From Chaos to Profit: Creating a Powerful and Intentional Financial Future with Belinda Rosenblum

Christine Li  0:00  
Hi there, you're listening to the Make Time for Success podcast and this is episode number 145. 

I have not yet focused on the topic of money on this podcast and I think it's high time that we did that together. I had a friendly chat over Instagram with my new buddy Belinda Rosenblum and I decided that she's the perfect person to bring onto the show to help us talk about money in a fun, freeing beautiful way together. Belinda is a CPA and profit strategist of own your money. She helps female entrepreneurs escape reactive bank balance decision making, and instead manage and plan their business money so they can take control of their profits and scale past the income ceiling holding them back. Inside her signature cashflow CEO accelerator program, she helps female coaches scale beyond six figures and finally enjoy the freedom they started their business for in the first place especially so they don't have to keep choosing work over family time. She believes it's time women feel worthy and safe with money. And we're going to talk all about these issues in the episode and consistently take home the money they want each month. Belinda is also the co author of Self Worth to Net Worth: 12 Keys to Creating Wealth Inside and Out. She became a self made millionaire at the age of 33. And she has helped her clients and students make and save well over $5 million. We had such a fun time getting to know each other before and during this conversation. She's a total delight at total smarty pants. She's great with numbers and she's great with her feelings too. What a wonderful combination. And I'm excited to share this episode with you now let's go listen.

Hi, I'm Dr. Christine Li and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped 1000s of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so they can begin working to their potential. In this podcast, you're going to learn a powerful strategies for getting your mind, body and energy to work together so that you can focus on what's really important and accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy, and how you can create success on demand. Welcome to the Make Time for Success podcast. 

Hello, everyone. We are already off to a great start because I've had a wonderful time chatting with Belinda Rosenblum, behind the scenes before we recorded all about getting to know each other, and really getting to know her spirit and her passion in the area of business, finance, and helping people to know their money, to own their money and to make good with their money. I think too. I'm gonna learn more about her during this interview, and I can't wait to introduce you to her. I'm going to just have her introduce herself here. Right now. Welcome to the show. 

Belinda Rosenblum  3:27  
Awesome. Hello, everybody. Hello. Do you call my doctor Christine or just Christine? 

Christine Li  3:32  
Christine is fine. Thank you, my friends do that. 

Belinda Rosenblum  3:36  
Anyway, it's great to be here. And yeah, I am all about empowering you with your business finances. I find so often were stuck in this reactive bank balanced decision making because we don't want to look too closely. You know, we don't want to look too much. And so if you feel like you've procrastinated, your finances, we get it. Absolutely. And we're here to help you be bold or be more willing, right to really take a look and I am the perfect person to hold your hand in a non judgmental way through it.

Christine Li  4:09  
Okay, lovely. Let's start off since I skipped over this part with your credentials. Let's just do that. So people know you know exactly how well you're situated to do this kind of work.

Belinda Rosenblum  4:20  
Sure. So when I was six notice giving I mean officially like I was like summa cum laude accounting major, all that sort of stuff but I think what, what best equips me I've been doing this now for over 16 years running on your money. I wrote a book called self worth to net worth, which is very much I wrote it actually with us psychotherapist because I wanted to understand more about our childhood influences with money. So that was back in 2012. I published that the personal finance for 12 years, and then really got to the point where I was more inspired to pivot to help small business owners, because I feel like I am the kind of woman that's like, Hey, let's go big, like, what do you really want in your life? And then how do we go and make that happen. And when I would work with business with business owners, I had this unlimited ability to help them make money. When I worked with my professionals, I was like, you can get a promotion, you can get a raise, you can get a new job, or you can get a side hustle and go make money that way, I got tired of telling people to spend less. And I was like, let's just go make more, right. So that was really a lot of the inspiration behind making the pivot to business owners. I've been doing that now for over four years, creating who I call cashflow CEOs, which are really the CEOs who understand their numbers, who can leverage their numbers and really scale beyond 100k In this aligned profitable way, so that you're designing success on your own terms, which is why I love like, make time for success, right? Because they think so much of the time, were thinking on other people's terms, or you know, and I had been there to where I felt like I had the trappings of what I should have, but I was miserable. Like when I was in my job. And even when I was doing this as a business when I was working my tail off and hustling as much as I was, I mean, in my second full year of business, we're just gonna we've been like, what, three minutes in? I'm just jumping right in. But, you know, I feel and I feel like this is part of your your question, right? Of like, Why do I feel so equipped to have this conversation in this kind of way? In my second full year business, my first year of business I grossed 65k. Like $6,000 first year seems good, right? second full year business, I brought in $155,000. I thought it was the bomb.com I was like I did it 100k, you know, pass my six figure secondary business. Guess how much I took home?

Christine Li  6:51  
I dare guess. This I don't dare get

Belinda Rosenblum  6:55  
right. $2,300. And it was just like, I mean, I was just like staring at like, crying at my computer screen reading my p&l from my account, you know. And it was like this Wake Up Call of like, I can't just focus on revenue, like all these business coaches were touting there was something that just felt broken with the system, because like two years ago, I was making zero revenue, and I was taking home zero from the business. Now I was bringing home 155 freakin $1,000. And I was only taking up two. So, you know, I feel like I really get when people are looking at their business money wondering like, where did all the money go? And am I doing the right things? And, you know, should I be looking closer and get more intentional about my growth. And that was my big wake up call to realize there has to be a better way. Right. And now I get to lead female business owners, especially in helping to create the intentional revenue and profit growth, because revenue can just be a vanity metric, depending on where the money is going. Right. And so a lot of my, my passion is helping you get out of that, like insecurity and anxiety around money. And that's often part of what has you procrastinate, right? Because you just don't want to look, I don't want to you know, really understand it. I can't tell you how many people have said like, I don't mind math. It's just I feel stupid when I'm looking at my numbers. So I don't want to feel more stupid. So I don't want to look, you know, like we all have our reasons for why we don't look closer. And so I feel like I've I've gotten the experience Ciao chops, right to teach this in this way. I'm also a very like, tuned in intuitive kind of person, right. And I think because I've been through so much. And my own journey is why I don't believe in bring any judgment or shame to somebody else's journey, because I absolutely believe that we did the best that we could. It's just that we never learned this, like, you know, you have an expertise in as a clinical psychologist, in your case, right or whatever, as a photographer, as a nutrition coach, as you know, but it doesn't mean that you have any expertise around money. We're barely taught personal finance, let alone business finance, right? Well, I've really taken it on to hold people's hand to help them create a different way to understand the past right in terms of what they're getting from their bookkeeper and their accountant. But moreover, to create something more powerful and intentional moving forward, so that you feel like you do have this profit plan to live into and grow into and to be able to keep scaling because so many people just get to a point where they feel very plateaued, you know, like they feel stuck, and that's so defeating, especially when you're working as much as so many of us are working. So I think I was scanning your Insta gram, and there was one little square there that said, the embarrassment of knowing that you're working so hard, but taking home so little that there are some other forces at play as well, not just what you know. But it's also that there's this sense that there should be some shame attached,

Christine Li  10:19  
if your numbers aren't exactly looking so healthy,

Belinda Rosenblum  10:22  
right? And it's like, we're often comparing ourselves to the highlight reel for everybody else. Like, you know, when people tout Oh, I had $100,000 lunch, they don't tell you what it cost them to create $100,000 lunch, you know, and I'm sure both of us know, like big business owners who have had million dollar launches, who spent a million dollars, you know, and so, I mean, I know somebody who had like a $3 million launch, they broke even on, and he didn't make money until he did an upsell on the back end of that. And that's when they made even more than 3 million. But the point is that, like, they didn't make any money on their initial launch, you know, and it's like, we just don't know. But we are often in this comparison. And, you know, Comparison is the thief of joy, kind of an idea. I think that, like, we see what we think, is the success that others have. And then we look at well, but I'm working, I think even harder than it seems like that person is working and why aren't I making the profit that I feel like I could or should do to be paying myself? That's why our our gift that we give people is the pay yourself calculator. Because I want people to be really clear, like more data driven, to say, like, how much do you really want to make, right? And then how do we create a revenue goal that supports how much you want to make. Because when we create a revenue goal, that's this arbitrary number, then even if you make the revenue goal, you might not actually make any money yourself. Right? And then you feel even worse, I think, a little bit more embarrassed and more shame. And that is not the rinse and repeat cycle that we want to be creating, you know, and so it's real, you know, we think ignorance is bliss. But no ignorance is really expensive. And it's right now, and it's like it, it sucks our power away. Because when we only know what the numbers are, then, and when we learn how to make them more black and white, we have more power over them. Instead of feeling like they have power over us, right? Instead of feeling like the victim to what our money is doing. When we actually know our numbers. And particularly when we can get like, more black and white about it instead of like tying so much emotion to what the numbers are saying, then we have the opportunity to be the victor over them, you know, but without it, we just feel like they're doing something to us. And that's not an empowered way to run our lives to run our businesses. And I will say it seeps into, and really drains our confidence in our businesses like in our own skill set. Right? When we don't feel like the behind the scenes is to gather when we don't feel like a good steward of money. We often don't do the follow up. We don't put ourselves out there. We don't make ourselves as visible as we can be. Because well, what did people really find out? What's happening? I love that, that we spend a lot of energy in that shame, you know what I mean? And energy hiding, so that people don't really know what's going on? Could you

Christine Li  13:25  
share with us maybe your top three, what you've seen and maybe what you've even been through reasons why people keep it really secret and keep really ignorant, I guess of their actual finances, what the numbers actually are ignorant used really with a lowercase i That was just the word that came out. And then I would love if you have any personal stories to throw in there, if you could throw that in, but also just I loved what you said a few minutes ago that you have the ability and the tendency to think really big about possibility and options and to teach other people how to do that. And so then the flip side of that, what are the real reasons that anybody listening to this episode today with us can start to really trust that they are safe enough that they have the skills enough to think bigger.

Belinda Rosenblum  14:21  
Okay, let me handle the first one first. And then we can get back to the cycle. Okay, so the first one, you would say kind of three reasons why we don't look. So okay. So one of them is overwhelmed. I think that we are naturally overwhelmed as business owners, I think. I mean, I came from corporate right. I did that for gosh, at least 12 years. And maybe 15 I don't know I lost count. I like only two jobs. I'm one of those people that's like just loyal and so I just jobs and then I started the business in 2000. And well 2006 I left corporate had a year and a half of Eat, Pray Love, which is through great, like volunteering in Costa Rica backpacked around India, like just really was like, I need to find myself because I had truly felt like I was checking my personality at the door when I was in corporate, and then started the business in 2007. So I'm like a pro in these, you know, worlds and these tracks, because I've just been doing it for a long time. Now, that's like 16 plus years. So I think though, it's a lot of overwhelm, because all of a sudden, now we're in charge of our schedule, we have to ask for every dollar that we want to make, like, it's almost like, it was magical. Like, we're in corporate, like, you just got money deposited into your bank account, like every other Friday, and then now all of a sudden, you're in your own job. And it's like, if you want to make money, you have to go ask people to buy from you. It's like, totally overwhelming. We never really learned sales skills. We never learn how to do money. Like that's why I even had that second year in business. Like I knew corporate finance. I knew like big, Colgate Palmolive was my client like that kind of a big business like the toothpaste company, right? Yeah. That's it had a lot of zeros and billions. And, you know, that was the world I was in. But now when I'm trying to manage my own finances, I thought I could just do the like, just pay attention to revenue thing. And it didn't work. You know, and I think that's so much of what we're in is that we believe, all the business coaches are going to teach us business, but really, the business coaches are teaching us marketing and visibility. And so I think we get really overwhelmed trying to figure out what should we be doing? What are the revenue generating activities? What are my offers going to be? What are my pricing going to be like? What am I going to do today? Right? Like, you don't have a boss that's being like, I need this for Thursday. Like, there's just so it's like decision fatigue, everywhere you turn. And I think it's just a lot of overwhelm. Like, we don't really know, what should we be focusing? What should we be looking at? So I think that's part of it. Another part of it is, I think we just never learned, right? We never learned how to do money. The punch line on my story is that then I made changes for that third year in business, like I really started to look closer. And I made changes in that. I changed the way I handled my team. I made them more effective. I built leverage into my business, and I had another hired another coach so that then I could make money off of her time. And I finally did a profit plan for myself, which I had never done. Right. I was, I believe, just focused on revenue, but it didn't work, you know. And so I think that that was an important part. And then between those three things, the next year, I had $250,000 in revenue. So I leaned into revenue, a lot of people pull back and that scarcity way, I leaned in, and I was like, let's make 250k of revenue, but I took home 100k of profit, right? So I reallocated where the 150 of expenses went, and made sure that I was making profit now on that incremental. So I think that's the second reason and one other point you mentioned maybe bring in a story like it's very similar with our business finances as it is with our personal finances. Right. And so when I just graduated college, so it's harkening back a little bit now, but I graduated my dad had a stroke a few months later after I graduated. And so I was 21 trying to figure out the new job, you know, navigate that navigate, you know, living in New York City or working in New York City, all the things and I kind of got to the point where I like bandaid it together enough. Okay, now flash forward. Now I'm 28. And I had was now really thriving in my career. I was on the road a lot like, I'd leave Monday morning or Sunday night even and come home Friday night, I was like the total Road Warrior. And I would come home to male all the time, every week, she was more male. And now I was like the family CFO because my sister was in college. My dad was in a nursing home now. And I became in charge of all this, and it was completely overwhelming, right. And I had a finance degree and it was still completely overwhelming. So for those of you who feel like, gosh, this is harder than I expected. Like, you know, and even if you aren't good at math, it can be a lot, right. And I had gotten into this bad rinse and repeat cycle of coming home on Friday throwing the mail into any drawer baskets. Clean service that I could find, you know what I mean? And I just put it on and then it just really started to pile up and then it just got too overwhelming. And I think that sometimes happens, right? That it just gets to a point where like, I just can't look at it. And so one day my sister had called randomly and she was like, hey, no, you have so much going on how was all of that finances and everything and I was like Oh Um, let me let you know when I come home for my next trip. Didn't one of the scariest things and anyone listening who's ever procrastinator finances or let bills pile up? You know how scary this is. I collected all of the bills and mail from around my house. Right. So it was just like, when I brought it all together was three huge stacks of bills and mail on my dining room table. I started to have heart palpitations. Literally, I like started a panic attack. And then I got up and I just started pacing. And I just started thinking all of those negative thoughts of like, Oh, my God can like dad get kicked out of the nursing home? Or like, could the doctors turn him down? Like, could you know, could we he had a house at the time I had, how's the time? Like, could Could we somehow get for like, just all of the negative thing? Could I lose my job because I was an accountant. And I let this happen, you know, and I just stopped and I was like, Okay, this is not supportive. And, and I was like, okay, hold on, like, if I know I, I haven't applied myself here, you know, I haven't really owned my money, I have felt very owned by it, and really hiding from him for so long. And so I just started breathing again. And I found a friend. And I basically asked for help. I was like, I've gotten myself into a hole, can you come over and just help me open the mail. Because what happens too, is that like, it gets more colorful as you're later on bills. So I didn't just have one bill or two bills, I like five bills from these ones. And then they were yellow, and orange and red. And it was just like terrible. So anyway, we had to do piles of all the bills, and I eventually got through it. And she came over that weekend, and then the next weekend, and it took six months because the mail keeps coming like it does. But by the end of the six months, I had focused on both my mindset so that I was more willing to take a look. And then also at creating an actual system. So I stopped this bad dating thing, right. And that was really me recognizing that, like being financially independent doesn't mean you have to do it alone, it doesn't mean that you have to know everything going into it, it just means that you have to be willing to learn it's a total growth mindset space. Right? So you're not stuck in the I don't know this, and I can't do it. But you shift to the I don't know this yet. What does it take for me to learn? And now this was this was way back, like in 2000 or so? Before? There were many coaches, right before there were people like really helping with all this stuff. So I know what that overwhelm can feel like. So I think that's why I have so much empathy around it. I even think that, you know, part of why people don't look as overwhelmed, I think part of is that they never learned and then I think part of it is that they don't want to feel more stupid, you know, or embarrassed or shameful? Or like, like, why would we intentionally want to go into something that's gonna make us feel worse? Like we're trying to keep up our confidence, right? And keep up, like, who we want to be as an entrepreneur. And then we look at this and it's like, Can I curse? Yeah, it's like, I work so hard, like, what the heck, you know. And I see I still I still I'm a mom, right? I have an eight year old, a 10 year old, I still watch my language. And it wasn't like,

very natural, I can't help it. And so because now that they're the age really know, the work, they understand the words, so I have to watch myself anyway. So I was like, this sucks, you know what I mean? Like, like, there has to be a better way. And I think that that happens a lot when, when we're feeling like we don't understand it. And we have shame around the depth that we're in or the situation that we've created. And we don't want to do something that's going to create more of that to mean and it's going to, like, knock us down when we're trying to build ourselves up. Because we want to go in the sales call because we want to be more visible. And so we're not going to do something that feels like it could take us down. Now this item. Yes, all of this makes sense. Thank you so much for these wonderful examples and pillars of why people have difficulty facing their mail, their bills, the numbers, and I think you taught me with the mail piles, that stress alone could be a reason why a perfectly capable person would become avoidant around this topic that you know now is something that you can completely be in control of and empowered with. So thank you for that and that vulnerable share. Could you now tell us about the transformations that can happen when you get your energy together when you understand your numbers and when you have your help?

Absolutely. And I think that my story of like when I was 28 and under the bills in the mail is a bit of kind of the overwhelm piece. But I think it's also a bit of a shame because sometimes what happens as you end up in this shame spiral a bit, right where it's like I didn't want to look at it I didn't want to feel worse about it. You know, I mean like if I actually don't go about it like as my come to Jesus moment, which is finding some Jewish but it like this moment where I was like, Wait a second, no one else was going to come in and save me like I was single and I was like no one else is gonna clean up my mess. Like it's gotta be me. And I didn't feel like in that area of my life. I was being the best version of me but Because I was allowing myself to stay hidden. And I feel like you know, if you if you start to imagine and step into the possibility even of a transformation of being different around your finances, it's like, it's it's actually such a relief. Because the other way is so draining and heavy. You know? And it's like when you can step into the possibility of like, well, what if you actually got good at your numbers? Right? What if you had a sheet that like just one worksheet that showed you, this is how much I'm gonna make each month? These are the offers that I'm going to be providing, this is the pricing that I'm going to be selling each of those things that right. And like, once you have something like that, it's like, oh, my gosh, now I know what I need to go work on now. Like, if we know that we're launching in October, then in July, August, September, like where we're working with affiliates, we're getting me on podcasts like this one, right we're doing. I'm speaking to events coming up, like, you can take the actions that support the results that you want to create. Otherwise, it always feels reactive, and it always feels insecure. And so if you just start to think about like, Hey, who's the business owner that I want to be? And certainly get into, like, Hey, can you really imagine a successful six figure multi six, figure seven, figure eight figure CEO, who doesn't have a grasp on their numbers, you know, or have somebody who knows them that can like help explain it to them? You know, it's like, not really, like I imagined myself, like, if I was sitting on a plane, and you know, next, you know, Bill Gates, or I don't know, Warren Buffett, or even Sara Blakely, you know, I have some, like, Girl crush. Do you know? And and you ask them their numbers, like, they're, they're not going to say, Oh, hold on a second, let me call my accountant, they're gonna say do you want this month or this quarter? Or as compared to last quarter? Or do you want to know our next quarters growth plan? Like, because they've come to realize that money is the Language of Business. And if they want to win at business, they need to be able to speak the language. And it's just that we were never taught it. So we stayed like feeling really stupid, because we never learned it. But really, there's so much opportunity to be able to pull the levers to make more money, and work less once you actually understand how the money flows in your business. Right, once you can be more intentional about where it goes and where you're making it.

Christine Li  27:40  
I love it. I love it. I know that you have a challenge coming up? Is that something that our listeners can actually get into and start to learn some of the things that you've been throwing down here and this wonderful interview? Oh, absolutely. I

Belinda Rosenblum  27:55  
love it. So yeah, I'd say probably the best bet to start is with that pay yourself calculator that we touched on, right. And you can get that once you say make time for success.com. It's gonna here's the link to get that calculator from Belinda, it's make time for success. podcast.com/calculator. Again, make time for success. podcast.com/calculator Thank you. Okay, I forgot the podcast part. So thank you so much for problem, right? So I would say start with the calculator so that you can actually figure out, Okay, let me get honest, what do I want to be making in the business, then you can start to have more of a data driven goal. And then coming up in October of 2023. If you're listening, live, so to speak, you know, currently, we have something called the profit playbook challenge. And that's really going to give people an opportunity to step into more power, more confidence, more cash flow, immediately. And I'm doing it in like a really creative way with like three days and a bonus day, and it's gonna be really fun. And really start to give you a perspective of how money can be more fun, right of how you can feel like the winner with money instead of feeling like you're always left behind. You know, and I think that it's, it's real, you know, particularly for those of us who want to do anything else besides money. It feels like everything else is more important instead of looking at your money, but actually, if you do that, that's what really helps you make money work for you. So I would love to invite you to come and join us inside that profit playbook challenge to and to get your real goal set up with your payroll calculator and really be open to becoming this cashflow CEO, right, the CEO who truly knows her numbers and realizes that this is actually the fastest, most effective way to become the leader that you want to be, you know, to become the CEO, not just the solopreneur or the over work to employee I should probably say right in your business, but to actually sustainably scale your revenues and your profits, without the burnout.

Christine Li  30:10  
I love it. This is all very exciting, I think you're amazing. I think you are uniquely suited to do this kind of work this work of heart plus money. Plus this just empathy and big thinking, I love the combination that you bring. So thank you for sharing all of these gifts and your stories and your challenge to our listeners to get more bold with how they see their money and how they use their status with money for their own benefit and well being. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Is there a link for the challenge? Or should I expect followers to go to the show notes? What do we have for that,

Belinda Rosenblum  30:51  
I'll send you a link for the challenge for sure. Wonderful. So

Christine Li  30:54  
we'll have that in the show notes. And in the meantime, you can get the calculator which again is make time for success podcast.com/calculator. So you know you're connected with Belinda from there.

Belinda Rosenblum  31:06  
Thank you. And we'll put on the thank you page of the calculator, access to the challenge, right, the challenge or if we have a webinar coming up or something like that, like we really get that, for so many people, you haven't had a guide to show you a better way with money. Right. And I think that that's why we stay as stuck as we do for as long as we do. Because the business coaches or the marketing coaches, and we don't really have anybody that really helps us through this aspect of it. And so literally so many people said to me, like I feel like the money Gods sent me to this podcast. So just know like, you're in the right place. I'm here for you. And I appreciate you, Christine, for having me on and for realizing, you know how key understanding money is to our success, right. And I know that we don't want to be doing it for the money, but our business is in business to make money. And the more money we make, the more people we're helping. Right. So it's not a bad thing to look at your money or to have your business make money. It's actually what's going to help you help more people.

Christine Li  32:09  
I love this. Belinda, you're the best. Thank you. My thanks to you. It's you thank me, but I really need to thank you. You've given us a lovely episode. Lots of things to think about. And you've inspired me to have more money conversations on this show. So thank you. Yes, do it.

Belinda Rosenblum  32:26  
Thanks, everybody.

Christine Li  32:27  
All right, everyone. I'm gonna hop off with Belinda, we're probably chuckle some more and I will see you next week. Thanks for being here on the show. Bye. 

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Make Time for Success podcast. If you enjoyed what you've heard, you can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also visit our website maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com for past episodes, show notes and all the resources we mentioned on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the name procrastination coach. Send me a DM and let me know what your thoughts are about the episodes you've been listening to. And let me know any topics that you might like me to talk about on the show. I'd love to hear all about how you're making time for success. Talk to you soon.

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