Welcome to Lucra(tive)™

Dear Subscribers of Lucra, Sean Stephenson, and yours truly, Mindie Kniss,

(This means you previously signed up for our mailing list at one of these sites: Lucra.com, TheDailyRage.co, SeanStephenson.com, MindieKniss.com)

Welcome to the home of my new newsletter, Lucra(tive)™, where I’ll muse on everything from money and meaning to mindset and magic.

You’ll hear stories of my adventures (from entrepreneurship, to travel, to being married to Sean Stephenson 😂 — those of you who knew Sean know that he is still very much present.) I’ll share tips and insights I’ve gathered along the way.

To get this thing started, Amanda reached out to me recently about her money situation and, with her permission, I wanted to share my response with you.

Hi Mindie,

My name is Amanda and I have been following you for quite some time. I love your content and your vibe. I am also a huge fan of Sean and his content as well. I literally cried in the middle of Starbucks when I found out he passed away in 2019.

So, I have a question or a need for advice…I am in a situation…when you talk about your previous struggles with money and your money story, I found there to be many parallels with my own story. Long story short, I just turned 37 years old, I am married with two young boys. My family life is full of love, I work full time from home and my husband works a full-time job as a Village Manager for a local suburban municipality. We are busy, we make decent money together, but in all honesty, we are living paycheck to paycheck most days. It feels miserable, like I am in a hole I can’t get myself out of. And the most frustrating part is, I am very smart, I’ve tried my hand in entrepreneurship in my late twenties before I had kids, but I didn’t see it through to make anything of it. As a result, I’ve invested thousands of dollars on education, coaches, programs all to just work for someone else and barely make ends meet some days. (daycare costs and educational debt is the bulk of where our income goes…) I also filed for bankruptcy in early 2021 to help with some of the debt. I wasn’t proud of it, but it was much needed for our family at the time. Given this information, I am looking for the best practical direction…I am obviously not trying to leave my job right now, I am looking for the best path that isn’t going to take me a long time… to make more money…roughly $2K-$5K extra a month to begin paying down some existing debts, and to eventually get to a point where I am working for myself doing what I love, bringing in more money. Is there a specific program of yours you recommend? Would trading be a good option to learn about right now? Or should I go back to the drawing board of creating my own course to monetize it. (even though I know there is a lot of resistance on my part to work on there…I’ve done a lot of inner work…) I’ve always struggled a bit with truly putting myself out there and owning my worth…

Thank you so much for your help!

Amanda

Hey Amanda,

Thank you for being real about your situation. That’s not easy.

But it also shows me you’re ready to do something about it. To get ahead in this game, we absolutely have to become truth-tellers about where we’re at right now.

So that’s awesome. But here’s the bad news… There isn’t necessarily a quick fix.

When I started my coaching business in 2007, I was on the struggle bus for years. It’s only that I stuck with it that I was able to hit the 6-figure mark in 2014 and grow from there.

How did I do it? I read everything I could find about money mindset. That was all very enlightening about my own limiting beliefs, but do you know what would have made the process go a lot faster? Just making sales.

Making money has a funny way of silencing some of those old money stories. Then, of course, you’ll also need to deal with the deserving aspect and potential fear of success, but at least you have more money!

That’s why I teach my students to sell their programs before they even create them. Why waste the time and energy if a) you’re not going to finish it anyway or b) no one buys the finished product?

What made the biggest difference for me was beginning to sell online courses in 2014. I go through all of that in Lucrative Courses™ and if you were looking for one of my programs, that’s the fastest way I know to teach people to start making money.

But it sounds like you may have had similar coaching or programs in the past so my guess is that you’re probably at the point where you need to be like Nike and “Just do it.”

Here’s the thing though… None of that will matter if your heart isn’t in it. Just making more money isn’t a big enough “why” to do this stuff.

So my question to you (and to everyone reading this) is “What do you really want to do?”

If you don’t have a clear path forward, it can lead to a lot of wandering about. There’s a time and a place for that in everyone’s life, but it sounds like you’re ready to actually make something happen.

Regarding trading, I’d only recommend you get into it if you’re actually interested in trading — in other words, if you can see yourself doing it long-term and you like that vision. Many people lose A LOT of money while they’re learning to trade so if you don’t love it, you’ll have a lot more frustration and a lot less money.

Trading fits my lifestyle and personality so, for me, it was worth slogging through the learning curve.

My guess is that you have everything you need to get started.

So get clear about what you want, chart a course to get there, and get after it. ✨