You Need a Tribe to Thrive Financially
At the beginning of 2016, I was a mess.
I mean teary eyed, lost, confused and living in my grandmother’s house, mess. I was coming undone and I knew I had to go through this heart wrenching undoing without running away.
It all started at the beginning of 2015, when I started losing close friends and being told I was different and I’d changed.
Everything came to a peak when I moved to Goa, India for my tantra yoga teacher training. During the training a lot of suppressed memories and emotions came to the surface and demanded to be dealt with.
When I got back to South Africa on Christmas Eve, my unraveling was almost at its peak.
Of course, I didn’t know this, until my mother called me a disappointment and reminded me she’d sacrificed everything for my sister and I, and we could barely give her grandchildren.
I’d heard this speech countless times before, but this time something in me snapped. I could no longer stand to hear the same speech and endure the constant criticism.
And this is how I ended up at my grandmother’s house.
the quest for approval & validation has a negative pay off
My mother has always been part of my support system. Even though her support came with a lot of criticism. It was still support.
In fact most of my close friends and family have been a huge part of my support system and usually that was enough for me.
But I had to admit - this support was no longer working for me.
It was true, something had changed - I'd changed, my vision had changed, I'd moved beyond paying back debt to thinking about wealth creation and investments.
My company was changing and I needed to change with it but I had no clue how to do this and still keep my friends.
And so began one of the most isolated periods of my life.
I knew this wasn’t loneliness but an alone-ness. I felt alone on the journey to my dreams.
Only this time, I wasn’t depressed; I knew I had to lean into the emotion and embrace it, instead of packing for the next adventure.
Every time I sat down to meditate I’d have a vision of myself in a breeched birth but with no visible signs of pregnancy.
I had this deep longing to be surrounded by a circle of women who would help me breathe and push whatever I was birthing.
No matter how hard I tried this longing to be in a tribe of women wouldn’t go away.
And then one day it hit me – I was looking for a circle of women to help me birth the next phase of my dreams.
dreams, like children, have phases.
There’s the conception stage, the baby stage, toddler stage, the growth stage, adolescent stage and the adult stage.
Different people help us at different parts of these stages.
But as we continue on the journey, it becomes harder for them to give us the support we need because they can’t relate to our struggles.
And that’s neither good nor bad; it just is what it is.
On the journey we have 2 options: choose to stay the same so we can always be relatable to those we love or allow ourselves to keep growing and trust that we never lose people on this journey, we just meet them at different points.
It took me years to understand this and find peace with it but as soon as I did, the vision of me experiencing a breeched birth made sense.
I gave myself permission to keep my old friends whilst also opening myself to finding a group of friends who'd support me and help me on my entrepreneurial journey.
I started visualizing, asking my guides, praying and meditating to find these women.
I had no clue where to start looking but I knew I wanted a group of women entrepreneurs who were at the top of their game to share this journey with, no matter where I was in the world.
I wanted a space to share small victories, bad days, money goals or just brainstorm and share resources. I wanted to have real heart to heart exchanges about business related things.
And then out of the blue, one day, about 2 months later, my life coach called to ask me if I’d be interested in being part of a mastermind group she was putting together – she wasn’t sure how it would work but it would be 4 women (including her) supporting each other.
I didn’t know it then but that was the answer to my prayer.
The benefits of having a tribe
1. Increased support leads to increased success
We have a secret Facebook group, it’s 4 people, but the only way to describe it is: MAGIC.
There’s nothing like having people who ask you – “how can I help you reach your business goals today” and then go all out and help you reach those goals.
That sense of support and feeling of connection has been so critical to all the things I’ve done throughout the year – revamping Wealthy Money Academy, writing and sharing The Holistic Wealth Manifesto, getting a virtual assistant etc.
All this makes sense because according to research, when women are stressed, they produce estrogen which increases oxytocin levels which leads us to look for connection, which is why having a tribe that really gets where we are is so key for women’s success.
2. "Show me your friends and I'll show you your future" ~ Dan Pena
The people you choose to surround yourself with have the power to make you or break you.
You’ll often hear people say – if you want to be rich, surround yourself with rich friends.
Thoughts are things, every thought has a vibrational frequency and we can “tune into” certain thought frequencies in much the same way that we tune into radio frequencies.
If you spend your days with people that discuss problems instead of solutions, your mind is “tuned into” problems, not solutions.
In our group we do group intentions and group visualizations and this has been epic.
This is also the one reason why I'm starting to think of Wealthy Money virtual and mastermind groups - because I see the power of group intentions and visualizations.
So choose your circle and your friends very carefully.
3. Sharing of resources – the mastermind principle
Napolean Hill spoke about the Mastermind principle: “The Mastermind principle consists of an alliance of two or more minds working in perfect harmony for the attainment of a common definite objective. Success does not come without the cooperation of others.”
Hill explained this by saying you can use the group to hold you accountable for your goals and as a resource for brainstorming, networks etc. and this would help you achieve more in a year, than you'd achieve alone in 10 years.
I can truly say I’ve done more in the last few months in Wealthy Money, than I have in the last 2 years.
How to get the most value from your tribe
1. It’s all in the giving
I think the reason my tribe is so magical is because everyone is a giver and giving activates the law of reciprocity.
We openly share resources, networks, ideas and strategies. We’re constantly giving to each other and we do this freely and with so much zest and excitement you’d think we were getting paid for it.
There’s zero competition. I know that if I have a question, someone will help me find an answer or a solution in a short space of time.
2. The focus is on the purpose
I’m always shocked by how on point we stay in the group. The focus is always on the purpose and the mission – which is to grow our companies, have an awesome entrepreneurial journey and grow as souls. We have no drama.
3. Acknowledge that everyone is an expert at something
That’s what I love about this group; no one is trying to be a leader. I can just be an expert at the money and emotional stuff related to money. But that’s it.
Everyone gets to lead discussions and meetings in their expertise and it’s been a game changer because I can ask for help and openly state when I’m just plain lost.
4. Create a safe space
Trust is the key to all great relationships. For a tribe to work, people need to feel safe and to know that they won’t be judged for anything they say or do.
And that everything that happens in that space stays in that space.
5. Show up
Seriously, just show up for your tribe. Make the meetings or the virtual calls or the Facebook group sessions.
To get the benefit of the tribe, you have to be involved in your tribe.
I leave you with an African proverb: “If you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together.”
Click here to join the Wealthy Money tribe on Facebook.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments section below.
