My Top 3 Beliefs About Women and Money
“Women need more money, and we need to use it to our advantage,” says Fearless Foundry CEO Madeline Pratt
I’ve been writing a lot lately about money in our company newsletter, the Thursday Thought, and most recently shared how cash flows through Fearless Foundry in our last Journal post. I’ve noticed that money conversations seem to really be resonating with our audience, which is why I want to dig a little deeper into the beliefs I carry about money, especially as a financial feminist and a woman CEO. More than anything, I firmly am committed to the concept that women deserve to have more money, and that we need to spend more time learning how to leverage it to our strategic advantage.
Belief #1: Women Use Money Differently
I’m a firm believer that incredible things happen when women have money, because women do incredible things with money. I’ve seen women put their money toward their families, back into their communities, and invest it back into their companies and employees. When one of my very first coaching clients started hiring employees of her own, she made sure that each and every one of them had paid sick leave and a four-day work week with full-time pay, things she wished she could have had when she worked for someone else. We as women are powerful in knowing where dollars need to flow, and when we have them we can route them in the right direction.
Women tend to think about money as a resource: they ask what they can do with their dollars, not necessarily what their dollars can do for them. As someone that studied anthropology extensively, I’m fascinated by the behaviors of humans, and think that more of us need to think about money through the lens of the capitalist patriarchy that exists in the United States.
A patriarchy is a “system of relationships, beliefs, and values embedded in political, social, and economic systems that structure gender inequality between men and women.” Basically, it means society favors a world where men dominate.
In a patriarchal system, the way of thinking is often “how can I make the most amount of money for myself and my company?”. It’s about profits, profits, profits. This method of thinking is a product of capitalism, the culture in the United States, and economic inequity.
As far as I’m concerned—fuck the patriarchy. I don’t want to live in a society that solely favors and celebrates the achievements of white men; achievements that only benefit white CEOs, investors, and board members.
I’m fighting for a new society where everyone has enough. Where women and minorities have the resources they need to reach the same outcomes as men.
When it comes to money, I’m asking: How can we use it to benefit the world that we want to be a part of?
When I think of women and money, I think of the infinity symbol because I think it represents what women do with their money.
When I make money, I’m asking myself these questions:
How can I use this money to take care of my team?
How can I use this money to provide benefits to my employees?
What vendors support my values? (E.g. Green Retirement)
How much money do I need to pay myself as CEO?
How can I further my business to generate more sales and repeat this cycle?
A great example of women doing incredible things with money is represented by the Ethical Fashion Initiative. They have a central social enterprise that belongs to artisans, most of whom are women, who create handcrafted goods for luxury fashion clients worldwide. Together with the brands and the social enterprise, the Ethical Fashion Initiative does product development, and the social enterprise works as a collective of artisans. The artisans are typically individual entrepreneurs looking for assistance, training, or mentorship. Through the social enterprise, artisans become suppliers of fashion brands, and the Ethical Fashion Initiative coordinates the work of the artisans, enabling them to have their own company, profitability, and negotiate terms and conditions with brands. The social enterprise then grows, accumulates profits, and is able to offer credit, investment, and other incentives to the cooperative’s artisans.
It’s evident to me that women move money, and they move it in a powerful way. This is why women deserve to move more money, and quite frankly when we move more money, the whole world will benefit from it.
Belief #2: Money is Energy
When I think of money, I think of it as energy. Exchanging money is really exchanging energy. What I’ve been learning in my life as CEO is that doing is not the way to earn more. It’s about shifting your relationship with money to see it as an energy that powers possibility and opportunity, and getting rid of energy that puts you in opposition to money.
If you grew up in a paradigm that taught you money was a bad thing, or that there was never enough, you can shift away from scarcity by seeing money as a key resource and as your ally. Your ally who feeds you, houses you, clothes you, and allows you to take your kids out for ice cream or make your tiny house dreams a reality.
How do you treat your money? Do you keep your bills crunched up or neatly aligned? Do you have a nice wallet for your debit and credit cards? Do you thank your money every time you use it to order UberEats? Treat your money well—money wants to take care of you, and it can’t if you’re rejecting the idea of it at the outset.
One of the biggest limiting beliefs around money that I notice women have is the idea that they have to work increasingly harder in order to earn more money. In coaching sessions, I always encourage women to deconstruct the belief that the only way to make money is by putting in time.
Making money should be about exchanging your valuable expertise and abilities for the value of money in return. You should be getting paid for the combined value of your skills, wisdom, and experience.
Getting to this place is about understanding what your superpower strength is. Writing? Coaching? Consulting? How do you price that accordingly? If you’re a consultant, you want to charge your clients for your knowledge and expertise. Who is your ideal client? What is your ideal lifestyle? Asking yourself all these questions and then moving backwards is how you decide to price your services.
Celebrate achieving your money goals in advance! What will it feel like to land that dream client? How would you celebrate? Put it on your schedule to live that celebration and have a milestone to mark your achievement. This is how you invite more money into your life.
Belief #3: It’s Never Too Early To Start Investing
If there’s one thing I wish I could have learned earlier on, it would have been to start investing as soon as possible. Schools don't teach kids how to save or invest money, or about the difference between saving and investing. Many adults don’t grow up knowing how to manage their finances, and don’t teach their kids as a result. It’s not that they don’t care, it’s just that they don’t know.
One of my biggest recommendations to women is that they learn how to invest in their future selves. Financial advisors can be expensive, which is why I love companies like Ellevest that teach women how to save, invest, and gain financial power over their lives. This graph from Ellevest shows how impactful investing can be:
When I created Fearless Foundry, I wanted to manifest a workplace where my employees would have the opportunity to invest in their futures. Right now, Fearless Foundry offers all non-contracted employees a 4% match. This means that for those who invest 4% of their paycheck, we match 4%, making their total contribution to their retirement account 8%. On top of this, I worked hard with my Director of Operations, Sarah Hines, to find a 401k provider that matched our values. Shout out to Green Retirement for caring about creating investment portfolios that demonstrate that we care about people and the planet more than just profits.
I could go on and on about the relationship between women and money; one of these days I’ll get around to writing a book about it. If you’re a woman reading this, remember that it’s never too late to redefine your relationship with money. Whether you start with a book like The Soul of Money by Lynne Twist, or with lessons I’ve crafted for fearless founders in The Library like our courses on Setting Yourself Up To Sell Online or Customizing Your Pricing, any intentional action you take will help you uplevel your finances and shift your relationship with money for the better.
~ Madeline