#28: The Role of Money in Our Lives -- A Surprising Perspective

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On "Inside-Out Career Design" this week, hosts Nicola Vetter & Peter Axtell speak with Suze Maclaine Pont

Money is a powerful force in our lives, shaping our decisions, relationships, and sense of self-worth. But what if our relationship with money is also tied to our past traumas and deepest desires? In this thought-provoking discussion, Suze shares her insights on the unexpected ways that money intersects with our soul's journey and our quest for meaning in life. Drawing on her years of experience as a money coach and trauma therapist, Suze challenges us to rethink our assumptions about money, success, and happiness and explore new possibilities to live a more prosperous, more fulfilling life.

In our conversation, we talk about…

• how the relationship we have with money can get us trapped into some kind of prison,
• why trauma can hold us back from achieving our goals,
• how forgiveness and acceptance of our past experiences can lead to growth and a better future,
• how the acknowledgment that we will die can give us courage, freedom, and a sense of openness,
• and why the biggest challenge for most people is to figure out what their purpose is and how to live it.

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• Podcast: Inside-Out Career Design
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• Twitter: https://twitter.com/WhatsNextMedia 

Connect with Nicola & Peter

• Connect with Nicola Vetter on LinkedIn  
• Connect with Peter Axtell on LinkedIn  

Books, resources, and people mentioned in this episode

• Carl Jung – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung
• Bert Hellinger – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bert_Hellinger (not mentioned but worthwhile researching in the field of family constellations)
• Quiz – What's Your Money Type?
• Audiobook – Activate Your Money Flow
• Taibi Kahler – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taibi_Kahler

Drop us a note

Any topics you’d like us to cover or guests you’d like to hear? Let us know at [email protected]

About the Inside-Out Career Design Podcast

This podcast is obsessed with answering a single question: Is it possible to create an authentic, meaningful, and fulfilling life you love while building a successful and rewarding career?

Join Nicola Vetter and Peter Axtell, co-founders of the WhatsNext.com Career Insights platform and creators of the groundbreaking MotivationFinder assessment, as they follow their obsession with answering this question by sharing their insights, discoveries, and life lessons and talking with career experts, leaders, spiritual guides, psychologists, data scientists, coaches -- anyone and everyone who might hold a strategy or answer to the age-old questions of “what’s next for me?” and “what should I do with my life?”

They seek to transform suffering into joy for millions of people stuck and confused in their lives and careers.

Get ready to be inspired, motivated, and above all, to connect deeply with who you are and what you are meant to do with the time you’ve been given.

Transcript

 Suze Maclaine Pont  00:00

But what I started to realize is that the way I was treating money was one on one, the way I was raised and brought up to my relationship with life.

 

Peter Axtell  00:14

Welcome to Inside-Out Career Design. In this show, we're obsessed with answering a single question. Is it possible to create an authentic, meaningful, and fulfilling life you love while building a successful and rewarding career? My name is Peter Axtell, and I'm here with Nicola Vetter. We're co-founders of the WhatsNext.com CareerInsights platform, and creators of the groundbreaking MotivationFinder assessment. Join us as we seek to transform suffering into joy for millions of people stuck and confused in their lives and careers. We'll share our insights, discoveries, and life lessons and talk with career experts, leaders, spiritual guides, psychologists, data scientists, coaches, anyone who might hold a strategy or answer to the age-old questions of: "What's next for me?" and "What should I do with my life?" Get ready to be inspired, motivated, and above all, to connect deeply with who you are, and what you're meant to do with the time you've been given. 

 

Peter Axtell  01:18

Are you trying to figure out what to do with your life, to figure out what to do with the precious time you've been given on this earth, or to figure out what only you as a remarkable and unique individual can bring into this world? If you are, please join us for one of our live and completely free online workshops, where we cover different topics to help you figure out what to do with your life and career without wasting precious time, taking wild guesses, or risking it all. To save your spot in our next live and free workshop go to WhatsNext.com/workshops. We can't wait to see you there. Again, that's WhatsNext.com/workshops.

 

Nicola Vetter  02:11

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Inside-Out Career Design Podcast. Our guest today is Suze Maclaine Pont. Suze is a life coach and trauma therapist who healed her suicidal past and embraced not just life, but her true soul and calling. And she is on a mission to help others live life from a deep connection with their divine soul, trust their inner navigation system and create their most fulfilling life.

 

Peter Axtell  02:49

Suze knew she had to deal with the parts of her life that weren't working. She sat under meditation cushion determined to figure out what wasn't working. And that was when she remembered her unresolved past trauma and knew she had to face it.

 

Nicola Vetter  03:07

That's why we were so interested to talk with Suze. And then our conversation we talk about why trauma can hold us back from achieving our goals. How forgiveness and acceptance of our past experiences can lead to growth and a better future. How the acknowledgement that we will die can give us courage, freedom, and a sense of openness. Why the biggest challenge for most people is to figure out what their purpose is and how to live it and how the relationship we have with money can get us trapped into some kind of prison. And now it's time to listen and learn from Suze. Welcome Suze, like so many of my friends, we too met through a seminar six years ago. And then we met in person which was just wonderful. And hopefully, we'll meet again in person this year. But for now, we're happy to have you with us online.

 

Suze Maclaine Pont  04:19

I am so happy to be here. It is so much fun to see you guys.

 

Nicola Vetter  04:25

Now you've definitely asked the question what's next for my life, for my career? And even the bigger question what should I do with my life? Because your life turned out to be quite different from what you had expected and offered up some big what's next moments? Please share your story.

 

Suze Maclaine Pont  04:51

My story well if you have about three years, I can tell everything I I've been thinking about this of course, right? So what is the big thing in my story, and that is mostly to do. When I start a little bit in my childhood, I, I've had two parents who are very, very loving. But they both had a severe second world war trauma. So despite all their efforts, there was a lot of stress in our house, there were huge fights, literally really fights until I was seven, I don't have any memories of there not being a fight. Now, that might not be accurate if you ask my parents. But I grew up in a very unpredictable setting. And where I never really knew whether I was going to get a hug or a beating. And the unpredictability of that led to me really not understanding how I could be here, how I wanted to be here, if I even wanted to be here. And I always felt that nobody was really wanting me around. I was in their way, I was always in other people's way. So that lit, I took that into high school, where I was bullied and teased. But I actually at a certain point, I thought, well, if nobody likes me anyway, then I might as well be true to myself. And that is actually an interesting thing, because most people shy away in a corner. And I did shy away in a corner somehow. But I was also like, what doesn't really matter what I do? There's always this reaction of who are you? And you're strange, and you're weird, and why are you here. So I decided to just be true to me. But there was one place in life where I actually did feel accepted. And that was sea, I loved boats, I've been sailing all of my life. And out at sea, especially if you're out at sea for 14 days on end and no shore in between. There is a certain atmosphere where people just accept each other completely with all their quirks and weirdness. So that was kind of a place where I felt safe, where I felt accepted, where as long as you do what the ship requires you to do, it's all good. And that always gave me a little bit of breathing space and a little bit of, okay, there is a place where I can tune into who I am. Now, after my childhood, I ran away from home as soon as possible. After my graduation from high school, I left on the day of my last of my last How do you call that test. On the day of my last test, I was packing the car and I left. But then life actually got scarier, I thought then life would start and then things would be easy. And then everything would become safe. Actually, that's where I discovered that the world wasn't a safe place outside of my home, either. So at 22 or 23, I was suicidal, I really did not understand anything anymore. I had one really beautiful boyfriend, he got hit by a car. He had severe brain damage. I took care of him for two years. And after that, I thought, You know what, let's just get off this planet. But the interesting thing is, I always say if I really was suicidal, it would I would have achieved, I would have succeeded, right. And I had a talk with a really dear friend of mine, he came over for dinner. And he asked me why? How are you feeling? I really don't understand, I can't relate to what's going on in your life. And he was the first person who was truly interested in my story. And he really wanted to hear how I was feeling how I was doing what was going on, without trying to rescue me or without trying to save me or without trying to help me change my mind. He wasn't trying to be a therapist. He just didn't get it. And we had a talk for about three or four hours. And at the end of the talk. He said, I get it, I really understand why you would want to end your life. And he said, I would actually really like to see you next week. But will you still be here? And that was kind of a funny moment. So he said, Well, I could actually live for another week. And he said, Okay, I'll come over next week. Do you promise you'll be here? And I said, Yeah, I will even promise it. And that is a moment. That's actually my biggest what's next moment, I think because that's where I decided I did not have to understand life. I only had to look at next week. And that was actually a huge shift on how I got to one of my biggest tools and that is, I don't have to understand anything as long as I can understand what is right in front of me. And how I can take one step into that. Now, from that moment onwards, that's how I've been living through many, many other what's next moments. And the interesting thing is that exactly that philosophy of just taking one step and not having to understand anything led for me from being suicidal, in the worst street of entirety of Rotterdam, having lost all of my friends, all of my family, literally everything and being in the darkest place you can possibly imagine to now I'm 48. And I have created an exceptional life for myself. I have a beautiful husband, two kids, we have sheep, we have a dog, we have cats. And I have an international business, I live in the most beautiful place. If you ever come here, it is absolutely amazing. But I did not create that by pushing or by doing anything. It unfolded by taking one step by one step. So that's my story, I guess.

 

Nicola Vetter  11:18

Wow. And I'm sure we'll dive into some of those. You mentioned, you have several what's next moment? So we might touch on those during our interview.

 

Suze Maclaine Pont  11:29

Yeah.

 

Peter Axtell  11:29

So I thought we jump right into the topic everyone is interested in, Suze, and that is money. How did you get interested in that topic?

 

Suze Maclaine Pont  11:44

I started my business when I was 25. That was a point where there was a huge economic crisis in this country. Everybody was losing their job. I had a permanent contract. And I quit my job and started my own business. And everybody was looking at me like you're crazy. How can you make such a stupid mistake. And I said, Well, I have three months of money in the bank, I don't see a problem. I thought I was rich, I had three month’s worth of money, I was like, there's no problem here. And what I did is I quadrupled my business in four years. And I really didn't see any problems. I thought money was easy. I didn't understand why anybody would have any problems with it. Until I was 30. And I got pregnant very unexpectedly. The father of my child left me eight weeks into that pregnancy. So then I was a single mom, with my own business, my own home, and not the social people around me to really help me out. Nobody had kids in my surrounding and, and I met Yakko, who you both know, of course, my husband, we were together for 17 years now. And I felt obligated to take care of him take care of the kids take care of everybody to take care of everything. And I started to work and work and work and work and work. And after a few years, that system completely collapsed. Because for some reason, and I'll explain to you the reason in a moment, what no matter what I did, it was hard. All of a sudden, everything being easy me taking one step at a time, all of a sudden, no matter what I did, I couldn't seem to get it right. I ended up with 50,000 Euros of debt. Not telling my husband about that. Because I was the lady who could do it all by herself, right? He took me and my baby on board. So I was not going to tell him that I messed up. So I was completely alone, messing everything up. And then the bank called me telling me that they needed our mortgage payments, and I flipped. And the interesting thing is that at a certain point, at the lowest point of this, I thought okay, I have to stop this. I don't know what's going to come from that. I don't know what the answer is. But the way I'm doing it now is not bringing me to an answer at all. And it used to be so easy. I really did not understand what was different. So what I did is I said okay, I'm going to make a list of everything that I'm doing in my life. And look what I'm trying to do what I'm trying to make work here and what I'm really not doing for me but trying because I need to get something to work. And at first, I thought you know what, I'm just going to create that list. And then I'm just gonna cross out all the things I don't necessarily do because I love them. And turned out that there were only three things left on that list. And that was Tai Chi, meditation, and my family and everything else on that list I did because I thought I needed to, because I thought somebody else needed me to, because that's what grownups do, because that was the obligation on my shoulder, because that is what every normal person does. But I wasn't doing it because I believed in it, or because I thought it was part of me or because of anything. And what I realized there is that was my second suicide attempt, and very different kind of suicide. But I was killing my true self in order to save everyone. So I sat down on a pillow, meditation pillow. And I thought, I'm going to stop everything, even if that means that I will lose everything, I'm going to stop every single thing I'm doing until I figure this out. Now, at that time, I was already a trauma therapist, I gave leadership trainings all over the world to big corporations. I had great, great assignments, great things going on. But I didn't really want to do them, I would have wanted to do them 10 years before, but not at that time. So I said, You know what, I'm going to say no to all of it. And I'm going to sit on my meditation pillow and figure out what the hell is going on here. And one of the biggest thing that happened was that one by one, all these really early childhood memories started to come up of me, in my relationship to my father, how he treated me, how my mom treated me, they had nothing to do with money. But what I started to realize is that the way I was treating money was one on one, the way I was raised and brought up to my relationship with life. So what I realized is that it's not about the amount in the bank account. And it's not about working hard and having money. It's about the relationship we have to money that gets us trapped into a kind of a prison.

 

Nicola Vetter  17:22

You help people build financial harmony. That's one of your claims. And I know that the question we are trying to answer on this podcast is really dear to your heart. Is it possible to find an authentic, meaningful and fulfilling life you love while building a successful and rewarding career? So I'm really curious, how have you navigated those two parts of finding meaning and paying the bills after you came off your cushion? And how long have you been on that cushion? How long did it take?

 

Suze Maclaine Pont  18:01

It took me a year and a half to be completely debt free to be completely on the other side of the track. Basically, what I did so what I discovered is that all of these early childhood memories were just projections onto money. And what I started to do is I started to heal all that past childhood trauma. And then we look at, okay, who do I want to be? So what kind of life do I really want to have? And what does that mean? One of the things that I discovered is that the reason I made money so easily before this whole drama situation, was because I wasn't in it for the money. I was helping people. I was helping them. I love that. And I was just asking them, What do you need help with? I thought I was a millionaire with three months of money in the bank. So I wasn't concerned about my own future. At all, I was just concerned about how can I serve you? What do you need? And do I like what I'm doing? The trap I got in that really strangled me almost was that all of a sudden, I wasn't in it to help people anymore. I was in it. Because I needed to fix something in my own life. Now what I started to do on my cushion was fix my own life, internally. And then I started to really come from a place of service. That is how I turn it around. So basically, what asked, the question I started asking myself again, was, Who do I want to be? And what does that mean for this week? Basically, it's the suicide story all over again, it is, who do I want to be? And what does that mean for this week? Every single week, I just took one step into the life that I looked at as meaningful. And I always had a strong uncertainty around. That is possible. Now, before I had kids, that was easy, because if it didn't turn out to be possible, I would just go ahead and still kill myself. Death was my best friend. Now this time around, I didn't have that exit door anymore. This time around, I needed to stay around for my family. So one thing I realized on my meditation pillow is that of the time before I'd been doing it on my own with death as my best friend, what I realized is I need new best friends.

 

Nicola Vetter  20:36

Definitely.

 

Suze Maclaine Pont  20:38

And that's where I met you guys and other amazing souls that I knew would not judge me. There was one thing about death, I knew that whatever I did, when I started to create a meaningful life, death wouldn't judge me. So I thought, You know what, I need people who won't judge me, when I make a mistake, who will help me who will look at my numbers, look at the things I'm doing together with me, not from a place of, oh, you have debt, you're bad. But from a place of, hey, you know what, that has nothing to do with who you are. And that really helped me to just take that one step from the place of Who do I want to be. And that means, in my case, I don't want to work 40 hours a week, I don't even want to work 30 hours a week, I work 24 hours a week, and I have four to six hours a day, that I just align me with who I want to be, so that I even understand what it means to take one step a day. That's the work I really do. So that when I do something for somebody else, I can really be present and really serve.

 

Peter Axtell  21:51

In our pre-call, you said that our stress is not about the bank account, but about our beliefs around money. I want to know more about that, Suze.

 

Suze Maclaine Pont  22:08

Yeah, we tend to think that if we have money we'll be saved. Like, if when I had debt, I thought, You know what, if somebody would just give me a lot of money, everything will be alright. And what I realized is money does not solve your money problems, it will just give you new ones will just give you completely other ones. For instance, we get caught in all different kinds of beliefs. For instance, I never had a problem with earning money. That was never my problem. I never had a problem believing I was worthy, or the work that I do is worthy. I never had a problem. Not liking rich people. I grew up between the top 10% rich people in this country. I never had a problem along those things. But what I did have is a dad, who grew up after the Second World War, living in other people's homes until he was 16, together with his parents in a one bedroom, shared the kitchen for one hour a day. And that was it. So they had to shut up, be quiet, not make any noise not be in the way. They didn't have any money. And my grandparents lost everything during the war. They were really rich before the war. And after the war, they had absolutely nothing. My grandfather was a violin player. So that was really hard, really stressful. And my father grew up in that situation of complete chain, complete stress, complete feeling of I don't know how to do any of this. So when my father was in between rich people, he would feel that shame of his parents, he would feel all that awfulness. Now, I thought, that's his problem, not mine. He grew up there. I didn't. I don't have a problem with rich people. Until, for instance, one of the things that came up was that if I would play with my friends, my father would always be disapproving of them. I never really realized that. He was always like, Oh, those people Oh, they're no good. Oh, yeah. You know what, you can't really trust them. And I thought, well, that's this disbelief, but turns out, I really love my father, deeply. No matter what happened in my childhood, really love him with all my heart and soul, and today that's 100% true, but I think it's always been true. And I will never ever, ever become something he hates. What I didn't realize is that as long as I believe my dad hates rich people, I'm not going to be one.

 

Peter Axtell  24:57

Oh, I'm gonna push back on that gently, a little bit that I can imagine people in our audience are thinking, they're saying, Okay, this is all great. Just give me the damn money. And then I'll tell you whether it makes me happy or not. I'm sure you have heard that.

 

Suze Maclaine Pont  25:21

I am absolutely certain I did. Yeah. So, so there's two things that come up here. And one is, okay, but even if somebody does, for instance, one of the beliefs that could come up is, when you don't have any money, you think your problem has to do with bills you think your problem has to do with, I can't pay my bills. That's my problem. If I have money that solved. Now, I also coach really rich people. And they tell me, I don't trust why people like me. And they say, I can never be 100% certain if somebody likes me, because I have money, or because of who I am. Now, when you're in debt, that's not a problem you will ever consider. Because if you have 50,000 Euros of debt, people don't like you for your money. Like, if they still like you, they like you because of who you are. They like you, despite of all that nonsense. And that can actually give you a feeling of you see, even if I really bad, they still like me can actually be rewarding in itself can actually give you a feeling of support. They like me, you see, even when I'm really crappy, they still like me. And that can be actually a point that we want to hold on to, unconsciously, we don't want to be confronted with an idea of you. But now I turned everything around, will they still like me? That is something that we're never gonna allow ourselves to do if we're not conscious of it. So these things, these contradictions between love and money, are really strong, but they're as strong for millionaires. They're as strong for really rich people. They have trust issues, real trust issues. They have issues of feeling safe and secure. They have issues of people being after them. Not really understanding how that works. I'm not saying everybody with money has that. But money won't solve it in itself, you'll just get different problems. Is this an example? An answer to your question, Peter?

 

Peter Axtell  27:35

Pretty good answer, Suze, yep.

 

Nicola Vetter  27:36

And I'm sure we'll dive a little deeper into that when we dive deeper into the trauma apart. But I first want to address two intriguing tools that you have created. Because I think that might be really helpful for our audience to hear about. One is called What's Your Money Type. And the other is Activate Your Money Flow. So let's start with What's Your Money Type.

 

Suze Maclaine Pont  28:07

What's Your Money Type is a quiz I created where by answering a few questions, I think, what it takes me two minutes, but maybe it will take you four minutes maximum, if you really want to think about it. I would actually suggest this intuitively answering the questions. I think it's 14 questions. Not all related to money, by the way. But by answering these questions, you will get a deep report about one of the six childhood phases that you might be projecting onto money and might be projecting onto life. Because just like I said, we project our childhood trauma onto money. But that's not easy to see, it's not easy to see how that's related. It's not easy to untangle that. But there are six basic childhood developmental stages are not created by me by the way, they're created by Carl Jung. And I use those stages and looked at. So how would we project any of this onto money? And what would that look like? So if you do that quiz, you will find the one sabotaging pattern that is absolutely not obvious. That might be the pattern that you have to deal with right now the most. Mostly we actually have two or three of these patterns. But the quiz is pretty accurate and pretty good. And you will find that there is actually an opposite thing you need to do than what you now think. And it's really you get a 30-page report from that, really diving into what is going on in that specific childhood phase, and how that shows up in money today.

 

Nicola Vetter  29:49

Oh, that's really great. And I believe it's very helpful. I do have the question though, when they get this 30-page report, can they use that and really work through it by themselves? Because if I'm hearing those money types, and they are related to your childhood days, there is a lot of work that might be very unfamiliar for people. So do they need help?

 

Suze Maclaine Pont  30:24

I think everybody needs help. And I think there is one really quite kind of disastrous thing that we are taught in the entire Western world. And maybe in the entire world, I don't know about that. And that is that we should be able to do everything alone. We are not born alone. We are born out of a woman, we are created together with two people. So there's no such thing as being able to do it all by yourself. But until we're 18, we get extra credit points, extra bonus points, extra points for everything that we did, all by ourselves. And even worse, we get points for doing the things that are really hard. And hardly any of us have really been rewarded and praised for our natural talents for what we're good at, despite work, and, and I think that's really shameful. But I also think it's, it's really damaging for us because we need help. We're not here to do anything alone. We're here to bring something onto this planet that only our soul came to do here that you came to do here. But it's way bigger than you what I am here to do. I can't do that alone. Not and it wouldn't be fun to do it alone. And I just me. And wouldn't it be a lot better if everybody worked together for the greater good? Same with you guys? You can't do it all alone. But we've been praised for doing it all alone, way too long. So yeah, if you read the report, there's going to be a lot of insights, there's going to be a lot of coins dropping. But there is also going to be a what there might be a Okay, and what do I do with this? And I would seriously recommend asking help for that. Because if you actually dive into these childhood patterns, and we really do that deep inner trauma work, that that's underneath all of this, then your soul will start to lead your life instead of your survival patterns. And if we're talking about leading a meaningful life, to me, that is the answer. Because as long as your survival patterns are trying to push you towards a point where everything will be easy, that's never going to come.

 

Peter Axtell  32:56

Wonderful. Yeah, you just left me with a cliffhanger, Suze. Can you give me an example of one, I'm not sure if it's a Jung archetype or what, one of the money types and then how you would do the opposite of that? I'd love to hear an example. Could you do that?

 

Suze Maclaine Pont  33:15

Yeah, sure. So I can build a little bit on my own story. I am archetype rooster, rooster. Yes, I gave these names. By the way, these names have nothing to do with young and the rooster is stuck around age four or five, six. Now what happens a lot in age four, or five, six, is that parents overestimate a child. So what happens is, children can do a lot by themselves on their own. But if it's a good idea for those parents that the kid is very independent. They are not supported. Now think of kids of alcoholics. Kids in a divorce when one of your parents died when there were severe fights. My parents had second world war trauma. So there were always fights. So it was really helpful for them if I could do it all by myself all alone. That was wonderful. I could do everything alone. I could get pregnant alone. build my business alone. Do my relationship alone. I could do everything alone. Yeah, except have real nourishing relationships with other people. Because what I have learned, and this is typical for rooster is that support will not be available at all. So when push comes to shove, I am here all alone. Now the good side of the rooster because all of these types of beautiful sides as well as that roosters get things done. They take control they take over they get it done. Everything is handled. Yeah, that's great, but it's very lonely. So my instinct would tell me if there was a problem. Let's work. Let's get at it. Let's take control. Let's stay charged. Let's do this. Yeah, but what I really needed to learn to do, which is the counterintuitive thing, is to connect with myself to connect with other people to allow other people in, where a rooster can have a 20-meter concrete barrier between him and other people. I would let other people in Yeah, by taking control of their life. Ask my husband, it's a miracle. He's still here. I took care of his happiness. Men don't like that. Women don't either. The problem is, you don't know that you're doing that. You really don't know. Because I genuinely thought that was what it meant to be nice to someone. And that's what I learned.

 

Nicola Vetter  35:55

And now the name rooster really makes sense as you described it with a barrier that separates you from others. Beautiful. Now, tool number two, Activate Your Money Flow. Well, most of us want to activate more money flow, right? But how does a person do that?

 

Suze Maclaine Pont  36:21

So what we need to do first is, so if you go to my website to the homepage, you will find an audio that explains it a little bit more in depth. But basically, what it means is to really connect to your soul. Thing is, money is not a thing outside of us, it's not. Money is just a means to create harmony in a relationship. That's what it is, we invented it. It wasn't here on the planet readily available for everyone, it was a means to make. To make it easier to trade. Very simple. If you have something and I have something, but we don't want to trade, then money in between can make it easier to actually give you something in return. So you can decide what you want in return. That's all it is. It's just a way to make reciprocity easy. Now that word reciprocity is really important, because we tend to look at money, like it's an external thing. But it's not, it's something that other people give you out of reciprocity. So all you have to do to activate your money flow is activate the reciprocity loop, which means serving people with something they genuinely want, so that they will want to reciprocate. But in that entire loop, a lot can go wrong, because we see a lot of problems. Yeah, but the problems that you see out in the world might not be the problems that people perceive themselves. So then you might start fixing things that other people don't even want fixed. And then leaving with a feeling of nobody values me. Yeah, but that wasn't their problem to value you their problem was to solve their own problems. So or you're not good at receiving. So there's also a lot of people who say, Yep, I'm doing a lot of things for other people, they never give me any money back. How good of a receiver are you? How good are you with genuinely letting other people in and valuing yourself. So there's a whole bunch of things that ties back into the money types that could be underneath this. Basically, if we want to get out of this, what we need to do is we need to get it back to the really simple principle of reciprocity of, I'm doing something for somebody, and I value that person so much that I want them to be free and not in debt to me. So I want them to reciprocate to me so that both of us will be back to our ground. And that's why I call it a harmony. Because it's basically all about harmonious relationships. I have the strong belief that we all want to contribute. We all want to, we all want to do that from our heart and soul. We all have a gift that is needed otherwise we would not be here. All we need to do is find the people who really need that and reciprocate and build meaningful relationships.

 

Nicola Vetter  39:30

That's really, really lovely. And I truly believe that so many people out there think especially those please others how we would call them according to the five Drivers that we're also teaching which Tabi Kahler came up with. I believe that people really need to learn to receive and not only to give.

 

Suze Maclaine Pont  40:04

Absolutely. And they even need to learn that often we give, because the giving of the gift is something we want to receive. So there's even another layer to that. So many people have not learned to receive back, or to receive the fact that you get to give. And so often, and that last one is actually really important because so many of us try to give, so that reciprocity will come back to us. That's not how it works. Because if you give, but you didn't ask if anybody needed anything than that giving, is what you get to receive. If I give something to you, because I want to give it and you don't need anything, then it's my gift. If you receive. We mix that up so quickly.

 

Nicola Vetter  41:00

It's like a love affair, isn't it?

 

Suze Maclaine Pont  41:02

It's like a love affair. Exactly. It's exactly like a love affair. Actually, the way people relate to money, the people I work with, always tell me, you did not just fix my money, you fixed my relationship, my parenting my relationship to my parents. It has to do with everything.

 

Peter Axtell  41:23

You have an exercise where you suggest writing a love letter to money. So how does that work? And what are some common insights that people take away from it?

 

Suze Maclaine Pont  41:39

Well, what I tend to do is I tend to ask people, so if money was your money is something that we project our relationship patterns on our relationship to life or relationship to our parents to our lovers. We project all of our relationship patterns onto money. Now, with our lovers, we're easy to say I get that I do that to money, we feel kind of like, no, no, no, no, money is a different thing. But it's not. So I often give the exercise where I tell people write a letter to money as if it were your lover or your friend or your best friend, or that you actually have a relationship with money. And write about that. Now one of the insights that a lot of people get is that they tend to ignore their relationship. They haven't really thought about the relationship, or they take the relationship for granted. And it's so interesting, because if you start writing down how you are treating money, if they were your friend, and you would look at it like okay, if this was your marriage partner, and you would treat him that way. Or if you were treated that way by your partner, would you stay? Like, Oh, hell no.

 

Peter Axtell  43:03

Wow. Okay, my head is spinning. So Suze, what are your thoughts around people trying to figure out what's next and money? So there's often guilt and shame connected with it, right?

 

Suze Maclaine Pont  43:21

Yeah, there's often guilt and shame connected. And there's often a place of, I need to fix money so that I will feel valuable so that I can get to the next step. So when, when we're in a phase of what's next, we're often in a phase of who am I? Where am I? What can I do? How can I contribute? What is my place on this planet? And then there's, Yeah, but I need money too. So we see it as two separate things. But when we get back to the reciprocity loop, I tend to look at you are valuable. So what if you were valuable? What if you did believe everything was possible? What if you believed that you could actually become a millionaire by just breathing. And that's actually true. Because I know a few people who teach breathing, who are millionaires. Now, if we can become a millionaire, by teaching other people something that they can do naturally, by birth, then we can literally create money, buy everything. So if you just take that as a given, don't worry if you believe it right now or not just take that as a given. And you start journaling, if everything were possible, and I could just be whoever I want it to be. Then start journaling around what is it that you would really love? What kind of life would you really love? What kind of life would you actually love to gift yourself with if you could choose anything. What that does is, it lets your soul speak to you. What is the thing that you are here for on this planet, your soul will tell you. But your soul won't tell you if you come up with. I want $6 million. And I just want a great career because that's not what your soul wants. So if you try to find the what's next, already with the money pushing your back, that's a problem. What you need to do is find out what's next. Without the money question. Who do you want to be? Who do you want to serve? What does that mean? How is that going to be? And then I have another exercise that I always do I actually have it right here. This is a book. And I write letters to God in this book every single day. Basically, I asked God, what's next today? Tell me. So what I do is I create a vision and an image of who I want to be. And I tell God, tell me what that means today. This is how I built my life over the past 48 years. It's pretty schizophrenic, but it really works.

 

Nicola Vetter  46:13

Okay, I, I really have to ask this question, because some skeptics out there and there are many as we know, they might just say, Okay, I dream that I become a super basketball player, getting paid for it tons of money. I'm five foot two.

 

Suze Maclaine Pont  46:42

Okay, thank you for giving me that. Yeah. And that's not your soul, that can never be your soul. I agree. I agree. But that can never be your soul. I had these. But don't worry, keep doing it, keep doing it. Because the thing is, I had those kinds of dreams, too. And I was like, Okay, if I just dream myself into whatever, and but I didn't believe it. Because it wasn't my soul. And at the point where I had so much debt, that everything almost fell apart. That's where I got into a position where I was actually able and willing to listen to my soul. So that's what we need to do, we really need to sit and listen to what our life wants to become, not what our mind wants to become. But what our life is actually becoming. The interesting thing is, there is an easy way to discover that what's not easy, but it's easy. And that is ask other people for the impact that you're having on their life.

 

Nicola Vetter  47:51

Love that.

 

Suze Maclaine Pont  47:53

They will tell you.

 

Peter Axtell  47:53

Suze, are you saying that when we talked about the soul, which can be your authentic self etc., are you saying that your soul will keep you away from magical thinking that someone's saying, Okay, I'm just gonna teach somebody to breathe, and then I'm gonna become a millionaire. Because that's magical thinking.

 

Suze Maclaine Pont  48:15

That's magical thinking, Yeah, forget the money, do what you're supposed to do, and the money will follow. And that's a hard thing. That's a hard thing, is the hardest thing. But it's the same as in relationships. And I'm pretty certain both of you can relate to this. If you are doing something for your partner, hoping that your partner will stay if you do it, that's the quickest way to get them out of the door. We need to show up as who we are, surrendering to a place of this is who I am. Well, in the first six months, it might work trying to look better for your partner, but eventually there's gonna be a bubble that bursts, right? Eventually, we can't keep up to that race. We need to just relax, calm down, be ourselves and be seen in that. And same in life. You're here, you're here for a reason. And the interesting thing is if you start fighting for money, fighting for money, that's the quickest way to get all your customers leaving. And your boss leaving. If you're just ambitious for yourself, nobody will like you. You need to be in it for a bigger game you need to be in it because it is something that is so important to you. And look at every single person who has made success, yet they love to receive it. There's nothing wrong with receiving it, not against receiving at all. On the contrary, but we need to give, not to receive we need to give for a bigger purpose. Every single successful entrepreneur has something else that they are in it for is willing to put their life on the line because it so meaningful important for them.

 

Peter Axtell  50:02

So you speak about the layers of trauma. I'd like to know, what are they? And when did they mostly occur?

 

Suze Maclaine Pont  50:12

So we have a few different kinds of trauma. The basically what trauma is, in every single kind, is and this is physically not correct, any doctor will correct me, because it's a metaphor that I'm going to explain right now, physically, it works a little bit different. But what works Oh, what the problem is, is you there is a, an event, and that event leads to overwhelm on your system, for instance, you get hit by a car, you get ripped, you get assaulted, or you fall from your bicycle, something happens, and there is anxiety or fear. And your whole system starts to get ready to fight, flee, freeze, whatever it needs to do, right. Now, what happens is that afterwards, your body needs to regulate, it needs to get rid of all that. But often, it doesn't get the chance. And what happens then is that this is physically not correct you but you can look at it like there are still little left overs have that these, these hormones, and all these little things in your body, trying to still be regulated, but not trusting that they will ever be. So there's these little bulbs of trauma floating through your body, the incident is not the trauma, the fact that your system hasn't fully been regulated as to trauma. What happens then, is whenever something in life hits that little thing, it gives a signal to your brain saying stop, get out of here out of the way, no, no, we can't deal with this. And the longer the moment between the incident, and now and the moment it's being hit. And the more certain and the more proof your system will have that we can't deal with this. So then what happens is that we will try to do everything except deal with the trigger. So then this is why we're so adamant about I need money, because then I'll feel secure, I need to get to that place, because then I'll be where I want to be. And that gives us a feeling of then I can relax, which is not true at all. We need to deal with this trauma, first few relaxation in our body first. And then we'll get to better ideas. We can never come up with ideas. To solve this. We need to solve it first. And then we can come to the part of our brain that is actually functioning and to the voice of our soul. This often we can hear that voice. We can hear it, but we can't act on it.

 

Nicola Vetter  52:53

So that's because of

 

Suze Maclaine Pont  52:54

trauma.

 

Nicola Vetter  52:55

That's really tuning into your soul.

 

Suze Maclaine Pont  52:58

Yes.

 

Nicola Vetter  52:59

And I'd like to tie all this in for someone who's trying to figure out what's next.

 

Suze Maclaine Pont  53:09

So what often happens is that we don't allow ourselves to dream, because of all the triggers that it might set off. So we even keep our dreams small. We think yeah, you know, maybe I want to set up a big community with international people flying in. This was my dream, by the way, it has been for 30 years. And I want a place somewhere where people will fly in from all over the world. I could have that dream. Even I could tune into my soul on that level. But then immediately all these trauma triggers would tell me Oh, that's bullshit. Nobody's ever gonna fly anywhere for you. So you can even hear your soul sometimes, but you will negate it, you will think of Yeah, that's the basketball player was five foot two. You know what, let's, this is not you be normal. I grew up in a country where people say, Don't stick your head over the mowing field, it will get chopped off. So just

 

Nicola Vetter  54:08

there are a lot of fields in Holland.

 

Suze Maclaine Pont  54:11

Exactly. So stays fall. Don't be normal. Be just like everybody else. Now that's different in America. In America, you might have different beliefs that you project on something like this. There might be that your dream could be a smaller thing. And you grew up in a country where everything needs to be ambitious as hell, and you might not have those ambitions. So so there can be a lot of things where if you've been pushed too hard that maybe you have a hard time relaxing and holding yourself back and saying hey, you know what, enough is enough. I can take more than one week holiday. But we need to deal with these triggers in order to actually take this soul's voice seriously, we can hear it, but we won't be able to act on it. If we don't deal with the triggers.

 

Peter Axtell  55:03

So you help people learn what matters most, which you suggest most people have not learned. I've seen it over and over that diving into this question really helps the person trying to figure out what's next. So let's talk about that.

 

Suze Maclaine Pont  55:21

Yeah, I tend to think of life as not something that is fixed or supposed to go anywhere, where it's supposed to go to one place where it all ends for all of us, box somewhere under the ground or in an oven, that's where life... We tend to look for certainty, we have 100% certainty. We know exactly where life is going. So the thing is not where is it going to end? The thing is what's going to happen between now and then. And the interesting thing is, this is where death being my best friend actually helped me immensely. Because if it's going to end in death anyway, then let's see how we can make it valuable today. So we can choose, we can really choose, we can do anything, I have moved 14 times. And I used to think that that was a problem. But what I discovered after last time is I'm actually really good at changing my scenery. So I can always move, let's see if I can stay here. And that was a whole different experiment. But we can choose, we can choose to redecorate our life, we can choose to navigate a different path. And the interesting thing is as long as we're breathing, and as long as we're connected with our soul, there's always going to be opportunities. People write things on our path. We are never alone on this planet. Sometimes I wish I was alone for a day. But there's always going to be sources available. And and there is one of the things I've learned is we don't have to anticipate on that. We can trust that. But we've been programmed to not trust that we've been programmed to anticipate on the future to anticipate on life after who knows when, but we have certainty about that answer. It's going to be death. And that's okay. It's actually very simple way of thinking. But a certain degree life is occupational therapy. So let's make it a really nice session.

 

Nicola Vetter  57:39

Yeah, let's get to a more positive spin on things. At the end of our conversation. We've covered some major topics in our conversation here, money and trauma and death. And is there anything that we didn't touch on that you really want our audience to know?

 

Peter Axtell  58:04

And before you answer that, there's something I have to insert here. I disagree that this is not ending on a positive note, I think there's something personally that I it's kind of comforting to know that if you are really conscious about the fact that you are going to die, there is a real comfort in that, you can sort of loosen your grip, because that is going to be the inevitable thing. And I think that is a positive note.

 

Suze Maclaine Pont  58:33

So thank you, Peter, for me, that's the most positive thing in life, it gives you so much space. Every single morning, we get a new chance, every frickin day. So what I would like to add to people is forgive yourself for every single thing that went wrong. And look at every single thing where you try to be harsher on yourself or you try to have regrets or think that should not have happened. And look at all of those moments in your life and look at what have I been learning in those moments they could not have possibly learned in any other way. And then put that in your toolbox and see what person is emerging from the life you fled to here. That's the most important thing. We try to live life. From all the regrets of our past and trying to prohibit those from happening again. What we need to do is close those doors and start to live from a memory of a future that we really want. And that's a whole different things entirely different thing. So that means look at all those moments in your life. Forgive yourself and not just oh, I forgive myself but really tune into your heart and say, you know what, there's something I could not have learned in any other way possible. As I look at how can I use this.

 

Nicola Vetter  1:00:02

That's very beautiful. Thank you so much Suze.

 

Peter Axtell  1:00:07

Wonderful conversation, Suze, thank you.

 

Suze Maclaine Pont  1:00:10

Thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure.

 

Peter Axtell  1:00:15

We hope you enjoyed this interview. My biggest takeaway was a reminder, to get back to journaling about what it is I really love, what's really important to me, what's essential to being able to say, I've lived a good life.

 

Nicola Vetter  1:00:30

And for me, it was how we often live our lives guided by the regrets of the past and try to prevent them from happening again. What we need to do instead is close those doors and start to live from a memory of a future that we really want to have.

 

Peter Axtell  1:00:57

Wonderful. To learn more about Suze, head to WhatsNext.com/28, where we share the transcript links and more. Again, that's WhatsNext.com/28.

 

Nicola Vetter  1:01:14

And if you like what you've heard, share it with someone you care about. And subscribe, rate, and review our Inside-Out Career Design podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, so you'll never miss an episode. Or watch it on our YouTube channel whatsnext.com and subscribe so you'll never miss an episode. That’s where you can also leave your questions about this week’s episode or a topic, you’d like us to cover in a future episode. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks for joining us today. We'll see you next week for another episode. Same time, same place.