Women and Money: Why It’s Important To Feel Financially Empowered

Tara Newman: Welcome to The Bold Money Revolution Podcast. This is your source for straight talking, no fluff business and high performance conversations that add real depth and value to the way bold leaders live, work, and thrive. I’m your host, Tara Newman. I’m here to show you how to optimize your performance as a leader so that you can grow a business that is profit rich, efficient, and allows you to generate real tangible wealth for yourself and others. We are here to help you lead with your values to perform without overwhelm and burnout, and to do your most important work in the world.

Hey, bold leaders, welcome to this episode of The Bold Money Revolution Podcast. I have Danielle Dinkelman here with me today and I couldn’t be more excited to be talking to Danielle. She is a health and wellness coach specializing in plant-based nutrition and she is the author of the book If Diets Don’t Work, What Does? A Doable, Enjoyable Guide to Living the Life You Want. Danielle says that she believes that women shape the world, which I love because I have that in common with Danielle.

Then she goes on to say, “But when we are held back by our health, whether that be chronic fatigue, mental health, aches, pains, depression, and anxiety or other health problems, we can’t fully show up in the way that we want.” I think that really leads into why I wanted to have Danielle on the podcast to have this conversation. She is a member of The Bold Profit Academy. She’s been in there for about six months and when I reached out to her I said, “I’m just really inspired by you. I’m inspired by how you show up.” I think we hear people say show up but we don’t know what that means or looks like. I really wanted to have Danielle come on and talk about that because I think she embodies it so well.

The other thing that is important to note is that she has four kids. She’s showing up, she’s got a full plate, she’s got four kids. I have known her long enough to know that she is deeply committed to doing the depth work and it’s not just surface level, so really, I wanted to have this conversation around showing up for yourself, taking action, and feeling good, then how that all intersects with money.

Welcome, Danielle.

Danielle Dinkelman: Thank you, Tara. I’m so happy to be here. Let’s do this.

Tara Newman: Yeah. I’d love to know what does showing up mean to you or look like to you? Can you give examples or make that concrete for people?

Danielle Dinkelman: Yeah. I definitely think that it’s a term that we throw around and that we use a lot. I know both you and I use that term a lot. I’ve been practicing as a health and wellness coach for a while now and I have clients that really show up, and I have clients that don’t. So an answer to that question, to me, it comes back to authenticity and vulnerability. Those things of not only are you in the room but you’re participating and you’re willing to open up, you’re willing to go deep, you’re willing to question your own status quo, you’re teachable, there’s humility and a willingness to grow. I think that we need that in business and we also need that in health.

Tara Newman: Yeah. I think there’s a lot of truth to that. I remember when I was working in corporate, I remember hearing someone say, “Showing up is just 90% of the work.” I was like, “What do you mean?” They’re like, “Well, getting people to actually show up for work,” like to be present, be reliable, and be dependable. I think that there is a lot of truth to that and that level of presence that people take for granted. 

Danielle Dinkelman: Yeah. It’s a form of self-integrity, I think.

Tara Newman: Yeah. I noticed that the women who get the best results in The Bold Profit Academy are the ones who come to the calls—I mean some people might be listening to the calls because we do have them on replay and certainly, if they listen to the calls, that is also helpful—but they’re committed, they put that time aside on their calendar, they have some boundaries around what’s important to them, what their goals are. You said vulnerability, I’ll say accountability and responsibility. 

Danielle Dinkelman: Yeah.

Tara Newman: I think as a woman, it’s easy to not do that actually. I think it’s easy because we have so many other things, I’ll speak for myself.

Danielle Dinkelman: I might be able to chime in here too.

Tara Newman: I have so many other things on my plate. I’m 45. I am officially in that sandwich generation where usually my mom, not so much my dad, requires some support and care, then I’ve got my kids, I’ve got the business, I’ve got myself, and my husband owns his own business. It’s easy to sacrifice self. You must see that a lot.

Danielle Dinkelman: Oh gosh, yes. You and I are both huge fans of Greg McKeown’s book Essentialism. Almost every single time, I meet with a new client and they tell me, “Well, I know I want to do better in the way that I’m eating and I know I need to exercise more. I’m just not sleeping well and I’m not sure why I’m stressed out. I’m out of my mind and I’m not sure why.” For me, I just see through all of that and it just boils down to, “Dang girl, you’ve got way too much on your plate.” You can’t always say no to your mom or you can’t always say no to your kids but there are plenty of times when we can say, “Yes, but not right now,” it’s those boundaries and it’s that essentialism of really finding the more of less.

Another aspect that I think you do a beautiful job speaking to, Tara, is this idea of being a recovering overachiever and I’m raising my hand here. Those of us that are overachievers or are trying to recover from that, it’s so hard for us to say no, it’s so hard for us to let other people down because we almost have this—I’m going to go psychological here—we have an outward reference point of our worth and our value. If we can say, “You know what, I am an intrinsically valuable being because I am a being and that’s enough. Now, I’m going to ask myself what do I need and how can I show up for myself first, then show up for my family, my business, and these other responsibilities,” it has to come from that starting point instead of the outward starting point, don’t you think?

Tara Newman: Yeah. I remember when my kids were really young, I don’t know, I just really figured it out early on that I was not going to be able to do it all and it was really crushing trying to navigate kids, be at the office at a certain time, having dropped the kids off at daycare on the way, and all these things. I remember setting for myself a priority list and it was my relationship with God, or something higher, powered, my relationship to myself, my relationship to my husband and my relationship to my kids were lost—work wasn’t even there—But when my relationship with my kids were less, I remember I would talk to other moms about this and get so much flack, they’re like, “Well, what do you mean your kids are last?” I was like, “Well listen, if I’m not connected, if I’m not plugged into some source, if I’m not navigating self, and I’m not putting some effort into my relationship with my husband, my kids are done.”

Danielle Dinkelman: Yeah. They don’t stand a chance.

Tara Newman: They’ve got a spun out, stressed out, anxious mom who is in a not great relationship with their dad, like what kind of home environment would that create for them? But also realizing how that’s really counter culture.

Danielle Dinkelman: Oh yes, it is. That pressure is so real that it needs to look a certain way to be that all-star mom, especially. But as you talk about what good would we be to our kids if we didn’t have that pecking order, that this comes first, then this, then this, then this, you can extend that one layer further out to our businesses and our clients. This is why I’m so excited about this conversation with you because most of us that are in a solopreneur style business, a lot of these are service-based businesses, we are these people that have these big hearts and we want to serve, help, lift, and empower. Gosh, what good are we to those people if we’re not doing all of that for ourselves first?

Women, especially, have the hardest time with this idea. When I tell my clients, “Look, you have to come first, you have to come even before your husband, even before your kids, even before your job, you.” Because it’s that idea of you literally just cannot draw water from an empty well. You just can’t. We ignore this because it is counter culture and the culture says, “No, it’s good to be selfless and you’re just here to serve.” Like, “Yeah, but I want to give from my abundance, not give from my depletion.” 

Tara Newman: Yeah. I also think that what I’m paying attention to really closely as I develop in my message, how I talk about, and how I interact with women and money, and as I take in other perspectives of how women are with money—given that obviously, not everybody has my perspective on money—the thing that I have really been paying attention to is how much women have been conditioned to do unpaid labor.

Danielle Dinkelman: Oh yeah. Therefore, we have a really hard time charging what we need to charge for our expertise and the value that we’re offering our clients. There’s a huge block there for sure.

Tara Newman: Yeah. It was really interesting, years ago, this woman contacted me. She wanted to work with me one-on-one. She came from a wealthy family and she was working on some pretty big issues in terms of her career, which she wasn’t technically working in. She was staying at home. She was career oriented. She was very ambitious. She was very goal-driven. I think that she was looking at how to navigate being that person with being this mom who has been staying home and really taking care of the husband’s business behind the scenes including the children, but big business stuff. Ultimately, it came down to price and I was like, “Fine,” but the crazy thing was that when I did the math, if she just paid herself something like $5 an hour, over a period of time, that would have equated to my fee. I know for this person that it wasn’t actually about the money but I remember just doing the math on that for a second because it was probably one of the first moments where I was like, “Wow, we really just aren’t great to ourselves.”

Danielle Dinkelman: Yeah. It’s sad. We undersell ourselves. We don’t think we’re worthy. We don’t deserve it. It’s not okay. There’s so much cultural stuff around that I think, especially for women. We can’t take for ourselves, we are also not very good at receiving, and we’re also not very good at asking. These are a lot of blanket statements but culturally, I think we can all see how this has shown up for each of us if we think about it.

If we can shed a light on it we can say, “Okay, I’m going to notice this when this comes up next for me and I’m going to choose differently. I’m going to ask or I’m going to receive,” or “I’m going to stand up for myself and say no, I deserve to take a nap today.” Whatever that is, it’s going to be different for each individual.

Tara Newman: Yeah. I think you’re really touching upon something in terms of labeling, like labeling what we’re feeling, labeling what we’re experiencing and how important that is. I remember—full disclosure because I’m always transparent on this podcast, this is not the first time Danielle and I have recorded this podcast. The last time we recorded it, Zoom did a weird thing and I sounded weird—when we actually recorded this podcast the first time, Danielle, you had made a comment to me about how, I think on one of my podcasts, I said I love money. I think this was you and you said you needed to hear that or you were grateful that was something that I was modeling, was this you?

Danielle Dinkelman: Yeah. If I didn’t say it, that was definitely my experience, probably. 

Tara Newman: Yeah, I think you did say that. It really hit me because first of all, saying that out loud was something that I had to get really comfortable with. Saying it on the podcast made me nervous because everybody takes things so differently and I’m always like, “Oh, I don’t want to offend anybody.” Now, I really just don’t care as much four years into the podcast.

Danielle Dinkelman: Authenticity.

Tara Newman: But I thought that was so valuable for me and for you. Obviously, for me, knowing that we need to say these things out loud as women. We need to talk about it. We need to, Brené Brown says, “Shine a spotlight on it.” You were just doing some labeling of things. I think that’s so critically important for us to start to move forward.

Danielle Dinkelman: Oh yeah, because it’s like we don’t want to stay in the echo chamber and we don’t want to contribute to the echo chamber of this issue of women having permission to ask, to take, to receive, to deserve, to want, all these things. It’s like, okay, yeah. The only way that’s going to change is if a few of us, unapologetic women, can give some language to it.

Yes, when you were bold enough to just talk really openly about your money story, coming full circle, and coming to this place of, “I love money. Money supports me. I’m really good at making money. I’m really good at managing money. I love money,” that’s very healing. It was healing for me. I’ve had a very similar money journey to you and we need to hear more of this from each other. That is how we give ourselves permission to break the narrative, to change the narrative to something that can actually propel us forward rather than just keep us circling the dream.

Tara Newman: Yeah. While we’re we’re talking about money, the other reason why I wanted to have you on is because when I ask women why they want to make money, what is important to them about making money, I thought that I was going to hear answers—and I’m not judging anybody in my recapping of my research—I thought I was going to hear things like, “Providing for my family,” things like that. What I was hearing was—first of all, a bunch of people are not really sure what purpose their money has. If you are not sure what purpose your money has, please go download the Revenue Goal Calculator. I think that’ll help give you some clarity and directionality for your money, as well as help you see how much you need to bring in revenue to pay yourself a healthy living and things like that—but a lot of women still see themselves as the extra, the icing on the cake. There was a lot around financial freedom and independence, which I really understand.

My takeaway from that was that we still don’t see ourselves in the role of financial provider. We were talking about this in The Bold Profit Academy. In some contexts, we talk about money a lot pretty much every call, normalizing women having money, wealth is really important, and talking about that is important. You shared why making money is important to you and I was like, “Wow, I really wish that women heard you on this call, share that.” Would you share that with us today?

Danielle Dinkelman: Sure. I think this is something that’s evolving for me too. Even since the time of that call, I think it has continued to evolve.

Tara Newman: Cool. 

Danielle Dinkelman: I think the main thing is I do want to look at myself as and I want to become a business owner that could provide for my family if I wanted to, that financial independence. A big part of where that comes from is that we did go through a cancer diagnosis for my husband a few years ago, and that is something that rocks your world. Now, even though he’s “cancer-free,” it is a skeleton in our closet that me as the wife and as the mother, like I’m 34, I’ve got four little kids, and the reality dawns on me that at any given point, he could have a recurrence cancer, it could take him, and I could be a single mom. I could be alone.

Of course, we have life insurance and we have plans in place but gosh, that is a wake-up call of hey, me as a woman, I am not on this planet simply to ride on the coattails of my husband. I am here side by side with him. I look at it as a partnership. That’s the way our marriage is and that’s also the way that I want to see our finances evolve. That’s what I’m working toward, is that partnership. I’m even there now, that if something happens this year, I feel like we would be okay because I’m on a trajectory for that independence and for that ability to provide because I have invested in myself incredibly. I have gained skills and expertise, and I’ve built a business that I have more ideas for than I have time to execute but I know over time, I can do this and I can support my family. Yeah, that’s the backstory for me with that.

Tara Newman: I can confirm all these things are true. I think I have to really watch my stuff around this conversation—I’m just going to be really transparent—because it’s 2021 and we still have an incredible amount of women who are not financially empowered. Some of them have made a choice to stay home—that’s their calling. I’m absolutely not judging that—at the same time, I’ve heard stories where something happens to the man, the husband, the primary financial providing partner and the woman has been out of the workforce for 10, 15 years raising kids, and it’s bleak.

Danielle Dinkelman: It is.

Tara Newman: I’m so glad you say you have insurance because this is usually not how the stories that I hear go. It’s devastating to me that we are still in this place—I remember, my kids are older than yours, they’re 12 and 15—I really struggled with making the decision about when to become a mom, what’s the best time in my career and all those things. For me, it was always an either…or but as I’ve stepped into owning my own business and I watch the women in my programs navigate motherhood and business ownership, it’s really both…and. We don’t have to have to sacrifice our financial independence because we’re a mom.

Danielle Dinkelman: Yeah. There are so many directions I want to go from here. There are so many ideas that are coming to my brain right now. One, this idea of becoming a person that could be a primary provider or that is a primary provider. It’s about money but it also, for me, goes hand in hand with self-development. That’s what I see, most of my clients are stay-at-home moms and I have seen them literally put themselves on the shelf for 15 years.

Some of my clients, I don’t meet them until they’re 40, 50, even 60 years old and they’ve been on the shelf that long. It’s just, “I’m with you. I’m looking at this. We’re in 2021, people. As women, we have to wake up and we have to realize that motherhood doesn’t have to be this 150% self-sacrifice because it actually doesn’t even end up serving you or your family in the long run.”

Tara Newman: Yeah. That’s such a great point. I always ask the women in The Bold Profit Academy a question, it’s around marketing that they’ve been consuming but, “Who benefits from you having that belief?” Who benefits from the belief that women’s sole purpose—I get that being a mom is incredibly enriching and all those things—but that’s the only thing that can enrich us, that’s the only thing that can fuel us, who benefits from that thinking?

Danielle Dinkelman: The patriarchy.

Tara Newman: Yeah. I was just having this conversation with another client today. I don’t know about anybody else but I feel like maybe, I’ve become overly sensitive to it, I feel a rise in anti-female sentiment. I feel a rise in misogyny. I don’t think that’s actually happening. I think that we are in a time where saying the quiet things out loud is acceptable now and people are just more comfortable being anti-female. The things that I’m reading in the news—I do follow the news, I do follow politics, that’s a passion of mine to some degree—and the news that I’m seeing, if it isn’t a battle cry to women to start clawing out some of the resources, financial resources we have in this world, I don’t know what is because our daughters are watching.

Danielle Dinkelman: Yeah, absolutely. I have three sons and one daughter and she is nine. Honestly, I think me, owning a business, growing a business, and working toward that ability to be a sole provider when I need to or when I feel like it, I’m doing that for her. So many people do pit us in this either…or, you have to be a full-time stay-at-home mom or if you’re a career woman, then by default, you’re going to be a terrible mother. Oh man, I have grappled with that dialogue for the last three years. I’ve really come to the conclusion that I’m a better mom for running a business because it forces me to be an essentialist. It forces me to have boundaries, not only around my own time, my own energy, and my own self-care but also, in how I am showing up, how I am choosing to parent my children.

My children, they are learning to be independent because, guess what, this mom does not do every single little thing for them. I am not a helicopter mom. I am not a rescuer. I let my children fall down and I let them pick themselves up. I’m there to put the band-aids on, kiss their cheeks, and send them on their way but it makes me a better mom because I have to find those balance points and those boundaries but it’s letting them stand on their own two feet. I don’t get my value as a woman or a mother from my children being dependent on me in an extremely disordered way.

It’s good for my kids in so many ways but especially for my daughter, I don’t want to be modeling that old paradigm of, “Your brothers are supposed to grow up and they need to go get steady work because they’re going to provide for a family. You just go do whatever is fun, you’ll just marry somebody, and he’ll take care of you.” I am done with that dialogue. Let’s promote a partnership paradigm. Let’s promote an individual self-development paradigm for boys and girls. It’s so important.

Tara Newman: Yeah. My daughter’s 12. There was this really horrible news article. I’m not going to go into it but it was about something that happened to a woman in the army and you could just take it from there in your own heads. It was the most atrocious thing I ever read. I read a lot of atrocious things. I got really concerned for my daughter’s safety, starting to second-guess myself. She’s a soccer player but I said to my husband, I’m like, “I don’t know, I think she needs to go to karate.” My husband’s like, “Well, she could take a week in self-defense class.” I’m like, “No, she needs to figure out, she needs to be able to kill someone with her bare hands and that takes time and mastery.” I was really in a state after reading this article. I said, “Okay, at a minimum, I need to start a conversation with her about her own personal safety.” She says to me, “Hey mom, is this a conversation you’re having with my brother?” I’m like, “Hmmm. No. She’s like, “That’s what I thought.” I was like, “Oh no.” 

Danielle Dinkelman: She got you. 

Tara Newman: Yeah. They get it. But back to what you were saying about being a mom and having a business, I think that it’s really valuable for your kids to not be the sole receiver of all of your energy, hopes, dreams, and all those things. I think there’s a lot of pressure to put on a kid. I know that both my children have benefited tremendously—because I did both, I left the house to work, then I quit and I’m working from home now running my business for the last seven years—I think that has been a better education for them than even school.

Danielle Dinkelman: Them being able to see you being on the sidelines.

Tara Newman: Hear me, see me, see how we’ve been able to advance and progress as a family, and the things that we’re able to do because I’m making money, I’m providing as well. I think it’s a really important message to be sending.

I want to ask you a question about money and self-care. Listen, I believe this isn’t about the cost of self-care. I think my best self-care costs nothing. That’s just my opinion. How do you feel about that?

Danielle Dinkelman: I’m on the fence. I’m very willing to spend money on myself in the name of self-care. I think I’ve shared with you, I pay for daycare so that I can go play pickleball with my friends once a week, sometimes twice a week. Yes, I spend money on my self-care. I get a massage every single month. When I was writing my book, I got one every other week because I knew my body was going to need it. Sometimes, yes, the best self-care doesn’t cost anything.

For me, the best self-care is, “Okay, what can I do that is literally not productive?” The recovering overachiever brain kicks in and says, “No, no, no you can’t sit and do a puzzle. No, no, no you can’t take a bubble bath. No, no, no you can’t go on a walk,” all these things, they don’t cost anything but they also don’t produce anything. That overachiever brain says, “That’s not good enough.” But I have to come in and say, “Yes, it is. This is what refreshes me. This is what energizes me. This is what helps me recover.” I think it’s both…and. 

Tara Newman: Yes, I’m with you on that. I’m with you on both…and, for sure. I think what saved me in the last year was the fact that I can find a tremendous amount of self-care and things that don’t cost money, that I don’t have to go anywhere and do, some of my own practices that I can provide for myself. But my question is really around, I feel like for me, wanting, desiring money, having money, doing my most meaningful work, and getting paid for it, that feels like self-care to me. 

Danielle Dinkelman: Oh yeah, it does. It’s self-affirming. It’s self-developing. It’s letting yourself take up space in the world. I think that’s part of this issue. The cultural issues we see is that women, like children, at one point, were really meant to be seen and not heard, like, “Be there, do everything funny, but don’t take up space.

Tara Newman: Oh, my God, I just heard my grandfather.

Danielle Dinkelman: It’s a real thing. 

Tara Newman: It is a real thing.

Danielle Dinkelman: No one says that anymore. We’re very much like, “Children have value and we protect them,” and whatever. There are so many cultural underpinnings that it’s never said out loud but it’s this assumption and it’s this cultural thing that we’re not allowed to take up space, we’re not allowed to consume, we’re not allowed to take things, get things. We’ve talked about desire, we’ve talked about pleasure, these things that are like, “Oh my gosh, those are such buzz words for women.” I have been doing my personal work on those trigger words because I was very much raised in a culture where neither of those things were okay and that is a process.

Here’s the thing, when you desire something—one of my favorite things, I learned this from You Are a Badass at Making Money, Jen Sincero. She talks about the latin root of the word desire. It’s De-Sire, which is of the father—so for me, I believe in God but I think that the principle is the same. It comes from goodness. It comes from a higher place. That shifted everything for me. When I could connect that with my faith and integrate that to my desire for goodness, that I can also desire a beautiful car for me to drive, that I can also desire a comfortable home and a safe neighborhood, that I can desire extra income to go on quarterly retreats with my husband, these create goodness.

I think that’s where, as women, we can give ourselves permission to desire because more often than not, I would say 99.9% of the time, your desires are coming from a good place and they’re going to create more goodness in yourself, in your family, in your clients, in your community. That’s something that’s beautiful and unique about women. Gosh, I could just go off on this whole day, Tara, I’m sorry, but I think a lot of the stigma around the word desire comes from biblical roots and I think that message was mainly for men. I’m sorry. It’s mainly for men. But here’s the thing that’s so wonderful about women, our nature is a little different. Our nature is to give, our nature is to nurture and that doesn’t go away. We can trust our desires more.

What I often challenge my clients to do is when they notice a desire that they have and they quickly shut it down, “I want to sleep better. I want a nap every day. I want to not feel so tired,” but then they excuse it away so quickly and they don’t water it, they don’t say that’s okay, they don’t give it credence, but if they did, I invite them to look at all the goodness that it creates. “Well, if I take a nap, I’m more cheerful when my kids come home from school.” “If I take a nap, I feel like having a connected conversation with my husband when he comes home.” It creates goodness to desire for yourself and to even take pleasure in those things that you desire for yourself. It is okay. Okay, that’s my soapbox, sorry.

Tara Newman: Yeah. All Eve wanted was an apple and everything went to shit after that. She didn’t even want money. She didn’t even want Adam to take care of the kids. She wanted to bite an apple.

Danielle Dinkelman: Yeah. We can take a charge off of these words, we can peel the layers back, and we can question these things and actually see that they actually create goodness.

Tara Newman: Let’s go Q1, what was your best lesson in Q1 around money? Totally sprung this on you, so take some time. 

Danielle Dinkelman: You sure did. Okay, I’m going to think about this for a minute. I can make it easier than I thought. Clients come easier than I thought. I can manage it better than I thought. I can use my money to get the things that I desire. In Q1, I’ve been driving a 2012 Toyota Sienna, a total minivan mom vehicle, and in the last six months to a year, I have declared to the heavens, I am no longer in harmonious vibration with this minivan and I really, really wanted to move to something different. We had been thinking about it, planning it, and trying to make the money make sense for it for a while. We went into car shopping mode with the thought and intention that, “Okay, my business is really starting to pick up. Okay, on this trajectory, we’ll be able to pay cash for our next vehicle if we wait another year, maybe a year and a half.” But we wanted to decide what vehicle it was going to be.

I won’t go into too much detail but basically, I found myself really wanting a really nice vehicle. I wanted a luxury level, mid-size SUV. We shopped it out and I found the car that I wanted. I was in a harmonious vibration with this thing. I made enough money in Q1 to show myself and my husband that this would make sense, and that it would be okay to not wait but to go ahead, finance the car, and get it now because I believe in vibration. For me, individually, my energy is very sensitive, that if I surround myself with good things, nice things, a clear comfortable clean space, I can create even more in my life. It is so powerful. So I told my husband, I was like, “I really think that if we get this car, I think my business will just grow more. I think that you’ll get promotions and things will just happen. I just think that it’s okay for us to do this.”

We did it and I’ve been driving this vehicle for a couple of months now, and I love it. It supports me in having that higher vibration and it supports me in up leveling the rest of my world in some material ways but some non-material ways in just that refinement that we want to put ourselves through of up leveling.

Anyway, it was really amazing to me in Q1, that I gave myself permission to purchase a vehicle. I’m paying half of the payment. My business is paying half of the payment, my CEO-pay. That is so ridiculously satisfying. We went out to Washington to visit my family over spring break and I pulled up in this gorgeous vehicle. I did not come for money. My dad has struggled his whole life and I was raised very much like the lower middle class. So I bring this vehicle home and everybody’s jaw is dropping, and they look at Blaze and they say, “Wow, Blaze, what a nice vehicle you bought for Danielle.” Every single time, I think I had about seven opportunities to correct them and say, “Actually, this is my car. It’s our car. I’m paying for half of it.” They’re like, “Oh cool, good for you.” I have five brothers, so it was a thing. 

Tara Newman: I have to really acknowledge you because Danielle is such an action taker. Before she even joined The Bold Profit Academy, she would respond to my emails. Aren’t I nice in email? Shouldn’t more people respond to my emails?

Danielle Dinkelman: Gosh, Tara, I still get your emails even though I’m already in your program and I still want to reply, and I’m like, “Okay, I’m really not going to waste this woman’s time.” But you really do write beautiful emails and they are so honest, and raw. I love them. I love the conversations that you start in there, so it shocks me that people don’t respond. So anyone that gets Tara’s emails, she really does reply and she really does want to hear from you, not even just to sell her programs, she cares about humans and people, so just reply to the email.

Tara Newman: For sure. I remember Danielle just being such an action taker. She’s replying to my emails and I’m like, “Wow, this woman really is standing out from the crowd.” I mean I get a handful, people reply but you were replying with the actions you were taking. I remember, I had a podcast episode about the five-belief habit and I remember you responding with your five beliefs just like you did right now. You just gave me beliefs. You just knocked them out. You’re like, “Here they are, one, two, three, four, five.” Then I remember you’d be like, “I want to join, I’m coming.”

Danielle Dinkelman: Save me a seat. 

Tara Newman: Coming. We had a number of these conversations and you were genuinely preparing. You didn’t want to bite off more than you could chew financially. You were very discerning about coming into the program, which I always appreciate when you come into my emails—this is not about hard selling—I even said to you, I’m like, “I appreciate your discernment. I appreciate that this is a big deal for you right now.” Then you joined us and it’s been like a rocket ship. I’m not saying that’s because of The Bold Profit Academy at all. I’m saying it’s because you take action and you show up for yourself.

Danielle Dinkelman: Yeah, I’m in this not just to grow my business, Tara, I’m in this to grow myself. I look at growing my business as my own personal development program. I’m an extremely highly qualified and skillful coach but I cannot coach myself. Great coaches cannot coach themselves because human beings cannot see their own blind spots. We cannot ask ourselves the questions that we’re unwilling to ask, but someone else can. In this last call, you asked me a question that I was not willing to ask myself.

Tara Newman: Oh, what did I ask you?

Danielle Dinkelman: You asked why, my revenue goal number, you asked me point blank and that, oh man.

Tara Newman: Yeah. I did notice you were a little like, “Oh.”

Danielle Dinkelman: But how did I respond?

Tara Newman: You were incredibly honest.

Danielle Dinkelman: That was an extreme vulnerability for me. I was on a vulnerability hangover for the rest of the day. My girlfriend came over and she’s like, “Why are you laying on the couch?” I’m like, “I just had this real call, okay.” Here’s what I’m saying, I was looking for an extremely highly qualified, skillful, mindful coach and someone that was extremely skilled, and savvy when it came to business, and you checked both of those boxes. That’s why I replied to the emails and I have been on a personal development journey where I have done a lot of energetic work. I’m extremely well-versed when it comes to this idea of the power of limiting beliefs and mindset work.

Your approach just resonated with me so powerfully. It’s just been more of the same. When we were driving up to spring break, we were having a call in The Bold Profit Academy and I used my data on my cell phone so that I could call into this call because I know that every time I show up for that call, even if I’m not speaking up or getting my questions answered or whatever, I walk away with inspiration, with empowerment. I take action on those things because I take it seriously like, “There’s a reason this showed up for me today. There’s a reason somebody said that, then it really struck a chord.” It’s business development but it’s also personal development. That’s one of my favorite things about you, your work, and your program, is that you’re there for all of it and it’s not either…or, it’s not like this little slice, this piece of us as business owners and as women, it’s the whole picture. It’s just powerful. I love it. Thank you.

Tara Newman: Thank you. I want to say I’ve certainly been in your shoes where I’ve had a vulnerability hangover. As a matter of fact, I was on a first call with a mentor that I just hired. There were a few of us and one of the women had started the call crying, and she was apologizing and I’m like, “Heck, I’m usually the one crying on the call, so go ahead.” We’ve all had those moments.

To your point about even if you’re not the one who’s asked the question and having your question answered, there’s so much that you get out of it, I know that you asking that question had such a profound impact on everybody else who was listening and as we were talking about it. It’s important when we show up, we don’t just show up for ourselves, we show up for the people around us. When we have the courage to ask a question, other people benefit too. It’s like vulnerability is this super power where it serves everybody.

Danielle Dinkelman: It does. I did not actually want to send those questions to you. You had a call for questions, the office hours call is like a Q&A thing. We have to submit the questions and I did it the morning of which I’m like, “Oh, she’s totally not going to get to these. This is safe for me to ask these really personal, really transparent questions around my business and around my money,” and we get in the call and of course, Tara’s like, “Danielle, we’re going to start with you.” I’m like, “Oh, shit.” 

Tara Newman: I believe I was like, “Danielle asked a really good question, so we’re going to dig in. I appreciate good questions for sure.”

Danielle Dinkelman: It takes courage. It takes courage to be coached. It’s so vulnerable. I acknowledge this in every single one of my clients that choose to come and work with me. I acknowledge them for being willing to get on a call and do a free consultation with me, to talk with a complete stranger, and to lay their crap on the table. But that is the place that we have to come to if we want to go to the next place. Whether it’s business coaching or health coaching or whatever it is that people need, there are qualified people out there and you’re one of them, and I’m one of them. Go get help. Do the work.

Tara Newman: I think that after you have that moment though, it’s so freeing afterwards. You take that action, you ask a question, you book the call, you join the thing, and there’s a release, then you feel good. That’s really hard to explain because I think we freeze right before we take the action that’s going to make us feel better.

Danielle Dinkelman: Right. You may not feel better right away, like I said, me, curled up in the fetal position on the couch right after that call, it’s okay to take a leap in the dark. Another thing I’ve heard you say before is that you always get a return on your investment.

Tara Newman: Heck, yeah.

Danielle Dinkelman: Whether it’s courses, coaching, or whatever it is, you always get a return on your investment and that’s something that I’ve adopted for myself. I always get a return on my investment. I do not invest in things, then not show up for them, which is why you see me showing up the way that I am in the academy. I see that in my coaching clients too, it’s like, “Okay, this isn’t a small fee that they’re choosing to pay to work with me but it’s worth it,” because it calls them to show up at that level and to say, “I’m here for this work. I’m here to be courageous. I’m here to be vulnerable. I’m here to be teachable.” Good things come from that.

Tara Newman: Yeah, I think investing in yourself is also self-care and I want to say to that, because I know that it’s not always accessible to people to invest in themselves because I think people say, “Oh well, investing in myself, that’s money,” but you can invest time, you can invest energy, and you can invest an appropriate amount of money for you at the time that you’re investing. It doesn’t have to be a big amount or the VIP thing. As a matter of fact, I’m always like, “Don’t buy the VIP thing first. Maybe, try something that is more appropriate to your budget and see how that goes.” But definitely, when you do it, show up with the belief that you will get the result that you want.

Danielle Dinkelman: Definitely, you won’t be disappointed.

Tara Newman: As we roll ourselves out of here, what’s your message for women today?

Danielle Dinkelman: The words that come to my mind are step up, step up and step in. You have permission. If you’ve been waiting for someone to give you permission to step into your power, to step into your desires, to step into your own needs, and to have that self-respect to have needs, desires, and to ask others to give you that self-respect, I give you permission. Nothing but good will come from that. I think that we can give ourselves permission to take those steps and that we can trust ourselves. We are so discerning. We are wise. We are careful. It’s okay to take some steps here so step up.

Tara Newman: Yeah, I know a lot of people need to hear that message. Danielle, where can they find you? Where can they find this amazing book that you’ve written? Where can they find support in a plant-based diet?

Danielle Dinkelman: Danielledinkelman.com, you can find all of my stuff there. The book is, I’m going to be really honest, really powerful. The goal of this book was to put coaching in a book form so that someone could coach themselves and that is what I accomplished with this book, which is as you know, that is not an easy task because coaching is so personal, it’s so interactive. But I’m extremely proud of this book. It is interactive. It has journal prompts at the end of every single chapter and while I specialize in plant-based nutrition, there’s a bigger specialty here, which is to start where you are and take the next step in any aspect of healthy living. In the book, we talk about sleep, nutrition, exercise, stress management, and mindset. Every single human on this planet needs at least one of those to improve, for quality of life.

Tara Newman: I’m going to really encourage everybody to go and buy the book. Support a woman in business. Support a woman who is confidently putting her expertise out into the world. If it’s not necessarily your cup of tea, I bet you know somebody who would also really value that book and you can gift it to them. But we need to start paying women, we need to start paying content creators, we need to start paying people who are putting their expertise out in the world. It’s up to us to create this economy for each other.

Danielle Dinkelman: I believe that.

Tara Newman: Danielle, thank you so much for coming by.

Danielle Dinkelman: Thank you, Tara.

Tara Newman: If you’ve found this podcast valuable, help us develop more bold leaders in the world by sharing this episode with your friends, colleagues, and other bold leaders. Also, if you haven’t done so already, please leave a review. I consider reviews like podcast currency and it’s the one thing you can do to help us out here at The Bold Leadership Revolution HQ. We would be so grateful for it.