[00:00:00] Katy Ripp: Hey ladies and Brent and my dad, probably welcome back to hashtag. Actually, I can. I am Katay Ripp your host and we are talking about the Women’s Playbook. This is a series where we stop following the rules that were written for somebody else’s game and we start writing the new ones for ourselves. So far, we’ve tackled the grind or die rule.

[00:00:24] Katy Ripp: You know, the one that tells us to hustle harder and sleep less, and somehow we’re burnout as a badge of honor. That’s not what we’re doing anymore. And we’ve also talked about the play small rule, which tells us to shrink back, stay likable, and never outshine anyone. One.

[00:00:40] Katy Ripp: Today I wanna talk about another role that is so deeply baked into our culture, especially for women. That half the time we don’t even notice we’re following it. And that’s the don’t talk about money rule. So here’s how this usually sounds for us. We don’t brag about what we make. We don’t ask for too much.

[00:01:00] Katy Ripp: We don’t admit when we’re struggling and we don’t ever, ever talk about debt money. We’re told, and we’ve been told this for decades, is private. Polite people don’t talk about it. Ambitious women who want too much. Well, they’re greedy. And women who get themselves into debt, they’re irresponsible, lazy, careless, bad with money, bad people, no matter what,

[00:01:26] Katy Ripp: they’re irresponsible, lazy, careless, bad with money or bad people even like it makes you a bad person to be in debt. And for a long time, I totally lived under this role. Honestly, it defined way too much of how I saw myself. But in my mid forties, well early forties, I decided. In my early forties, around the same time that I got sober, I decided I was done being silent about money.

[00:01:54] Katy Ripp: I was done carrying shame pretty much around anything but especially money. I was carrying a ton of shame around money from decades ago, and I realized that money conversations aren’t just like practical. Aren’t just practical, they are the ultimate form of self care. And my sister actually was the one that really helped me see that.

[00:02:16] Katy Ripp: So today we’re gonna share. So today I’m gonna share my own money story with you, and then we’ll unpack why this old rule is so toxic and how we can replace it with the new one. And that new rule is claim your worth out loud.

[00:02:29] Katy Ripp: So I will talk about myself. ’cause you know, I love to hear myself talk. I, my dad is a financial planner and so is my brother now. So I grew up with a financial planner, entrepreneur as a dad, which meant money was always part of the conversation, but in a very particular way. The biggest message I absorbed was that debt was bad.

[00:02:50] Katy Ripp: And not just bad, it was morally bad. If you had debt, it wasn’t just about numbers on a page, it said something about you. It meant you were irresponsible or undisciplined. And to me, and what I heard was that I was a bad person if I was in debt. And when you grow up hearing that, it’s not just about dollars and cents, it seeps into your identity.

[00:03:12] Katy Ripp: And debt became this huge, big, scary thing that wasn’t just a financial status, it was actually a character flaw. And so of course, what did I do? Well, if you know me, you know that I like to, well, if you know me, you know that if you tell me to, well, if you know me, you know that if you tell me something is forbidden, I’m probably going to poke at it.

[00:03:35] Katy Ripp: And that’s exactly what I did. I went out and got myself into debt and not just the kind of people sometimes consider accept not just the kind of. Debt that people sometimes consider acceptable, like mortgages or student loan, or student loans.

[00:03:51] Katy Ripp: I went for the kind, my upbringing was the absolute worst, like credit cards, consumer debt, the kind that came with most, the most shame attached. Nope. I went for the kind, my upbringing said was the absolute worst credit card debt and in my early twenties. The credit card debt was actually all the things that you think you put on credit cards, right?

[00:04:14] Katy Ripp: Like new TVs and clothes and things that you can’t afford, but you do anyway, or gas when you don’t have enough money in your checking account. Those are the kinds of things that I put on credit cards, and here’s the thing. Once you’ve been taught that debt makes you a bad person, curing that around makes it feel totally unbearable.

[00:04:34] Katy Ripp: I actually can compare this a lot to my drinking habits. There was so much shame around it. It was such a secret underneath the bed. I think people knew, or some people knew that were close to me, but nobody ever said anything. So it was like this like dirty little secret that I carried around. I didn’t wanna look at bills, I didn’t wanna open statements.

[00:04:57] Katy Ripp: I avoided the numbers because I thought if I looked at them, maybe they wouldn’t exist. Right? We bury our head in the sand. This is a very common trait, and this was, you know, back in my twenties, maybe early thirties, and I’m not the only, so many women bury their heads in the sand when they feel something super uncomfortable.

[00:05:22] Katy Ripp: It’s a defense mechanism if I don’t acknowledge it, maybe it won’t hurt as much, or maybe I won’t feel as shameful if I don’t have to look at the actual numbers. And honestly, for women in relationships, it’s even easier to hand it off if you’ve got a man in your life or a woman in your life who handles the finances and you’ve kind of been put into those roles over the years, especially if you’ve been married a while, somebody usually takes on that role.

[00:05:49] Katy Ripp: You can really just tell yourself, well, that’s one less thing on my plate. He’s got it. And that’s what a lot of us do. I mean, who doesn’t wanna take that shit off our plate? Yes, please. But here’s what I would argue now with the clarity of hindsight. Of course, hindsight is always 2020. Understanding and owning your finances is literally the ultimate form of self-care.

[00:06:11] Katy Ripp: It’s not optional, it’s not extra credit. It’s the foundation because when you don’t, you give away one of the most powerful levers of control in your life. For me, the turning point came in my forties and when I got sober, that’s when I decided that my debt. That shame. I had already sort of conquered the shame of my drinking, and that debt was the next thing for me, and it just wasn’t gonna define me anymore.

[00:06:38] Katy Ripp: I was sick of hiding. I was sick of living. I was sick of living under this story that said I was bad, and I finally decided to face it. And in my world, it was really telling my sister that things were not great. And her really just being there for me. She didn’t try to fix it. She didn’t try to do anything.

[00:07:01] Katy Ripp: I mean, she did try to fix it actually, but I didn’t allow her to fix it. I just really needed a sounding board and somebody that wasn’t gonna be judgmental. And she ended up being my hero in that. And when I started talking about it out loud, it sort of lost its power. No different than my sobriety. When I sort of said, wow, I think I have a problem.

[00:07:21] Katy Ripp: And it became public. Uh, I mean, as public as things can be, when I really took it out from underneath the bed and looked at it, played with it, felt it did all the things it needed to be.

[00:07:37] Katy Ripp: Paid attention to it. That’s really when the power just came off of it. It wasn’t this monster under the bed anymore, it was just a number and numbers can change. That was the moment I stopped letting shame call the shots, and I started writing that new rule for myself. Now, do I go backwards sometimes?

[00:07:55] Katy Ripp: Yes, I absolutely do. This summer was super busy and I usually have a really great ritual of money Mondays and finance Fridays, and I set a timer for 10 minutes and I do my books and that allows me to pay attention to everything. This summer got crazy. I didn’t do it very well, and then things can sort of snowball into a place where I haven’t looked at it for a while and it makes me really nervous to look at it again, so I just sort of ignore it.

[00:08:20] Katy Ripp: And then I started skipping Mondays and Fridays, so I had to make a conscious effort to go back and do it again.

[00:08:27] Katy Ripp: So once you think you have these things licked, right, they show up again and you have to really make an effort to do it the other way. Again,

[00:08:35] Katy Ripp: these things can be slippery. We can get back into habits that. Allowed us to be there in the first place, and so really trying to recognize it and get back into a place of self-care and paying attention to our finances, it doesn’t mean we’re perfect. I’m not perfect at this either. I just know that it’s really important to me now, it’s one of my values, and I want to make sure that I’m doing those things on a regular basis.

[00:09:05] Katy Ripp: When I slip, I try to get back on the horse as soon as possible.

[00:09:09] Katy Ripp: Now let’s talk about the sneaky ways that this don’t talk about. Money Rule shows up in our lives because it’s not always so obvious sometimes it sounds like. Well, I don’t need to make that much money. I’m sure that we’ve all said this, especially if you’re in business or you’re thinking about starting a business, we call those businesses side hustles, or we call them my little business.

[00:09:32] Katy Ripp: The language is so important here, and when we tell the universe that we don’t need to make that much money. Right, like I only need to make 50,000, or I only need to make 25,000, or I’m just trying to cover the groceries. Guess what the universe hears. That’s exactly what she hears, and that’s exactly what she gives you.

[00:09:51] Katy Ripp: So language is super important. I don’t need to make that much. Money is actually a command to the universe, so please be mindful of your language. I just wanna be comfortable, but we never actually define what comfortable means. So I hear a lot of times from female entrepreneurs, from women in business, I wanna make six figures.

[00:10:16] Katy Ripp: So do you know how much space there is between a hundred thousand dollars and $999,000? I mean, aside from the actual numbers, but. Oh, they’re both six figures, but they are two very, very, very different lifestyles. If you’re talking about making a hundred thousand dollars a year or close to a million dollars a year, those are two very different things.

[00:10:42] Katy Ripp: But when you say six figures, the universe doesn’t really know what that means. So we wanna make sure that we are defining those things. So I just wanna be comfortable. What does comfortable mean? Like you never wanna worry about money anymore. Okay, that’s fine. But what number is that? Is there a number attached to that comfort level, which brings me into the next thing.

[00:11:04] Katy Ripp: I don’t wanna worry about money, but then we never create systems that would actually give us the peace of mind. So think back to the last time you had peace of mind around money. Did you have a certain amount in your bank account? Did you have a certain level of debt that you felt comfortable with? Did you pay something off?

[00:11:23] Katy Ripp: Those are the questions that we really need to find. When was the last time, and if you’ve never felt comfortable around money, we need to find the actual threshold that does feel comfortable and strive for it. If you get there and you realize, Ooh, this isn’t actually that comfortable, I would really like more, yes, then we need, but you need to start somewhere.

[00:11:44] Katy Ripp: We have to start somewhere to see if we can find the peace in that. So if you’re a coach or a service provider or you have something attached to yourself, like a hourly rate or a product or a service that you provide, saying your rate, and then immediately discounting it before the client even responds.

[00:12:03] Katy Ripp: I have been guilty of this, many people have been guilty of this. So saying, you’re right, and then. Immediately discounting it. Stop the second part. So just say your rate. This is something we have to get comfortable with. It’s something that we have to practice. Maybe you do it one out of 10 times and you realize, oh, this actually works.

[00:12:25] Katy Ripp: They didn’t. They weren’t looking for a discount. Also, we can stay really quiet when we’re underpaid because you don’t wanna be seen as difficult. So this is one of the things that is really difficult for a lot of service providers. So for instance, maybe you have a cancellation rate that you charge, or maybe you have an upfront deposit that you’re charging.

[00:12:52] Katy Ripp: If we don’t ask for those things and we don’t. Follow through what it mean, what it’s telling the client is that it’s not important to us, so we need to stop being quiet about it. If we’re going to have those things in place, then we need to follow through and be consistent on them. And one of the questions is, do you need to have that particular thing in place?

[00:13:18] Katy Ripp: Do you need a 50% deposit upfront if you don’t need it? And you don’t wanna chase people down for it, then don’t have it. There’s no rule out there that says you have to have it. On the other hand, if you do have a deposit, you don’t start the work until you get the deposit. You don’t let things go. You just say, I need, I need to get the deposit first.

[00:13:38] Katy Ripp: I need to buy product or other services for your product, for the client’s experience, I need to have that upfront period. That’s just how it works. People are pretty accustomed to that. And one of the other ways that this don’t talk about money rule shows up is avoiding money conversations with our partners or our staff or friends.

[00:14:03] Katy Ripp: Even though those conversations could really change everything, hiding behind spreadsheets or hiding behind finances or hiding behind partners that do it, those are the things that get real that can end up creating resentment. And secrets, and we don’t want that. So those are some of the ways that the rule shows up.

[00:14:27] Katy Ripp: There are many ways, and we tell ourselves that money doesn’t matter, but secretly we’re obsessing about it. At night, we pretend everything is fine, but deep down we’re worried. And that silence, it doesn’t protect us. It just keeps us stuck in a cycle. So let’s get out of that. We’re gonna dismantle this rule and talk about why this rule doesn’t work for us, why we’re rewriting this playbook.

[00:14:52] Katy Ripp: Because money isn’t just math, money is energy, it’s options, it’s security. It’s a tool. When we stay silent about money, we keep ourselves in cycles of undercharging and overworking. We end up resenting the businesses we’ve built because they don’t actually support us. Have you heard the phrase, I just bought myself a job.

[00:15:15] Katy Ripp: Some of us buy ourselves super expensive jobs, right? We have a ton of expenses coming out of our ears. We’re doing all the things and not getting any reward for it. That’s buying yourself a job. That’s not entrepreneurship. And when we stay silent about money, we keep ourselves in cycles. And this just isn’t about us as individuals.

[00:15:39] Katy Ripp: This is systemic. When women don’t talk about money, we don’t build wealth. We don’t pass it down. We don’t invest in our communities the way we could, and that’s exactly how the system keeps us dependent. I heard somewhere along the way in my lifetime that it is our responsibility as good, creative, whole, resourceful women to make money so we can share it with the people around us.

[00:16:05] Katy Ripp: And that flipped the script for me on money. And here’s another truth. Silent doesn’t actually shield us from shame. It actually makes it worse if you listen to Brene Brown at all, or anybody that talks about shame. Silence is the killer around shame. It thrives in the dark. The only way out of it is light and talking about it.

[00:16:28] Katy Ripp: That means dragging money, conversations out into the open, even when it feels super scary and actually, especially when it feels really scary. So here’s the new rule. Claim your worth out loud. We’re not gonna whisper about it. No more apologizing for wanting more. No more cutting yourself off at the knees because you don’t wanna seem greedy.

[00:16:52] Katy Ripp: Here’s what it looks like in practice naming your financial Glo, naming your financial goals clearly, even the ones that make you squirm a little bit. So let me give you an example of this. I once had a client and I was asking her what her goals were, her financial goals, and she said, I’m gonna paraphrase this, because it was a different system.

[00:17:13] Katy Ripp: I’m gonna paraphrase this because I don’t want her to feel like I’m sharing her story. So she said she’d like to retire in Alaska in a mountain lodge. I said, oh man, that sounds cool. What does that cost? What does a mountain lodge in Alaska cost? And she was like, well, I don’t know. I said, well, how much money do you need in order to have a mountain lodge in Alaska?

[00:17:37] Katy Ripp: And she was like, well, I don’t, I don’t know. I suppose I need to have a million dollars in the bank. I said, whoa, whoa, whoa, timeout. We need to find out how much it actually costs. This is like also people that want to have a dream home or build a dream house. How much does it cost to build a dream house?

[00:17:54] Katy Ripp: Who knows. It could be. $200,000, or it could be $2 million or it could be $20 million. But when we don’t have the exact financial goal clearly set, it’s just ambiguous. It just doesn’t give us a path to walk down. It just lays it out in the middle, and it’s never actually something to attain.

[00:18:16] Katy Ripp: So the second thing we need to start doing is saying your rates without flinching. This is a practice thing. This is something you might have to do in the mirror. I know it sounds weird, but when we are talking about how much we’re charging for our services, whatever that number is, you need to feel comfortable with it, both from a receiving end and a giving end.

[00:18:38] Katy Ripp: I am giving you this service for this amount of money. And this is what I’m worth, period. And then raising those rates when it’s time without apology, you can raise your rates anytime. Does that mean that somebody yesterday paid a hundred dollars an hour and the new person today is gonna pay two 50 an hour?

[00:19:00] Katy Ripp: Possibly. And are those people sharing their rates, your rates in between themselves? Possibly Very doubtful.

[00:19:09] Katy Ripp: We need to start talking about our debt. We need to start actually saving, talking about revenue, and talking about goals, your financial goals with people you trust, so we can normalize those conversations. And then celebrating your financial wins the same way you would celebrate your personal ones.

[00:19:30] Katy Ripp: Women need to claim their worth out loud, because when we do, everything shifts, our confidence shifts, our business shifts, our legacies shift. This isn’t just about money, it’s about power and freedom and choice. So here’s my challenge for you this week. Start one. Start one money conversation out loud.

[00:19:53] Katy Ripp: That could look like telling your friend your actual revenue goal this year. It could look like saying your rate without track. It could look like saying your rate in the mirror without tacking on, but I can be flexible. It might mean raising your rates and sharing that increase with confidence, or maybe it’s just looking at your debt.

[00:20:13] Katy Ripp: It’s just looking at your bank accounts. It’s just opening up the credit card statement and saying, this number does not define me. It’s just data. And data can change. Because the more you say it out loud, the less power it has over you. Money doesn’t have to be this big scary secret. It can just be a conversation like everything else.

[00:20:32] Katy Ripp: And the more you practice it, the easier it becomes. I promise. And if you ever want to chat about money, I am always around. You can come into the Grove. We have a money meeting the first Monday of every month. It’s $8 to drop into it. You can be part of the grove. You can come into it anytime it is. Just a conversation about money with other trusted females.

[00:20:54] Katy Ripp: That’s all it is. So here’s the bottom line. The don’t talk about money rule has kept women silent and ashamed and small for far too long. The new rule is claim your worth out loud. If this episode hit home for you, you can go check out the full blog post. It’s linked in the show notes. And if you know any other women who are carrying shame around money, which you may not because everybody’s really quiet about it, you can share this episode with her.

[00:21:22] Katy Ripp: Let her know she’s not alone. And don’t forget, you can join the email list to get every rule delivered straight to your inbox, plus some behind the scenes updates as I turn this series into a book. Thanks for being here with me today. I’ll see you next week when we tackle the next old rule, the Keep It Impersonal Rule, and why your humanity is actually your greatest business superpower.