ep. 044 • You Can Want What You Want & You Don't Need Anyone's Permission

Chelsea: Society tells women specifically that we can only be ambitious and passionate about making money or have big aspirations around money if we intend to sponsor someone else, have underlying philanthropic motivations, or otherwise intend to give it all away.

And generally speaking, we aren't socialized to own and accept the idea that we can make money and keep it, or use it for the ways that make us feel good. That would be frivolous, selfish, or gross. I don't believe that any of this has to be true.

In this episode, I want to talk to you about why you get to want what you want and how you don't need anyone's permission when it comes to your money-making goals.

Welcome to the Hennapreneur podcast – the exclusive podcast of its kind dedicated to giving you an honest look at the realities of making a living as a henna professional.

I'm your host, Chelsea Stevenson, a tea-loving, shoe-collecting mother of three in constant search for the most popping pair of earrings and the perfect shade of red lipstick.

I'm also a professional henna artist and business strategist who went from barely being able to piece together a fluid design to being the owner of the most celebrated henna boutique in my city.

I'm on a mission to help henna professionals, to harness their skills and grow vibrant, profitable businesses that they absolutely love.

If you want to make more money with your art, you are definitely in the right place. Let's get to it!

Hey, hey, hennapreneurs! Welcome back to another episode of the Hennapreneur podcast. This week, I want to talk to you about why you get to want what you want and how you don't need anyone's permission for that. Okay? 

There is something really interesting that happens when I use my platforms to talk openly about money and I feel like now is a great opportunity for us to chat a little bit about this, especially after our past few episodes where we've been talking about money quite a lot, but especially after I shared—just very openly—some numbers about a recent purchase, or purchases, that I'd made. 

And, um, so yeah, so there's something really interesting that happens anytime I discuss money openly here on my platforms, whether that's the podcast or on Facebook, on Instagram, in email, it's just really kind of wild. 

So, one of two things tends to happen. One, there's a segment of Hennapreneurs audience who absolutely loves it. They send me messages. Y'all send me emails. You send me DMs. And you tell me about how empowering it is to you to hear these sorts of things be talked about and be shared. 

This particular segment of the audience appreciates seeing what's possible and from what I hear, basically, is that you're really inspired by what I share, because it pushes you to chase your own goals and dreams,too. And, you know, to secure the bag, which I'm super here for. 

And then—and this is a big "and then"—and then, there's this other segment of our community that gets really freaking uncomfortable. Like, this part of our community, they really shy away from talking about money. They find it kind of gross. Like, they don't appreciate it when I do this. This is the group of people that unsubscribes from my emails. 

Like, I remember one time earlier this year that I sent an email out and I was sharing about how I was literally on a beach in the Caribbean as I was getting notifications that I had payments coming in because I had new bookings that were being made and I wasn't working, I was on vacation.

And to date, that specific email actually has had the most unsubscribes, ever, out of any of the emails I've sent. And I'm like, I've said some pretty, I feel like I've said some pretty polarizing things in my emails, and this is the one that, like, put people off? I don't know. 

But like, there's definitely that segment that also exists. Like, they just don't have interest in talking about, or hearing me, even, talk about money. And! Or, I guess, the less extreme people inside of this spectrum or on the spectrum of this group of people, if you will, are like a subsegment who, actually, they do kind of interesting things like qualifying their own desire to make money with, like, some honorable, you know, intention or reasoning behind it.

And so, I figured today was a great day to just go ahead and be super clear and draw a line in the sand for ya, friends. You ready? 

Okay. 

If you don't like making money, I am not the mentor for you. 

There's no other way for me to say that. 

If you feel like you have to justify your own desires, I'm probably not the mentor for you.

If you think that good people can't also be wealthy people. Well, I definitely am not the mentor for you. 

Look, this is the thing, y'all. Society tells us—. Society tells women, specifically, most specifically, that we can only make money, we can only be ambitious about making money, we can only be passionate about making money, we can only have these big aspirations for money if we intend to sponsor someone else, we have underlying like philanthropic motivations, or we otherwise, just to be very frank, intend to give it all away. 

And generally speaking, we aren't socialized to own and accept the idea that we can make money and keep it, or use it for the ways that, you know, make us feel good. That would be frivolous. That would be selfish. That would be gross. That would be "insert your negative adjective here", right? And I'm here to call BS on the whole entire belief system. 

Friends, you get to want what you want and you don't need anyone else's permission to do that. You can want to make more money with your art because you want what you want.

Wanting to shop without having to check your bank account, doesn't make you less of a good person. Wanting to go on vacation, doesn't make you less of a good person. You can want to enroll your kids in private school, or you can want to donate generously to the cause of your choice, or you can want to stunt so hard on your haters in your $4,000 red bottoms. That's fine. 

Better yet though, I'd add this. What if we just removed the "or" and what if we were to replace it with "and"? What if it were, you can want to enroll your kids in private school AND you can want to donate generously to the cause of your choice AND you can send so hard on your haters in your $4,000 red bottoms. 

Like, what about that? Why does it have to be mutually exclusive? Why does it have to be a binary situation? It doesn't. You can want to make more money so that you can do all of these things. 

We've got to let go of the negative judgments and perceptions that we hold about people who have money, because guess what? If deep down you feel guilt around wanting more of it, your subconscious mind is going to stand in your way as you're building your business. 

Friends, you will quite literally get in your own way in order to avoid becoming someone like that. And the "like that" is defined by you. The "like that" is likely defined by childhood beliefs. The "like that" is likely to find by your relationship with money and your money story. And all of those things do play in the background. They're like the underlying operating system of your brain when you show up inside of your business. 

And you know what? It's about time, it's high time, friend, that we let go of some of that stuff. 

This is the thing, if you're a good person, like I assume that you are—you're a listener—because, you know, hennapreneurs, we share a very particular ethics driven value system, right? So if you're a good person, then you will continue to be a good person as you're bank balance grows. 

And this is something that I, too, had to work on as it relates to my own money story. I recall a time—. And, actually, I wasn't even going to share this on the episode, but here we are. Here we are. Welcome to hearing about my childhood experiences. You're welcome. 

I remember growing up. I remember there was a time, um, if you don't know, I was raised by a single father. My dad grew up, you know, raised in the projects, like, very different life experience. He went to the military, got married, had me. I'm the oldest of seven, right? And there was a time in my early adolescence at which point my dad had remarried and they, my dad and his wife at the time had just had—. She was pregnant. She was pregnant with my youngest siblings who are twins. And, uh, I recall during that time, there were very large shifts that happened on the financial front in our home. 

And around that time, I was about 14 years old. About 14. And so I can only speak to what was my perception as a 14-year-old in that, you know, in that experience. But what I found was, I had been used to life with my dad being the single parent of multiple children. I had been used to being the person to, like, pull my weight around the house, very much in partnership with my dad making sure that things worked, you know, worked smoothly. Making sure that my siblings were taken care of. I definitely felt, you know, the pressure of, like, helping and being responsible and being a good example and doing the things. 

And after my dad remarried and we moved—we moved to North Carolina—and while we were there, we moved to a house that was a brand new build. He and his wife, when they got married, we actually were living in Maryland. She was living in Ohio. And when the households came together, that was in North Carolina. So we moved to North Carolina in this massive house. To this day, I've not lived in a house as large as that house that we purchased there. It was a brand new build. No one else had ever lived in it before. It was basically exactly what we wanted. It had all of the space, all of the rooms, it had the formal dining room, and it had the—. You name it, it had it, right? 

And I remember there being this massive disconnect for me of what my childhood experience had been prior to that marriage and once that marriage came together and we all moved into this home. It was an interesting experience and I'll just kind of leave it at that, but there's something unique that really stood out to me around that timeframe. 

My stepmother at the time had made the decision to hire a house cleaner and I had never been exposed to domestic labor prior to this. And so, she hired this team of house cleaners that would come and they would clean the house and I had such strong feelings about it. I thought that it was incredibly classist. I found it, like, absolutely repulsive that you would have another human being come in and pick up after you. After all, what sort of person requires that? What sort of person is so high up that they can't pick up after them? I really disliked this. 

And it all tied to this belief that I had around money and people with money. People with money were above everyone else. People with money, you know, they couldn't be bothered to dirty their hands, you know, to wipe down the counter. They couldn't be bothered to do these things. And all of this was through this very judgmental lens, even at that age, this very judgmental lens of like, who does that? And are they good people? And my conclusion was that 'no, there's no way that they could be good people'. 

And I remember even like, when my stepmother would pay for the cleaners to come to the house. You know, she'd put the money in an envelope and like, she wouldn't even give the money to the woman. Like, the money was put in an envelope and left on the counter and then the lady would come and she and her team would clean the house and then they would take the envelope and they would leave. And even there, like, I felt like—. I'm sure that it just comes across, even in my voice right now, like I felt very—or even in the words that I'm using—I'm taking note even of the word choices that I'm using as I'm conveying the story to you and I think that still there's very much this underlying hesitation that I have, because this was such a strong and heavy truth for me and my money story. 

And it wasn't until last year, actually, it wasn't until last year that I started to change the way that I perceived people with money. And last year was very significant for me. Obviously, last year was split into two parts, right? 

In the early part of the year, my henna boutique was totally closed down because of COVID. And in the end, that was also a very challenging time because prior to those six months of closure, I was on track to have a very, very lucrative year. So I was already like gearing up and I was getting used to money and, like, having—. I was very excited about the idea of my business's growth and all of the things and coming into this new sense of identity around myself around, like, what does this mean to be a business owner who, you know, I've finally reached these goals that I'd had. And then I was closed and that was very scary and that was very challenging. And it also pushed me to be very innovative with my audience. 

And then there was the second part of the year where after I reopened., Things just really blossomed. My community rallied around my business. My bookings were just through the roof. Like, I was booked months out after just opening without even really advertising that I was reopening. And so there was this cognitive dissonance that was also happening just in my lived experience over the course of 2020. 

And because when I reopened, I noticed this, you know, this quick uptick in my businesses revenue that was on track, right? It was on track per what I had anticipated or per what I was pacing prior to the COVID shutdown. So I, at that point, started to do a lot more like personal work and our work around money and around my belief systems with money and so forth. And there was a lot in there that I had to get over. 

And at one point, I said, you know what? I'm going to bring in a housekeeper because I'm exhausted, I've got three kids, I'm homeschooling them, I'm running my business and the business is booming, and while the business is booming over there, my students inside of PRO in Hennapreneur, they're also doing exceptionally well and I want to be more available to them. I want to add in some new things, like, at that point in time, I was ideating around how I could even, you know, further expand the programs so from that time, like, I brought in a new coach and I brought—. Like, there's a bunch of just new things that I was doing, but there was very much this era of expansion. And this era of let's do more, let's make this bigger, let's do the things. And I was getting tired and I said, "I want to bring in some help." 

And I hired a housekeeper to come and help me with the house. And it was only in having that and making that transaction that I realized all of this, like, mental baggage that I was bringing to the table around money. 

Who was I to hire a housekeeper? What does this mean about me? Was I a bad person? Was I—? 

You know, all of those things that I'd said in judgment or that I'd felt in judgment in my youth and in the years following, right? 

How did they apply now? What did they mean? 

And when I was able to see the experience from the other side of the table. When I'd come to this place where no, I had the resources to hire someone and she was excellent at what she did. She came. She came with her team. She was very proud of the work that she was doing. She's a business owner, right? Like, I just saw it through a totally different light. She was a business owner. Not only was she a business owner, she was a black female business owner, which was super important to me. I loved spending money with her. She was very proud of the work that she was doing. She was doing the work, not only by herself, but again, she had a team, which means that she was also adding to the lives of other people inside of our community by way of employment. 

I mean, the experience was just totally different when I had reached a place that I could be the one to afford that. When I could be the one to, you know, to arrive at that table and have that exchange. 

And this was one of the times, for me, that I came to realize that I had thoughts and feelings, very underlying, very quiet, very covert thoughts and feelings about what it meant to be someone who had money. And that's also where I realized, whew, perhaps this is why you be getting in your own way, Chelsea. Right? 

And so I share this with you because it's true. If you are someone who, you know, you have a desire to do whatever—whatever that thing is, I'm not here to vet, to ask you to justify, to ask you to qualify the reasons why you want to make more money, those are yours and you get to own them. And I think, especially, working in a female dominated industry, we need to be more expressive around our wants and our desires. 

And I talk about this a lot because it's super, super important. Part of our personal identities are constantly asked to be quieted, to be made small, to be dampened, like, to just be minimized by society around us and I don't feel that that is helpful to us or to our larger community. And so, I'd like to see us stop doing that, right? And so, whatever it is that's motivating you to want to make more money in your business, I want you to own that. And I also just want to kind of toss this idea or kind of put this question in your mind of: what beliefs do you have around what it means to not just have money, but to spend money, right? What beliefs do you have around that identity? Because if your identity today is so tied to being the "starving artist", if your identity today is so tied to, "well, I make money so I can give back"—. 

I'm not saying not to give back, please understand. I 100% love and teach inside of my program. If you come and work with me, this is not something that we skip over. I strongly believe that every Hennapreneur should have a social cause which they are funding through their business. Philanthropy is important. We're here to make an impact and leave the world better than we found it. And we can't do that all on our own. 

And also, money is power, friends. For better or for worse., This is a capitalist society, in general, for most of my listeners, right? For most of you. And so, with that said, you need to be able to make money to have money in order to effectively impact change. And that's either by your own doings or by the donations and the philanthropic work that you're doing. But I will never tell you, ever, that in order to own the fact that you want to make more money with your art, that you have to also have some sort of, you know, philanthropic positioning around you. 

No. No, you don't. You can want to make more money simply because you want to be rich. Literally, if that's what you want, own that, okay? And if you are a good person now without the bank balance that you desire, know that as you generate more money inside of your business, you can still, you will still continue to be a good person. That doesn't change. It doesn't change unless you change. And that's a different story, right? That's a question of values. Your values changed.

All of this is to say: having more money is an empowered position. It is an empowered position whether we agree with that, whether that makes you feel weird, doesn't matter. It's just a fact. When you have more money, for most of us living in this society that we live in, you have access to a more empowered position, which means that you can do more, you can impact more, you can experience more, for better or for worse, right? 

And your identity as someone who makes that money through your work will also begin to deepen and to change and it will feel really, really good. You know, I've reminded one of the Pros recently, uh, recently inside of Hennapreneur PRO—we have a private community where we touch base all the time. We're always in there chatting and whatnot—and one of the Pros shared how she made an investment in her home. The garage door was broken and needed to be replaced, and she was able to purchase the garage door for her home. And that was made possible with her business bank account. Like, it was made possible with the money that was generated from her art. 

And I don't know if you're aware, but like, replacing these sorts of things, that's not a cheap investment. Like, that requires a little bit of cash. 

And so I felt so excited and happy and proud and just so great for her as she was sharing that because it's like, that is such an empowered place to be in: to know that your business is supportive of your life and your board and that your business is supportive of the things that are important to you, right? 

And so I'm just here to pose that question: if right now you are not making what you would like to make with your art, then I'd love to invite you to explore if you have any baggage or guilt around why you want to make more money, what you want to make more money for, and what beliefs you might have around people who have money that are causing you to subconsciously kind of cut yourself off at the feet and say, "No, no, I don't want to be one of those people," because if that's you, that's your answer right there, right? And more importantly, I'd love to ask: what's one thing that you want right now? No judgment. No weirdness. No shaming. I want you to own it. 

Over in the Hennapreneur.com/community there's a post going today where I want you to tell me why you want to make more money with your art right now.What would you buy? What would you do? What's your dream? Own it. I want to know, and we can work together over there to get you towards that new, big audacious goal. All right, until next time. Bye for now.

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