This case study is an excerpt of a Sales Wounds™ interview I did with a business owner named Lisa Rodriguez.
Like a lot of people, Lisa was suffering from more than one Wound. During our conversation we discovered how she had suffered from:
- The Love & Money Wound™ (that’s what this article is about – in a case study I’m calling “When a Woman Wears the Pants”)
- The Anti-Selling Wound™ (read more about the aha moment when Lisa stopped under-charging for her services in the case study, “I’m Not Gonna Take It Anymore”)
- The Money Wound™. This turned out to be Lisa’s primary blockage – and when we identified it, all of a sudden she started talking about the things she really wanted to be doing in her business, because they suddenly seemed possible. Read more about her transformation in the case study I’ve called “The Evil Corporate Mogul.”
So now let’s read about how the Love & Money Wound™ showed up in Lisa’s marriage; and her fears about how it might be affecting her business today:
Lisa:
My husband didn’t make a lot of money, so I was the main breadwinner. That kind of nipped at his nuts a bit, given that he comes from a more traditional family. It drove his Greek family insane that I was out there working 80 hours a week and my salary was 3x what his was. My attitude was, It’s our money, who cares which one of us earns it.
Julia:
Is he still your husband?
Lisa:
It’s funny. We split up for 5 years and then got back together again. It was only after I left corporate and realized how I was on a bit of a power trip, because when it came to decision time, I was always like, “I’m the one who’s ultimately paying for this since I earn more money, so this is what we’re going to do. This is the color sofa I want, and you don’t get a say-so, because I’m paying for it.”
I didn’t realize I was doing it at the time, but I ultimately always had the final word. He kind of felt like he was being held hostage.
Julia:
In other words, he wasn’t emasculated simply because you earned more money than he did; he was also feeling emasculated because you emasculated him. Meaning, you actually did take away the power in the relationship. You said, “Because I have the money, I get to make the decisions. Not only are we not equal partners in terms of our income, we don’t even get to be equal partners in terms of our decision-making.”
Lisa:
Yes. This is all in retrospect, and the result of a lot of therapy.
We’d go shopping and he’d say, “Hey isn’t this great?” and I’d agree but then I’d manage to tweak the final decision so that it matched what I wanted, not what he wanted.
He told me I did this with everything – vacations, home renovations, the car we drove, etc. Even though he voiced an opinion and shared it with me, I didn’t take his opinion into consideration.
Here is the part where Lisa articulates how this Love & Money Wound™ – her self-limiting belief – was impacting her business. Or so she thought …
Lisa
That has been carrying over into my business. I’ve been afraid that if I make more money than him, we’d get right back to where we were. I think I hold myself back from taking on more clients and making that big leap from being a 6-figure to a 7-figure business owner because I worry what it would do to us.
Julia:
The fact that you’re able to recognize it and state it so matter of factly to me, someone who’s almost a perfect stranger, indicates to me that you don’t actually believe what you just said.
I think your actual limiting belief – the one that’s really stopping you – is something different, not the Love & Money Wound™.
Lisa:
Really!
Julia:
Yes. It’s because real blockages are hidden. We can’t see them or identify them. If we could, they wouldn’t be a blockage anymore, right?
Real blockages are based upon fallacies. Somewhere deep inside there’s an emotional stuck point that just hasn’t been brought up to the surface where it can be seen, and thus refuted.
So. Anything which IS on the surface – ie, you can tell me off the top of the head that “this is what’s going on for me” – isn’t the real stuck point.
All this is to say that I don’t think you really believe that if you became a 7-figure business owner, it would damage your relationship. I think you and your husband are really solid right now, and you know it.
I think the reasons that you’re not taking the leap into the 7-figure business is something else. What do you think?
Lisa:
Crap! Wow. I feel like you just told me my panties are pink, when I’ve been thinking they’re blue. But what you’ve said totally resonates. I think you’re right.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We went on with our conversation; and after some more digging, sure enough we discovered that Lisa’s real blockage was The Money Wound™. After we identified that belief, everything opened up for her. You can read about it in the case study of The Evil Corporate Mogul.
Click here to read about all 6 Primary Sales Wounds™
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Hi, I’m Julia Kline. For help accessing your self-limiting beliefs, aka your Sales Wounds™, and to get started healing them, consider hiring me for private coaching. I offer packages starting as low as $5,000, or up to $25,000. I also offer affordably priced group coaching.
To start the conversation, email my assistant Rosie@JuliaKline.com. She'll send you my coaching brochure, describing all that I offer.