#16: The 3 money mindset fears that hurt my career.

Last week, I shared my personal journey of leaving the corporate world and becoming a career coach (linked here ) which resonated with many of you in my LinkedIn family.

One particular lesson that resonated with a lot of you from the newsletter was this one:

"To be there for your family, remember to manage your money and lifestyle so that you can make the right choices at the right time, when the time comes for it, if it ever comes and makes those decisions without any regret."

I am someone who grew up in a middle-class family in Malaysia — both my parents were teachers and I never truly understood the concept of "investing" because I was taught to save money throughout my young life.

"WHAT?! It's too expensive. I'm just going to figure it out and do it myself."

It wasn't until I started encountering challenges growing my career that my childhood money mindset (and fears) became clear to me. Through self-reflection, I realised that a lot of the problems I had came from the money mindset I've unconsciously adopted from childhood:

🚩 Fear of talking about money

🚩 Fear of not having enough money

🚩 Fear of losing all my money

In this week's newsletter, I want to share clear examples of how these money fears have affected my career. My hope is by reading this newsletter, it'll inspire you to look within and realise that the desire to grow is STEP 1 before you can have a successful career.

Let's dive in.

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🚩 #1 - Fear of talking about money

I had an extremely hard time with money conversations.

I would accept whatever the number offered to avoid uncomfortable money talk.

I would tell myself - it's okay, maybe next time I will be braver.

Here are a few examples of how the fear of talking about money created negative consequences in my career and caused me to get underpaid multiple times:

👉 Joined a small company right after graduation earning USD350 per month, which was way below the market rate (I didn't know how to talk about salary)

👉 I was too focused on the base pay where I got a huge bump but forgot that the overall package wasn't as great as compared to my previous job (I felt uncomfortable clarifying the salary package)

👉 I was given 60% more work than what I had signed up for, with zero increments and was told THIS by my boss: "Oh, you should have asked earlier, and now I can't do anything about it."

Here's the problem:

If you don't ask for what you want, you'll never get it. Don't expect other people just to give you what you want.

🚩 #2 - Fear of not having enough money

I was always saving, saving and saving.

As I reflected, I realised that my fear of not having enough money came from my family constantly nagging me to be careful with money, not trusting me with money, and criticising me when I spent money (especially on overseas travel which is my biggest passion in life).

Here are how these reactions I got as a kid affect me now in my career:

👉 I hoarded money and frequently felt like I wasn't saving enough.

👉 I settled with buying cheaper stuff that is of mediocre quality (and obviously didn't work well or broke fast) which resulted in me investing in that "expensive" product in the end - increasing my stress levels AND also doubling my money spent.

👉 I often skipped paying a bit extra for convenience and instead chose to spend all my free time, energy and mental capacity trying to figure out something that I clearly SUCK at.

Here's the problem:

"Free" or "Cheap" has an expensive cost associated with them — it's your time, energy and emotional state. OUCH.

🚩 #3 - Fear of losing all my money

My fear of losing it all came to realisation when I noticed how much more anxious I got when I started moving up the corporate career ladder and making more money.

I frequently felt "imposter syndrome" and if I'm delivering enough value at work —a blessing in disguise, I managed to learn soooo much within a short time.

Many years later, here's how these incidents had affected me in my career:

 👉 I chose to play small at the beginning of my career, and not get out of my comfort zone, because I feared failure (and losing it all).

👉 I was afraid to invest money into growing my career - what if things don't work out? That's why I hesitated for a long time before applying overseas because I had to fork out a large sum to make that career change.

👉 I went on my career playing a defensive game (a.k.a. playing "not-to-lose") instead of going all out and playing to WIN

Because let's be real:

Your career is a marathon, not a sprint. What you do today will play out (good AND bad) in the next 1, 3, 5, 10, 20 or even 30 years later.

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Heyyy, I want you to know that my goal with this week's newsletter is not to air my dirty (money) laundry for a pity-party of any sort.

My goal with this week's newsletter is to show you that even though money fears may look different from person to person, these problems exist for a lot of us, whether we share them or not (most won't).

I want you to know that the best thing I did was to develop self-awareness to help me identify when I start falling into these money habits. It took me a longggg time to overcome these money fears and start investing in my career — nowadays, I fully believe in my value and that I'M WORTH IT.

I truly hope that by sharing the things I've learned over the years, that you will also take a deeper look into your money mindset and ask yourself how these fears are negatively impacting your career right now.

BTW, if any part of this newsletter resonated with you, send me a DM on LinkedIn  or drop a comment below so I know! 😊

As always: My mission with these newsletters is to make your career journey smoother than it was for me, and to guide you move up the career ladder to becoming a Corporate Leader.

Always cheering you on,

Mei Phing ◡̈

— Your corporate leader turned career coach

Always cheering you on,

Mei Phing

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