10 Money Mindset Shifts All Female Entrepreneurs Need
Money mindset is a powerful factor influencing female entrepreneurs' financial success. A positive money mindset can empower women in entrepreneurship to make informed decisions, set clear goals, and achieve sustainable growth.
This guide is based on 10 essential money mindset shifts important for female entrepreneurs to shine in business.
From adapting a positive money mindset to understanding the value of personal development, these shifts offer practical strategies to enhance financial expertise and drive success.
By exploring real-life money mindset examples and insights from sources like money mindset podcasts and a female entrepreneur mastermind, women in entrepreneurship can harness the power of their beliefs around money to create a path toward prosperity and fulfillment.
In a previous post, I shared 10 Ways I’m Teaching Financial Literacy to My Daughter. In that post, I shared a few ways my own mother taught me to manage money, starting with a small weekly allowance. Becoming empowered financially isn’t about saving or giving up your $5 latte; it’s about using money as a vehicle to create freedom. Let’s talk about 10 powerful money mindset shifts that will make the most impact in your small business.
Money Mindset Shift 1: Adapting a Positive Money Mindset
Sayings like, “Money is the root of all evil” (actually, the Bible states, “Love of money is the root of all evil.”) and “Money doesn’t grow on trees” are sayings we grew up hearing and often anchored us in negative money mindset.
If women want to become financially empowered, we need to have the right impression about the role of money in our lives.
Seeing money as a conduit of opportunity is the first step in using money to achieve freedom.
Money and wealth are not the same thing. At Founding Females®, we believe money is one component of wealth. Read our Statement of Beliefs to learn more.
The way that female entrepreneurs can build wealth largely involves having a practical and positive money mindset.
Money Mindset Shift 2: Overcoming Scarcity Mentality
Another big thing that makes it hard for women businesses to get the right money mindset is the "scarcity mindset."
A “scarcity mindset” means someone believes there’s a limited number of good things to go around. “Only taking your fair share” and “zero sum thinking” where one person has to lose if the other person wins are limiting and detrimental to the female entrepreneur mindset. This mentality keeps people stuck.
On the contrary, at Founding Females®, we believe there are enough good things to go around for everyone. My success in no way detracts from yours, and vice versa. We can both win abundantly.
In fact, human beings keep getting better, more innovative, and more efficient. We keep getting better and faster, delivering results that were unfathomable even 10 years ago. The only way that’s possible is because we’re capable of creating new and more value, not just passing around the finite value that already exists.
It’s easy to think that because money involves numbers, there is a limited quantity available. Actually, our standard of living continues to improve because we create more value.
When we believe there’s enough good things for everyone, we can accept an abundance of revenue in our businesses, too.
Money Mindset Shift 3: Valuing Your Worth Adequately
One important change that women should focus on is valuing the services we provide in our businesses and expecting adequate pay based on the value we create.
Building self-esteem and an accurate picture of the exchange of value is essential for achieving financial stability by recognizing our worth as a valuable asset. When women understand our self-worth, it influences how we price our products and services and negotiate in business.
By learning from mentors who understand money mindset, women can develop a strong sense of self-worth that aligns with our financial goals.
Given that the top reason businesses fail is because they run out of cash, pricing adequately for the value we create is one step in a positive direction.
Money Mindset Shift 4: Setting Clear Financial Goals
Our brains love a task, and setting clear financial goals creates a target for our brains to work toward. Ambiguous goals of “success” without narrowing down exactly what that looks like leaves our brains without a roadmap about how to get there.
Set your sights high! I often remind our women’s business mastermind that “good enough” isn’t good enough. You were made to thrive! You were made for more than barely making it or simply replacing your 9-5 income. Entrepreneurship can be your vehicle to wealth, which we define as having the four freedoms: Freedom of time, money, relationship, and purpose.
But it all starts with defining clear goals, then working backward to put the pieces in place to make the vision a reality.
Money Mindset Shift 5: Investing in Personal Development
I read recently…
To make $100,000, you have to be willing to invest $10,000.
To make $1,000,000, you have to be willing to invest $100,000.
Investing is like a machine. If you put the right inputs in, it creates magnified outputs.
Personal development works the same way.
Initially, you must be willing to make sacrifice or experience delayed gratification with the intention of creating a better outcome.
When women commit their time and resources to their personal development, we will eventually become better at what we do, our attitudes will improve, and we will begin to develop a richer, more fulfilling life.
Money Mindset Shift 6: Understanding Money as a Tool
Sometimes we get so caught up about money. How much we have (or don’t have). How to spend it correctly. How to save it. Money is just a vehicle to create an outcome, especially in business.
Instead of having a tight grip on money, what if we simply used money to create a desired outcome?
As Dan Sullivan says in the book, “Who Not How,” “If you have enough money to solve a problem, you don’t have a problem.”
The best part? It’s okay to start small. Hire a virtual assistant for $250/month so you can focus more on your unique 20% that only you can do.
Money Mindset Shift 7: Seeking Financial Education
Not all of us got a seat at the financial table growing up, and I appreciate that. But now, we have so many tools and resources at our fingertips to become financially literate, that we almost have to try to avoid talking about it in order to not grow in financial literacy. And not all education comes with a degree.
At the date of writing, my favorite Facebook group, Females and Finances by Money Honey Rachel, has over 300,000 members who ask questions, provide feedback, and pour into one another specifically on the topic of financial literacy. Not all the advice in the group is spot on, but it’s a really good start!
Money Mindset Shift 8: Embracing Risk-Taking
Growing and forging new territory takes courage. During our Founding Females® Mastermind call today, I reminded the group that if you’re comfortable, you’re probably stuck.
The moment we become comfortable in our roles, it’s probably time to change. As entrepreneurs, we must lean into the continual evolution of becoming a new version of ourselves.
Money mindset is no different.
Recently, I submitted my largest proposal to date (I’ll let you know if I land it!). Even just submitting it, I evolved into a higher version of myself because I now see myself as someone charging adequately for the value I’m willing to provide.
It took risk, and lots of fine tuning, but embracing the risk of submitting an amount I felt a little shaky about was totally worth it even if I don’t land the gig. Why? Because it helped back up the idea that I’m someone who’s continually upleveling and growing.
Money Mindset Shift 9: Surrounding Yourself with People Who Are Financially Savvy
The people we spend time with create our normalcy. It’s true that we become like the people we spend the most time with.
Want to be a better mom? Hang out with moms whose parenting styles you admire.
Want to become a better runner? Hang out with people who prioritize fitness.
Want to become better with money? Hang out with people who have it and manage it well. I find it helps to find friends who are willing to talk about things like investing and how they make buying decisions in their business.
One note of caution: it’s important to build real relationships based on trust and communication, not on having money. It’s easy to fall into the trap of keeping up with the Joneses. That’s not what I’m suggesting. Here are two ways I do this:
When I wanted to start investing in real estate, I showed up to the area’s real estate meet up and starting making connections. I asked the person sitting next to me, “How’d you do that?” She suggested we go to lunch and the rest is history.
I have friends I know I can talk about money with. I just reached out to a friend asking if I could lay out a few key shifts happening in our investing strategy and get her feedback on it. Money isn’t all we talk about, but I know I can go to her because we’ve built a relationship, not just a surface-level connection.
Money Mindset Shift 10: Celebrating Financial Wins
Take time to enjoy financial success. I read recently in the Wall Street Journal about a guy who made $400,000 and still didn’t feel wealthy.
I think he is “living in the gap.” When you “live in the gap,” you’re constantly comparing yourself to an ideal situation, rather than to true progress. Dan Sullivan explains that when you’re living in the gain, you compare your progress to where you used to be. But when you’re living in the gap, it’s like comparing yourself to the horizon. You take one step forward and the horizon gets one step further away.
Enjoying financial success means living in the gain and enjoying the good things you’ve helped make a reality.
Celebrate milestones. Treat yourself to a random day off. Only when you can celebrate what you’ve done will it make future successes that much more rewarding.
The Bottom Line
These ten basic mindset shifts will help you redefine your perception of money’s role in your life, set clear financial goals, and work to make it happen.
This change not only empowers you to see money as a means for creating a positive impact but also to appreciate your value and applaud the milestones you achieve in your entrepreneurial journey.
About Founding Females®
The mission of Founding Females® is to help build a better future for female entrepreneurs through education, encouragement, and shared wisdom. At Founding Females® create safe spaces for women to share business challenges and receive peer support.
In addition, Founding Females® offers an online female business mastermind, a how-to guidebook for female entrepreneurs called Dream, Build, Grow: A Female’s Step-by-Step Guide for How to Start a Business, and in-person events, like an annual women’s business conference and local Founding Females Meet Ups.
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