If you think the idea of harnessing goddess energy to achieve financial abundance seems too “out there,” I invite you to keep an open mind while listening to this episode. Today’s guest believes it’s time to bridge the gap between spirituality and money. We dive deep into why many of us struggle to reconcile our spiritual beliefs with financial abundance, and how shifting this perspective can lead to profound personal and professional growth.
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Show Notes | Transcript“It’s fun to work with goddess energy. (The Goddess) Lakshmi calls for us to be balanced around giving and receiving, and to value ourselves, and that’s hugely important.” – Mikelann Valterra
Financial therapist and master money coach Mikelann Valterra joins me to explain how treating money as part of your spiritual journey can transform both your business and your relationship with wealth. Together, we unpack the concept of “noble poverty” and why it’s crucial to release this limiting belief to fully embrace your potential for abundance.
Discover how to:
- Reframe your relationship with money as a spiritual practice
- Overcome the “money fog” that keeps you from financial clarity
- Align your spending habits with your deepest values
- Embrace abundance without compromising your spiritual integrity
Key insights include:
- The importance of addressing emotional and mental toxicity around money
- How to beautify your relationship with money through simple, practical steps
- The power of seeking positive money role models to shift your perspective
- Why simplifying your financial accounts can lead to greater peace and clarity
Mikelann also introduces us to the concept of financial therapy and shares how treating money as a sacred tool can help us live our best life and live out our values.
Whether you’re a spiritual entrepreneur struggling to price your services or simply looking to create a more conscious connection with your finances, this conversation offers valuable insights on integrating money into your spiritual practice. Tune in to start your journey towards a more abundant, aligned, and purposeful life!
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Website: seattlemoneycoach.com
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TRANSCRIPT
Gloria Grace Rand
Namaste. If you’ve been keeping your bank account and your spiritual practice in kind of separate boxes, you may want to rethink that strategy, especially after you listen to today’s episode because our guest is going to explain why treating money as part of part of your spiritual journey can actually transform both your business and your relationship with wealth. And I think anything we can do to enhance that is a good thing. So first, though, before I bring her on, because I know it’s going to be amazing, I do want to welcome you to Live Love Engage, especially if this is your first time joining us. I am Gloria Grace, the founder of Align to Shine Academy, and I work with spiritually minded women entrepreneurs to break free from self doubt so they can step into their highest potential. And part of that is going to be, you know, owning our relationship with wealth. So let me tell you about today’s guest. Her name is Mikelann Valterra and she’s an author, a speaker, a financial therapist, and master money coach. And I just got struck by that financial therapist. I’m going to ask her about that. That’s an interesting way to look at things. We’ve had yoga therapists on the show before now. I don’t think I’ve had a financial therapist, but anyway, she helps women rise above the money fog, transform their relationship with money, and design their ideal life. And I’m all about that. So let’s bring her on now. And I want to welcome you, Mikelann, to Live Love Engage.
Mikelann Valterra
I am so happy to be here, Grace. Thank you. I love listening to your show. It’s very fun to be here.
Gloria Grace Rand
Well, thank you. I appreciate that. And I think before I want to, I know I want to dive into, like, why money and spirituality are separate, but I won’t really. I’m intrigued because that, it’s like I have, I’d read your bio a couple times, but it was like, for today, for whatever reason, I must be in that zone. Financial therapy. What? Why do you call yourself that?
Mikelann Valterra
What is that? Yeah, well, so I’ll back up and put it in the context of money coaching. So I have been a money coach for 25, five years, believe it or not, and which is a crazy amount of time given that coaching has been around, maybe not a long time. And many people nowadays talk about money coaching, but I was one of the first in the country to get into money coaching. And so it used to be that people would see financial planner if they had questions on investments, maybe a credit counselor if they were struggling with debt. But the Truth is, Grace, most of us have both. You know, we want to build net worth. We don’t want to go into credit card debt. And neither of those fields is particularly adept at the emotional side of money. And so, you know, we need both. So money coaches. Absolutely. Look at, you know. Yes. How do you plan and track money and how do you create a cash flow plan so that you feel totally in control of your money? And, you know, all these wonderful things that we may tiptoe around a little bit today, and few things are as emotional as money. You know, anyone says that money is not emotional, I think is, is a robot. Right. So, you know, financial therapy is looking at the emotional and psychological side of money. And what is the impact of our relationship to money on our life? What is our personal money personality type? What are our motivations around money that impact what we do around money? And you know, a lot of your listeners might be more familiar with the term money mindset. Right. What is your money mindset, which is just a newer, more modern way of talking about your personal financial psychology. And what we think about money has a huge impact on what we do with money. It’s not just about learn what to do. What we think and believe has a massive impact on our relationship to money. And it’s going to come out in, in what we’re talking about today, which is spirituality and money.
Gloria Grace Rand
Yeah, it’s, this is a subject that really hits home with me. In fact, I was actually having a discussion with a friend not too, not too long ago today about, about this, and it was sort of bringing up some stuff. Even though I’ve done a lot of work around this subject, there’s always still layers to be unpacked and, and still some, you know, beliefs and things that are under the surface. So we’ll probably get to that in a little bit. But let’s, let’s, let’s dive into why is it that we feel that money and spirituality, I guess, why are they separate? Maybe even why? I think a lot of people feel that they really need to be separate.
Mikelann Valterra
Yeah. Boy, that is such a great question. A great place to start. And it’s also, it’s also a complicated one. Right. So many people I know, like my clients, like yours, are very, very spiritually minded. And so sometimes there’s this feeling of is money going to taint the process? Right. If I bring up money, does that hurt my ability to truly help people? And so that, that can be a piece of it, which would be, you know, interesting to dig into. But, but I also think that for as much as people talk about holism and holistic being, we still treat money very, very separate. You know, we. We do talk a lot about, you know, spirit versus matter, and we so want to live lives that are more connected and more holistic. But the reality is so many of us put money on the material side. And because we see money as so, so material and of this world, we think that anything having to do with money will hurt or taint or cause harm to the spiritual world. And even yet, isn’t it interesting, Grace? I mean, we, we give so much thought to our spiritual natures. Why do we want to separate money? You know, we want our relationship to money to help us grow spiritually, but we tend to ignore it when it comes to anything having to do with looking at our spiritual lives.
Gloria Grace Rand
Yeah. And we tend to forget. And this is something I’ve learned in working with actually different money coaches and things over the years, is that, you know, we call money currency, which is related to energy. So it’s not really material as you’re talking about, is it? It’s really energy. So how can, you know, how can, can that help us to, you know, start to be able to reframe our relationship with money if we can start really owning that possibility that, that money is just this energy tool that’s out there.
Mikelann Valterra
100 percent. Yeah, 100 percent. I mean, money. I mean, you’re right. Money is energy, and we can do anything with money. And, you know, it was interesting. I was talking to someone earlier today. Money makes you more of who you already are, you know, so if you’re a kind and wonderful generous person and you win the lottery, you’re going to become more generous. If you weren’t a very nice person and you win the lottery, well, guess what? That’s going to magnify that. So money can magnify who you already are. So it’s not about the money. It’s about, you know, who am I? What are my values? And the more you dig into your relationship to money, the more you can start to ask, how can I use money to live out my values? How can I use money to support my spiritual practice in the world? Right. And we can see it in a lot of different ways. But I’m a huge advocate for. Let’s talk about it, because so many of us are in a money fog and we’re not clear about money. And so we’re not talking about living out according to our values when it comes to our spending. So we may see ourselves as very spiritual. People, but we’re unconscious in this huge other arena called money. And you know, we want to bring the beauty of spirituality into our pocketbook.
Gloria Grace Rand
Yeah, and I, and I love that. Thinking of it as magnetizing who we already are. I like that, you know, thinking about it because, because I do know that especially, you know, a lot of people who are a lot of small business owners who are in more of a spiritual profession, you know, a lot of healers or massage therapists and things like that, you know, they, they feel like they can’t, they don’t want to charge a lot of money because they want to be able to help everybody, you know, forgetting sometimes to remember that they have bills to pay as well. And, and it’s important to be able to. Again, you know, think of it as an energy exchange between people. So you have to be able to do that. So how can we start coming up with better ways to be able to shift these views around money that are really harming us more than they’re helping us?
Mikelann Valterra
Boy, that’s a good question. And I would even take it back. One, because you just brought up a lot of really, really something really important. I would just call up to mind this notion of noble poverty because you’re describing some of the people that you, you know, you help. And some of your listeners are probably tired of being caught in noble poverty, which, you know, it’s the belief that there’s virtue in not having money. And so, you know, whenever we feel greed come up in us and we worry that, well, if I charge more, that would make me greedy. If I do X, Y and Z, that would make me greedy. So whenever, so greed is a signpost in ourselves that we’re struggling with noble poverty, that we feel that there’s somehow virtue in not having money. And, and yet, you know, like you brought up grace, money is, is about energy. And so we’re creating a very uneven relationship when we give and give and give and we don’t receive, receive, receive. And you know, I call it the, the receiving valve, if you will, that we’re giving and giving, but it’s almost like the receiving valve gets stuck in one direction where we’re over givers, you know, and, and I know all your listeners know this, but it’s not healthy to be an over giver. It’s not healthy to go into different levels of, of martyrdom and self-sacrifice. Yeah, we, we know that we would never recommend our family do that, our friends do that, our children do that. Right. But do we feel ultimately that we deserve to receive. And that’s where all this gets really deep about the know, self-worth, which is not equally net worth, that gets into its own little rabbit hole there.
Gloria Grace Rand
Right.
Mikelann Valterra
You know, I mean, your self worth is not dependent on money, you know. And then, you know what, what you just asked, Grace is, well, great. I bet all the listeners are going, yes, absolutely. I get it. What do you do, you know, how do you start shifting?
Gloria Grace Rand
Right, right. Because it’s like you can know it up here in your head, but. But to get that message to your heart, I think is the really important thing because I think there’s a disconnect there. Our heart is where our emotions are. And frankly, this is, you know, really. This is really what we think by it really is our heart. And they’ve even said, you know, we actually have seriously, you know, neurons and things in our heart. And it’s really maybe our heart that’s actually leading us more than we think our brain is. So. Yeah. So how can we do this? Yeah.
Mikelann Valterra
Yeah. Oh, no, I love that. I was just thinking, I mean, this little bit off the topic, but I know when I started meditating through my heart as opposed to my head, it opened me up in a much deeper, more profound way. Right. So it’s like, how do we live through our heart, not just our head.
Gloria Grace Rand
Right.
Mikelann Valterra
Plus, while still honoring all parts of us? Yeah, there’s probably. Well, there’s probably 10 different things, but, you know, a couple things that I would throw out is I think it really helps people to get in touch with their money story. And what I mean by that is, what was money like for you when you were a kid growing up and really getting clear that we’re not these adults that sprang out of nowhere around money now have all these feelings around money? You know, we feel stressed and anxious sometimes about money, and we’re in a money fog because of how we were raised. You know, if we grew up, for example, hearing our parents fight about money, or we grew up in a family that didn’t have enough money, it’s important to talk about this and process this, like psychotherapeutically, really talk about our history around money because it helps us understand why as adults we carry our current stress and anxiety. And it also helps to dissolve it when we see, you know, where it came from. I would say that another really powerful practice is, I call it tuning and retuning your radar. And what I mean by that, Grace, is that when people have a lot of negativity around money, they tend to find stories in the news and people and examples that support a negative view around money, like, yep, I told you so. That person, of course, did this horrible negative evil, like of course, all these evil CEOs or all the different things. And so if you want to shift and retune your relationship with money, then I would challenge you to deliberately look for positive money role models. You know, and one way to go about it is say, okay, what do you value? You know, what do you value? And then who’s funding what is important to you? And you know, a lot of times this is not on the front page of the paper, so we’ve got to look deeper to see who’s funding my beliefs. You know, if you really believe in, you know, third world economic development for women, let’s say that’s your passion. There are wealthy people that are putting a lot of money behind that vision and around that, that value and really tuning into that helps you shift your feelings around. All people are greedy and insensitive and feel superior, Right? Because we want to really start feeling positive about money. If you believe that wealthy people are greedy, insensitive and feel superior to other people, you’ll never allow yourself to have wealth. You know, why would you allow yourself to become that which you despise? Right. So it’s, it’s really important to look actively for really positive role models and people that are doing things that you respect and love around money.
Gloria Grace Rand
I love that. That is such great advice. And I’ve not heard that before at all. And that makes so much sense because I know I, I was raised, you know, God, God rest her soul. I love my mom, but she really did have negative views around, you know, rich people. She know, she was a union worker and, and her brother wasn’t an entrepreneur that she did not get a whole get along with and frankly thought she was, you know, he was cheating her out of, you know, the inheritance from their mother and things like that. And so, you know, listening to a lot of this stuff and, and like I said, I have worked through a lot of this. And you know, something that I teach is called the love method, which part of it is the O in love is open your heart to receive, you know, the importance of being able to do that. But there’s still, it’s ingrained. And I know that I have to continue to work on that because it’s still just when I think I have it handled, it’s like something will come up and it’s like, odd nerve. Got to work on a little bit more. And, and is that something Maybe that you find when you’re. You’re working with clients that, you know, it’s like that happens.
Mikelann Valterra
Yeah. I actually, I love that you. That. I mean, it’s so great the way that you just described that, because that’s as real as it gets. I think that, that people have a misperception that if they work on, you know, fill in the blank, their, let’s just say, their relationship to money, and they’ll figure out, ah, that’s why I feel the way that I feel. And it’ll heal and go away forever. But. But that’s not who we are as humans. You know, it’s. It’s more the onion method. We. We unwrap layers and we heal layers. And then we come to another layer, and then we come to another layer and life brings us many situations that allow us to look at, oh, what is coming up in me. I think that’s a new thing for me to look at, address, heal, talk about. And you know, we’re complicated. Right.
It’s very rare that I talk to someone, Grace, that has a boring money story. Right? It’s very rare. I think we all wish we had a boring money story. Everything went according to plan and I had the perfect parents who taught me all about money, and now everything is proceeding just, you know. Right. I’ve never met that person. Right. So we all have these crazy curveballs and both good and bad. And so, you know, part of it is, is. Is claiming that and saying, yep, that’s true. That’s. That’s life. And I get to talk about it. I don’t have to pretend that it didn’t have an effect on me. It had a big effect on me. Right. And now I’m, I’m on the other side looking at that and healing. But we, we tend to put money in a funny box. We process fearlessly. So many subjects. You know, I know your listeners are well therapized. Right. They have done copious amounts of wonderful, wonderful therapy and money gets missed in the psychotherapeutic process. It is not well addressed in therapy. And there’s a lot of reasons for that. Part of it is therapists have a very conflicted relationship themselves with money, you know, and how I feel about charging people for helping them and so on and so forth. Right. But we get to talk about this and it’s, it’s real, it’s normal, and we’re all trying to heal and, and, you know, up level and feel better and better and better because ultimately we want Money to be a sacred tool to live our best life and live out our values. And the more that we can process it, and I would also say the more that we can simplify it because that’s a, that’s another piece of the puzzle, I think. Grace, people have complicated a lot of stuff around money that makes it harder to get clear about what we’re talking about. And that’s, you know, that’s another piece.
Gloria Grace Rand
Yeah, well, we’re kind of been talking a lot about sort of this negative impact. Well, let’s, let’s flip it around a little bit and talk about abundance. And so how can we start maybe cultivating some different practices that could help us to start having this better relationship with money?
Mikelann Valterra
I love it. So here’s what’s fun about abundance that I always have to say. You know, abundance is both an inner state and an outer state. And you know that better than anyone. But sometimes people lose sight of that and they think abundance is only about the outer material, material world. Most important thing about abundance is this inner felt state of abundance. You know, this is why gratitude practice is so important and you know, feeling abundant on the inside and, and eventually this expresses in various ways on the outside. But, you know, in terms of abundance practices, I, I would offer three. So one is my vote is we find ways to beautify your money. And so I would start with beautifying your wallet. And that may sound funny, we’re talking about spirituality and money. But if you beautify your wallet, I literally mean clean it out, get rid of all of the garbage. How about have a wallet you love? How about have a wallet that’s beautiful. If we’re going to honor money and honor the flow of money in and out of our lives, you know, wallet is a symbol of that. And so you want to feel so warm and wonderful when you pull out your wallet. And you also don’t want it crammed full of stuff because it’s a way of not honoring flow. And you want to honor flow. And a wallet is a symbol of that. Right. I would add a second abundance practice, and that would be to simplify all of your accounts. Because you know what I. What I know, Grace as a money coach is part of why people are in a lot of money fog is they have too many accounts, they have too many credit cards, too many checking accounts, too many savings accounts. There’s a lot of reasons why this happens. But when you simplify your account structure, it’s easier to really dig in and really start shifting your relationship to money. The More accounts you have, the more money fog you’re likely in and the more stress and anxiety you have around money. That’s. That’s the correlation. You really want to simplify things.
Gloria Grace Rand
Wow. All right, well, that’s two. I think you said three. Do you have one more or what? That’s two.
Gloria Grace Rand
Yeah, yeah.
Mikelann Valterra
You’re tracking.
Gloria Grace Rand
Yeah.
Mikelann Valterra
So. So the third. Third one I threw in is gonna. In some ways, me may sound like the most practical. Well, I’d like to think they’re all practical and doable. Right. But I would call it the good old reoccurring expense cleanup. So, you know, when I start working with people, we. We go into different levels. You know, there’s the emotional level and the practical level and, you know, all sorts of stuff around many coaching. But at some point we actually look at where is your money going, and a lot of times we see things that we’ve just gone blind to, forgotten about. And there’s a lot of money leaks. And here we are wanting to up level around money and feel great around money. And so for a while, it just takes a little bit of cleanup, a little bit of housekeeping. So listing out all of the things in your bank account and your credit card that are automatically pulling money every month. And it’s a long list. Sometimes it’s, oh, when I signed up for Audible and when I signed up for Pandora and when I signed up for Dropbox, when I signed Better sign. There’s, there’s, there’s what the diet apps and stuff like that. Keep them if you’re using them, of course, but how many of us have subscriptions, online subscriptions that, that we’re not using? And so it just creates this financial clutter, financial drain. It creates a. It’s almost like another layer of anxiety. And so, you know, dedicating two to three weeks to close those goes a long way towards beautifying your money.
Gloria Grace Rand
Yeah, it’s. It is amazing how these things add up. And I would also encourage folks out there because especially, you know, entrepreneurs out there. There’s so many wonderful tools out there that are these AI softwares now and, and, oh, you want to be able to get the paid version because you get a lot more bells and whistles with it. But then if you’re spending, you know, this much on cloud and then you’re spending that much on chat GPT, and then you’re spending this much on this one and that one, that $20 a month starts adding up to a lot. So you need to really, you know, when you’re doing this house cleaning. You know, I would say not only maybe your, your personal, but also look at your business accounts as well and see where there’s something that maybe you can say, okay, am I really using this this much or can I maybe get by with a free one and let it go?
Mikelann Valterra
Yeah, I’m glad, I’m glad you brought up business because about a third of my practice are business owners. Actually might be even half. You know, and, and like you, they’re, you know, they’re. I have a lot of psychotherapists as clients and you know, lawyers and I mean just you know, all sorts of different people in, in, in private practice and all of this applies to the business side of life as well as the personal, you know, too many accounts and the clutter. And I, I love this idea of beautify your money. Beautify your money. So you just like, you know, you. Yeah, exactly. You go into your online accounts and ah. And it just feels clean and clear and it is seriously correlated to feeling more peaceful around money. And that’s, that is where we’re really moving into that, that spiritual connection around money.
Gloria Grace Rand
Which just brings me to something that. Yeah. When you’re talking about this beautifying and I think, I wonder if this is also something that, and I, I know I wanted to ask a. This other thing but I’m, I’m just struck with especially and I don’t know what your breakdown with clients male versus female, but I wonder if also some of our hang up around money is because maybe it has more of a masculine energy to it and, and we want to be more feminine and we want to be giving and so that’s where maybe some also we get this little stress I guess around it. What do you think about that?
Mikelann Valterra
Yeah, yeah, no, I, I think you’re spot on. I, I happen to specialize in working with women so. Yep, you are, you’re singing my song. I mean I do some lovely, lovely male clients. I do. But I specialize in working with women. And money is often seen as masculine and it is seen as a tool of power and control. And you know, women are really in need of healing their relationship to power because we tend to see it as negative as, as bad as power over. But as business owners we actually need a lot of power. We need power to see our vision made manifest in the world. Right. We need like if you asked Mother Teresa, I know she’s not with us anymore but you know, she would score very high as many personality type of quiz of money is power because money we Know, need power to have our vision come forth in the world. But because we see it like you were bringing up as a tool of aggression, a tool of power, a tool of over, you know, masculine, all that stuff. It’s one more reason why we don’t see money as very spiritual. And this is something that we want to shift.
Gloria Grace Rand
Yeah, thank you for that. Because that, yeah, it’s just really start, started to occur to me and I, and I’m thinking that, that, that is also maybe some of what I have not unpacked yet for myself and that I want to start looking at truly. And now I want to continue down the spiritual path because I, I do know, especially for, you know, those out there listening and, and watching who, you know, really get into this and maybe start, you know, talking about a goddess energy you have, you, you know something about this. So, you know, there’s, there’s, I know there’s a goddess called Lakshmi that I think has, has, has. And in fact, I’ve even like seen, I think, you know, YouTube videos and, and things about, you know, listening to, I don’t know, chance or something. So what, what is, what does the Goddess Lakshmi have to do with money?
Mikelann Valterra
So, yeah, I, in fact, maybe they were my YouTube videos, although I probably, I don’t think I did one on Canteen. But I definitely, this is a, one of my favorite subjects. So I, I, my spirituality is definitely through Raja yoga. Right. So I, I am a daily meditator and I’m very much in yoga, if you will, the path of meditation. And in the Indian tradition, East India, there are many, many wonderful gods and goddesses. And you know, they’re all representations of one God. I know it’s, it’s strange sometimes for Westerners that have a very different monotheistic notion of God, but they all are about the same one God. And so the Goddess Lakshmi is the goddess of abundance and goddess of wealth, but again, abundance and wealth in many, many ways besides just money. Right? I mean, she was the form of God that people would pray to for a millennia to have healthy children and plentiful crops and good fortune in their life. Right? So she’s this super, super powerful, powerful energy that brings so much of this wonderful forms of abundance into our life. And when you look at the stories around Lakshmi and all these, you know, wonderful mythology and just wonderful, wonderful stories, Lakshmi loves beauty and she loves order. And so there’s this, this wonderful particular story where she is trying to give basically what we’d call money, you know, trying to give money to this Very, very poor couple that was desperately in need of some. A little bit of wealth in their life to help them with some issues they were having. And so she enters their house trying to give them money, and she. She doesn’t want to put the money down in a dirty place, and she can’t find a clean place in their house in which to leave them this gift because everything is just so cluttered. So she finally finds one edge of the stove that’s kind of clean, and she, you know, as she kind of comes down from For a great goddessness and cleans the rest of it with, you know, her. The mantle over him and cleans as part of the stove. And that’s where she leaves this amazing gift for them because she loves them so much, you know, so it’s. It’s fun to work with goddess energy. It’s fun to work with a lot of the fascinating mythologies that are out there. There is a version of a goddess of abundance in all of the mythologies. Maybe not all the mythologies, but, you know, in north mythology and in so many, many, you know, in the Greeks, the Romans, it’s wonderful to go into both. Just feminine energy is, again, you know, you know, better than anyone. And claiming that and owning that is just so delicious. And then to combine that with money and abundance is just really powerful. And I. I personally find that it’s healing because, you know, Lakshmi calls for us to be balanced around giving and receiving and to value ourselves, and that’s. That’s hugely important.
Gloria Grace Rand
Absolutely. And I just want to also let folks know that, you know, again, and this goes back to Western tradition and Western religion and that there’s a lot of, you know, I think, especially among Christians, that it’s, you know. Yeah. That you have to have this. You know, we talked about this noble poverty and thing and that you’re, you know, it’s better to give than receive. However, if I went to. I took a course called Prosperity 4 you that was written by a Unity minister and where she goes through and finds all the wonderful parts in the Bible where talk about abundance and that it is good to have abundance and that God, frankly, wants us to be abundant. God doesn’t want us to be, you know, starving and poor and all this stuff that. Yeah. Somehow has gotten into the zeitgeist. That doesn’t belong there.
Mikelann Valterra
It’s so true. I mean, I was raised. I consider myself an expanded Catholic. Right. So I. I was raised very, very. I didn’t know anyone that wasn’t Catholic until I went to College. Right. And so then I added on this yoga spirituality on top of my Catholicism. So, you know, who know, who knows what all that says about me. But you’re right. And there’s, you know, you know, there’s these very classic biblical misquotes that, that says, you know, money is the root of all evil. And for all of your beautiful Christian listeners, they know that’s a misquote. It’s, it’s, it’s love of money over pursuit of money, money out of balance and our lives drive that is the root of all evil. Right. So it’s, it’s really so good to be able to, to look at that because, you know, God in, in the Judeo Christian model, 100% wants us to have abundance in all of these, you know, wonderful ways and have this healthy, healthy relationship to, you know, this, this energy, this resource of money.
Gloria Grace Rand
Yeah, yeah. And, and as you said earlier, you know, especially if you do look at it as, you know, how, how, what your values are, if you value being generous to people and that you want to be able to do good in the world, then just think how much more good in the world you could do if you had more money to do it with. You know, take care of yourself and then you can generously share it with others.
Mikelann Valterra
Exactly. How many of us would love to step deeper and deeper into being a philanthropist.
Gloria Grace Rand
Yeah.
Mikelann Valterra
You know, and, and we want to have greater levels of wealth so that we can put our money where we truly value and help the world.
Gloria Grace Rand
Yeah, absolutely. And, and I’m, I’m, I’m thinking even for myself, it’s like, I think I, well, number one, I want to go back to your idea of looking for role models and then maybe put like, you know, little stickers around me, you know, think like this person, you know, or something like that, so I can start, you know, getting that into my head that it’s okay, it’s okay to be wealthy because look at the great good that this person is doing. And I could do that too.
Mikelann Valterra
It’s so true. You know, and I have a wide variety of clients and you know, some of my clients come from, from significant wealth. Some do and some don’t. Some have a lot of money, some don’t. But for my clients that have wealth and they want to really feel like they are increasingly a good steward of their wealth, I always encourage them to join a women’s philanthropy group because, you know, having money may, is, can be very isolating. Grace. People are afraid to share with their friends that they have Money. They feel like everyone thinks, oh, if only I had your problems. You know, I mean, it’s different for all of us. Right? But you want to be again, with models of other women that are very clean around their money, that can talk about it, that want to talk about their values around money, that are giving money where they, you know, where they want, where they want to give, and they want to be in fellowship with other women around this. So there’s, there’s lots of ways to, you know, get into this. And, you know, we all want to heal our relationship to money, whether we.
Gloria Grace Rand
Absolutely.
Mikelann Valterra
Regardless of how much we have.
Gloria Grace Rand
Yeah. Oh, so, so awesome. All right, I’m going to shift gears just slightly here because as we’re, we’re running out of time, but I like, I like asking my guests this. So what are you curious about right now?
Mikelann Valterra
Oh, wow, that’s a good question. I’m like, oh, so many things. I’m like the most curious person on the planet. That just like, question made my brain explode. Yeah. What am I curious about? Oh, my goodness. I, I’m so, I’m curious about so many things. This is, you know, this is a total non sequitur, Grace. But I, I’ve been doing a lot of work on healing stage fright and visibility issues. And so I’m most curious about all things related to being more and more visible in the world and how to achieve that and be more comfortable being visible. And honestly, part of it’s coming from the fact that as I shared with you, I’m a tango dancer. So when I’m not money coaching by day, I dance by night, and I’m struggling with stage fright. And it’s funny because I do so much speaking, Grace. I’m not. Put me in front of a thousand people, no problem. Let’s talk about money, no problem. But put me in my, in my high heel tango shoes and put me on a stage in front of a group, my legs shake. And so I am very curious about how to heal that and how to keep moving into that and how to just become more and more embodied in my own body, in my own journey around visibility as I’ve, you know, become more and more visible, obviously in my career. But why does that have to stop at the door of my personal life? And so that, that’s what I’m curious about right now.
Gloria Grace Rand
Well, as a, as a former dancer, when I was a kid, well, any. And even up through, through college, I still did ballet, tap, jazz, all that good stuff. I will tell you the. You’re Always going to feel a little bit nervous when you get out there, but if you truly love it, just keep doing it and it will get easier. But you gotta just keep doing because. And I’m sure you probably learned that through public speaking. I bet you were. I bet you were super nervous the first time you had to go in front of a crowd, too, right? It’s true.
Mikelann Valterra
No, you’re. You’re totally right. And I. I mean, I. I think it’s getting easier, but I never, you know, but then I push it to a new level, right? And then I’m like, oh, my gosh. Where my husband and I are, we’re both ango dancers and we’re looking at competing nationally next year. And it’s just a different level of visibility, Right. I’m like, yeah, you know, so I. I know you’re right. I know you’re right. But that. That’s what I’m most curious about is this, like, visibility that also not. I’m not gonna say transcends the body, but it’s one thing to be visible in the mind and the intellect. And, you know, I’m a writer and I’m a speaker, but to embody visibility is, for me, my leading edge. And that’s where my curiosity is.
Gloria Grace Rand
Yeah, that’s cool. Well, well, and. And as you said, your husband is your dance partner, so I would think, you know, lean on him and just, you know, focus in on the fact that you both are loving what you’re doing and then see if you can tune out the audience.
Mikelann Valterra
Oh, yeah. Working on it. Working on it. Yeah. I probably put bruises on that man’s arms I’m gripping so hard, so tight. Sometimes, you know, but it is a super wonderful and high and holy thing to do in a relationship. So it’s, it’s wonderful.
Gloria Grace Rand
Well, good luck to you. I look. Look forward to seeing your name, you know, down the road here as. As being one of those champion tango dancers.
Mikelann Valterra
Yeah, I like. I’ll send you the video.
Gloria Grace Rand
Yeah, okay, sounds good. All right. Now, I talked about so much, and it’s been amazing and, you know, might even have to have you back again one day. But in the meantime, for those who have been listening and watching and are like, oh, I really want to, like, find out more about her and maybe work with her or something. So how can people contact you and get in touch with you?
Mikelann Valterra
Thank you for asking that. The best way would be to go to Seattle Money Coach.com. seattle Money Coach.com. I’ve got amazing clients all over the country. But obviously I happen to live in Seattle, so what I would do is I would either grab a free discovery call if people just want to chat with me for a couple of minutes. And I love writing. There’s a wonderful newsletter called Conscious Money that in a wonderful community that I have behind it for people that want to just get a hit of inspiration on some of the stuff that you and I are exploring today if they want to. I don’t, I don’t think I send it out Grace more than probably once a month, but people really enjoy it, so I would subscribe. It’s all on Seattle Money Coach.
Gloria Grace Rand
All right, very good. Well, I’ll be sure and have that in the show notes for those of you listening. So be sure and check that out. And yeah, take Michael Ann up on that. So thank you so much. Oh, you know what, though? I’m going to ask you one, one last thing. Is there anything else that I didn’t ask you that I should have any other one last point to leave our audience real quick with?
Mikelann Valterra
No, I think we hit it all. I mean, I just want to encourage people to know that it’s a journey and it is possible to rise above the money fog and it is possible to feel more and more in control of, of your money. And so I say it’s very exciting.
Gloria Grace Rand
All right, very good. Well, thank you again for being with us. I really appreciate it. And I also want to thank all of you for listening and for watching today. And I hope you hope you’ve received as much value out of it as I did. And I hope you’ve got couple different things. Maybe you jotted down some notes about some action steps that you’re going to take, and if you want to share them with me, I would love for you to do that. And in fact, I’ve got, we’ve got a, a place for you to do that, actually, which is we’ve got a community called the Live Love Engage Podcast community. Go to liveloveengage.com and you can join us. And yeah, I’d love to hear what you have to have to think about this today and, and share. Like I said, whatever. What action steps are you going to take? Because I know what I’m going to do. So until next time, I want to encourage you to go out and live fully, love deeply and engage authentically.
