3.17 | The Myth of Social Mobility with Julie Creffield

Isha Vela 0:00
Welcome to Devotional Anarchy, a podcast about intimate embodied leadership that is radically human, honest AF and thereby inherently disruptive to systems of disempowerment and disconnection. I’m Isha Vela, trauma psychologist certified somatic intimacy Alchemist, wealth wizard shadow doula love anarchist intuitive channel and sovereign business coach. You’re here because you know intimate self connection is the source of everything you want to create in life. And that building safety and trust in your own body is what allows you to fully own and steward your energy and your relationships. Get ready to explore attachments, sexuality, spirituality, self expression and sovereignty and other relational themes from a trauma responsive somatic energetic lens. The conversations and tools shared in this podcast are designed to offer permission to create the abundant life, love and business that lights your soul on fire.

Hey, sovereigns. As always, I’m so excited to bring you another episode of this podcast. And in this episode, I sat with Julie Creffield, who is a Brit, a spicy Brit, and a life and business coach who has been helping small business owners not end up broke as a result of their business by helping them focus on their purpose, rather than on what they leave behind, which is the real legacy. Julie is known as the solopreneurs champion, and has worked as a freelance artist, project manager trainer consultant for 10 years, and grew her first online business to six figures. She’s also an author of multiple books, some about being a plus size athlete, and some about how to build a profitable online business without selling out or behaving like a dick. That’s part of the actual title. So I came upon Julie’s work recently, when I saw that she was promoting a new book called How not to be broke

the book about money self worth, and leaving a lasting legacy from your solopreneur business. So I got curious. And I listened to her podcast also called how not to be broke. And I just loved her down to earth transparency and humility. And I invited her on here because I wanted to talk about some of the circumstantial and systemic issues that affect our businesses, but that don’t often get talked about when, especially when we’re so focused on the inner work. So I think you’re really going to appreciate this conversation. So let’s get into it.

Hey, Julie, it is so awesome to have you on the podcast, I know that we’ve only recently we’re just getting to know each other. But I’m really excited for this conversation. I am, I think it’s a wonderful opportunity. A lot of the people that I speak to, on my podcast and on others tend to be from the UK. So I think it’s always interesting to have these kind of global conversations to find common ground and to find those gaps that we have different views on or different lived experiences, maybe? Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. And sort of what, you know, when I, when I saw your post, and I started to get into the work that you do around money around wealth, I stumbled upon this, this podcast episode that you’ve done around the myth of, of social mobility. And I was like, Oh, I’ve never talked about that I like let’s get into that. So I, I would love for you to share, like your experience around the myth of it. And then particularly for entrepreneurs, which are like that’s, that’s my primary audience, like, what are your thoughts, feelings, values, viewpoints on that? So I think it goes back to when I was a kid, like so when I was at school growing up, the message that I got from parents, from teachers from all the adults was pretty much work hard, be kind to other people. And the other thing was, don’t get pregnant. That was like, literally the three things right? Work hard, you know, be nice to everyone and don’t get pregnant. And if you did those things, you’d be okay as a woman, right? And there was definitely an undertone, I went to a Catholic school, there was definitely an undertone of, you know, you’ve got to be smart, but only smart enough to find a husband really. And then he’ll look after you, right? Good girl code. Yes, totally. And in my lived experience, I couldn’t see that for myself, because my mum had six children with the same man. She got cancer, and he took off. Right? So my mom was left with six kids. She was in her 30s. So six kids under the age of 10. So in my mind, I was like, Oh, she worked hard. She was kind she got married, she had all these children with the same man. This is not working out very well for her. So why should I follow these rules? You know, and so the careers advice which was very much

Unknown Speaker 5:00
About get a stable career,

Unknown Speaker 5:02
a profession that people understand doesn’t matter what you’re interested in, but go for security. I was like, I don’t know that I buy into that. And I think at school, I was labeled, you know, a bit of a problem child and rebel, too opinionated, didn’t know my place. And I think I had this knowing really early on that I was even saying, this sounds weird that I was meant to do something. I was meant to be someone. And I couldn’t believe that the adults in my life treated me the way they did. I was like, Do you don’t know who I am. And so I had this up. I mean, I was, I was a little shit, I was, you know, a difficult child to be around because I knew everything, you know, I was so smart and switched on, and I could see what was happening happening emotionally and socially. And I challenged things, I challenged the teachers, I challenged the nuns at my school, and that didn’t go down very well. So, you know, I got this big old label that said, You are too much.

Unknown Speaker 6:06
And, you know, academically, I was told that I wasn’t that smart. And I ended up going on to get a first class degree with honors and a master’s degree in all of those things. But I was written off. And I think the reason I was written off is because the teachers knew my story. They knew I came from a single parent family, and they had already put me in a box. And so when I had careers advice, it was always, oh, why don’t you be a nursery nurse because, you know, you’ve got so much experience of your younger siblings. And you know, yeah, put me in a box didn’t matter what I was interested in. And, you know, I wanted, I didn’t know what career I wanted. I wanted to travel, I wanted to have adventures, I wanted people to listen to me, I had stuff I wanted to say, I didn’t know it was possible to be a writer or to be a filmmaker, or to be an artist. I didn’t know what those things were. But I wanted to be heard I had stuff I wanted to share.

Unknown Speaker 7:02
And so the only route I could see was drama, I had a bond with my drama teacher. And she saw something in me. And so I just followed that as a pursuit. That’s what got me to uni, I was very much involved in a street dance crew when I was a kid. And so you know, the arts and culture and expression. That was my stuff. And so when I went to uni, I looked at how you could use the arts to explore where you came from. And that had a really profound experience for me, I went to uni in a place called Winchester, which is very posh, very well spoken, very white, England, whereas I grew up in a very multicultural, rough around the edges. And so it felt like polar opposites. I didn’t know there were places in the UK that where there were no black people, I was like, where are all the black people. I said, that was a real call for me to come back to East London, got to come back and do work with

Unknown Speaker 8:00
other people that felt trapped by their circumstances that felt trapped by the labels that other people gave to them. And so, you know, early part of my career, I did lots of work as an artist or filmmaker, choreographer, you know, all sorts of kind of community engagement stuff. And then the Olympics came to town, the Olympics happened in my hometown, and it changed the, the physical landscape of where we lived. We had we had our first shopping mall, you know, we had really crappy markets and terrible high streets, and then all of a sudden, kind of big Westfield with like, places to eat and places a casino. No one even knew what a casino was like. So all of this regeneration happened. And it become It was an exciting place to be, but it also become like this place of polarization, the haves and the have nots. And I didn’t know where I fit into all of that, because I was University qualified, but I still speak like everybody else. And I still enjoy going out and getting drunk at the weekends. And I still have similar circle of friends and, you know, all of these cultural socio economic labels, and I wasn’t sure where I fit into all of that, you know, and so, I didn’t have a career plan. I didn’t have a life plan. And, you know, I’ve had adversity over adversity over adversity, you know, five redundancies you know,

Unknown Speaker 9:25
I was made redundant when I was six months pregnant with my with my daughter Rose, the day after the opening ceremony of the Olympics, you know, after having worked for eight years on the games, you know, my relationship broke down, I, you know, made bad investment decisions around where I bought my property, all of these things, one after the other after the other. And I didn’t have the network that a lot of my friends have in terms of parents that can bail bail them out, or I didn’t have a lot of financial knowledge. I wasn’t very literate around how to access money, what to do with the money.

Unknown Speaker 10:00
that I made. And so I’ve just been like, just graphed in my way through life. And then the last time I was made redundant, which was just six months ago, I realized,

Unknown Speaker 10:13
I am angry, I’m actually quite angry, that it’s taken me until I’m 45, to understand that, these inequalities can’t just be worked through, you can’t just say I’ll work hard, and I’ll be okay. In the end, there are systematic things that hold.

Unknown Speaker 10:32
I was gonna say, people like me, it’s not just people like me, that hold some people back, right. And there are these complexities, right, and we all have our own levels of complexity. So, you know, it’s funny growing up, it was like, there’s always someone worse off than you. And that was almost like a way of saying, you know, you should never moan, you should never complain, because there’s always someone worse. And that is true. But it also doesn’t take away from the fact that your life is really hard.

Unknown Speaker 11:01
It’s not a competition, it’s not the Olympics of trauma, or the Olympics of difficulty, you know, so I had this moment, six months ago, where I was like, he was I thinking, I could step my way out, work my way out of poverty and change things for my daughter, when actually I’m very much in the same situation that all of my ancestors have been as well, which is work really, really hard, then life wears you down, you have some kind of trauma, some kind of relationship breakdown, and you realize you’re not safe, and you’re not secure anymore. And I was shocked at that revelation, because I thought I’d be okay, I thought I’d be able to work hard and my business would grow and all of these things. And and I’ve realized, particularly for solopreneurs, particularly since the pandemic, we have no support, we pay into a tax system. In the UK, I don’t know how it works in America, but we pay heavily, you know, every penny we make is not ours. And then at the end of it, what are we left with? You know, everything that we seem to invest in property, you know, when we die, the government take most of it away from us anyway. So how do we really create change.

Unknown Speaker 12:11
And so that’s where the book came out, you know, I’m not an expert on money, if I wasn’t, wouldn’t be in the situation I am. But I’m really good at making money. I’m really good at selling, and creating ideas and create movements, you know, for 10 years, I run a company called too fat to run. And it was all about plus size, fitness and fear of judgment. And that was just the seed of an idea. And that was after I got made redundant. And I needed to do something to keep myself sane, that came out of nowhere. We didn’t have plus size athletes in the UK with, you know, to prim and proper for that. So I was at first to market. So I know how to create business. I have genius ideas. But there’s still something missing there is this gap. And I can’t figure out what it is. And I’m smart. I’m really smart. And I can’t figure out why. Why I still feel broke a lot of the time, right? So it’s not about like poor me, poor me. Because you know, one of the chapters in the book is about taking radical responsibility. Yes, the world is shit. Yes, there are structural things that make it difficult for some people. But I still have choice, I still have autonomy, I can still make some changes for my own life. If I sit in a cave, crying and weeping about how unfair the world is, that just doesn’t help anybody. But I’m curious. And that’s how I started my career, you know, and my learning was about curiosity, how can I do things different? How can I find out? How can I learn?

Unknown Speaker 13:41
You know, and I’m determined to be in rooms where everyone’s smarter than me where I can ask questions. And I think I can get away with because, because of my working class roots, and the way I speak, people underestimate me a lot. And so I can ask silly questions, because they go, Oh, god, she’s a bit thicker than she, you know, but a lot of really smart people are too afraid to ask those questions. And so, you know, the start of my book is a glossary asking, you know, what is an asset? And what is a dividend? And what is this? And why is it and there’s a little bit of a humorous take, I couldn’t think of anything for x, because I was like, what is there that’s a financial term for x. So I used x as an ex partner, ex work colleague, ex boyfriend, you know, they are a sunk cost, and you’re never gonna get that back.

Unknown Speaker 14:32
So, I think, you know, on the one hand, I’m really angry and in my like, kind of Crusader mode. And then in the other side of things, I’m like, I don’t I still want to find the joy in life. I still want to enjoy money. I still want to have nice things. I still want to teach my daughter that she can have them be anything she wants. And so it’s complex. It’s not.

Unknown Speaker 14:56
It is absolutely on a spectrum just like welfares

Unknown Speaker 15:00
And I just I think when I got made redundant the last time and I was so broken, like so, so broken, really questioning if I even wanted to be on this planet anymore. And I thought that’s just because of money. That’s just because of money. How can I feel so worthless? Because of my current financial situation? That’s not right. Wealth isn’t just about the money you’ve got in your bank account, right. And so I’m determined to not let whatever happens financially, be the reason that I feel broke, because we have so many other resources and currencies that we can use. If we stay out of that really dark place of feeling defined by the money we have right coupling worth with how much or how little you have in your bank account? Yes, yeah. And one thing that you said that impacted me was, you know, how we often you know, when it comes to like, making money and and being sort of radically responsible, sometimes we can sort of lean into a place where, you know, when we don’t really look at the systemic picture, we’re like, yeah, you can do it, you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you can like make a lot of money, especially in the entrepreneur world, where we can be like constantly selling the dream. But there are real react, like realities that we don’t really want to look at. And that maybe as women of color, we don’t want to look at that do impact how much money we are able to make in the online space, for example, you know, whether it’s, whether it’s how we look, or how we speak,

Unknown Speaker 16:44
you know, because sometimes it feels a little bit like a popularity contest, you know, play, and also think there’s something literally in our DNA, right. And I had this, I had this thought, last week on Thursday, I was I was going into London, and I was sitting on the train, and I had a list of people that I was going to reach out to either go on their podcast, or ask to help promote the book and all of this kind of stuff. And I felt physically blocked. I felt like I could throw up, because it was asking for help. And I was like, these are people that I know that love me that would want to help me, why can’t I just simply ask them for help? And so I asked myself that question, why do I find it so hard to ask for help? And the answer that came out, and I know that this is so loaded, the answer that came out was because you were the help. Right? So my great grandma, she worked in service, my nan was a cleaner, my mom, my mom, because of education, you know, she become a typist, which is a step up from being a cleaner. But, you know, historically, my working class family were the health and I know, the health means something very, very different in the US. I know that. And because of that it feels so I mean, I want to cry every time I think about that, because there’s something in my body that feels like that needs to let go, I can’t create wealth, while I still hold on to all of those emotions that my family have experienced. Yes, yes. Yeah. And this is why, you know, as, as a provider of somatic work, like, these are precisely the pieces that we don’t recognize, like this. It’s like identity work through the body, like really releasing some of the ancestral stories, or even the, the shame, right? Like that feeling of egg that comes up, oh, I’m asking for help. And we were the help. And this is like, where I find myself now. And this is like, it feels so tough to open into that next level. Right. And then like, the other piece here is, like, I know, thinking about there are, you know, you said there are inequalities that can’t be worked through? Right, thinking about like, in the online space, there is still like, you know, your age, your appearance, your you know, we like all of those things factor in like, your popularity, how well known you are already in the online space, like can feel like enormous barriers to write external, versus the internal ones, but also tech, the technology, right, and the way that technology works the way that social media works. So we we used to feel like if I do 10 years in the game, I’ve earned my stripes, I’ve got a track record, I’m higher than somebody that’s just coming into my world. That’s not true anymore. That’s not true. Someone can come straight out of say, Coach, you know, a coaching qualification or whatever, they can put 20,000 pounds into Facebook ads or whatever they want. They can brand themselves as an expert, they can tell a wonderful story. And before you know it, they’re more successful in business than you are. Right right. There’s having money at the outset. Right can get you ahead already for it. So that’s a P

Unknown Speaker 20:00
So the privilege right there, yes, total. And not only the access to the money, but the expectation, why shouldn’t they? Why shouldn’t they jump in and be successful straightaway? Yeah, you know, they shouldn’t have to graft like we have that lives that we have that kind of that story have to get somewhere you have to work hard. I think a lot of youngsters don’t have that so much, because technology is there. And there’s a generational gap. Like even just, you know, I see a lot of stuff like Gen X versus Gen Z and Gen Y. And like, Gen Y don’t have that work hard ethic, they’re just more like, and I think in a healthy way, it can sort of lead to unhealth but, but in a healthy way, feeling more entitled, like, yeah, no, I don’t have this doesn’t need to be so freaking hard. Like, I can, like, allow this to come to me and right, which I think is like, okay, like, nice that we’re sort of breaking down that that myth of needing to work hard and having it be hard and aren’t gonna.

Unknown Speaker 21:00
And, you know, like, I, I feel like, you know, in a lot of ways there are culture, culture clashes, because I see a lot of young people

Unknown Speaker 21:11
who are worse off than their parents were. Yeah, yeah, well are not doing as well as their parents were because there have been changes in our economy. I don’t know how you feel about it in England. But here in the US, like, I see a lot of people who are just living at the margins, who are just one leg break away from bankruptcy or, and how it hurt. I think it’s, it’s different now to what it would have been before. If you were destitute before the people in your street might know about it, they might see that you’ve had to go and ask for help. Now, when you’re destitute, the whole world knows about it, because of the number of connections we have online. And the way everything’s played out publicly. So that, you know, we drive cars that we can’t afford, we wear clothes that we can’t, you know, there’s this and we see it with the kids. Like, one of the reasons that I moved out of London, where I’ve lived for 40 odd years is I couldn’t deal with the gang stuff, right? So I started my career working with young people, many of whom were in gangs. And I felt like I could make a difference. What I realized as a 40 year old white woman is I can’t make no bloody difference. And actually, I was seeing it affect my own family members. And I thought I don’t want my daughter date in a gang member. I mean, it was literally like that. And I was like, I’ve got to pull her away from the environment, because I can’t,

Unknown Speaker 22:36
I just can’t see your way through. And part of the issue is, how can you you know, particularly as a single mum, there’s a lot of conditioning that happens with with boys of single moms, how can you say to your single parent Mom, I want a pair of Nikes, that are 100 pounds, when 100 pounds is all the mum has got to spend on shopping for the month, right. And so those boys in an entrepreneurial way go and use the only currency they have, which is their street cred, and their ability to sell drugs and make music and all that kind of stuff that comes with it.

Unknown Speaker 23:09
And they get trapped in the system. And so

Unknown Speaker 23:14
this is a really difficult thing around kind of commerce and commercialism, and image. And, you know,

Unknown Speaker 23:23
me and my sister have this joke, because like, she earns less than me, but likes designer items. And I earn more than her and don’t care about designer items. So I call her a poor tramp. And she calls me a rich, a rich Trump or something like that. It’s like this joke we have between us, because our values are so different, you know, I don’t care if what car I’m driving, like, it’s not a label of success for me, you know, whereas she very, very much does. And so, you know, it’s really difficult when you then start to try and share your values with your children, when they’re experienced, even at 567. Everything’s played out on the TV on on social media, and, you know, I want my daughter to believe that anything is possible. And we play games around, like, you know, asking for what you want being very specific about what you want. And you know, who knows, it might happen, and we do dream boards and stuff like that. But there are also moments where I have to pull her up on her language because her expectation that mums gonna buy her everything that she ever wants, ever more, you know, she jokes, she says, Mom, you’re with me for life. And I’m like, well, that’s not strictly true rose, you know, you are gonna have to get a job and you’re, I’m not going to be here forever. And so it’s really difficult when we know that historically we are where we are because of our parents, and because of the socio economic circumstances that they were raised in. And we know at some point, that’s going to be our legacy for our kids. Yeah, right. So one of the things I was really interested in, I did a little bit of kind of reading

Unknown Speaker 25:00
around this was after the Second World War, what happened in the UK is there was, you know, the birth of the NHS, the birth of like social work, social housing, all of these industries happened that required a workforce. And so what happened was a lot of the smart working class people were able to jump up the ladder, because if you were smart, you got access to free education, all of a sudden, you’re a professional, those new industries are not come in. Right. And so that requirement for the workforce isn’t there. So we have a smarter population, fewer jobs, you know, so it’s really difficult to, to set one set one generation against another when the circumstances were completely different. Their historical circumstances completely different, like a lot of boomers, for example, like, didn’t need to go to college, right, or, or college was for them, like two years, and they were able to advance through promotions and things like that, versus us being over educated and, you know, like, under employed, you know, under earning Exactly, yes, yes. So true. So true.

Unknown Speaker 26:12
Yeah, and I think another piece that we often miss is that,

Unknown Speaker 26:19
you know, you talked about, there were moments in the podcast, you talked about, like, your own experience with being impacted by, you know, burnout, for example, or, you know, when I think about my own process of like, becoming chronically ill, or having my chronic illness sort of, like, be on display, and sort of take over more of my life. And even like, during COVID, feeling like low key burnt out, like I could have continued making six figures, being a therapist, but I was like, I just, I can’t do it anymore. Like, I’m just feeling like, it’s feels awful to work so much. And so shifting into coaching, and then making less money, but feeling better physically, you know, and having to go through all of those changes, too. Yeah. And then like, going through a divorce and having like, the money that I made on selling my house go directly to lawyers fees, like just a month after I sold my home, those, you know, whatever, the $12,000 ended up going to my lawyer. Yeah. You know, and just like, Yeah, different circumstances like that, like, also impact our ability to just get ahead, right, for lack of a better term. Yeah. And it’s difficult to look at those sums of money, right. So think thinking about, like, owning your own home, and, and, you know, being able to leave money to your kids, which was, that was the message when we were growing up is that the way that you got your kids to do better is to leave them something in your will and all of that kind of stuff. And, you know, my parents bought their first house for 11,000 pounds, you can’t buy a car for 11,000 pounds. Right? Right. So you know, and I remember saving money for a deposit. And I was saving 150 pound a month in my 20s. And I got to 15,000 pounds, which was enough for a deposit for the house. And, you know, it was painstaking work to raise that money, right? And then as you say, you get a tax bill. And I’m like, Oh my God, that tax bill is more than what I pay for that house or, you know, it’s just these, and then you realize it’s nothing, you never see this money. It’s just this thing, you know, and sometimes I can business, sometimes it feels harder to sell a product that’s 50 quid than what it did to sell a 12,000 pound consultancy gave that like, the selling process is similar. Like, you know, sometimes the energy that it requires is the same, you know, so sometimes I say to my clients, like, just for fun, go into your website and add zeros on everything, just like leave it there for 24 hours, see if anyone notices like, see how it makes you feel like because it’s just meaningless. You know, and my clients always know that I’m gonna get them to put a zero on the end, just for fun, right? And I say what does it mean? You know, so when they say, oh, you know, I want to make five grand a month and I go, whatever it was 50 and one of my clients, I’m gonna go so funny. She said, if it’s 50 I have to wear white linen trousers. And I said what? She said, Because rich women always wear white linen trousers, and she said, like, I don’t really want to wear white linen trousers. So I’m like, That’s the reason you don’t want to make 50 grand a month, right? Just so we’re clear. So we have all of these silly things, you know, and it’s catching yourself around. You know, it’s part of money mindset, for sure. But it’s also the logistics of okay, so I had I make 50,000 pound this month, but how much of that do I keep? What’s the cost? You know, so there’s practical, tangible things. And then there’s energetic things like I remember sharing with my brother who’s a plumber that I’d made 30,000 pounds in a month and I was so worried

Unknown Speaker 30:00
about what he might think I was so worried that he would judge me. And all he did was say, brilliant, it’s your round at the bar, like unbiased to drink. Like, that’s pretty much all it meant, you know, but I built it up into this big thing. I didn’t want to make him as my older brother feel bad about what he earn, like, you know, and so it’s complex money is complex, you know, and it feels so freeing to have these conversations, because for many, many years, I had nobody to talk to about money, like literally nobody. Wow. Yeah, you know, and that’s one of the problems with social mobility, you become othered. The more successful you become, the more detached you feel from the people that are your people. Yeah, there are certain conversations, I can’t have them with my best friends, not because I don’t love them, not because they don’t love me not because they wouldn’t want me to have the conversations, but it’s that we’re, we’re polar worlds apart. And they haven’t had the experiences that I have had in the online world or in making shit tons of money and losing it. And so it’s pointless having those conversations because and even on the education level, right? Like when you get an education level, that is social mobility, you have more flexibility, you have more, you know, you have more options around like where you work, and how much time flexibility or control over your time you have, right when I started my private practice, like, I could make my own hours, I could do this, I could do that. And I realized, like, as I was making my money, like I was making more than, you know, my mother and my father. And that felt good in a way like, Oh, yes, like, I am sort of like, I felt like I was stepping into sort of a higher level. And then at the same time, I also felt the loss, I also felt the separation of like, they don’t know, my experience, or even as I was getting educated. My father had finished one year of college. That’s it right before I was born, I came along and basically like cut those plans.

Unknown Speaker 32:01
But yeah, like they did, I couldn’t talk to them about my getting my doctoral degree or getting a certification in semantics, because they don’t know what that was like. Yeah, you know, so I had to really find other people who, who got it. You know, and I think in entrepreneurship, I think it’s also so important to have a community of people who get it who are not going to be like, you do what? And like, why are you doing this and doing that, you know, so I think it’s superduper important to have that, that support to write you said, to be like to have the people in the room be smarter than you so that you can sort of like, upgrade to where they’re at, you know, or ask questions. Yeah. And it’s brought a lot of things up. So my daughter’s about to go to secondary school and where we’ve moved to. So where I used to live had terrible schools like for, for lots of reasons. So you had to send your child to like a religious school to get a decent education, and then that come with loads of stuff. But where I live now, every school is great, like literally every school and so we’re doing the rounds of all the schools. And we went to a private school the other day, and the reason that I went, my daughter is dead against it. It’s a boarding school, she’s dead against it. But I was just curious, I was like, I want to I never got the chance the child, I want to go and see what it’s like. And actually, once we got there, it was so different to how we both thought it would be. And now she’s actually quite open to us exploring that as a as an option. And, and it makes me think, like, the first time I ever

Unknown Speaker 33:33
thought about my position in the world was when I went to uni, it was the first time I was around wealthy people. Yeah, I’ve never been around anybody that had money before. And that was that’s like, 1819 I don’t want my daughter to get to that age and realize that there are opportunities and different types of people. And, you know, and so, you know, you then get on that thing of God, do I do I?

Unknown Speaker 33:59
Do I manipulate that for her? Or do I let her find her own way? Because, you know, I very much had to find my own way. But it was hard. Right? So I’m pulled all the time about how much do I provide for her? And how much do I let her figure it out? And Julie, you are, I’m I’m having like a flashback to two memories that I want to share that I feel like are very important to what you are sharing right now. One of them is like the first time I used to work as a temp when I lived in San Francisco before studying, you know, psychology, I worked as a temp and I worked at a temp as a temp and like I even forget what industry it was, but I think it might have been like a financial services industry. And I was in charge of organizing the resumes of you know, interns coming in. And my I think this is one of the first times that I felt cultural shame, was reading those resumes and like, basically it was like pedigree dogs slide

Unknown Speaker 35:00
at just the highest level, Yale, Princeton, Harvard, which are like our Ivy League schools, in the United States, the best institutions and all of the the opportunities that that had afforded them, and like through their parents, even connections, right relationships, it’s all about relationships. Yeah. And feeling like, Whoa, I am nobody, like just looking at these resumes and being like, I have none of this, none of this, you know, and that was, that was one memory. And

Unknown Speaker 35:33
it was just so shocking. And then I have my other memory that came up was of, you know, I did go like this afterwards, I did go do a did a second undergraduate degree in psychology because I didn’t want to study at the graduate level. And one of my professors was like, where are you? Where are you applying to, I’ll put in a good word for you. And I was like, ah, like, I was insulted that he would like, he wanted to help me. I was like, I don’t need your help. Like, I can get in there on my own. Like, I didn’t understand this is how the world works. And that people like, helped other people. I was like, no, yeah. But but this is like, from coming from the background that I came from, I just didn’t understand, like, people help each other people, like, get people in the door, like foot in the door. Opportunities like that. And, and that is sort of what privilege affords you. And that’s why like, when we struggle with this idea of like, I can’t get ahead. It’s because of these little pieces that maybe we’re missing, or we just were not as connected, because the whole where our family comes from, like, there is a lineage of privilege as well. Okay. And I think it’s like, you know, the answer is always or not, the answer is, but the question then is, what do we do? What do we do with all of that? Because it’s challenging? And I don’t think there’s one solution. But I think it lies in curiosity and safety. How far can I push the boundary? And still feel safe? Right. And so I think, as an entrepreneur, there’s a lot of thing about success. Success is the metric, right? What, you know, how do we become successful? And I’m trying to flip that for myself, because success is always defined by other people anyway. I wouldn’t security, which sounds so boring, but actually, that’s what I want. I don’t want the highs and the lows, the dips, the bouncing back the yo yo in? Because that what that comes with is all the emotional turmoil. And yes, you know, I’m sick of being strong. I’m sick of being inspiring, you know, doesn’t pay the bills, like go away. You know, I want stability. I want foundations that I can build upon. And so it’s that thing of how can I push the boundaries without taking too much personal risk? Right, right. You know, how can I how can I stretch myself? But without leaving nothing of myself?

Unknown Speaker 38:05
For that place of safety and security? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, go ahead. You’re gonna, the cost is too high, the cost is too high. The risk, you know, in entrepreneurship is always about the risk. Or if you want it enough, you’ll take the risk. You know, it’s only the people that take the risk. People, you know, so many people are already living on the edge and their lives are risky as hell. And then you want me to take another leap? Go away, like,

Unknown Speaker 38:31
yeah, and the other piece is like, I’m not, I’m not someone who, who is, you know, sometimes I’ll get into the space where I feel very bogged down by systems and by inequalities, but that’s not somewhere I want to live. I don’t want to live in that space, where I’m just like, blaming circumstances, I want to take them into account. I want to acknowledge them, and I want to give myself so much grace around them. But I don’t want it to be my story. Yeah, I think there’s also somebody once said something to me, because I’ve always been like, since I was a young child, I used to cry with rage. I remember in drama. We did. We did. There was a book I remember, I still got a copy of it. I think I stoled a copy of it. But it was it was a book called motherland. And it was the story of

Unknown Speaker 39:19
the Windrush, you know, the first time, Caribbean people on mass came to the UK. And there was, there was pictures, I remember the pictures of slavery and all of that, and I just couldn’t sleep that night. I couldn’t sleep and you know, my parents would never have taught me about that. And so, you know, I went to a very mixed school and I remember just, like, being so angry and wanting to change things like that’s so not fair. And that sense of Rage has stayed with me my whole life. But somebody once said to me, Julie, don’t crusade for too long. Because what happened to the Crusaders, they all died. Right? And so sometimes I get into that post Crusader energy. I

Unknown Speaker 40:00
at the expense of my own safety and security, like there’s only so much fight you can have, right? And it’s not to mean that you don’t ever, like fight for anything, but you have to pick your battles. Right. And sometimes you’ve got to fight for yourself, you know, and keep that fight a little bit more internalized rather than going out there. And, you know, I used to call so much drama and aggro online when I when I run my fitness business, I, you know, I got canceled by ASICs the brand, you know, because that showed this photo that was not diverse, you know, into in all sorts of things. And then there was this big backlash, you know, and just that the toll on my body, you know, they were like, We’re gonna send our lawyers on you. And I was like, it’s totally me in the corner of my front room, like, you know, I’m just, I have an opinion, and I’m not gonna shut up because you told me to. So, you know, there comes a point where the fight become the cost of the fight becomes too much. Right? It has to be sustainable. It has to be sustainable. Right. And collective. Yeah. So you know, and then we all just do a little bit, and that collective voice can be really powerful. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. I agree with you. Yes. What a great conversation, Julie. So, JC.

Unknown Speaker 41:22
So tell us please about how not to be broke your new book. Yeah. So how not to be broke is a Jew out imminently in the next few days, I know that ebook is coming out on the 28th. But the paperback will be out anytime soon. And it’s 12 principles for how not to be broke. It’s all about radical responsibility. It’s my story. It’s definitely autobiographical. But it’s also real hard tactical business advice as well, you know, it’s a wake up call, if you are sitting there happy not making money in your business. So it helps you to identify what kind of business you’re currently running, whether it’s a loss leader in business, or a legacy business, and who you need to be, rather than being a chief grafting officer, which most of us are, how can we step into that CEO role and take more responsibility for our wealth beyond the life of our business? Yeah. And I’m so proud of it.

Unknown Speaker 42:18
And I’m just glad it’s out. I’m glad it’s out of my head and my heart, and that other people can enjoy it. Yeah, that’s awesome. And where people can people get access to it? Yeah. So it’s going to be available on Amazon. And if you go to my website, Judy crawford.com, forward slash broke. There’s lots of free resources and ways to kind of get involved in the movement. I’ve got a Facebook group and a podcast and all of that stuff. All right. And I’ll include all of those links in the show notes so that people can get a hold of you and get curious about like, yeah, about the creative process. And this tactical business advice these principles. Yeah. So so excited. I’m excited to get into it as well, myself. Yeah. It’s been amazing. This has been great. Yeah. All right. Thank you so much. And, yeah, I hope that our paths crossed again. Yeah. Thank you so much.

Unknown Speaker 43:16
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