More Money Podcast - 104 Mindfulness & Money - Leisa Peterson, Founder of Wealth Clinic

Episode Date: April 19, 2017

Mindfulness and money may have more in common than you think. Just listen to Leisa Peterson, founder of the Wealth Clinic, explain how both have changed her life. Long description: You may not think that mindfulness and money have anything to do with each other, but that just means you haven't yet listened to this episode with Leisa Peterson, Found of the Wealth Clinic and podcast host of the Art of Abundance. Leisa has an incredible story about having an ultra successful career in the financial industry, but also making the tough decision to leave it all to start her own coaching business to take control of her life again. It's a big misconception that with a rising career and increasing salary, happiness is sure to follow. But that's not usually the case if you're not doing what you feel called to do in life. And sometimes taking a risk and doing something out of the ordinary can seem scary and even foolish. But, it can also be your saving grace. It's funny, when I was recording this episode with Leisa back in the fall, I was going through a similar crisis, weighing the pros and cons of leaving my corporate job to start my own business. I was terrified at the prospect of no guaranteed income and possible failure, but I knew it was the only choice because I was absolutely miserable and not doing what I felt I was called to do in this life. And now, so many months later, I'm releasing this interview with Leisa having taken the plunge and am so glad I made the choice to leave my job. We talk a lot about fulfillment in this episode, probably because it was something I was seriously lacking at the time. But now, I can honestly say I feel more fulfilled than I have in years. I may not make as much money as I did at my 9 to 5, but somehow I feel wealthier than I ever have before. Thanks Leisa for the wonderful interview and insight into how mindfulness and money should always mix! Helpful Resources & Events by Leisa Free 5 Part eCourse – Money and Mindfulness Infinite Abundance Mindfulness Challenge Breaking Free to Abundance In-Person Retreat Leisa's Top Podcast Episodes You Are Worth It with Amanda Steinberg Breaking Free of Scarcity Beliefs Journal Your Way to Abundance with Kim Ades Learning to Forgive with Kathryn Eriksen Follow Leisa on Social Join Leisa on Facebook Follow Leisa on Twitter Connect with Leisa on LinkedIn Follow Leisa on Pinterest For more podcast episodes, check out the podcast page. Show notes: jessicamoorhouse.com/104 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, and welcome to Episode 104 of the Mo Money Podcast. I am Jessica Morehouse, your podcast host of the Mo Money Podcast. Hello. Welcome back if you're a longtime listener and welcome, welcome if you're a new lister. Thank you so much for joining me. I have a fabulous episode today with the one and only Lisa Peterson. She is a business strategist and money coach at the Wealth Clinic. She is awesome. I still remember it was a few, probably quite a few months that I hit the record button for this particular interview, but I absolutely love talking to her. She made me feel so, I don't know, amazing and at peace. She has just this most calming voice and she's just awesome, basically. So we talk about a lot of things in this interview. Part of it is the business side of what

she does and also the money coaching side, why she started the Wealth Clinic and what it's all about. It's really about being mindful, really integrating mindfulness in the personal finance sphere, which I think is really cool. And she also, if that weren't enough, she weren't busy enough, she also has her own podcast called The Art of Abundance. So you can find out more information about her at wealthclinic.com. And of course, you can check out her podcast, Art of Abundance with Lisa Peterson on iTunes. Thanks, Lisa, for joining me on the show today. I'm super excited to chat with you. So happy to be here, Jessica. Yes. So you have a very interesting story. I'm so glad we connected. I'm so glad I went to FinCon this year because I've connected with so many

awesome people that I know a lot of them are going to end up on my podcast because I just need to kind of find out more. And you're one of those people because you have such a great story. I would love for you to kind of tell the listeners kind of where you started and how you got to the place you are right now. Sure. There's a lot to it, but I think what I'm feeling would be helpful is touching on a few of the major points because your conversations are about money. And so I want to weave my money story

into this conversation because I think people will really take something away from that as they listen in. I had come from a home where the money was very scarce. It was very stressful growing up. There was never seeming to be enough of it. And it caused a lot of fights and things in my home. And that caused me to actually make a decision very early on that if I had lots of money, then all my problems would go away. Do you know that one? I think I know that one. I think most people know that one. And so I ended up going into the money business. And when I graduated undergrad, I

actually had studied clothing design. And I got out of school, started designing clothes in San Francisco with Jessica McClintock. It was like my dream job. But I found out that it was very low paying. And that was kind of repetitive of what my parents had done was take more creative routes with their finances. And I mean, they were in the creative business, didn't make a lot of money, led to stress. So I left that job, went back to school, got my MBA in finance, which was a huge, crazy thing because I had always hated math. I did it and ultimately went into working in finance, in banking and insurance and did that for a really long time. And that kind of,

I started my career out in the early 90s, just to give you an idea of the timing here. By the late 90s, I faced a pretty upsetting tragedy in my family that caused me to kind of, how I look at it is go down a spiritual path of discovery to try and get answers to life. Like, why are we even here? And it shook up my world so much. This is like in 1999. And it drove me towards Buddhism and studying meditation and traveling and doing long meditation retreats, even though I was a mom and I was a corporate. I worked for Wells Fargo in San Francisco at the time, but I started traveling around the world doing these meditation retreats with all of my vacation. And my husband was very supportive of this, but it ended up being perfect for what I was about to encounter, which was more and more

tragedies in my family. My mom got diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer when she was 56. And I helped her through the process of ultimately losing her life to cancer. My grandmother got sick and I took care of her. And it was several things that were going on while I was teaching meditation, teaching mindfulness. Now I was helping raise my children with my husband and then dealing with these tragedies and difficulties of, of, you know, cancer and other things. And eventually working into my career as a financial advisor, as a certified financial planner in the United States. And I was in my doctor's office in 2013, waiting to see him. And he was running a few minutes

behind. And I looked up to hear this man kind of shout at me and the other people in the waiting room that you might want to leave now. And I looked up as he was pulling out a very large gun and he proceeded to go on a shooting, you know, kind of rampage basically in the doctor's office. And he tried to kill his doctor. He was upset, mad at, and my doctor got involved. He shot and killed my doctor. He shot patient. Ultimately he shot and killed himself, but I didn't, we didn't know what was going on. And I was trying to get out of the building, got stuck in an elevator, we kept trying to keep the doors open, because people were trying to run away from this man and the shooting. And we thought he was coming around the corner. And I sort of had this out of body experience,

because the tear was so big. It was just not like anything, you know, I'd ever felt before. And in that time that it was happening, I realized that if I lived through the experience, my whole entire life was going to look different when I, when I got away from this, that I was going to make some huge changes in my life that I had been wanting to make for a really long time, but hadn't had the strength to do it. And that involved walking away from my financial advising practice that was building and growing and quite successful at the time. And I did that.

And that was in the spring of, it kind of took me a few months to get a website created. And I had ideas because I had been teaching mindfulness. I'd been even teaching mindfulness and money on the side just for fun to help people look at their money relationship different. But that was my passion. I knew I was on to something. I knew that people were incredibly mindless in their relationship with money. And I knew that out of all the people I had ever met in my life, I was a really good person because I had had this, you know, 14 year experience of teaching meditation and practicing myself, teaching breakthroughs and the ability to change the mind around the beliefs. And I also knew the money business really, really well. And I knew

that there was opportunity for people to have significant changes in their lives if they could just understand the way that they interacted with money differently. And that's when I started the company now that I run. Wealth Clinic, right? Yeah, Wealth Clinic. Which I love. I love the name. Thanks. Yeah. No, wow. That is great. That's an incredible story. That's crazy. And yeah, Thanks. other decade. And yeah, you really do, you know, sometimes get stuck or you are afraid to make a

change or, or do something totally outside of your box. But it's, it's kind of those instances in your life and something happens. And sometimes it's a tragedy where you really, you know, have to say to yourself, you know, stop making excuses. I, you just, you know, life is short. You don't know how much time you have. And so you need to do what you actually really want to do. Totally. I couldn't agree more. It was, unfortunately, I look back and think, well, gosh, couldn't you have just been like

all those entrepreneurs who just, today's the day, and they go off and do it. I was like, no, it really wasn't that story for me. It was about realizing, like you said, how short life can be that we never know when, you know, surprises happen and things change and people get sick. You know, you just don't know. And I saw that time to seize it. And my life, I just laugh because it's almost like a completely different person was living back then. Because as you know, being an entrepreneur, it's just, it's like craziness, like how much you learn and how much you grow and how much you can help people when you have the freedom to really follow your passion. So before that all happened, were you kind of

like thinking or hoping or planning to kind of quit your financial advisor job to kind of start out your own, but you're just like, oh, I'm waiting for the timing to be right. Or what was your thinking before all that happened? You know, a few months before that happened, we were, I was being courted by a very successful financial advisory practice that managed over a billion dollars in assets. And they wanted me to come on board and become a partner in that business. And so it was a big move for my husband and I, we traveled, we decided we were going to do it. And at the last minute, a conversation between me and the principal made me realize that it was not my path. And it was crazy because one minute we were going and the next minute I came home from my office one day after I had had this conversation,

I told my husband, we're not going. And he's like, what? And I'm like, it's not the right thing. It's going to take over my life and I'm not ready to do, I don't ever want to do that. There's something else that I'm supposed to do and it's not that. And then I went into a really deep funk because I had just turned away the biggest job of my whole entire career at that point and it just seemed empty. And so I was sort of in a funk when I was in the doctor's

office that day. Like I didn't know what I was going to do. I was a creature of my own success. It's hard when you're very successful in jobs, working for other people to walk away. And that's the dilemma I was in. Yeah, that's actually something interesting you bring up because I always thought, I mean, yeah, you never really think is like, is it really hard for people that are making a really good wage to walk away and do their own thing? You'd think it'd be almost easier because they have all this money saved up or they know, you know, they have a bit of a safety. If something goes bad, they can get a high paying job again. Yeah, you'd think that way. But I just, I think I've worked in so many different areas and financial services. I knew that it wasn't easy to find the environments that I found myself in. Like I, I knew that I always created different situations that gave me a lot more freedom than most people had in the jobs that I was working in purposefully, because I think I come from a family of entrepreneurs. I was used

to having a lot of freedom and I had to always create these sort of situations that were actually pretty darn good all considering. So, so it just, I think I knew how good I had it. And I knew that the risks were pretty high that I could spend a lot of money getting into a business and having it not succeed. So I was really focused on failure, and I talk about that a lot. But I was focused more on the failure than the success, quite frankly. And even when I started my business, I was still really, really scared. Yep, I totally hear you on that. And I think that's the, like, not even starting your own business, but just even just doing something new that you really want to is terrifying. And I'm for one, I'm always focused

on the failure. I'm always like, what if, what if, what if, oh, you know, would someone think I'm stupid for doing this? And then I just, you know, delay or sometimes I don't. And then usually when I do try and I'm okay with failure, usually success follows or, you know, I'm fulfilled by what happens or I learn from a failure and it's not such a big deal. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit Superstore.ca to get started. But I want to talk a little bit more about your new business, Wealth Clinic. So I kind of get the vibe that you're kind of a money coach, you're a business coach, and you're also very focused

on mindfulness, which I think is very interesting and unique that not a lot of people have that combination, which I really like. Yeah hmm. Yeah, I think that, you know, the business that I've created as a reflection of my own journey through different ways of looking at the world and kind of blowing up the beliefs that keep us operating based on the conditioning that we receive from the moment we are born until, you know, any given time in our adulthood when we start to wake up and realize that we might want to question a whole bunch of those beliefs. So I bring this questioning, this inquiry experience, which I call mindfulness, you know, into money, into business, where I encourage my clients to not just do things because other people have told them they're a good idea or they feel pressure to do things. Even making money is something that we spend a lot of time looking at because when somebody comes to me, and I just had this happen at a retreat I did this past weekend, we're a long-term client who's building a business.

We were getting ready to wrap up the weekend and it's all about what are your takeaways what you know you've had all these breakthroughs you're looking at the world in a different way how are you going to apply them to your business when you go home and something about money came up and it was like well I'm going to make a lot of money you know like seven figures and you know she she probably knew deep inside she's like oh my gosh you know I've just kind of opened myself up to a whole can of worms with Lisa because I'm like, okay, that money thing. I love it. I want you to be successful. But I feel like still even after all this time, you're coming at it from the money. And what really matters is why do you want that money? Like, right, we really need to focus on the why again. And a lot of times the whys that we have inside of us are not like, let's call them, you know, legitimate with kind of those quotations around them, around them. Our whys are our whys. And they are typically not what other people are ever going to

tell us that we should be doing. They're just deep inside of us. There's something about our life connection. Oftentimes we have to go back to our childhood to remember what those whys are because they got so lost along the way. And bring those out and figure out how we can share the why with the world and with our work and have them integrate and align so that every day we jump out of bed excited to do what we're going to do because we know where it's taking us. We know why we're doing it. And that's kind of the combination of the money, the business, and the mindfulness. Does that make sense? That totally makes sense. And again, yeah,

that is something that I, as I've gotten older, I've been really focused and less on. Like before when I was in my early 20s and broke, it was all about, I just need to make some money. I just need to save up some money so I can afford the things that I couldn't afford while I was a student or when I was a kid and stuff like that. And so that's kind of the driving force. And now as I'm older and have saved up some money, that's not as important. It's more about the why. And fulfillment, again, is another big word that kind of jumps out when I'm talking to you because

it does seem like... You mentioned on your website, part of your about story is how you were a millionaire in your mid-30s, which lots of people would think, wow, that's awesome. You must have been living life and just enjoying everything. But you mentioned that that didn't give you fulfillment. And that's part of the teachings that you offer is trying to help people find what fulfills them. And I'm totally on board with that. So first off, I kind of wrote down a question like, what does fulfill you? I'm curious. Have you found your fulfillment? Are you still searching? I've definitely found my fulfillment. And what's really funny is that as we wake up, you know, you can call it becoming enlightened or,

you know, there's lots of different ideas. But as we decrease the attachment to the way that the world should be, and we live in this state of open acceptance and allowance and seeing everything with this heart of love, which is really how I live my life, then your needs actually diminish quite a bit. Like you don't find yourself needing as much, not because somebody told you not to need much, but because you're just so darn happy with everything that unfolds that it's a very different experience than I think most people how they live their lives. Because there's a lot of, how I describe it, there's a lot of emotional energy being expended by most people to get what they want. And they think that when they get what they want, they're going to be happy. But the emotional problem that caused the urge to get something is still there with them. So then they go from relationship to relationship to relationship,

or job to job to job, or making more and more and more money, but they still feel unhappy. And what I found is that, you know, you can use your experiences with wanting things and with grasping, it's awesome teaching. But after a while, you start to learn that it isn't about what you're getting on the outside. It's about what's happening to you on the inside and how much are you letting go of the things, especially emotions that are tied up inside of you that you probably have never even fully expressed. And they're kind of holding you hostage. So that's why a lot of the work I do deals with, you know, the inner child, this, this person inside of us, that's still a part of us that is actually not fully allowing ourselves as an adult to live

because we get triggered. We get pulled right back to like an experience of when we were four years old. We don't understand why it happens. We don't understand why we're acting like a four year old, but I do understand because I've studied it for a really long time. And I know that that's how it works. We just get frozen in time with certain things in life. And when we can actually go in and have that child be really, really solid with themselves and with the life they're living and no longer emotion being all tied up in knots, then we can approach our jobs and our work and our relationship from this very beautiful place of love. And it isn't about need. It's about just being present and fully conscious about, you know, the whole experience rather than just being pulled into triggers constantly. Now, I'm curious because I totally like, especially when you talked about the inner child or just, you know, stuff you've gone through

when you were younger, kind of taking it into adulthood. That's definitely something that I've dealt with myself. But this sounds awesome. But how do you, how does one, like, is it simple to kind of get on this road to fulfillment and kind of, you know, put the past in the past and move forward and live in the moment? Because that's something I bet a lot of people would like. That's, yeah, they're like, of course, I want to live more in the moment. I want to be more fulfilled and happy and not have these emotions taking up all my headspace. Is this something that's

actually easy for anyone to do? So easy is relative. I feel like when I was saying that, I'm like, easy is the wrong word, but it's doable, I suppose, possible. Anyone can do it. I think what I was doing in meditation for many years was I was trying to do as much as I could to let go of stuff. So forgiveness practice is one example, something that allows you to get really, really clear about where you're holding grudges against people, including yourself, and letting those go. So I create a lot of meditations that help people do as much work as they possibly can do on their own. However, part of the reason that I'm a coach and I have other coaches that help me is that it can be hard to do some of this work ourselves. So, you know, therapy is awesome for people.

The type of work I do, I'm an emotional intuitive. I'm able to look inside and see things that most people don't know about themselves, which sounds so strange because even when I say it, I'm like, do they? I mean, we just don't notice things because we've done them over and over and over a certain way. Whereas when I meet someone for the first time, within a few minutes, I am asking questions. Obviously, if they're interested, I don't do this to, you know, yeah, it's like, Oh, let me, you know, diagnose everything about you. But I, I, if they're interested and they want to know where they're stuck, I can identify it in

a very short amount of time. And then it's like, what is the practice? What can you do to shift that thing? Sometimes it's diving into the belief. Like I love this woman, Byron Katie. She teaches a lot about belief busting. And I kind of use a lot of different modalities based on the person, based on how open they are. Sometimes it needs to be very logic-based, which is Byron Katie's work. Sometimes it's very emotional. Sometimes men have a hard time with emotional work because they have not been allowed by our culture to be deeply emotional, so they hold back. Whereas women, a lot of us are okay with crying. We're okay with other people seeing us cry, you know, in certain situations and emotion is stored often in tears.

So when we start to cry, we actually start to have breakthroughs. It's a very natural process when we, you know, if you've ever had a big long cry and at the end of it, you're like, the sky is parting and the clouds, you know, the sun is coming out. And you're like, what just happened to me? So much better. I see the clarity of what was going wrong. I see how to fix it. You know, I just do that to people like purposefully, you know, I want them to get in a situation where they they feel safe enough where they can let it let it go. I think I need some help with that. I am not a good and I know that's just kind of I think my personality and just who I am. But I've never

been a very good crier. But I like I did it a lot as a kid, obviously. And I always remember the feeling of feeling relieved after and just so much better. But I feel like that's something I haven't brought into adulthood. Maybe that's something I have to work on. I love getting in the like super hot bathtub and like, you know, I know it's coming. I know that there's something coming. I'm like, I need the safety. I'm a mom. I've got two kids, you know, my husband, they really don't need to hear me having, you know, an emotional breakdown. So I've got that water running. I can cry. Nobody can hear me. It's all good. You know, that's, that's one of my good idea. The happy places.

Yes. That's a very good idea. Very good idea. Um, so before I let you go, I would love to kind of just pick your brain on a few things because you've dealt with so many people and lots of different situations. What are some, um, just pieces of wisdom or advice that you would give that maybe someone can implement, you know, right after listening, like just like a simple change that might have a big impact. And I don't know if that's too broad for you. I'm just kind of

looking for some tidbits. Yeah. I think the first thing is, is that noticing the breath, like just how awesome it is to take some nice deep breaths and really pay attention to the present moment. So if you finish this, you know, listening in to this recording and you have a moment to just breathe for even a couple minutes, noticing the breath coming in and out. My sense is, is when you've done that for a couple minutes, you might look at something in your life that has been challenging for you most recently. And through being just present and, you know, conscious to this conversation and then conscious to your own conversation, which really it's like the voice inside of us. People get stuck sometimes where they're like, well, there's a lot of voices inside of me. You know, there's the stressed voice,

there's the reactive voice, but the more calm we are and the more relaxed we are, there's a voice inside of us that really comes out when we're in our states of most greatest calmness. So the breath can help us to relax, calm down, get the amygdala out of hyper mode and start to just listen inside. Because I think people will be amazed that the answers to every question you have are actually within you. And the more you can quiet, relax, and then give yourself time to ask those questions. And maybe even just let go a little bit. Like, I'm not going to try to logically solve this.

I'm just going to open it up. It doesn't even have to be solved right when you ask the question. But plant a question that's super important to you that you've been trying to sort out in your mind, plant it in the area of your heart. Let go and see what happens over the next 24 to 48 hours, that the answer will come in the most magical way possible. And I think that that's a great way to start this work. That's an amazing way. I'm absolutely going to try that. And that's actually funny that you, not funny, but that's interesting that you mentioned

that because my husband and I, he was really into meditation. He went to Thailand and he did a retreat and, you know, life gets in the way and he kind of stopped it. And it's always something that we talked about that we want to do together because it's just so important. He just feels so amazing after. And that's one of the things I'm like, well, how would I start? He's like, well, from what I've researched and what I've kind of tried, it's starting with breathing and then you kind of move forward. So I'm definitely going to integrate that immediately after this conversation. Yay. Yeah. Thank you so much for chatting with me, Lisa. It was a pleasure and I can't wait to kind of implement some of the things that you talked about today. Thank you so much for this opportunity. I'm hoping that the listeners take

away at least one, you know one nugget that they can use and apply in their own life. Absolutely. And that was episode 104 with Lisa Peterson. You can check out her stuff, more about her stuff and the resources she has at wealthclinic.com. But of course, come to the show notes, jessicamorales.com slash 104. I'm going to put in some of my favorite things about Lisa, some of my favorite podcast episodes she's done, and resources that she offers because she has a wealth of knowledge and she's just fabulous. So make sure to check out the show notes, jessicamorales.com slash 104. Thanks for joining me. I do not have another episode for tomorrow. But guess what I do have for you? I have a bunch of freebies for you. And I've actually put them all in one place for you. So you

just need to give me your email once and then you can log in and log out whenever you want. And when things are updated and added, you'll be the first to know. So I basically recently updated my resources section on my website. Before it was a bit of a hassle, a bit of a mess. So I basically turned the whole thing into a bit of a membership area. So if you want access to every single freebie I've created, that's like my budget spreadsheet, network spreadsheet, a bunch of spreadsheets, a bunch of checklists, a bunch of quizzes, a bunch of fun things. And I'm constantly updating and adding things to this. If you want access to everything to start getting your financial life right, start getting organized, start paying down your debt and figuring out how to increase your net worth, make sure just to go

to JessicaMorales.com slash resources and it'll take you right there. You just got to sign up for a free membership. It's all free, by the way, FYI, free, free, free. And you will get instant access to everything I've ever created and future things I will create. So hope that will put you in a good mood for the rest of the day. And on that note, I will see you back here next Wednesday for another fresh episode of the Mo Money Podcast. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.