This article is a summary of the podcast episode from Rebecca Robertson’s Money Mastery for Women Podcast available from itunes and directly. Subscribe and listen to the latest in all things finance and wealth creation for women and hear from some incredibly inspirational female leaders too!
Interview with Lisa Wynn
Podcast_Lisa_Wynn
Rebecca: So, Lisa Wynn is going to be joining us today and Lisa is a master certified coach with the International Coach Federation and works with clients across the world to create lucrative fulfilling businesses and companies. She has helped to train over 400 coaches and delivers advanced coach training programs and coaching masterclass workshops. Lisa is a qualified coaching supervisor and assessor for the ICF credential system and business mentor for the princess trust. As a coach herself, Lisa’s strengths are her ability to see straight to the heart of the issue, her courage in asking questions that need to be asked and her ability to generate creative and sense of possibility in the most difficult circumstances. Her specialism is partnering with organizations to create and build world-class internal coaching services and sustainable supervision services for those coaches.
Wow. Let us get talking to Lisa. So, welcome today. This is the beautiful, lovely Lisa Wynn and I came across Lisa online. I think, you popped up in my Facebook group and we have been friends for some time now. We have become very good business buddies as well and I wanted to bring Lisa on today to talk a little bit about her story. So, as you know, this is the wealth series of set of interviews for real women and real stories so we can start talking about money in a more open and as if it is a block of cheese or a book or a cup of tea, not something that we should be avoiding and not really focusing and not giving it the time and space to allow us to grow and to flourish. So, I have got the wealth of experience of Lisa and I really admire her wealth of experience. She has this articulate way of describing things in such an elegant, raw, regal fashion and so, Lisa, welcome today. Thank you for spending time with us.
Lisa: Thank you. Regal an articulate I will take.
Rebecca: Thank you. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your story and what does wealth mean to you?
Lisa: So, well, in terms of my story, I feel like, I have been at pretty opposite ends of the spectrum. I have been and it is still difficult to say it. Like, I still feel a sense of shame when I say it, so that is interesting, but I have been, when I was married, at one point, we were 80,000 pounds in debt. I mean, drowning. I…
Rebecca: That is a lot of money.
Lisa: It is a lot of money. It is an amount of money that you think there is no way out of. That is how it feels. And definitely in a very miserable marriage with somebody who did not want to look at the money so I felt very lonely in that and these days, lucky me, I am happily single. Bingo and, you know, having a little mingling and… but, you know, more importantly, in many ways, in a position with money where I feel like, money and I are really good friends and I have lots of money. I mean, I am not, you know, I do not have stinking rich amounts. I wish I could say that but I have enough that this year, when my business has been decimated by whole Covid thing, it has been okay and I have actually gone ahead and I mean, as you know, I am in the process of buying what is actually my dream house, in a year where my income is very low compared to usual. So, I think, you know, that what wealth means to me is freedom and choice and peace of mind. I do not have to wake up to… I do not wake up at two o’clock in the morning in fear anymore. So, yeah, it is a chance to live my values really.
Rebecca: That is a big transition though. So, you are telling me you have gone from 60,000 in debt, alone, no partner really there to well, a partner but not helping you, really communicating at different levels, different spectrums, not sure where to start, how to get out of it and what to do which that in itself can be really… it feels like the hole is maybe even deeper than it really feels and that is still quite a big deep hole to be in.
Rebecca: I know somebody who I was speaking to today that had an endowment worth 45,000 and they had debts around 15 to 20,000 but the interest rate that was on those would just felt crippling. The mindset was, cash in the endowment, clear the debts. And we had a whole conversation around that and she was very emotionally led by the fact of what freedom it would give her by in cashing that down and even if it was a financial detriment that the release of the freedom that that gave her was more important than the financial gain or loss that she would possibly be risking. So, how do you go from being in that place to somewhere where you are now enlightened by money and you probably do not have as so much of an emotional connection to it anymore as you did or if you have it is a different form of connection?
Lisa: Definitely a different form of connection because before, it was just utter fear and paralysis. The thing is that when you are 80,000 pounds in debt, the interest each month is much more than you could hope to pay. So, it just feels like a quicksand, like a whirlpool that you are being dragged into and there is no creativity, I am not a really creative person, I have no creativity in that space. You feel like such a failure so, just the internal, your internal environment, it is just terrible. So, for me, it took, first of all, working on myself to say, you know what, I literally had enough of this, I do not care what it takes, I am not going to live with this any longer. And it took taking, persuading my husband to take a job that meant we had to move because he refused to sell our house. I worked like a dog to tidy the house up, to clear it to get it to a stage where we sold it, we made a lot of money on the house, paid everything off, moved. The whole 80,000 pound paid off in one go.
Rebecca: How did you feel that day that you were able to transfer the money? How did you feel when you had that money hit your account and cleared all that there?
Lisa: I mean, like I could breathe for the first time in years and also scared because I knew that although I changed the money, I had not changed my relationship enough and as soon as I am talking about transferring that money, my husband is talking about, oh, we could go and buy a couple of cars, you know, we could do this, we could do that and within no time, I mean, within a year, even though we were living rent free, we were back to this space where we had nothing and I could see where we were heading and that is, you know, not long after that, I literally cannot go back to that place. And I took myself out of my marriage. I felt like, I had tried everything. I had been a coach for nearly 20 years, I had tried every kind of positive aspect, every time of talking but for me, I knew that I was open to changing my relationship with money and he was not so, I went.
Rebecca: I mean, I do not know if you are in contact with him now but do you think that you have sort of been able to move on more easily than what he has? I mean, that must have been a very difficult conversation. I love you but well, maybe you do not, but, you know, you are in a situation where, you know, you are not allowing us to grow and you have still got these bad habits in place and it was the core purpose was around money, right?
Lisa: It was one of them. I mean, I think that, you know, I trained as, you know, several years ago as a wealth creation coach but not in a regulated sort of financial advice way in any way but really from point of view of behaviors and mindset around money and what I would say is that I think of relationships as holographic. So, my relationship with money is going to be a representation of my relationship with myself, my relationship with my health. You do not tend to meet people who are super healthy, who are really good with their time, really good with their energy in their body and terrible with money, you know, and likewise, the other way around. When you look at health and wealth for instance, they are very often like, mirrored of each other, are they not?
Rebecca:  Yeah, I see that quite a lot with most things. I was talking about this earlier on today where it is a case of communicating with people around money and relationships but if you are failing to communicate about anything, then it will come out in money, it will come out in your health, it will come out in whatever the kids of a, you know, extended family where you have. If you cannot communicate on any of those things, it does not mean that with money or your love for each other or whatever it is you have got to talk about, they often… if there is one area doing it is happening in other areas as well. There might just be certain areas I think, for some relationships where they are more open to have those conversations because there is a different connection, for example, they might be more motivated because there is children involved but they are no more motivated when it comes to having that money conversation because they are not interested in it even if you are. But if they are not caring about what you want and your needs, then it is not really a caring relationship, right? So…
Lisa: Exactly. That, you know, that was it to be honest.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Lisa: You could not communicate about anything.
Rebecca: Right.
Lisa: And for me, you know, as I said, one of the things about wealth is it gives you a chance to live your values and the other thing that really became evident was we had different values when it came to what was important to us about money. So, for me, I like to buy memories, it is probably the thing I spend most of my money on and connection, adventure, travel. For me, that is that is buying memories.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Lisa: So, that is really important and I do not care what other people think about me in terms of what I am doing. I care about that connection and…
Rebecca: I do not like to… Sorry, no, go ahead. Sorry.
Lisa: No, I was going to say like, a contribution, you know, generosity of spirit is one of my top values. So I like to… the first of them… since I have been single, the first of the month, the first thing that goes out is my rent at the moment, seeing my mortgage hopefully and then the second thing that goes out is my financial contributions.
Rebecca: Right.
Lisa: And I have absolute freedom to contribute money at a time in my life where it is difficult for me to contribute much time.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Lisa: You know, single mum, single grandmother working really hard, you know, help… not supporting but helping my daughters out when I can.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Lisa: I do not have time to do lots of volunteer work for instance, but I can spend money so, that is what I love about wealth. You can live your values.
Rebecca: Yeah, I can totally rely on to align with that because it is not about being wealthy is better, that someone with more money is not any better of a person, just because you are not a better person from who you are today to who you are is 60 grand, there is no difference. You are just a happier person because you are living your life more fulfilled and even if that meant that you had 200 grand in the bank or 20 quid in the bank, it does not really matter, you are able to do it in such a way that you feel contentment, I think is a good way of putting it. And not only are you able to support those around you, you are able to support yourself and that was obviously an important thing for you. So, looking at yourself and, you know, the journey that you have come from, which is massive. It is literally from chalk to cheese which is incredible and you have talked about how you have done that and what you have done and how you have gone about to start to talk about how you could go about doing that, but if you were to go back and give yourself some advice, you know, we have gone often we sort of I do not like, believe in living in the past but in terms of sharing what you have learned it might be relevant for somebody that is listening and whether this piece of nugget of advice might be applied to them now, what advice would have you given yourself maybe when that was all going on, maybe something you might have done differently or before that got to that point, like, what advice would you give? You know, I am not saying any regrets, I am sure you do not regret having children with your partner and getting married.
Lisa: Yeah.
Rebecca: Cannot live your life like that.
Lisa: No.
Rebecca: But is there any advice that you would give yourself in the past?
Lisa: Yeah, I think that, you know, I cannot remember where I read this or who I picked this up from but people tell you who they are very quickly and I think you should believe them. And I always tell my daughters for instance, do not go out with anybody who is not nice to waiters.
Lisa: You know, if somebody can take you out on a date and wine and dine you and be super charming but it is be to the waiters, they are telling you who they really are. And I am not being bitter and twisted about my marriage, you know, it is not like, you know, I felt I have married my soul mate, in some ways, I did but he was, you know, already in debt when we met and I was not and never had been. I even, you know, kept myself on an even key or through university without a grant. So, when you are young, you just have this feeling that it is… you can pass things over that you do not have to look at the things that are uncomfortable to look at. I am not just talking about relationships, I am talking about money and life. I mean, I am still not in love with doing my accounts. I still do not love VAT but I will find a way to do it and, you know, one of my things I do is, I will have dates with money because I believe in having a relationship with money and that relationship takes action, not just mindset, right? So, I will have a date night with money and make it, you know, feel like self-care to do my VAT. It might sound insane but my VAT, you know, my VAT…
Rebecca: I do not think it sounds insane at all. I think it sounds, you know, whatever it takes to get it done, right? You got to do it anyway and if you are going to go with it, with being completely miserable, there is no benefit to that. You know, if we can go into anything in life with a positive hat then I think that is a good thing and I do believe that money is an energy. I do believe, you know, what you have said already about, you know, it represents where you are and how you are feeling about yourself and I know that as my confidence has grown over the years, so is my money. And I do not think that is a coincidence. I do think they are a lot aligned and I love what you said about the waiters, about the facts you have had, people show you their true selves and it is, you know.
So somebody is a friend that is never showing up for you and you ring them and they never call you back or you arrange to meet and they are always an hour late, they are telling you who they are, right? They are telling you what type of… and how important you are and how they manage that conversation. So, yeah, are you saying that… are you saying from for people that are out there, if they are in a relationship and they are trying to change people that maybe are already showing you who they are and what they are about that… Are you saying that they should walk away or just not bother or are you thinking more of like, your younger daughters who are single and looking for love?
Lisa: Yeah, I think what I am saying is that we have to be really conscious about relationships and it comes to… it comes down to responsibility like, self-responsibility. So, I think one of the reasons I do not feel at all bitter about the breakdown of my marriage is that I take responsibility. I could sit down and blame him, I could blame him for the 80 grand debt, you know, I have got some evidence I could use to make that my reality but I have to also, because I believe so strongly in self-responsibility and empowerment, I suppose. If I am a victim of that then I have no power and I never want to have no power. I mean, I am not talking about power over people or, you know, force but… So, I can say, you know what, I was at the stage, I was at my life, I did not have the confidence to stand up and have financial boundaries and say, no, we will not have that car.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Lisa: No, we will not buy that house. So it is about knowing yourself and that is what I think, I probably I know myself really well.
Rebecca: Yeah, and I think that comes with maturity and age as well. I know myself in my relationship for 20 years and what I would have probably gone, yeah, no problem darling, no problem, you know, 15 years ago in my early 20s is very different to what I would say yes to now. And I think, that can apply to any relationship, I think, but yeah, I like the point you made about responsibility because yes, you can quite easily blame somebody else but that just disempowers them and yourself. So, if you are in the relationship and just nagging at somebody and telling them everything they have done wrong, then what you think they are going to wake up and go, oh darling, you are completely right, it is not going to happen. And so, it does not really help you or them so, I really like that and I think that is a good opener as a conversation piece for people. So, looking into the future now, so, we have talked a lot about your past and your learnings and what you have gone through, what do you see for your future?
Rebecca: So, now, you are in a place where you, you know, you are buying your house, you have got that stability, you have got… the business is going really well and you are paying yourself more and you are supporting your girls, what do you see for your future? So, 10 20 years’ time?
Lisa:  Well, ten years from now, my plan is… well, eight years from now, my plan is to be working from choice and I really consciously saying that because I do not see myself retiring in eight years but I want to be absolutely cherry-picking and I am only doing the things… my commitment to myself from now on is that I only will work with clients and organizations who want to make positive change in the world. Now, some of the clients I work with you might sort of, you know, some household names for instance, that I will not use, you could look at that and say, well, that is not really very in keeping with your whole new, this brand that I have around the legacy creation coach. Because maybe they are doing things to the planet which are not right but I only work with clients who are determined to put that right.
Rebecca: Okay, well, that is positive change.
Lisa: Yeah, so, that is what I really see in the future that I will only work with clients with whom I am utterly aligned with values and I would say, I have done that for a long time but it is another level of that. Like, you do not just have to live values, the projects that I work on will be legacy led.
Rebecca: Sure. So, for you personally then, in eight years’ time, you want to be in a position if you wanted to take six months off, you could. If you wanted to, you know, take a year off, you could or just maybe do the odd project and work part-time, you want to be able to be in that place of choice and that means over the next eight years doing certain things to allow that to happen, because I speak to a lot of business owners and they have… they come to a point, so there is a point where you have done really well, the business is earning a good money, you are paying yourself enough to pay the bills and keep everybody happy and feel like, you are contributing to the family. If you are in a couple where you have maybe been building the business up for a while and then you have got to a point where actually the profits are really good and you start got started to think about tax efficient and pensions and investments and that maybe, I did not go so far to sort of tick a box of maybe the accountant has told you to do it but then I asked a question to these people at that point and it has the landing of the time is crucial is that do you want to be doing this the way you are doing it?
It is a great model but for another 10 20 years, because if you do not put plans in place to create assets that are going to give you income in the future whatever that might look like, then you need to expect yourself to be doing this for however long. So, what actually do you want your retirement to look like? And then some of them will say, oh, I sell my business or some of them will say, I have got a passive income anyway and I said, okay, well, you have got a semi-passive income business anyway but you are still having to drive traffic to that and that is doing what including your time and your energy. So, you want to be doing Facebook lives when you are 70? It is a real shift for people but the timing is crucial but it sounds like you are already there maybe, that you already foresee that as something that you need to be working towards.
Lisa: Yes, so definitely, I mean, you know, you said what would I tell my younger self, I would tell my younger self that money is really sexy. Yeah, money is very cool stuff and it is an empowerer, it is an enabler and the way I see it is that if I have got my financial plans in place, then I can do the things that make the biggest difference and still live an ideal life and that is my job description right now because my whole new branding around the legacy creation coach is about helping people to change the whole world and their own world.
Rebecca: Yeah, right.
Lisa: It is sort of job description that I have to have an ideal life and change the world, right?
Rebecca: You have to be doing it yourself.
Lisa: Yeah. So, I mean, you know, you have been hugely instrumental in helping me to do this. So, I have a pension in place which I know when I can take it how much it is and I know that it is it is enough for me to be okay and I know it is not enough yet for me to be fabulous so, I have a… my business strategy is built… not on this, I would say, likely perfect, I will sell my business.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Lisa: Actually built on scaling my business to the extent that I have become a smaller and smaller percentage of the business.
Rebecca: Right.
Lisa: So that I can be a tiny part of the actual mechanism by the time I am 60 in eight years’ time which seems incredible.
Rebecca: I think, I still cannot believe that you are 60 in eight years’ time. That is incredible.
Lisa: That is the best thing about having a granddaughter. After having the granddaughter is that people keep saying, you are not growing older. So, it is, you know, I would say, I have this really grown-up strategy which, you know, I have only really put in this year at a new level because every time you level up your life, your business, you have to level up your financial management. I am preaching to the choir but because money is power in a really positive way, right?
Rebecca: Yeah.
Lisa: Power means the ability or capacity to do something. So, money is not power over people. Money can be but…
Rebecca: Yeah, for some people it can be and I find that with a lot of women that are disempowered with their finances when a family member, the partners take over, they can feel very disempowered, which is why I believe in empowering women with their finances regardless of their circumstances because it gives you that choice that you are describing.
Lisa: Yeah, I want to be able to keep making a difference where I want to make a difference and where I am best place to do it. You know, where I am using my unique gifts and contribution and that I am everywhere else, I am just in supporting other people to do it.
Rebecca: So, would you say for you to get to this place where you can see this horizon, you have been where you have come from, you know, what key piece of advice just to round up for people and it could be more than one, because sometimes it is more than one thing and what sort of key, one or two nuggets would you give somebody listening that they sort of think, oh, I want to be like, Lisa. And what would you advice would you give them?
Lisa: Fall madly, deeply in love with yourself.
Rebecca: Wonderful.
Lisa: I think that is the biggest difference for me right now. I really love myself. I know that I am a really nice person, I am not perfect. I am kind. I have strong values and I live them. I am courageous. I stand up for people and when you have that in a relationship with yourself, it looks a little bit teary because that is the biggest change really for me
Rebecca: Big step.
Lisa: Yeah, when you feel that way about yourself, then that whole piece about relationships are holographic, means that, then you can be truly, deeply in love with money because you are reflecting your relationship with yourself and you are not in love with money to be detriment of anything else. You are just in love with what money can do in your life and what you can do with money and the choices it gives you.
Rebecca: How do people fall in love with themselves, Lisa?
Lisa: They come and work with me as a coach. I mean, there is an element of truth in that and, you know, we have to let go of… I have always told my kids like, my daughters that your behavior is not you, your behavior is a consequence of what is going on in your life right now and the resources that you have and how you are coping. You know, who you are is an incredible, beautiful young woman who is just having a bad time right now and it is showing up in your behaviors and I think, I just turned my parenting philosophy in on myself and I think that is what we can do. Women particularly, are so quick to judge themselves.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Lisa: To judge themselves harshly, to talk to themselves in a way that they would never talk to anyone else.
Rebecca: My standards are so high. It is like, something to me, oh, it has done this. I was like, no, that is rubbish. That is not good. Come back to me when it is better than that. I do not want to know. We do, right?
Lisa: Yeah,
Rebecca: But it is taking this for me that is about taking the space and the time to do that. Especially, if you have got children like, young children like myself. You are just, you know, you are looking after everybody else, you cannot, you know, it is hard to start looking at yourself and sometimes it is hard, you do not want to look at yourself because that means you have got to take responsibility and all those scary things. But it is almost like, an Aladdin’s cave or, you know, a scary cave in the sense that the other side of it is like, this beautiful place.
Rebecca: So, yeah I totally agree with what you are saying but it is heavy stuff, right?
Lisa: It does not have to be, you know, because we all have somebody that we are afraid we might be and then we behave in a way that tries to prove to the world that we are not that bad but we… underneath that, we have our essence and who we really are and I spent so much of my life trying to prove that I am not the person I am afraid I might be, that you forget who you really are and that person is amazing and, you know, everybody is amazing and incredible in their essence.
Rebecca: In their own right, definitely.
Lisa: You know, and it is just about getting back to that space.
Rebecca: Amazing, and I think we should leave it there Lisa. I mean, that is the best place to leave it. Thank you so much for joining me today. I knew it was going to be intriguing. I knew I would love, absolutely love it and how can people connect with you? What is the best way to get in touch with you if they want to?
Lisa: Best thing is probably to search on Facebook for The Legacy Creation Clan and come and find us and hang out there. That would be…
Rebecca: Legacy Creation Clan. Fabulous. Absolutely love it. Well, thank you again Lisa and I am sure you will be on my show again soon because you have always got some wonderful wisdom elegant and regal nuggets to share with us. Thank you so much.
