SPEAKER_00 0:57

Actors are notorious for not having uh their finances in order. And as I was thinking about all of our challenges as actors and creatives in the money area, the first thing that came to me was when I was starting out in the business, I had a day job and I was booking a lot of acting jobs. And I was spending with the um with the intention that a lot of money was gonna keep pouring in. And it did not. And I heard you talk about financial identity crisis. And as I was listening to that, I kept thinking, oh my God, that's what I was going through. First of all, what is financial identity crisis? And how can we recognize it? And then what can we do to stop it?

SPEAKER_02 2:00

We coined the phrase a financial identity crisis, is basically exactly what you experience. For a lot of people, they come into money or they come into a sum of money or they're making a certain living. Okay, say it's, I don't know,$100,000, right? Well, sometimes in this day and age, when you're making$100,000, you're still kind of living paycheck to paycheck, depending upon where you live, depending upon what your expenses are, and what you thought you could do earning$100,000 a year, you're seeing that you can't do that, and now you have a financial identity crisis. Or like what you just experienced. I'm earning money, expecting to earn more. So I'm living like I'm already making the more with that expectation. But when that more doesn't come, then what happens? And so again, you're stuck, you're in an identity crisis. And what can happen when you have this is you start to doubt. You could there's confusion. Uh, you can start to walk away from your passion and your calling because you're basing the decisions based upon what's going on with your finances, as opposed to stopping and taking back and looking at the total, the total picture. And so when we get in that financial identity crisis, it's just it's just a weird space because it's it's like again, it's confusion, it's self-doubt, unbelief. All these things come up when when when we are um walking in that.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

Willa, one of the things you too discussed is that in identity crisis, you uh can have the imposter syndrome. Can you talk about what that is financially? I mean, we know what it is creatively, but I never heard having imposter syndrome financially.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

It's pretty much the same because when you have earned this money, you you are expecting to live a lifestyle, a certain lifestyle, because you earn six figures. But when you find that you are not doing that, you begin to doubt yourself. You begin to doubt your availability, you begin to question, should I even be earning this? And one of the things that you asked about was how do we get rid of it? Get rid of uh financial identity crisis. One thing is to really begin to look at what values you have, what is important to you, and not try to live your life according to what society says. If you have the earnings and your lifestyle is where you enjoy, it doesn't matter that you don't have all the trimmings that society say you ought to because you are a six-figure earner, you don't have to have that. So imposter syndrome comes in there because it makes you feel like you shouldn't be there, you don't qualify. Or yeah, you you just ought not do that. But that's you judging yourself based on what others think and say, and that's why the financial identity crisis uh is important, and uh imposter syndrome is actually a symptom of financial identity crisis.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

You talked about confusion, you talked about imposter syndrome, you talked about doubt, and that shame amplifies it all. That I can't hear the voice of wisdom, I can't hear the voice of wit of common sense, and I definitely cannot hear God's voice because I've got all these other voices that are screaming so loudly at me, saying, Well, if you don't go with your friend, if you don't go to this event, if you don't buy that new outfit, if you don't do this, then you are a loser. Because if you're an actor, if you're creative, you should be styling, you should be going out there, uh presenting a um rich uh um a rich facade.

SPEAKER_02 6:10

Wow. So I think in that instance, that's where you would take a step back so that you could reclaim your financial identity. And how we help our clients do that is we help them walk in their steward identity. And so, as a creative, all that we have, God has given us the ability to create, right? And we know this, and so and that is exactly what you're doing. But you have to be able to surrender, and so when you're able to surrender, you're able to surrender the shame, the guilt, the self-doubt. We're gonna sit and you're gonna surrender all of that to Him. You're also gonna surrender um those I don't want to say triggers, but you're gonna you're gonna surrender the things that activate you to want to do something that you aren't capable or have the capacity to do, especially with your money. So you know what those things are. You talked earlier about your money story. So there are things that are in your money story, there are things that happened when you were a child, when if especially if you grew up with lack, there are things that will activate you to want to do certain things. You want to surrender that. So you want to surrender, you want to trust God, but you also want to be able to trust yourself and the decisions that you're making, and you want to trust the process. Your financial journey, your acting journey, your creative journey is a process. So do you trust God? Do you trust yourself? And do you trust the process? And then you want to earnestly seek God every step of the way. Every step of the way. You want to walk in wisdom and you want to walk in obedience. So if you're earnestly seeking Him, then you want to walk in obedience and you want to walk in His wisdom that He's given to you. So now, granted, now this is assuming that you are a person of faith and that are willing to apply these principles that we're sharing, right? Um, and then you have to be accountable because if you're praying, if you're surrendering and you're praying and you're trusting, then there's a level of accountability that you have to your prayer. And so some of the decisions that you are going to make, like Will is said in these instances where you're gonna be like, someone's gonna say, well, do this, do that, or you say, You need to look this kind of way. All right, but how do you how are you being held accountability to your prayer? And if you have to look a certain way, do you not believe that God is gonna show you a way to do it that's not gonna break your pocket? Because that's how He provides provision, right? Do you have to buy the$3,000 dress, or is there another way you can get the same dress for considerably less amount of money? There are ways that we can accomplish the same thing with less money, right? And then the R your roles and your responsibility. What are your roles and what are your responsibilities? Your role and responsibility as a steward is to manage and multiply. So, how are you managing and multiplying the gifts and the talents and the skill sets that God is giving you that is allowing you to even bring in more, allow you to increase? And then the last thing is just be diligent and develop a plan. You have to have a plan. So even as you're starting, or even if you're already in your acting career, what is your plan? What plan do you have in place to manage your finances? What plan do you have in place to manage everything that encapsulates what it is that you are doing so that you can stay on top of it, have a plan, and be able to plan for your future. So that's are your steward identity. And I just basically walk through an acronym of Stuart. When you do all of that and you do that consistently consistently, and that developing part is how you just do it consistently, how you consistently surrender, trust, earnestly seek God, walk in his wisdom and obedience, be accountable, know your roles and responsibilities, and then continue to be diligent. That is walking in your steward identity. And that's how you can step away from the shame, the doubt, the confusion, and actually be on the unique path that God has put you on. And we call it the unique path of financial fulfillment. Because it's not enough to just earn a whole lot of money. You want to be fulfilled at the same time because there are people who have a whole lot of money and they're miserable. Right? So you want to earn, you want to be fulfilled, you want to know that you are utilizing your gifts and skill sets that that honors God, the reason why he gave them to you in the first place.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

So it reminds me of the parable of the talents. Uh, Willa, can you talk about the parable of the talents? And because that that's talking about stewardship in a different kind of way.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

Yeah. When we think about the parable of the talents, we know that when the owner was going away, he gave, when Jesus was going away, he gave 10 talents to one person, five to another, and one talent to the other. Well, we know that these talents were distributed according to the capacity of each of those three persons. So the first one who received 10 talents, he invested those talents, put it away, and earned 10 talents. So he doubled what he had capitalized. The second one with the five talents did the same thing. Put away five, earned five, was able to present ten to the owner when he came back. Well, the last one, who was given only one talent, he took that talent and he quote, hid it, put it aside so it could be protected. But it was protected in such a way that it wasn't earning anything. So when the owner came back, he came back and he said, Show me what you have. Well, he received 10 talents plus 10 talents from the first person. So that was 20. Job well done. You did a great job. Five talents plus five talents for the second person. Great. You doubled. Great job. The last one who only received one talent, and remember, they were all given talents based on their capacity. It was known that his capacity would only be able to just take one. Because he did not do anything. He set it aside and he came back and he said, Father, I know that you are strict on managing money, managing resources. I know how you do it. So I protected this. I made sure that no one would at all take this. It would be here when you got back. But he didn't earn anything. We received resources from God to manage and multiply. Not just to manage, it's to manage and multiply. And so that one talent was taken away and given to the one who had earned 10. Some people think that was wrong. They think that, well, he only had one. Why are you going to give it to the one who has so many more? Well, it's because that one who had one didn't do anything to multiply that talent. If he really knew the mindset of the one who gave him that talent, he would have known exactly how to multiply that talent. And he did it. And so we have to make sure that the resources that we are provided are used in such a way to continue to build and grow. Sometimes some of the things that we do is not in enjoyment. It's really in throwing it away because we need to make sure that we multiply them so that they can sustain us now and sustain us into the future.