens when somebody buys me my book? Maybe I can give them a little ticket in the back, and they know that's their ticket to freedom, and they can put it on their deck. Like, what would be fun?

And when you lean into that, you know you're on the right path. Because when we are tapped into our gifts, our talents, and our expertise, there is that fun. It doesn't mean we don't have to do tasky tasks, like writing the dang email or planning out the thing. We do have to do that. But when it's fun, when it's like, oh my God, I can't wait for them to see this. When you're in that energy, you know, you're on the right track.

And when it's like trying to push water uphill, you just need to pivot slightly. It doesn't mean you throw the whole thing out and quit. It means, alright. Okay. What can I do with this water I'm pushing uphill that would be fun? How do I turn this into a watercolor instead of me getting dirty? Like, what can I do here to make this fun?

And it is unconventional, but every single time I do this with someone, it doesn't matter if they're in tears. Like let's say they just did a huge campaign and it bombed, or let's say they thought this one thing was going to be hugely successful. It was moderately successful. Pick a thing. Doesn't matter. What would be fun to do right now in the business? What would be fun right now? And every single time they have not only a breakthrough idea, they have a breakthrough and how they've gone through life. That's held them back. It's wild. And it is so beautiful to watch and it's so simple.

And I think when we said at the very beginning, like women are so effing good at business, this is why. Yeah. Because we don't just fall into the numbers and become soulless and become robots who just do the thing. It's we keep putting our energy into whatever it is we're doing. And I always tell people, business success is 20% strategy, 80% mindset. We all know that's true. Right? You can take any strategy from whatever coach who's making a million dollars on the beach every twenty minutes or whatever the hell I somebody's claiming now. Right? If you can take that strategy that worked for them with a bad attitude, it's not gonna work. I don't care what you do. Right? So that mindset is so important.

But the reason somebody says yes, the reason a business succeeds when I was helping startups get venture capital in New York City in my twenties, I would watch these venture capitalists, and 90% of the time, they were banking on someone's energy. Will they get up and keep going when it's hard? Will they do what's fun? Will they stay engaged? Will they kick in that grit when everybody else would quit? And that's what they were signing those checks for. And that goes from hundreds of millions of dollars down to 25¢. It doesn't matter. We put our energy into where the energy feels good.

So if you really learn to manage your own energy and stay in the fun, you really can trust yourself to take the nest the next best step, and then the next best step, and then the next best step, not with magical thinking, right, but with that combination of confidence strategy and really solid energy.

Oh, so good. So good. I wish we could stay here all day and talk about these things because they're so great. There are so many things that you said today that really hit home for me. One of them was the the mass mass distraction. The weapon of mass distraction? Yes. Oh my gosh.

Because I think all of us, you know, we we have to learn how to be focused. But like you said, we also need to leave that space for the fun and creativity, and I believe that is our superpower. And in business, as I witness women that are in leadership roles and and and, you know, female founders and whatnot, it is really their ability to stay in their feminine that that has gotten them to the next level rather than just being in the doing world that we've been led to believe is what creates success.

And then the the next thing is just that you have to be intentional about your mindset and understand, you know, that it is going to make a big impact on how you navigate life. Mandy, what were your big highlights?

Wrote down two big things with stars, Sarah. One, I'm gonna be thinking through more what my unspoken family rules were. Like, what were the things that might be hitting an upper upper limit for my own stuff and for for the people that I get to help that were unspoken family rules. Also, do what's fun now. Like, whatever thing is fun for me, it's probably gonna be fun for other people and is gonna attract the right energy. So I'm going to use that question in a big way.

One thing that we fully believe, that that women maybe don't make as much money as our male counterparts because we don't have an ask ready. Right? So we want to make it very clear and say out to every one of our listeners, and Kelly and I both here, we wanna know how we can serve you. What is a resource or an introduction? What is something that would help you get to the next level in what you're doing?

My goodness. You know what? More women like us. Honestly, that would be an amazing amazing introduction is just I think anytime I really believe in rising tide lifts all boats. Right? Yes.

But anytime that I can be introduced to to another woman who's got beautiful souls around her who are like, I've hit a plateau, and I don't know why those are my people, and I'm here to serve them in any single way that I can.

So anyone who knows those women, who wants me around those women, come invite me in. That's that to me is, like, the biggest, most beautiful, delicious step I get to take every day.

I love it. We are, you know, we are curating live events. We've gotta get you to one of these, and I will make sure that I introduce you to a bunch of these badass women in our community for your podcast. So I could not be more excited to have had you here and your energy and your gift. So thank you so much for joining us on the Power Up Your Life podcast powered by Go Budden and Swimming.

If you are someone who is powering up your business and you need resources and places to turn to make that happen, make sure you check out Power Up Your Life now where Kelly and I have curated a bunch of, people that we've worked with to power up our businesses. So if you know someone who needs the stuff that Sarah is all about, make sure you are sharing this episode. Make sure you give us a five star a five star review because it really helps us get into to the right, pockets of the right people.

So for now, signing off from Power Up Your Life, I'm Mandy McAllister. For my partner, Kelly Resendez, thank you for joining us, Sarah. Thank you, Sarah. Advice. Thank you so much. It's a joy.