EPISODE 58: Why Wanting More Money Doesn’t Make You a Bad Mum with Claire Hill

Hello and welcome to the Mum Means Business podcast, where we shine a light on inspiring women who have one thing in common. When they’re not managing tantrums, homework, P.E. kits and play dates, they are busting their gut to build a thriving business that supports their family life. I’m your host Victoria Phipps and I’m figuring out how to play this game right alongside you. I’m a motherhood, family and personal brand photographer, I teach portrait photographers how to lead with print in the digital age, I’m marketing lead in the family business my Dad founded over 20 years ago and I’m “Mum” to two little girls.

If you’re a multi-passionate mum too, in need of some solidarity whilst navigating the messy middle of making your big dream a reality, then stick around. This is for you.

NOTE: This is the transcript from the original recording, rather than the edited episode so timings may vary.

Victoria (00:01)
My guest today is not your usual business coach. She identifies as the queen of self-belief and works specifically with the I thought I’d be making more money by now crew, which I’m sure many of us would assign ourselves to. She teaches women in business how to stop leaking money, energy and power so their income can match how epic they are at what they do.

Mum of two, Claire Hill, understands the real, messy, powerful reality of building a business alongside motherhood. Her deep knowledge and intuition around money mindset means she quickly identifies the common beliefs that keep brilliant women playing small, like the idea that wanting more money somehow makes them selfish, less present, or worse of all, a bad mum.

Challenging these stories, Claire believes it is entirely possible to be a present mother and also build a profitable business. And it gets better. She believes that the key is often about doing less, not more. More focus, more boundaries, more intention, but less multitasking, less pressure and less scattergun energy. Rather than trying to carry too much, prove too much and build in a way that constantly pulls them away from themselves,

Claire teaches her clients to build stronger self-belief, cleaner boundaries and a business that feels powerful and sustainable. Claire, I’m so excited to talk to you because I am someone who regularly feels weighed down by the pressure to earn and definitely has been guilty of that scatter gun energy. I’m ready to learn how to make more money by doing less. So welcome to the Mum Meets Business podcast.

Claire Hill (01:43)
Thank you very much for having me, babe. I’m really pleased to be here.

Victoria (01:48)
I’ve been so looking forward to this ever since we had a little chat, a little call before we scheduled this in, yeah. And we just talked about money and I was like, my gosh, these are like scary. It’s such a scary thing to talk about. And we’re gonna probably dig into why that might be. But let’s start a bit earlier on in your story. So what made you decide and where were you in your life, in your own journey with motherhood and everything else? What made you decide to start a business?

Claire Hill (01:53)
Kappa,

Well, I started my first business when I was 14. I didn’t make any money. I was just basically born an entrepreneur, but because of the circumstances of my childhood, there was no way that that was ever gonna be off the bat. Like I had to go and do something that I went into supporting adults with learning disabilities, homeless families, including rough sleepers and people with substance misuse issues, mental health issues.

Victoria (02:22)
Okay.

Claire Hill (02:47)
then I went into education and then I left. So I did 20 years of helping loads of people. I was a young carer, I think it was just the way that had to be before being properly self-employed. this currently is my third proper business and my fifth business, a couple of side hustles and stuff. So when I…

Victoria (02:54)
Yeah.

Claire Hill (03:15)
I’d had a business called Violet of May that was really successful and I ran that for about four years. But the whole safety of, and I went self-employed, but my mental health took a real dip through that period. I was living on my own. I’d bought a flat and it was just, you know, I’ve got to pay the mortgage and I was just full of fear. And the whole business wasn’t set up properly. It was just before Instagram. Like it was a long time ago, 2009.

Victoria (03:41)
Hmm.

Okay.

Claire Hill (03:47)
2009 I started that one and then I went into training to be a teacher and there is no way that you can do anything apart from training to be a teacher because it’s so exhausting. it sort of died a very quiet death over time because yeah, and it wasn’t scalable either. I think about it now. There’s no way I could scale it. Well, I don’t know, maybe I could have. And then when I went on maternity leave with my son, I…

had this like epiphany of I need to create, I need to make something, need to like, the darkness has started to shift and I can like, you know, quite a traumatic delivery as well. So I could like walk and do things again and I was like, okay, what can I do? I’m gonna make art and make it out of wire. And I just got so obsessed and addicted to it. Very quickly was making money. I’ve just, I had two businesses when I was on maternity leave actually, I was doing tutoring as well. So,

Victoria (04:31)
Hmm.

Claire Hill (04:45)
So yeah, this is like the sixth actually. forget, this is the thing, like, you know, like I just love money and I love making money so much. I forget where all of the pots that it’s been in. And yeah, and I think just having my little boy was just a bit like, I can do anything. I’ve just grown eyeballs in my belly. Like this is amazing. What else can I do? But this whole other side, and this is why I do what I do now because it…

Victoria (04:48)
You

Claire Hill (05:13)
the self doubt and the getting in my own way was humongous. It was just like a tsunami. So in answer to your question, was in the first light of dawn after having a baby. I was like, I’m gonna do this again. And then I just haven’t stopped. I started, that was Vivid Wire and I started that just over seven years ago. And then this business is four and a half.

years old yeah there you go

Victoria (05:47)
So Vivid Wire, you are, mean, I’m sure lots of people can identify, I certainly can, to that urge to kind of just eject some creative energy, like to just do something where you’re kind of feeding that part of your soul whilst in the thick of like nappies and routine and all of this kind of functionary stuff. I felt kind of crazed in that way that I just had this compulsion, had to.

Claire Hill (06:06)
Yeah.

Victoria (06:17)
to be doing stuff like that just to get this energy out. And so you’re making art out of wire. You’re doing some tutoring, which feels like more, I don’t know, predictable because you were a teacher, safe thing that you might do as a side hustle on maternity. Whereas this is kind of your passion project in maternity that you’re doing this stuff. it’s obviously, you said it wasn’t scalable. It’s dependent on you sitting there and doing these things.

Claire Hill (06:29)
Yeah. Yeah.

no, I did scale Vividwire. It was Violet and May that I did. But then again, if I did the model for Vividwire, because Violet and May taught me so much about how to run a business and what not to do. So then when I started Vividwire, which was also both were creative, handmade businesses, I was off, I was like, I had some way to like jump from, like I was already at Basecamp One, I already knew the basics of what I had applied to Violet and May. And because of my careers of working

Victoria (06:47)
Did you? Okay. All right, okay, fine.

Claire Hill (07:14)
and I was managing teams and in education I was an assistant head as well. I had this overarching skill of strategy of seeing the bigger picture. I think that’s one of my superpowers anyway. Are you into human design?

Victoria (07:30)
haven’t done it. I mean, I’ve listened to a lot of people talk about it.

Claire Hill (07:33)
I won’t go down that, because I won’t stop. I was like, can I swear? Am I allowed to say that? Just to check. Yeah, no, I thought it was a load of bullshit until I actually learned about it. And then I was like, oh my God, this is what I needed to hear.

Victoria (07:48)
Well, no,

I think I would be like you. I think I’d be really into it. just did, so I do two days a week in the office marketing for my dad’s business and we just had our disc stuff done. And I know that’s like a kind of corporate thing, but I just straight away, I’m just like so interested.

Claire Hill (08:03)
I’m not.

Victoria (08:08)
And I’m the one that’s like pushing for the kind of assessment where we all get together and kind of discuss it and whatever. And I was like, oh, there’s a, you know, it’s a woo woo thing. And that’s kind of, it’s very corporate in its foundation. But I think human design, I’d go, I’d go bonkers over it. So I’m totally open to it all.

Claire Hill (08:23)
Yeah,

yeah, I think that, I think as entrepreneurs, when you start something, there’s this like innate curiosity to learn more about everything as well as yourself. That does feed into like power leaks and thinking that you need to do more more more more to be even better. But I think there’s like this hunger to be, there must be something I’m missing all of the time.

Victoria (08:35)
Mmm.

Claire Hill (08:49)
So these exercises where you learn more about yourself is, they’re so enlightening because you’re like, of course that’s what it is. And of course that’s what it is because when we’re our businesses, it’s like the steepest curve to self-development ever. There’s no other thing that you can do. Even if you became a CEO, I don’t think like, you know, in the corporate world, there’s nothing that can push you to the speed of how quickly you have to develop as yourself.

So these tarts, these exercises, they’re just going, shine a light there, shine a light there, but it never stops. It’s like, never ever ever stops. Cause you grow at the same time. So, but yeah, anyway, human design, my thing is being able to zoom out and to see what other people can’t see about themselves, which really can rub people up the wrong way, especially if they’re not ready to see what I can see. So I have to really hold back. Like I could meet somebody and it might be at the end of this conversation.

Victoria (09:26)
Yeah, exactly, yeah.

Claire Hill (09:49)
I’ll just be like, Victoria, I know exactly what’s holding you back. And I can do it so easily that, and I used to do it when I, I’ve done it literally my whole life. And I used to be like basically hated when I was an assistant head. Cause I’ll be in the leadership team going, yeah, but if we did this, like, and that kid, that student there, that’s what we need to do for that. And people will be go, no, that’s too hard work or.

because they didn’t see it themselves, didn’t like it. But people, when they meet me, it’s like a… When I say this, it sounds so rude, but like my energy penetrates them, like, you know. You know, and I can’t help it because it’s just sort of like me seeing what they can’t see. And some people are like, oh, I’m not ready for that. And so I people up the wrong way. But that kind of basically going back to these…

Victoria (10:26)
hahahaha

Hmm.

Claire Hill (10:45)
businesses, that idea when I started Vivid Wire, like I can see the bigger picture. I know I have to, I was the breadwinner at the time when I went self-employed. and I was on 50,000 at the time. So I needed to make that money. That’s it. I had to. We had like differing costs and stuff and also childcare. Like I had my little boy, he, how was I gonna?

make that money if I was looking after him at the same time and he was only 18 I don’t even think he was 18 months old at the time or he just was so I was like I’ve got to pay for full-time child care that’s you know got to happen so I’ve got to make this money and how I teach it’s like a golden gun against your head because I didn’t have a choice like I had to make it work and so through that the way that I saw vivid wire and how I scaled it how I priced it

Victoria (11:20)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Claire Hill (11:37)
the little tiny things that really matter in, especially a handmade business. I do it now with service-based, but these like little tiny things that nobody thinks about, but it makes the whole experience so much better. So I’d like have wax melts in the delivery boxes with this tissue paper that sounded a certain way. And then there was like a ribbon. So it was like when they got their art,

there was this whole experience with, and I had a theme song that I would always, people knew me because of this theme song. So I was really on it with branding and marketing and like people knew who I was. As soon as they saw my art, they knew it was made by me. Like that kind of thing on social media that all came from practicing with Violet and May. So then again, when I did all that started this business, the coaching, I’ve just applied all of those things. So it’s been quite.

Victoria (12:06)
Mmm.

Claire Hill (12:31)
easy to grow in that way if you know what I mean but is that what was your original question I’ve gone off on a tangent what a surprise yeah

Victoria (12:37)
Yeah. Why did you start? Why did you start a business? No, it’s not. No,

it’s happy. I’m happy for all this to evolve. This is exactly what I was hoping from the conversation is that actually you’re explaining your journey in the you have just learned your lessons and then applied what you’ve learned to the next stage. And so every business is an evolution of

Claire Hill (12:56)
and then I’ll teach everyone else.

Victoria (13:03)
the one before, even though they’re completely different. You know, you’ve got product businesses, you’ve got service-based business now. And actually having had the experience with the products, you have a full range of knowledge about what it means to run all these different types of business that you can then deploy to support your clients. And tell me about what your money mindset looked like back then.

Claire Hill (13:22)
Yes.

Victoria (13:33)
You can go through every business if you are on all six. What did it look like at 14? What did your money mindset look like and how has that evolved over time?

Claire Hill (13:42)
So I love the word that you’re using, like evolving, because my own coach used this recently with me because obviously my new offer bank is very money focused, but not your usual money mindset at all. Like I know I’m not the usual business coach in that sense, but that is just evolved from all of the work that I’ve been doing.

in this business. I’ve just gone through this period of evolution anyway. But every single business that I’ve got to, and my money mindset, every single step has taken me to this point. And there’s that like this moment where I know that I’ve not reached like the final, well, I don’t think I ever want to, but like everything feels so clear with full clarity. I’m, I feel so

I do feel really powerful at the moment because I know exactly what I’m teaching, what I’m here to do. It’s very, very amazing. I love it. But this has come from the question in that money mindset. money, everyone thinks it’s like this, you know, scary thing, but I like to think of money and all types of energy. I see money, which, it’s true, money is an energy. It’s just, there’s a…

transaction, but there’s basically a transaction for every kind of energy. Every energy, it cannot be destroyed, it can only be transferred. Okay, so it’s just literally from electricity to light to heat, know, if we love somebody that love energy, we’ll give them a hug, a cuddle. There’s always a transaction in this. It’s just that money over time has been sort of played out as this societal, you are only worthy if you have it.

and that is so beyond the truth, it is unbelievable. So I see energy as like pasta. So if we look at money as a type of pasta, it’s the spaghetti or the twirly ones, right? But love would be the bows or, you know, the penne would be kindness. Like then that really weird chickpea one that Audi sells that’s gluten free and it just goes to mush.

Victoria (15:40)
Right. Okay.

Claire Hill (15:54)
That’s probably toxic energy. If we can go through this metaphor as much as you like. But as soon as we see that money is just one of those things, like it becomes so much easier to accept that we can have it. We can have as much as we want of it. And it doesn’t make us a horrible person. Like that chat we first had a couple of months ago, through that chat, this thing came into my head. It’s like, this is why people are scared to say that they love money. Because if they say it, means that they don’t love their kids.

And I just, I can’t disagree with this more because like my, it’s completely, it doesn’t.

Victoria (16:29)
it’s completely bonkers. It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. But

there’s something but there’s something in it. And it comes from kind of millennia of stories around money that come from like religion that come from patriarchy that come from wherever they come from. But it is a powerful force that we’ve kind of been conditioned not to talk about money. It’s not polite. And in that sense, we kind of disempower ourselves because because we’re not talking about it, we don’t have much knowledge around it.

And it becomes this thing that kind of, we associate ourselves with wanting it, then we are greedy. We are all those things that I mentioned in the intro. So there is a lot of unpacking to do, but I agree with you in principle. It’s, it is insane to think that if you want, it’s like saying, I really want this chocolate biscuit. That must mean that I don’t want my kids. Like it’s just stupid, but it, there’s something isn’t there that is in us that kind of defaults to that.

Claire Hill (17:21)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I think it’s about, God, I could talk about all of this for quite a while, but I’ll go back to your original question because I’ve got a lot to say about things around that, but I think money mindset for me, it was such a difficult thing because I grew up with no money. we, my dad died when I was eight, my mom was pregnant with my brother and there was me and my two sisters at home.

We had been homeless before and we’d moved around and then we ended up in like a, you know, a council flat. I didn’t have a garden. We moved when I was 11 and we had to wait all that time to get a house with a garden. So, you know, we didn’t have a washing machine till I was like nine, I think. We didn’t have a phone. One of the reasons why maybe my dad had a heart attack, but the neighbor had to run.

down the road around the corner to ring the ambulance because nobody had a phone. So it was just like, just didn’t have anything. So when I started, I could see that I wanted more. Like I had this big ambition that I was gonna be a vet. And I had this big plan and I was gonna write books. I’m still gonna write books. This is the dream that I won’t allow myself to do yet, which is I’m working on, because this is what I teach, but I…

I just had these big, big dreams and I was so much all the time. And I think that I had then this carry of, I’m too much and I’m not enough. I’ve got difficult relationship with my mum as well. So it was just sort of like me, one, like, you know, just me on my own, trying to get things done. And it was always about me. And again, that’s another thing that I had to do. So even though we’re talking about money mindset, all of those things.

Victoria (18:57)
Mmm.

Claire Hill (19:15)
and also being only worthy because I was doing things at home. So was a young carer, my mum was struggling, I was doing the housework, I was looking after my sisters and my brother, and so then I was worthy. So all of these things contribute to how you earn in your business and how I earn in my business. So there was part of me, the very logical strategic maths teacher in me that was like, this is how much money I’m gonna make.

this is how I’m going to break it down every single day. This is how many pieces of art I’ve got to sell. I can work out how many, and this was before COVID, so I could put a post up, it would get 7,000 million likes and I would get 10 sales from it. This doesn’t happen anymore. I was talking about this with somebody in the bank program, actually. She’s just launched something new and she said, I’ve launched it yesterday, not one person has sold it. And I was like, gone are those days.

Victoria (20:00)
Happy days!

Claire Hill (20:13)
We’re six years out of COVID now. You cannot, like we’ve got to look at our businesses like we’re in the 1960s with mad men helping us out. That’s what it is. Like we’re not, we are not here to get quick sales. It is not easy. And it’s good that it’s not easy because it makes you have a better business, I think, because you have to look at all of these things that’s stopping you because that’s a leak where you go, right, no one’s sold, therefore it’s no good. Well, give them a bit of time.

Victoria (20:23)
Mm.

Claire Hill (20:41)
You know, like we’ve got to allow space for people to fully trust us. It’s a big commitment. It usually means people that end up spending more money with you when you give them that time. So it ends up being, it sort of balanced itself out anyway, but you get to, you have to sit in that discomfort and that discomfort is where doubt goes, hello, come in with me, point the elbows.

Victoria (21:01)
Mm.

Claire Hill (21:06)
I’m gonna make you feel really shit about everything and the first thing that is gonna come up for you is that you’re not worthy of the money, the money shouldn’t be coming to you, blah blah blah blah blah. It’s all bullshit, it’s all absolute bullshit and it’s just because it’s unfamiliar and you’re not sat in that discomfort before. But I didn’t know any of this, so I used to be like, oh I’m gonna make some money, oh this, I mean I remember my first Christmas launch, Christmas used to be massive for Vivid Wire, like I’d do a whole big thing.

Victoria (21:24)
You

Claire Hill (21:35)
I used to do proper collections. I had what I call a pricing ladder, which I still do. You have that entry point in your business where people get to try you out and build trust. Then they go up the ladder and they end up staying that loyalty increases and they end up giving you even more money. So I had all of those things. And then if, say for example,

God, I don’t even know at the time trying to think now what would set me off but my response because I’d gone through quite a lot as a kid I’d had this like these triggers to my nervous system and so straight I would spiral and have like this really dark period and I didn’t have anything to distract me like I used to have them when I was working in the school and working with homeless people but I didn’t have them anymore because it was just me sitting in the little box room so it was like

Victoria (22:31)
Mm.

Claire Hill (22:33)
God, I’ve got to get this sorted. So it came from, I need to earn more or I want to earn more. How can I sustain this? Cause through that time, that first year I was self-employed with Vivid Wire, I was earning brilliant money. It was great. Cause it was COVID. And then it’s like, even though I’d had the business before that. So I’d been running for, yeah, about over a year when it first came, when COVID started. But then,

How do you sustain that? What if you never get it done again? What if you actually are gonna fail? What if this time it doesn’t work out? And it just ended up playing out, I can’t do this, this is ridiculous. I want this to work too much. So I was then at this point where I was studying for a master’s degree in trauma-informed education, learn how traumatic my childhood actually was. I’ve had counseling and stuff.

but it was like the patterns of my behavior. didn’t realize were linked to that trauma. So I learned all this stuff and then I created this format, which then became my Warrior Boss, the beginning of my Warrior Boss method, but really all about warrior energy. And I taught teachers how to do it. That was what all of my research was on. So when I was in this really dark place, I was like, if it worked for teachers, maybe it will work for me right now. So I just started this.

Victoria (23:34)
Hmm.

Claire Hill (24:00)
the Warrior Energy toolkit, which then has developed now into what I’m teaching inside bank. Because at the end of the day, we all want more money, but we don’t just want more money. What does that money bring to us? That money brings us more time, more capacity, more love, more, well, maybe not more love, but then maybe you could be more present with the love around you, more kindness, more ability to just go, it. Like that.

And that comes with power. That’s why people don’t want anybody to have money. When, you know, it keeps everybody quiet and in their box, but there’s nothing greedy about me having more because I just want to give it. I just want to feed people and I want to take people away and I want to donate to charity and work with charity. It gives me more space. I’m a trustee of a charity. It gives me more space to help her and with what she’s working on. So all of these things, that’s not bad stuff. It’s not me.

Victoria (24:55)
Hmm.

Claire Hill (24:56)
being horrible and the way that I make money is to support people to have more money themselves but to do it in a way that they’re like they feel even better and it’s a ripple effect because what I teach then goes down to their children what I teach I teach to my son Jackson what he he then goes into class and talks about what I’m teaching like I talk to like I’m gonna write a book and it’s gonna teach all the loads of people that and

that to me makes the world a better place. So I don’t like moaning about how bad the world is, because we all know that, but then you don’t see all the good and how we can make the world an even better place by focusing on that as well. That was a big long monologue, wasn’t it? I warned you about my monologues. This is because I had my own podcast.

Victoria (25:28)
Hmm.

The end.

I loved it. I love a monologue.

I love it. I’m just thinking what to pick out. I talked about this in a reel the other day because there’s something about taking up space and there are a lot of people, and it’s this idea of getting in your own way. So there are a lot of people who

and there are a lot of men, just put it out there, who don’t have any qualms about, you know, they’re not getting in their own way. They don’t have any qualms about taking up space. They see an opportunity to make money, they go and make money and they occupy that space and they don’t ask them questions, they don’t have that self doubt and this is where the belief aspect comes in. And I think there is a lot there about, you know, gender disparity with money.

And there are facts to back this up. know, women have only very recently in history had access to their own money and been able to freely build wealth. So we are, I think more broadly speaking, more likely to do that thing of getting in our own way with money. And this is where we can kind of link it. You are the queen of self-belief. There are a lot of women doubting themselves.

doubting their ability to add value and giving them lots of reasons not to do the thing, which is eventually gonna mean an ask for money. And this is from a business perspective, comes down to confidence, all sorts of things, but I don’t have this, I’ll do it when I’ve got this many followers. I’ll do it when I have that accreditation. I’ll do it when I get my haircut.

You whatever it might be, we will find lots of reasons not to put ourselves in a position of vulnerability where we’re kind of doing the thing in our business, launching that new offer. And I feel like this is all kind of tied to money. And again, comes back to this idea of what my mum would call like being a busy banana. So mums are busy.

We just are, there’s always stuff to do. The to-do list never is gonna go away. It’s there until our kids leave home and then we’re just gonna carry the mental load in our head and hope they’re okay all the time. Like that’s our future from a motherhood perspective. And we can get caught up doing the small things that feel easy and comfortable and avoid doing the big things that are gonna move the needle in our business and get stuck.

in this situation where we’re kind of being a busy banana and we’re tinkering with our website and we’re, we’ll just put a wash on and we’re just going to tidy the kid’s room and not do the scary thing. So when you’re working with your clients, coming back to this idea of not doing more, not adding more pressure, not adding more ideas, how do you see that manifest?

I suppose specifically because this is a podcast about moms in business. know, mothers can more easily get caught in this, I think, because we just do have this really long task list, which is about serving everyone else around us. So what do you see coming up as kind of common blocks around taking action, doing the scary thing, asking for money? Because I definitely have had an issue with asking for money.

And it’s this idea that…

Claire Hill (29:30)
When are you asking that I would love to know what that means in, and you mean investment or salary increase?

Victoria (29:37)
In

any respect, I don’t know. think there are lots of different money mindsets, aren’t there? I don’t want this to turn into a therapy session for me, but I have this really strong story that you have to work really hard for money. And this plays into your doing more. And I think this is because my dad was a builder. He was like, always roll up your sleeves, get the work done.

do the work, do the work, do the work and the reward will come. That reward might come in heaven, I don’t know. The money will come and it’s trust the process, you do the work, you get your head down, keep grafting, keep grafting. And actually I wondered sometimes, especially in motherhood, it’s probably got worse because there’s always so much to do. Productivity, tasking, being a busy banana sometimes.

assuming that there will be a reward in due course, that eventually people will start to listen to the messages you’re putting out, that eventually people will…

and that you will know how to serve them and there will be an offer. It could be anything. It could manifest itself in my case for like, okay, well, I need to get a sponsorship for this podcast because this podcast cost me money, but it adds value. I would have to ask for that, wouldn’t I? And it’s, at what point do you do that? Because, you get to 10,000 downloads, you ask for sponsorship. I’m not at 10,000 downloads. So do I just keep not asking?

And then, you know, there are other things in my photography business. I’ve moved into the education space and it’s like, how much do you, like asking for something that you’ve created. And in photography, actually taking pictures, there’s a physical thing that you present and never had an issue with that. I probably didn’t ask for enough money, but there are a lot of blocks that must be quite common with women that you work with. And you must see similar patterns kind of cropping up again and again and again.

So what do you see? Tell me a bit about that.

Claire Hill (31:49)
I think, sorry I was making notes because it’s the real, absolutely like this hard work is in all of us. Like I don’t think we’ve evolved much past the industrial revolution where that’s, you know, if you didn’t work you went to the workhouse. I suppose you worked there. It wasn’t very nice, you know. So there’s always been people that have worked very, very, very, very hard.

Victoria (31:52)
Hahaha!

Yeah, exactly.

Claire Hill (32:16)
And there has always been people that, I Bridgerton or whatever, you know, like that sit around enjoying their money. So there’s always been that. I think the hard work, the hardest work is saying to yourself, what do want to be known for and what really lights you up and giving yourself permission to do that. that when you know that, when you really, really know what you’re here to do.

and the value you’re really here to give the world, then you sit in that and you give yourself permission to do only that. And then you shit the bed because you’re like, I’m not enough. I’m not enough to just do that. Then the work hard starts. Like it’s so much harder to do simple things and have clarity than it is to be busy. But we get miss, we get miss sold this.

Victoria (33:00)
Mm.

Claire Hill (33:13)
Well, I’m doing all this hard work. I’m doing really all this hard work to get that money. I’m staying busy. I’m doing all of the things. But you’re confusing the hard work. The hard work is actually saying, no, you’ve got to sit with the discomfort of prioritizing your energy above everybody else in the house. That’s so hard work. And when I think about how with this, the warrior energy, this is part of, you know, one of these types of energy.

Warrior energy, you need to run a business because you have got to have the biggest pot of resilience going. You have to have drive and ambition. You can’t just want something. You’re going to have to want to work for it. So you’ve got to be able to get out of bed. You’ve got to be in charge of yourself, disciplines, as well as still be happy and joyful and make money and be a mum. You’ve got to do all of these things. That is warrior status because it is tough.

Victoria (34:07)
Mmm.

Claire Hill (34:10)
It is tough running a business, but we are too. Like there’s no way anybody that starts a business is not tough. It’s not possible. And actually most business owners that work with me have had something happen to them that changed how they saw the world. Like whether it was similar to me or it was at work or they’ve had, one of my clients lost her husband who’s a really young widow. All of these things happen.

And they change like your brain chemistry of how you see the world. But it’s like this, there’s an ignition of an extra level of spirit that happens because you got over it. You got through it. And it’s the thing of validating that something really shit has happened to you and you were a victim of that. And that you don’t want to stay in victim mode. You want to do something about it. You don’t want your whole life to be about the shit. You want it to be about.

the brilliant stuff that comes out of it. Some of these things, or having a kid. Like I think about the first three, especially the first three months of having Jackson, just the worst three months ever. We lost two family members in that time as well. I could barely walk. My husband had postnatal depression, the male version, which really, really hit him hard. So we had all this stuff going on and it was…

It was awful. was like changed everything. But then you had this amazing little bundle of amazingness like he’s amazing now. But so we go through you go through all of these things. But you it’s it’s saying to yourself and this is why I said at the beginning like I people up the wrong way because I’m saying yeah, we do have to do hard work, but it’s not doing it’s being the hard work is being who you really are.

Victoria (35:37)
Hmm. Yeah.

Claire Hill (36:04)
and getting really clear on what that is. That’s the hardest work I’ve ever done. that’s like a, and that’s hard work that people don’t understand that maybe are our parents. Like I think of my in-laws, they do get it really naturally now. I’m not gonna talk them down out of that because I talk about it all the time and like my husband gets it. know.

My father-in-law has just had pneumonia and he’s given up drinking because he’s like, I’m on it. all of a sudden, all this time I’ve been telling him to have ginger shots, drink less, be doing this, doing that. All of a sudden he’s like, right, I get it now, I’m on it. So that’s really, you know, he’s nearly 76. For him to do that is really, really cool. So I think for, but traditionally the people around us don’t really, they’re just like grin and bear and get on with it. My thing is,

Victoria (36:46)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Claire Hill (36:59)
Feel your feelings, big feelings, validate the fact that it feels really, really shit, and then get to a point where you go, okay, I’m gonna be a warrior, not a worrier. I’m gonna do something about it. Transfer all those worries into worriers energy. And that whole principle of transferring the energy. Then how do you create that worrier energy? So as a mom, that is prioritizing your energy in the day above your children.

apart from if they need their bum wipes and they need a drink. Like, that’s it. Because it’s basically, yeah. But it’s also getting to that point where, like with Jackson, we have this thing where he is allowed to say, want, and I say, well, how are you gonna get it? So you can ask for it, or you can get it yourself. But he’s seven, so he’s not, you know, I’ve got, there’s been some boundaries, but from a very young age, I was very much like, I am Claire right now.

Victoria (37:31)
Which feels like all the time.

Claire Hill (37:58)
I’m not Mummy. I’m not Mummy all of the time, even though I am, of course I am. But also that there will be times when he’s just Jackson, not my little boy, when I just want to sit with him and he’s like, I just want to do Lego Mummy. I’m like, but just one more cuddle, thank you. So there’s those identities in that shifts for him to understand. am Claire right now, I’m reading my book. Stop telling me every five minutes about Minecraft. I’m reading my book. Ask.

Victoria (38:08)
Mm.

Claire Hill (38:27)
Have you got a minute, mummy? No, just on the scent. I mean, he’s basically the carbon copy of me. So is the thing I can’t get to. But then, so when I, in the morning, I would get up a little bit earlier, no matter how, in the very early days, no matter how tired I was, no matter how many times I’ve got up and just having five minutes of peace where it’s just me, just me in the house or just doing something. I mean, I went.

Victoria (38:30)
Hmm.

You

Claire Hill (38:55)
massively into journaling. I was doing three sides. It’s a lot for people. I was very dedicated, but then I teach this shit. So got, got to be the best advert. But what I also noticed is how my brain would split in half when I was trying to be mom and business owner at the exact same time, the pain in my head, literally ripping. It’s like, that’s, that’s a massive energy drain. So there is

Victoria (39:04)
You

Yeah.

Claire Hill (39:22)
It does not save you any time or energy. This is what I get so much from my clients. If you’re making breakfast and checking your phone, you’re then boiling the kettle and thinking about a piece of content, or you’re emptying the dishwasher and then remembering that you didn’t message that client back. Just waste of time, waste of energy. Get up in the morning, do something for you for just five minutes, then work through a list of things that you need to do.

Victoria (39:44)
Hmm.

Claire Hill (39:51)
then be a business owner when you can, whenever that happens. So a lot of people say, well, and this is, what I teach is controversial because it’s so against the grain really, but it makes me a better mom. And mind you, you know, I’ve only got one kid and I would have loved to have had more, but it wasn’t, that wasn’t the way for us. I’ve got now two dogs, which about the same, but I needed to have childcare. I needed to have people around and for ages we didn’t have Dan’s mom and dad.

So he’s from the Midlands and they moved down to Kent. They live on our road now. So now we have help, but for years we didn’t have anything. So I had to pay for it and it was hard, but then I was like, well, the business has got to pay for it. So it made me level up. I know that childcare is really, really, really, really, really, really expensive. But what I get now is if I did a whole day and he had childcare, especially like in the holidays, only had, and I still only, obviously, because he’s at school.

but I’ve only ever had term time childcare because I was teaching. So in the summer holidays, when we didn’t have the child minder, I would then pay extra for him to go to the child minder, like on a bonus day, so that I would have one day and I would make it really long. Fucking hell, because I only had one day, I got so much done. Because I was just business woman, not trying to juggle everything. That’s the biggest thing that I see.

Victoria (41:12)
Yeah.

Claire Hill (41:18)
women who are mums trying to do everything all at once. I say no to loads of stuff. That’s one thing, like people, and my friends know this now, and my, you know, like my sisters and my brother, I’ll be like, nah, don’t fancy it. Just no’s a complete sentence to me. I know people say it, but it took work. You know, like I started saying no, and then the risk of maybe they’re not gonna like me anymore. And then realizing they’re not gonna like me anymore.

Victoria (41:43)
Mmm.

Claire Hill (41:47)
they shouldn’t have been it. And then I get the loneliness of me making these tough choices. And then I say to my husband, well, the bloody hell did I get this from? This is so hard. And like, he’s like, well, you teach it. I’m like, ugh, I get really annoyed. And then I just sort of, so yeah, I say no a lot. But what I see the most is this swapping of hats, or trying to do everything all at once. And not seeing your work as work, that it’s like a little hobby.

Victoria (42:12)
Hmm.

Claire Hill (42:16)
that really your first job is being a mum. Of course it is, but that’s like our biological, you know, like in our job. That’s what I see is it’s like this part of me that was always there and then it sort of woke up and I was like, I’m a mum now and I love it it’s amazing. But my actual like role in life, God, this is so spicy as I say it, but it’s to teach people how to make money if they’ve gone through some really shit things. That’s like what I’m here to do.

So being a mum is like this amazing, beautiful bonus. It’s not my lead role. God, that feels so wrong to say. Maybe not, I don’t know. But you know, like it’s sort of, seeing that everything I’m here to do is still for Jackson anyway. Does that make sense? Am I making sense? I think I’ve just spun myself out.

Victoria (43:04)
Yeah, being, yeah, it does. No, no, no, I think it’s okay.

Look, this is all part of it, isn’t it? And I think what you’re, if I understand correctly, what you’re trying to say is like being a mum is a part of you. It’s intrinsic to you. It is you, it is you, but it’s not your purpose day to day is something different. You’ve got this like mission that you’re on.

Claire Hill (43:22)
Yeah, it’s like breathing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Victoria (43:32)
to support women and essentially, know, talking about money as energy, you’re supporting women to have more freedom in their life, to have more peace, to be more in their purpose. And that’s your mission. Being a mum is part of who you are. It is, you’re not getting away from it, whether you like it or not. And it’s intrinsic to you, it’s inherent, it’s just in you, it’s innate, it’s all those words beginning with in. And this is something separate.

Claire Hill (43:53)
No.

Victoria (44:01)
that is where your focus is going when you’re not with your child. Like this is your mission. And I think that that is fine. It’s hard, it’s tricky to choose the words. And again, it’s because there’s so much judgment on mothers basically. It’s just everywhere. So you feel like, dare I say these words, but actually with grace for each other, like that’s fine. That’s fine. This is your mission. You’re on this mission to do these big things.

Claire Hill (44:05)
Yeah, and I think it’s… Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Victoria (44:29)
and you have a son and both can exist at the same time and one doesn’t detract from the other and actually they feed each other.

Claire Hill (44:35)
I think it was a session in my program bank last week, or no actually I think it was in my free event, and somebody that’s joined bank said, I just can’t do this anymore. Like I’m sitting next to my daughter on the sofa watching TV, she’s talking to me and I can’t process what she’s saying to me because I’m just worrying about the business so much. Like I can’t be present with her and it’s making me feel like shit, like I’m done.

And then another person said, yeah, I had my laptop out on the table as we’re eating dinner. I can’t even, I’ve got so much, so much to do that I can’t even stop and have dinner with my family. That’s what I’m changing, because I can’t have that. I’m just like, no, no, can’t have that. No, thank you. This is not, we did not create our businesses to be like this. We created them so we have more life. And then we don’t even give permission to ourselves to have that life.

Victoria (45:11)
Hmm, I’ve done that. Yeah.

Claire Hill (45:33)
it’s barmy and not having it. this is why, that’s why, you when you’re saying I’m on a mission, really feel like I’m not, I don’t see, cause I see myself with how my money mindset was and how my mental health was and the experiences I’ve had, if I can do it, bloody anyone can. Like it just took me to decide that I was,

Victoria (45:39)
Yeah.

Claire Hill (45:59)
I think at that point I didn’t believe I was worth the work, my self-worth, I had no self-worth at all. I think it was more like I believed that maybe I can take a step towards maybe having some self-worth. So was such a tiny decision to make, but at the same time, the biggest decision I ever made. so then, I think as well, my biggest lesson was self-worth.

Victoria (46:15)
Mm.

Claire Hill (46:29)
and it’s because I became a mum. Like Jackson just sat there and puked shit and he was the most worthy thing in my whole life. can’t like, so how could I have less self-worth than him when at the time I had like I had all these skills and knowledge and experiences and I’d loved and I was loved. But again, that was another thing except in love.

Victoria (46:46)
He’s offering nothing.

Claire Hill (46:58)
me and my husband, I had to sort of learn how to let him love me, which was another whole thing. Like just all of these things, but I was less worthy than this little alien that just come out of my body. And I’d made him as well. Like, come on. So that’s where I think the tipping point was of how ridiculous it was that I didn’t feel worthy of what I wanted when I had, when this thing had come out and was more worthy than that. So.

That’s why I think that this work is so important because everything that I teach really, really works and I’m the best advert for it. Like I am probably too disciplined with what I teach. No, I’m not. I’m not too disciplined. I’m disciplined enough because it’s not ever perfect because nothing ever is. But I just see every single day as the reward in itself. Cause you were saying about that you work so hard that you get to

the reward at the end but I see the richness and the reward right now like this experience is reward for this moment like every single moment is the reward even the shit ones when I’m like god this is like this has not gone to plan I think okay I’m gonna get excited I’m gonna learn something really epic from this this is making me the woman that I’ve asked to be so this is what’s serving it up

So although in those moments I feel uncomfortable and it feels in it’s challenging, I don’t label it as negative because it’s getting me to closer to where I need to be, however that’s gonna be. So I don’t see that reward. And that’s one of the things that’s a money leak seeing you get to a point where you’re gonna get all of this. That’s why I don’t teach about how to get to 10K or 5K gold months or anything like that. We do a money challenge inside bank program. Have you done the money challenge before?

Victoria (48:29)
Hmm.

No.

Claire Hill (48:53)
I love them so much. It’s like putting the pressure washer on the patio and getting the grout, like the moss out of the tiles. So satisfying. That’s literally what our money challenge does to your money mindset. Because we’re like, somebody in bank has got a £50,000 goal. Other people, like they would go saying, I’m going to do £2,000. And I was like, no, we’re doubling it. And you can see them being sick out of their mouth and their ears at the same time. like, my God, I can’t do this.

Victoria (49:01)
my God, so satisfying. Yeah. it sounds amazing.

You

Claire Hill (49:23)
But it just blasts things out of the way and shows up all of these things that have been getting in your way really, really quickly. Because it doesn’t have to take a long time. Like I was saying to you, I think the next round of bank might need to be three months because of how much I want to teach in it. Because it’s so good. It’s like juicy, juicy goodness. And also allowing, because at the moment we meet every week, but allowing once a fortnight I think is better for processing, especially when you’re month. I support so many mums, so.

basically 90 % of the people I support or at least their parents anyway. then, having this, I’ve lost my thread, because I was talking about that, hold on. Where was I, where was I? Thread, nah, I’ve lost it, lost it, that was a good one. Gone.

Victoria (50:15)
You were saying that you’re going to extend it to three months because it’s so juicy. Yeah, yeah.

Claire Hill (50:21)
Oh, money challenge, was it, money challenge.

So it blasts it out of the way. So though I’m teaching about energy leaks, like your coping identity, which is who you are to get through and be safe and accepted and liked, but that coping identity doesn’t make any money because what money wants to do is stick. It doesn’t, yeah, it doesn’t stick to you. So I’ve got the…

Victoria (50:42)
I know! I know it doesn’t.

Claire Hill (50:47)
my honey money theory, where it’s when you are your true self, like what I call your true vivid self, who you really are, you know what you want to be known for, you know what lights you up, you know your values, you can say no when you’re that version of you, which is the version of us that was always meant to be without the shit sticking to us like tar. Then the honey money goes, hello, point, and you can just like walk. One of the clients that did the first round of bank,

She said, I literally walked down the street and I’m just like, money, honey money. And this is money like sticking to her sort of in her imagination, but that’s what it is. It’s like, that’s abundance. Like you could walk, go, oh my God, look at the trees. I’m so rich in leaves around me right now. Look at this beautiful cloudy sky. I’m rich in like not getting sunburned, right? You know, whatever you could spin everything. So yeah, the bonus of doing a money challenge.

is it makes you see all of the things getting in your own way. hold on, sorry, I interrupted myself, didn’t I? So coping identity, honey money, energy power, money leaks feed the coping identity. We look at the patterns, so you have a pattern which sort of is a collection of energy leaks. We’re not stopping every leak, we’re going to the source of the pattern, which is then linked to, so for like power, secretly that you don’t really trust yourself, you don’t actually back yourself.

So you sort of repeat that sort of secret limiting belief in all of the, in a pattern which has leaks. So we stop the pattern, stop the leaks, stop your coping identity. Then you’re like, I’m my most vivid self. This feels fucking amazing. This is who I should have been all the time. And the honey money goes, sorry, this is a podcast, it? My hands covered my face in a dramatic way. So like jellyfishes of honey money. And then,

Victoria (52:37)
Hahaha!

Claire Hill (52:43)
life just gets richer. This is the thing we don’t get and through the money challenge we’re like how could you if you were doing what really lights you up and what you really want to be known for how could you make that money? Look at you you’re such a money making badass like this money making attitude of so tomorrow in the session we’ll be finalizing their like 25 different ways to make the money that they want but which one lights them up? Which one makes them feel most excited?

which one is closely linked to what they really, really want to be known for, then they go after it. Then we look at business models. So this is why I’m not a usual business coach, because I start with all this first. And then we’re like, right, let’s make a really simple business model, got your marketing strategy, let’s tidy it all up. But you’ve got all of the space now and the courage to get to the confidence and the belief to get to the confidence to make all this happen. Because people will go.

Right, to run a business you need to do, and everyone goes, okay, I’m gonna learn all of that. But what about the time that somebody said I was too much and that my teeth were big when I was laughing really hard and so I have to cover my mouth and so I can’t be visible because people will be looking at my teeth. It’s like, you what mean? So we have to start with that and then we come through and also the biggest lesson with the money challenge.

Victoria (53:56)
Yeah, yeah exactly, yeah.

Claire Hill (54:08)
is it means nothing about them if they make the money or they don’t. That’s the biggest thing they need the courage for, because they’re constantly like, but what if I don’t make it? Who gives a shit? Think about what you’re learning on the way. But it’s a bonus, isn’t it? And they have to do an I have list as well of like all of the things they’re gonna spend the money on and sit with that energy, but it doesn’t mean anything. So it’s this really powerful paradox that…

You are worthy of everything that you want just as you are because you want it. And this is all the work you don’t have to do. You just need to be more to do it. And they sit with this like, this feels really uncomfortable. This is not new. And I’m like, I know. And then that’s why I like have to hold them. I’ve got them in their little, in our little bank bubble, getting them through it.

Victoria (54:55)
Yeah,

yeah, I imagine that that needs to be a really supportive environment because it’s so easy to default into the product talks, I’m going to call it toxic productivity because I have lived there and I, I know for sure that it doesn’t make the money. You can be as productive as you like, you can be consistent. That’s another thing.

consistency before we recorded, we were talking about your podcast. Cause I had listened, I was like, you haven’t done one in one. You’re like, yeah, it’s not the priority right now. And so this thing, like we can hold ourselves to all these rules, which again are perpetuated on social media about, like you were saying, how to build a business step by step by step post on social media every day. Do this, get an email list, email them once a week, do X, Y, Z. And you can do all those things and make no money. I promise.

Claire Hill (55:49)
Yep.

Victoria (55:52)
And I have done them for years, like in various facets. I’ve done them for years and I’ve been so like proud of that consistency and assuming that at some point it all kind of comes together. And this is the reward piece. And when I say reward, don’t mean reward as in like joy, because I feel quite joyful and very lucky in that respect. Like I can appreciate the clouds and the fact that I’m not being sunburned and that’s good because I’m ginger, but the reward of money.

that it will somehow come. And I feel like I’ve lost you. Are you still there?

Claire Hill (56:28)
Yes, I am still here. Yeah, no, it said that I had poor connection. It’s that moment where you just sit silently in case you need to cut it and change it. So I was like, not moving.

Victoria (56:30)
Okay, you went a bit funny, but it’s fine you’re back.

Yeah, so I mean, just that, that productivity, that exchange that you put in all this effort, and then this inevitable reward of money will land is is completely untrue. And so what you’re doing is you’re asking people to question that and you’re asking them to actually step away from the productivity. Just put it down and stop.

and pause and sit in the shit and just have a little think. Like have a real think, start at the bottom, start with your foundations. Like what’s actually going on? What do you wanna do? Not what are you doing? Not what needs to be done, but what do you want to do? What will make you feel better today? What will make you feel like you are living in that purpose, that mission? And actually, when you’ve been busying yourself for so long playing by these rule books,

and telling yourselves these stories, it’s really hard to step back, I think, and take that breath. So I imagine that you need to check in with people because they could quite easily, you you skip for a fortnight, they don’t see you and come back and be like, I’m really sorry, I started just spending all my time on reels. And you have to pull them back into you and get them back onto the right path where they’re.

they’re pausing and they’re thinking and they’re reassessing.

Claire Hill (58:08)
Yeah,

that’s their path. That’s why, look, if they need to go and do that, to learn, go, shit, that doesn’t feel good, because we talk about how it feels in the body, then they need that lesson. I’m not gonna, look, a lot of times clients will come to me, this is the issue, this is the issue, this is the issue, what do I do? And I’m like, have a nap. Why are you not having more naps? You’ve got the house to yourself, everyone’s at school.

Victoria (58:11)
Mm.

Hmm.

Claire Hill (58:37)
Go and have a nap, then see how you feel. Or go and have a bath. I just don’t think doing more solves anything. It’s not even about, it’s a shift of productivity. I’ve got a course called the Productivity Academy, which when it becomes a priority, which it may never, I don’t know, it’s gotta be changed to the Focus Academy. Because what I teach is basically how to be focused on what really matters, not all the bullshit that you think you gotta do. Like I’ve let go.

of so much. I was in a, like this networking club, but it wasn’t networking, it was more like a, I suppose like a mastermind thing that I used to do once a month. I used to host a networking group that was attracting 80 people a month. I had my podcast at the Vivibusiness Club, which was my membership. I’m a one-to-one coach, which I still don’t know what’s going on with that yet. I’m still like, the pot’s simmering. But I did.

I said no to so many things because what I was doing, I kept thinking, hold on, this isn’t what I wanna be known for. This isn’t lighting me up. I’m doing it because I think I should. Without that, no, no. And then there was, on the local network scene, there was this gossip of like, why isn’t Claire doing that anymore? Why isn’t she? I stopped all networking, physical networking. And I don’t know when I’m gonna go back because…

Victoria (1:00:06)
Hmm.

Claire Hill (1:00:07)
I know. I’m going into one because my client is speaking, but I don’t know if I can be bothered. So it’s like that thing of, it feel good in my body? No, I do it. And I don’t give a shit what anyone thinks about that either, because there are people that will go, but you should do really. Why? Because somebody’s made you feel like you should. I’m telling you, you don’t have to either. Like I my sister, I love my sister.

Victoria (1:00:17)
Mm.

Claire Hill (1:00:34)
She’s a part-time head, like one of the only part-time head teachers in the country. And I messaged her, because on Fridays, I completely have Fridays off, and on Mondays, I work on the business if I want to, and then I coach Tuesdays and Wednesdays, or Tuesdays and Thursdays, and then I have another day of space doing stuff, right? So I said to her, on Friday, I can come round if you want, because it’s my nephew’s birthday, and I can help her out.

I went, but I also know that you probably want to be on your own. So tell me not to, if you want. And she was like, yeah, I don’t want you to come around. I’m like, okay. Look, cause I’ll tell her, I don’t want you to come around. I’ll say to my friends, no, I want to be on my own. I need some space. need to, I don’t want to go out and talk. I want to sit on my sofa and read my book. And people might think, God, but then I’m like, fancy a rave. So I go, I’m like, the other end of the spectrum. But it’s, I think you had to.

I didn’t have anybody showing me that that was okay. Like it’s like, we’ve got, there’s a huge networking thing happening in Kent on Thursday. What day is it today? Tuesday, isn’t it? So on Thursday, massive, everybody locally that I know will be going. I’m not going because does it, does it lead into my big goals and what I want to be known for? No. I’m not going. Don’t care. Network and opportunity, is it?

Sounds like I’m spending the whole day with people learning and seeing what they can give to me, not what they can get from me. I’m gonna work on my content. Because also, I wanna conquer the world. I wanna be all over the world. know, so I think it’s, people will go, why aren’t you going? So I think it’s just having, I have to do the daring things that, cause courage feels horrible, but confidence is the byproduct of courage. It’s the same as self belief, like.

Victoria (1:02:12)
You

Claire Hill (1:02:29)
You can believe you have the courage and the belief to get in a door and then you get there. It’s then when you’re in the room that the confidence comes and everyone’s waiting for confidence. It doesn’t come unless you feel uncomfortable. So you have to make these big bold decisions to, like you say, do the hard work and be in like that uncomfortableness of just going, do you know what? I’m going to spend my Friday sitting on the sofa watching Mr. Mercedes and not touch my phone.

Victoria (1:02:43)
Mm.

Claire Hill (1:02:59)
only once at 12 o’clock when I know my clients might have messaged and I’ll reply. That’s what my Fridays are and that’s it. And when I first started it, I’d be like, Twitch, Twitch, get my phone. And I’m like, no.

Victoria (1:03:12)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, but it means that you, you are entirely present in whatever you’re doing. And it’s that belief, you know, it’s, it’s now, you’re now fully embodying it. You trust the process, you trust your gut as well. If something makes you feel expansive, and it’s going to be fun, you go and do it. If it makes you feel contracted, you sack it off.

Claire Hill (1:03:30)
Yeah.

Victoria (1:03:40)
and you don’t apologize to anyone for it. And I’m absolutely not there, but I would love to get there because I think actually that level of calm within you that you are aligned and you know what you’re doing and everyone else can figure out what they’re doing around you because you’re communicating it. You’re not, you’re not ghosting people. You’re not being rude. You’re saying, no, I don’t want to go and do that.

Claire Hill (1:03:43)
No.

Victoria (1:04:08)
No, I’m not going to come to this networking event. I might see you again one day. I might not, but because I’m focusing and it’s focused, I’m focusing over here and I’m focusing on spending my Friday sitting on my sofa and chilling out. Like honestly, when you said that you tell your clients to go and take a nap, I like my quarters or levels are like through the roof and like, how could I possibly? And that’s where I think a lot of women live. A lot of mothers live that they get to a stage where it’s really difficult to be.

Claire Hill (1:04:14)
Yeah.

Victoria (1:04:38)
And I think particularly when you’re sort of coming out of that early motherhood phase, and it sounds like, you you kind of, you understand that, you know, when you’re in that kind of heavy function of just repeat tasks and you kind of have to, it’s like you’re, sort of, you’re on a high really, you kind of have to come down from it and settle yourself again somehow. But I think when that’s tied up in also trying to build a business, it can just transfer. So all the kind of adrenaline that you’re running on when you’ve got

Claire Hill (1:04:45)
Yeah.

Victoria (1:05:07)
young babies or a baby, you can kind of transfer that cortisol, they get older, they become slightly more dependent, independent, and you transfer that nervous energy over to your business. And you become the busy banana in your business. And you Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it’s breaking that pattern.

Claire Hill (1:05:25)
Because that’s what feels safe. We think,

yeah, it’s breaking the pattern and it doesn’t feel good, but that is your safety zone. That is your nervous system going, this is familiar, let’s stick with this. It’s actually doing less than so familiar.

Victoria (1:05:37)
Hmm.

Yeah. And it plays into your…

Yeah. And it plays in again into what you were saying about when you were a kid, it’s your worth. You’re worthy if you’re doing, you have all these responsibilities. You’re kind of keeping an eye on your mom. You are looking after your siblings. You’ve also got to get yourself to school and do all the usual things, make sure everyone’s fair. You’re taking a lot of responsibility on at a young age and that becomes part of who you are. It becomes part of your identity that you are.

caring for everybody. And then it’s finding yourself in that, because you have to move out of that safe space at some point. And everyone will have their own version of a story that is keeping them in a, you know, not necessarily toxic, but sometimes a destructive pattern and actually holding them back in their business and holding them back from making money. Because the money stories then come in and it’s this whole layer of mess, isn’t it?

Claire Hill (1:06:39)
Yeah, sorry, I know we’re well over time, aren’t we? Because I’ve just wanged on. But the whole thing of like knowing, like one of the biggest things for me was asking for help and hiring my assistant and even asking help from my husband. And I thought I’d done loads of work and then the universe helped me to pull my calf after a few margaritas skipping at brunch. And…

Victoria (1:06:40)
Seriously interesting.

Claire Hill (1:07:07)
to where I was on crutches for like two months and my leg was just, couldn’t do anything. So then the universe went, you thought that you were good at asking for help. We’re gonna serve you up something. And then I was like, okay. And I needed it. I really, really needed that lesson because I wasn’t asking for enough help. I wasn’t receiving it enough. That’s the whole thing again about money. Like thinking you’ve got to do it all on your own where you’re not receiving. So where’s the space gonna be for energy? Now I just want to,

Victoria (1:07:19)
Let me show you, yeah.

Claire Hill (1:07:37)
just come back to you for a moment if you don’t mind. Because all of the doing, right, you’ve got to think about if you want money to come in, it’s like this beautiful big ball of glowing gorgeousness, right? Where’s it gonna fit in? This is I say to clients, like, if you’re doing all of the things all of the time and it’s not working, what if you tried something different and did less and created some space so that the money can get in?

Victoria (1:07:40)
gosh.

Claire Hill (1:08:07)
There’s no space in a busy life for the money energy to come in.

Victoria (1:08:09)
Hmm.

Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. No, there’s no space anywhere. There’s no space anywhere. There’s no space for anything in my brain else, except more work. There’s always space for more work. And it’s a very damaging psychological state to exist in. And I’m quite resilient. Like I’m a, know that I’m a really good mom.

Claire Hill (1:08:13)
And you have to trust the forward.

Victoria (1:08:37)
I don’t beat myself up for that. Like I am with my kids all the time. They’re my world. I love them to pieces. But I recognize and I relate to all the distraction and I wish it wasn’t there. But then I also am starting to understand that that is something that I have to take responsibility for because I’m doing that to myself. No one’s doing it to me. And there’s a lot of work to do. A lot of work to do. But I think, you know.

Claire Hill (1:09:01)
Mm-hmm.

Victoria (1:09:06)
My name’s Victoria and I’m addicted to work. So that is the first step, isn’t it?

Claire Hill (1:09:08)
Yeah, me too. Yeah, but

I think it’s just what it’s like when you were just talking then it’s going, what if things like things could be much easier for you? But I think also as women, we’re always like, God, it’s so tough for us, isn’t it? So tough for women. And this is where I get really controversial because yeah, it is, but we don’t have to put on our carry more on our load.

by putting more on our lives that’s already there and then beating ourselves up for it. You’ve just beaten yourself up a little bit there and that’s the thing. We don’t want to beat ourselves up. You’re just doing the best you can with what you know right now. You’ve just spoken to me, you thought that I might do this in this conversation, you said it already, that you might go, oh shit, like there’s a lot. So that’s the first thing, it’s like the awareness of going, and this is what, I’ve got this business leaks test.

Victoria (1:09:56)
haha

God, I’d pass it with flying colors, I’m sure.

Claire Hill (1:10:08)
So you

score yourself and it sort of highlights where leaks are and what you didn’t realise was a leak. It’s completely free, it’s people, when they do it, they’re like, shit, this is ridiculous. And you just have to start tweaking a few things and then the money starts coming in. And there’s too many examples of how I teach it now. And in the bank group,

They’ve not even been going a week and there’s money coming in left, right and centre. this is, though it sounds woo woo, but if you think of energy, if we’re thinking about the pasta again, you want more pasta for your cupboard, but your cupboard’s full up of pasta, where’s it gonna go? It can’t go in there.

Victoria (1:10:53)
Yeah, it’s the wrong

type of pasta. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

I am gonna be like tumbling this conversation for a long time. Definitely. I really appreciate it. I really appreciate the free therapy and I hope all the listeners enjoyed it. But I have one last.

Claire Hill (1:11:08)
Yeah

So

I did wang on a few times with monologues. one point I was like, does this make sense?

Victoria (1:11:15)
I love it.

No, I love it, it’s how I

communicate. I communicate one monologue to another, it’s absolutely fine. Let me ask you one last question before I let you go. And it might be, it might be a, I don’t know, a tricky one for you, because you’ve shared a little bit about how life was when you were a kid. So if you could go back now and share some advice with your eight-year-old self, what would you say?

Claire Hill (1:11:47)
that was the age I was when my dad died. That’s spicy.

God, there’s so many things. I’d give her a cuddle, I think. I don’t even know if I’d say anything. I’d just go, let’s have a cuddle and you can have a cry.

I that’s got me, because I think that’s one thing when something really bad happens to a whole family, when you can’t really get upset because it would upset everybody else. So I held on, didn’t let myself cry for ages. And recently, this is the other thing why rest for me is 100 % a priority, not only so I can do my best work.

But also, because there’s an eight year old version of me who never got to just play with toys and get on with things and have a bath and just chill out, just like my son does. just, like the joy of him being in his childhood and I watch and I’m like learning again how to do stuff like that. Like I’m really bad at playing because I don’t think I really, I can’t remember playing. So I try and learn how to do these things. But one thing is just going, you know,

Victoria (1:12:40)
Yeah.

Claire Hill (1:13:05)
I fancy crying. was actually my dad’s anniversary of his death recently. And I got upset about something. It was really silly. But a great big cry was coming out. And my husband was like, come on, we can turn it around. And I went, no, this is, if tears want to come out, I’m going to bloody let them cry. I’m going to cry. And I know that feels horrible.

We’re not responsible for other people’s emotions. He’s not responsible for me feeling better about anything, but I’m responsible for allowing myself to feel big feelings. But he, and I know that he makes him feel uncomfortable, but I can’t deal with that. You see, like we hide ourselves and we hide our joy and the fact that, know, I, you know, going back to the beginning of this, I really fucking love money and I love how I can make it. But I love when people make money and I’m helping them.

Victoria (1:13:38)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Claire Hill (1:13:58)
Oh my God, it’s the best thing in the world. I love it and I won’t hide that joy. But also I have really sad days because a lot has happened to me and I didn’t get a chance to feel those feelings then. I’m gonna stop, because that is part of being a human being and it’s going back to we need to be more. going back to your question, I would go just cuddle her and give her a little bit of safety and just let her cry I think.

And you’re never too much for the wrong people. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely.

Victoria (1:14:27)
That’s probably what she needs most.

I love it. It’s like…

Your evolution is so beautiful because everything that happens to you, you’re like, you’re learning from it and you’re doing something about it. Like your business, you learn these lessons, one business fails, but you apply what you learn to the next one. And like now you are the age you are and you’re a mum and you, to keep the peace and to keep everyone else stable as a kid took on so much responsibility. And like you said, you

hid your own feelings so as not to make it worse for anybody else. And now you’re sitting with your husband and he, you know, God love him, he doesn’t want you to be upset. And they don’t do well when we cry, do they? I mean, you my partner is exactly the same and they want to make it better. That’s it. They just want to see you smile and for all to go away and to move on. And you’re done with the trying to make the other person feel more comfortable. So you’ve learned, you know, you’re learning all the time and

so many lessons in life, we kind of miss the point. And I feel like that is a superpower that you have. You’re not, you’re not kind of acting out of some madness that you repeat the same thing over and over again, you’re collecting every lesson, all the data. And you’re implementing the change straight away, the next time you do something, it’s going to be different. And this is going to be different. You’re learning all the time, you’re like a sponge. And I think

Claire Hill (1:16:01)
Yeah.

Victoria (1:16:02)
that ability to learn those lessons and then share like that’s what you’re doing now is like you’re learning all this stuff you’re really really learning it and you’re not daft and you’re not repeating these mistakes whether it’s in your personal life or your business and you can then support other people.

Claire, I’ve loved this conversation so much. And thank you so much for coming and giving me all of your therapy and wisdom. Lots of food for thought. Where can everybody find you?

Claire Hill (1:17:03)
I am Claire Hill on Instagram. That’s where I love hanging out. And the link to that free business test is in my bio. Start here. It’s very easy to find.

Victoria (1:17:13)
Yeah,

I will put a link to it in the show notes and I will go and do that probably today and like find out where all my business leaks are. I’ll let you know. I’m sure there are many. Yeah, I will do. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.

Claire Hill (1:17:22)
Yes, please tell me your score.

Thank you.

Victoria (1:17:33)
Right.