140: The Mindset that's KILLING your Finances + Real Talk About Comparison and Mommy Guilt with Rachel Cruze

If you don't recognize the name Rachel Cruze, you'll likely recognize the name of her dad: Dave Ramsey. She now serves as a Ramsey Personality and uses her knowledge and experience from growing up as Dave’s daughter to educate others. We were so excited to sit down with Rachel at the Nashville Business Boutique and chat with her.

We loved what she had to say, and know you will too!

On The Podcast

00:25 - Rachel's New Book

01:43 - Mommy Guilt

05:43 - Comparison & Growing A Business

09:17 - Identifying Business Priorities with Money

11:46 - Growing Up As Dave Ramsey's Child

14:15 - Allowing Your Kids To Fail

15:22 - Rachel's Business Insecurities

19:18 - Rachel's Adorable Mom Moment

Rachel's New Book

As Rachel traveled the country and talked to people about personal finance, she began to notice really similar themes bubble up. That common theme is this: more than ever we're letting other people's lives and lifestyles determine how we spend our money. Comparison is so integrated into our lives, particularly due to social media, that we can't seem to escape it.

Rachel began to realize if we could beat down the comparison trap, fight through it, and put good money habits in place, we could live the lives we want and not what's being dictated to us by culture.

We often think women, in particular, have a unique struggle when it comes to comparing themselves to others. But Rachel says she has heard from 56-year-old men who battle the comparison trap!

The bottom line is we ALL compare! It may look different, but we all do it.

Mommy Guilt

We carry a lot of guilt and shame as women. Of course, we all know about the Mommy Guilt! How you're mothering, what you choose to do or not do...it's crazy what allow to bring us guilt! So maybe women do carry that weight a bit more than our male counterparts. (Ugh! Don't you hate it!?)

So, does Rachel Cruze struggle with Mommy Guilt?

Yes! And it blew her away. She says when she and her husband announced to a friend their pregnancy, the friend's first words to her were, "Welcome to the world of comparisons."

"REALLY!?" Rachel thought. Then the comparison game started: "Are you feeling sick? If you're sick, did you get *sick* sick?" She thought it was so silly that women even compared morning sickness to each other! (And when you think about it, it is pretty ridiculous.)

But, yes, even Rachel Cruze struggles with Mommy Guilt, particularly that nagging question, "Am I doing this right?  

Within her close circle of friends, most of Rachel's girl friends are stay-at-home moms, so she does feel the tug of being a working mom. But here's something we loved that Rachel said: when she's with Amelia (her daughter), she's Mom. And she tries so hard to not look at the phone or social media during those moments. As a result, the times she spends with her daughter are very rich because she works hard to be there.

And, speaking of comparison. Rachel has really keyed in on the phrase 'to each her own' (We love that!).  She has come to the place that she respects what others do differently, and doesn't focus on the things that don't matter.

We think it's pretty awesome that little Amelia will get to grow up and see her mom doing what she loves! Working moms, you're a role model to your children, stepping into your God-given talents to conquer fears and doing what you feel passionately about.

Comparison & Growing A Business

What would Rachel say to the woman who feels like she needs to take on debt to get ahead?

It's simple: Taking on Debt = Taking on Risk

Stress levels go through the roof when you've got a debt payment looming, and you don't know if you can make the payments. People often don't account for that level of risk when they take on debt. While this principle applies to businesses of any size, it's especially true for start-ups.

You've got to run your business at the speed of cash.

Even at Rachel's multi-million dollar business (Ramsey Solutions), if they don't have the cash - they don't make the purchase. Rachel says you will never regret moving at the speed of cash. Instant gratification is everywhere in our culture, but slow and steady wins the race.

And Rachel gets it: "You look on Facebook and see, 'Oh awesome, this Sarah girl started two years after me and already has all theses followers and is doing all these things I'm not even halfway there.' BE PATIENT!"

In the marketplace, scarcity is a lie. We think that just because someone else had a chance to create before we did, the moment is lost. Urgency creates bad business decisions. Don't get ahead of yourself before you're actually there.

For example, you might make careless decisions with loaned money that you wouldn't make with your own money. It feels like your business has all this extra cash, but it's not true! Really the money belongs to someone else. And you might feel like you can create products without verifying if it's something your customers might want first. But the decisions you'll make with that loaned money aren't as strategic and thoughtful as they would be with your money.

Rachel points out that studies have shown that when you spend with debt, you spend more. You're much more intentional about purchases made with your own money.

And your mistakes follow you. Imagine paying back a loan for an idea that didn't work! How mad would you be!? Say you created a purse, but it turned out it wasn't as hot an item as you'd hoped. Then you're stuck with inventory and a loan payment.

Identifying Priorities with Money

The great thing about a budget is that you get to create it.

You decide your own values.

There are foundational things we need to pay: housing, food, transportation, and basic bills. But beyond that, you can decide! Are you putting money away each month to take the kids to Disney World? Do you want to budget a bigger 'Entertainment' category so you can attend two concerts next month? You get to decide, as long as it's within your income!

The same can go for your business. These are basic fees you'll need to pay every month to keep your business running. But on top of that, you can decide. Are there investments you'd like to make? Every month you can save up and make that purchase.

Rachel also wants us to know that having a visual is so important. You can't budget with numbers in your head, so write it down!

In business it's easy to grab a fancy tool or program, even if it's only $20 bucks a month; but if you have a ton of those tools and you aren't using them well, you're not being purposeful with money in your business.

Oh, and make sure your personal and business budgets are separate!

Growing Up As Dave Ramsey's Child

Rachel finds that a lot of people think she and her siblings grew up obsessed with money, talked about mutual funds over dinner, and went to budget camps in the summer. That's not the case! But her parents were intentional about teaching the Ramsey kids how money works in the ebb and flow of life. She thinks they did a great job of teaching common sense regarding money.

And she says Dave is a bit more animated and sassy on the radio for entertainment, but his passion and heart are true. And fun rants aside, she says Dave Ramsey as a CEO is very careful and deliberate.

When Rachel was 15 she remembers bouncing three checks at Hollister in the mall. And Dave made Rachel go to the bank and apologize to the executive bank branch manager for lying, as her dad called it--the lie being Rachel had told the bank she had money to spend, when she really didn't. Her overdraft fee was waved :) and she hasn't bounced a check since! It was a lesson well-taught and well-learned, with natural consequences that made sense.

Allowing Your Kids To Fail

Speaking of natural consequences, Rachel has some great insights about letting your kids fail. When a child can make small and inexpensive mistakes under mom and dad's protection, the lesson sticks. It's better to have a first money mistake be fairly insignificant, and far worse if the first time a child fails financially is taking a car loan when they can't afford it.

Rachel's Business Insecurities

Rachel has been surprised at the insecurities she's faced in her business.

Having worked at a phenomenal company like Ramsey Solutions for so long, she knows that she's in a bit of a bubble. But breaking more into the outside publishing and speaking world with her new book, she has faced some of those insecurities head on.

For example, writing is not her natural gift. She's not the most secure and confident when it comes to her writing. So having a book published from her big platform feels a bit intimidating! When she sees other people in her field sell more volume, she can start to feel discouraged.

But what keeps Rachel grounded is her why.

"My job is to bring hope to people with regard to their money. It isn't about me! It's about getting content to people and giving them hope in an area where they feel hopeless." When Rachel comes back to her why, it all makes sense.

And when she sees pictures on Instagram of people sharing her book, she's reminded that her readers don't care what list she's on or not on. Truly, what she cares about is THAT person changing their life. And it's hard to think about yourself when you're busy thinking of others.

So many of the things we care about, our customers don't care about. What they care about is getting a great product, or doing XYZ better thanks to our services. So we have to stay focused on our mission.

Rachel's Adorable Mom Moment

We know you moms will appreciate these little moments in Rachel's very normal "Mom" world. Just the other week, Rachel found POOP in her living room. Her daughter Amelia's diaper was on, but still there was poop by the fireplace! What!? How did that even get there!?

Rachel's daughter is 18 months and talks all the time. One night when Rachel and her husband needed to give their daughter medicine, Amelia looked up and said, "Medicine downstairs." And sure enough, it was! Such a prodigy, right!?

We love how Rachel lights up when Amelia is her subject! After all, we are all Moms first.

Stay in Touch with Rachel!

Site: RachelCruze.com
Twitter: @RachelCruze
Facebook: Rachel Cruze
YouTube: Rachel Cruze
Instagram: @rachelcruze