These transcripts are AI-generated, and spelling may not be 100% accurate (especially for names, places, and methodologies).
so that’s been my biggest learning of being able to understand
we do the things that we do because that’s what we know
and sometimes our clients do this in their business lives
people do it in their own general day to day lives
it’s because we’re creatures of habit
and sometimes
it’s around recognising what those things are that no longer serve us
and that can take a little bit of not going to say hand holding
but just asking the right questions
and my job is never to correct people
but it’s to help you to find what the right answer is for you
because it’s not a one size fits all
we’re all completely beautifully perfectly imperfect
we’re all very different in life
and what might suit one person does not suit another
but I can sometimes
help to figure out what those things are that don’t serve you
because when you’re stuck in it
you can be stuck in it and not see
Hello and welcome to The Healthy Business Lab podcast
where we usually interview other allied health practice owners
get their stories and their insights
but we’re also building into our community
as I’ve been introduced to so many people
people who work with those in the space as well
and because this person today is an absolute amazing individual
and is a mentor to me as well
I had to get her on so Kim Macdonald from
Kim Macdonald and Co
welcome to the call today
Hi Craig! Thanks for having me
I’m so pleased to be here
yeah so good to have you on board
and knowing that you’ve worked with people in the health and wellness
space I thought it was very appropriate to get you on for a discussion
because as I touched upon there
Kim is my Quality Mind mentor
and we’ve been connected now for many years
through many different spaces and the like
and I’d love for you just to share a little bit about yourself
and what you do again
I love your tagline of mastering your money
mind and life for unstoppable success
and so with that as a e
I’d love you to share to our listeners
a little bit more about yourself and your background
well yeah
as you know I’m Kim McDonald
and I guess my biggest thing is that I’m a money and mindset mentor
and that encompasses a whole lot of things just within itself
so I tend to work a lot with business owners
and the breadwinners of the family
which are those people that are
the ones that may look successful on the outside
but quietly they’re really struggling on the inside
about all the things that they’re managing to handle every day
so they might be the ones that lay in bed at night
staring at the ceiling at 3:00am
stressing out about money
and not being able to share the information with their partner
or they might be laying in the bed alone with
if their partners being elsewhere or being completely a solo parent
they’re the people that I love to work with
because I’ve been down that road myself
and it’s been a really big journey for me in my business
a bit of a backstory is
I’ve been in business for well over 15 years now
and my business evolved significantly over that time
starting as being
a BAS agent or a bookkeeper as lots of people know us as
and then having that business and having staff
and growing and shrinking
and changing and evolving and all the things that come with that
and especially during some really awesome years there of Covid
and all the things that went with that
and then yes selling my business and stepping fully into mentoring
because that’s really what I was doing by the end of it anyway
so I found that the biggest way
to help people was actually listening to them and understanding
the things that they were going through
and that was a reflecting with their business
so I could help them from a numbers perspective
but then also help them with the mindset that goes along with that
that’s an awesome background and introduction to where we generally
go next with our conversations
because again
you’ve highlighted that evolution of what
you’ve done
and coming from the financial background where
you know we often do see
once you start pulling back that curtain
it’s quite often
a very emotional space
there’s people laying themselves there so to speak
and they are the conversations that we often end up having
I know we talk about here financial brain care
because we do often step into that being a sounding board
and people money touches upon so many aspects of life
so I love to hear your evolution there
and some of the learnings that you had
have you as you were
transitioning away from sort of some of the transactional stuff
at the bookkeeping profession does provide
which is much needed
but as you started to lean more into that supportive role
I say lean into more
I know that you used to do that in the first place anyway
but were you taking that sort of next step
sort of what was your thinking
and some of the learnings around that time
as you were transitioning yourself
with how you’re providing support to your people
that’s a really great question
I guess the evolution of that started as I went from bookkeeping
so to speak and having management meetings with my clients
and sitting them down
and showing them these amazing reports that
I’ve done up
and then asking them questions about it
and then showing them
this is the profit we’ve got and this is how much
and I’ll be like I just don’t get it
like where’s my money and the shame
the guilt
and just the heaviness that those conversations would lead to
and it was in those moments
so this this was many
many years ago but this
it was in those moments I felt I
I really needed more tools myself to be able to help people see
I was removing all emotion from these figures
and I’d forgotten that my clients were not able to do that
because they were so stuck in it
and this was their day to day life
this was the thing that they were not shutting off from at all
and so it was in those moments I went
I actually need some more tools
and I really started to
lean Into and learn more about the human brain and our behavior
and all the things that come along with understanding money
from a behavioral perspective
as well
so I started to transition that through with my clients and from there
obviously started to learn a whole lot more about the brain as well
not just to do with money and our behaviours
but encompassing everything in life
and also how that then shows up in every aspect of life
and as I was implementing those things
as I was learning them my life began to change and I went
oh wow
this is kind of really important stuff
and I really would love to share this with more people
so that’s kind of how it transitioned
and has changed into how I support my clients now
yes we may still go through numbers
some people I don’t
some people we don’t even talk about numbers at all
it’s got nothing to do with their physical finances
it’s actually the way that they show up in life
and money can be sometimes a part of that
yeah that’s so true
and again
we’ve seen very similar things out in there
in the world from the financial e
but
I would like to just touch upon that
you touch upon behaviours as well
and for those that can see us
the Profit First book that’s over my shoulder
you’re a fellow Profit First professional there
I’d love to just touch upon that a little bit there
around the human behaviours
and that sort of lead into pulling back the curtain
and having people understand that idea of well hey
books and numbers black and white
they’re looking great but the emotion
I was like
I’m still churning there’s still a lot going on there
I know that’s one of the tools in your tool kit to help people
how have you found that helps bridge that conversation
between the black and white versus the emotional side
I think
one of the really big things that we started to work on with clients
was yes
although their numbers may have been looking great
on reports and things
and the owners may have been sitting there feeling kind of okay
they were kind of lacklustre
it was feeling like they were in Groundhog Day
it was literally rinse and repeat every single day
they were missing out on things with to do with their family
and it was kind of like they just needed to keep pushing and pushing
and pushing for this success
and when we sat and actually talked about
what does success look like for you
a lot of people actually couldn’t even answer that
they didn’t even know
but they knew that what they were doing was what they thought
they needed to do and so
it was diving into the behaviours
and the thoughts and the processes that happen at that point
to start to look at okay
well what is actually the purpose of your business
what is the purpose of you showing up every day
apart from doing a job that you may or may not
love because sometimes when you get to that lackluster point
it’s like
you start to become resentful for all the work that you’re putting in
and you’re missing out on the other things
so it was really about diving into those kind of questions
and understanding well
have you taken a minute to stop and consider where you’re at right now
in life is this what you were actually wanting to do
or has it just been you’ve continued to follow the bouncy ball
and life has kind of happened at you
rather than you being part of it
yeah, I love those insights there
and I love the word that just kept on point jumped out at me was that
lackluster feeling and
you mentioned it a couple times
and it’s such a feeling that I know I’ve experienced that
in my life
it’s a very natural thing
but it’s also then identifying that and joining those dots between
well what’s happening
in the numbers through to well
what’s the impact of that
and as you then sort of touched upon
people not knowing
in the deeper conversations about where they’re going
I was just picturing in my head
it’s something very similar to
I guess
Allied Health business owners who are very person centred approach
looking at that
and seeing the insights of what their clientele are doing
and then going well
how do we tie the dots between that which again
I think interestingly where you then went for your next
sort of phase was around that
going deeper into the brain that you touched upon there
and I love to sort of progress in as you sort of started to work in
move into
the Quality Mind world and share a little bit about that opening
I guess and how that all sort of evolved as well
yeah it’s such our brains are such incredible things aren’t they
like they unbelievably so I was going to say you get mind blown
but it’s kind of like a pun
but not a pun
because literally the stuff that goes on in our heads is incredible
and I think my biggest learning
as part of evolving throughout this whole personal development space
and learning more about myself
and being able to help my clients
has been understanding the patterns and behaviours that I had
and all of the programming that’s happened to me
in our life at each and every one of us
we’re born into this world a completely blank slate
apart from our actual processes of knowing how to breathe and
our heartbeats we don’t have to think about these things
but literally we’re a blank slate
and the only way we can learn things is for people to teach us things
sometimes those things are amazing
like don’t put your hand on the hot plate
cause you’re going to get burnt
keep you safe type stuff
sometimes it can be fears that have been leading that person
their entire life is then put through onto you
so one of my amazing realisations of this was as a child
we’re all taught to kind of not speak to strangers right
so growing up I lived in a really small country town
which was great you don’t talk to strangers
that’s okay I don’t need to
cause my brothers were older
they knew everyone
so I pretty much knew most of the people around me anyway
but then when I moved to a really big city
which I considered a big city
coming from a five and a half thousand population town
I was like
I can’t talk to strangers
I was a teenager nearly in my 20’s at this stage
and I found it so incredibly hard to be able to even apply for jobs
because I was like I don’t
I feel really uncomfortable talk
making conversation with people I’ve never met before
now I did not know that
this was the thing that was patterning in this program
right at this time in my life
it’s only now that I can reflect back
but also then as I got into my own business
and going to networking events and things like that
and going to a networking event
showing up and going and standing in the corner for the whole time
because I’m like yes
I’ve got here I walk out and I’m like
I haven’t spoken to anyone
but I’ve been to a networking event
what is this because they’re all strangers
they’re all strangers and I’m like
how’s that working out for you Kim
it’s not really so it’s understanding the things that we’re taught
that some things can continue to serve us and some things don’t
it’s okay to let them go they got us safe there
let us up to that time and it’s we’re allowed to make changes
we are totally in charge of our own lives and the choices that we make
including our thoughts
and a lot of people aren’t aware that we can change our thoughts
we totally can
because beliefs are simply a thought that we just keep having
okay if a belief’s not great
let’s change that thing
so that’s been my biggest learning of being able to understand
we do the things that we do because that’s what we know
and sometimes our clients do this in their business lives
people do it in their own general day to day lives
it’s because we’re creatures of habit
and sometimes
it’s around recognising what those things are that no longer serve us
and that can take a little bit of not going to say hand holding
but just asking the right questions
and my job is never to correct people
but it’s to help you to find what the right answer is for you
because it’s not a one size fits all
we’re all completely beautifully perfectly imperfect
we’re all very different in life
and what might suit one person does not suit another
but I can sometimes
help to figure out what those things are that don’t serve you
because when you’re stuck in it
you can be stuck in it and not see
the things that no longer serve you yeah
the whole peeling back of the onion
isn’t it at the right time and being able to see those layers
identify those layers because of you’ve seen this however many times
hundreds of times before and unpacking that
and it’s always easy being that external source at the end of the day
as an individual
we always struggle to see internally what’s going on around us
and it’s always been hard to get to that sort of little
helicopter view and
the key thing that
I sort of took away there is that identifying what’s not serving us
because we do the old analogy of
the tractor wheels just following
the previous tractor wheels because they get so deep
it’s just easier to there than to turn out of it
and it’s really hard to get out of those tractor wheels
I’m not sure if that’s one that I did hear from the
Quality Mind program is it you step this through
but I think it’s a very interesting one
so if we’re talking about that idea of identifying what’s not serving
us and you know
maybe a couple of strategies to help people sort of
start to identify these things
where would you have them sort of start
I think the biggest thing is
if you consistently have something that comes up in your thoughts
we all have this little internal dialogue that runs along in our day
and some people don’t some people have a feeling what the thing is
it’s a highlight to tell you
is there something that’s not right,
right now
so an example of this is with some of my clients
when we’re talking about money specifically
I asked them so when they go to tap their card to pay for something
what’s the first thing that pops up into their mind
as they go to pay for it and is it different for different things
so if they’re buying groceries compared to going to get a massage
compared to going and buy something for the car
what’s the thought that comes up
and then afterwards what’s the thought
so ooh I can’t tell anyone about this or do you say to your kids
don’t tell your mum or don’t tell your dad
I’ve just done that like
cause they’re the kind of little things that you go alright
if that’s coming up that means that there’s a belief here
so what is that belief
it’s around continuing to ask the question but why do I believe this
because majority of the time as I was touching on earlier
that pre programming stage happens between 0 to 7
7 to 14 and for money things
it can be into your 20’s but the thing with that is okay
can I hear my mum in what I’m saying here
can I hear my dad in what I’m saying here
is this actually my thing or is this something someone else’s thing
so the very first step is actually recognising what the belief is
and then the second step is whose belief is it
love that on so many levels
such a brilliantly powerful
you know tying it to habits of
that we’re all using our cards or our phones or whatever to
pay for things these days
if just tying that to what is that feeling
what is that feeling that be in the moment before
in that moment after as well
because there’s psychology out there around that
the immediate buyers remorse idea that we all have it in some form
but if we actually attach the feeling to the emotion
and then also understand well
is that mine or is it the generational impact
or the education or the marketing message that might come in
and it’s like all this person said or whatever it is
at least then we can start to
you need a diagnosis at the end of the day to be able to
be able to do anything and I sort of my mind always goes to that idea
so what’s the things
what do we need to diagnose
I love that that’s so cool yeah
and it shows up in so many different ways in our life too
it’s not I just use money as that example
because it’s an easy one that people can relate to
but I don’t know about you as a child
one of the other stories I was continually told is
when I was sitting down to eat dinner
that if I didn’t eat all the food that was on my plate
that there was children in Africa that were dying of starvation
and somehow that link between me not eating all my food
meant that someone was going to die
and for me that was terrifying as a child growing up
I’m like oh my god
I must eat everything
even if I was full or even if I really did not like the food
so we were being taught that we must always listen
and must do all the things
but actually
what that let it into my life was actually a case of overeating
every time I went out anywhere
or every time someone served food up for me
I would make sure I would eat everything on the plate
because of children dying and stuff
because that’s not okay
and then that was a really big learning for me to go
oh my gosh I’m going so far beyond what I’m comfortable with
simply because of a belief
of something that actually makes no logical sense
at all but it continued well through into my 20’s and 30’s
and it was only the last kind of five to six years
I’ve really recognised that one go
oh my gosh I actually don’t need to finish all the food on my plate
it’s okay to not I don’t have to eat it all yeah
but that’s what I’m saying
it’s these things show up in so many different ways in our life
yeah well
but it’s starting to recognise them
and that’s the thing I think generally as human beings
we are so eager to get into our day and we just do the things
yep without really questioning or looking at well
how are we actually showing up and doing the things every day yeah
so many great insights
I think that the self awareness the insights at slowing down
it’s taking the pauses and just being conscious and aware of them
again you touch upon the dinner table there
I know it’s something that been very conscious of around here
my example is not quite similar
but I know it’s that component of the manners at the table
or all those sorts of little things
and I was about to say something the other night and I was just like
hang on a second no
that’s definitely just come down from previous generations
but because I have been practicing and again
never perfect but always working on that
what’s the pause
why is you know our dinner table is very different out there
we’re luckily to have two to three of us in our five household
here at the dinner table all eating different stuff
because it’s just people that can’t handle or cope
and those things so it is an interesting thing of just that awareness
and so I’d love for you to share a little bit more
I guess I’ve sort of talked about some of
the concepts that you talk about it with Quality Mind
love for you to just share a bit more of
a broader outline of Quality Mind and I guess even the program
and what steps through cause it was only the other day on the weekend
as I was doing a bunch of decluttering and
you know I’ve always been conscious of decluttering is kind of good
and the like but it is something that stood out
from the early part of working with you
around mindset and Quality Mind and the like
and just unpacking that over the weekend
I just like ah it’s just so freeing
so I’d love for you to share some of the
some of the stages and the things that you touch upon
and work through in quality of mind
just so that our listeners have a bit of an idea of
the framework that goes around this way of thinking
yeah for sure
it’s quite an involved process and program that we go through
and I guess the thing with it is
such a great program that you can come in and do it once
and then get loads out of it
you can come in and do it again and you’ll get the next lot out of it
because no matter how many times we’re taught or told something
or we hear something until we’re really ready to hear it
we’re not going to get it so
as part of the journey of going through a Quality Mind transformation
is first
we get in and we recognise all the things that have our programming
as I was just saying earlier
starting to recognise how we’re showing up
what are the things that are getting us stuck
then we start to go through well
how do we actually change that
because it is quite an easy process to change it
it just takes repetition
and as you were saying earlier with the tractor tires
it’s okay we can make a whole new path
it just takes the repetition and the practice
and making sure that it’s happening consistently for it to change
so we go through recognising
we go through
starting to clean out all of the old thoughts that no longer serve us
and starting to create the new ones
then we start to go through the process well
what happens if we actually want to design our life
like what happens
if we don’t want to just show up and be living life
as it’s happening to us what if we actually want to start to do things
and dare we dream to have a really incredible life
what happens if we do that
so we start to go through the process
well if you were to dream a big life
what might that look like
and what are the things and the behaviours
and the thoughts that we might need to help grow
and establish with that to help you to achieve it
so we go through the cleaning down and as you were saying earlier
the decluttering component of it is quite massive
and we do that from a number of perspective angles
physically cleaning out spaces actually helps to give us more energy
but also then mentally decluttering thoughts
behaviours things that don’t no longer serve us
help to make way for the new and that’s the whole thing
when we create space we can bring new things in
so this is how the Quality Mind program works
it’s really about understanding where you’re at
wherever you show up at and it’s not about forgetting the past
it’s not about being judgmental on the past
it’s recognising that that’s okay
got you to where you are now
and we’re going to start to change things slightly or significantly
depending on where you’re at
to create the life that you really dream of so good
that’s such a good summary
and in obviously a short space of time for the breadth of what you do the days covered
and the big thing I wrote down that I just sort of scribble
big circle around
was that whole idea of designing life and designing business as well
for our business owners out there
that is so interrelated business and life
the ability to be able to do that from decluttering
clearing out the space to create new it is just brilliant
and you touch upon there
it’s the transformations and
and we love to talk about transformations here
so I’d love to hear an example that sort of sticks in your mind
from the work that you’ve done with
the Quality Mind side of things
and creating some of those transformations
we got an example there for us quite a few actually oh
I’m going to touch back on
the discussion I was saying earlier around myself
around not talking to strangers
throughout one of my sessions with one of my clients
I was doing both Quality Mind
and we were doing some Profit First work as well
so working on both and the story goes that as a child
this person they lived in a different country
and him and his brother used to have to take the bus every
weekend to go to one of their practices
I think it was piano practice or something
and because he was little
and money was a little bit tight in the family
they were only given enough money for one seat on the bus
so he had to sit on his brother’s knee
for the whole duration of the trip whatever
so then as he got older they said well okay
now you’ve both got to go and sit on the bus
so this is the very first time he’s been given his own coin
to go on the bus
and he was so excited to be able to have his seat on the bus
by himself and as he’s going across the road
the coin just flips out of his hand and goes down the drain
and he’s standing there in disbelief
he’s like they can’t get the coin
it’s gone like it’s totally gone
and his brother turns to him and says
oh my gosh
you cannot be trusted with money
now as a child
you may think that’s an okay thing to say
because you say you’ve got to be careful with your money
however as an adult
this story has led him so many years
and been the precipice for so many decisions that he’s made
that majority of the time
he was spending money before he’d even received it
because he didn’t trust himself to have the money in the account
and so our transformation was from going one
the recognition that he could
trust himself with his own money was huge
and then it was that what are the strategies that we put in place
to help you support that new belief
because it’s great to say it
but then if there’s a part of you that doesn’t really believe it
like kind of calls bullshit
you’ve got to have the things to follow up with it
and how do you get that confidence
yeah how do you
absolutely and sometimes you need to borrow a bit of confidence to go
okay I’m I kind of it’s safe for me to do this
it’s okay I’m going to be okay
it’s my own money I can hold it
the process through that and to be able to shift his belief
through that has led to him having
his business growth in the last 12 months has been incredible
he’s got more money in the bank than he’s ever had in his life
he’s actually creating a personal wealth pot as well
and has been able to do travel and all the things
and it’s his own money
he’s not actually using money that he didn’t actually have beforehand
to be able to do these things
it’s his own money he’s not going backwards to go forwards
so that’s probably been one of the biggest one
and it’s that learning that belief that set it in the first place
another example I had with a client was that
she could not bring herself
to raise her prices and when we went through and discussed well
why is it that you can’t ask for money
it was because she was taught
she was never allowed to ask for money as a child like okay
so that’s kind of not working out for you real well
now when was the last time you put your prices up
five years ago because probably not going to work so then we went okay
so if you could put your prices up what would that be
she landed on an extra $2.50 per service I’m like hmm yeah
wow again it was that process of really stretching it out
and then finding a place where she was comfortable
and you know we jumped it up $15 and nobody batted an eyelid no
she didn’t lose a single client
but it was that process that we had to get through
and the mind shift and the stories
and the beliefs that needed to be kind of unpicked a little bit
yep and the worthiness
and the support that needed to be put in place to go actually
I can do this and I can do it comfortably
I’m okay to do this so
that’s kind of probably been a couple of my biggest transformation
ones love those on so many levels
which again which just sort of summarise the
steps that you’ve talked about on the discussion today
I got shivers I got the goosebumps
and that’s always a good sign for me
and a good way to round out one of our chats
and we could talk for hours here on end
but we will wrap that up here
I’d love for you to be able to share now how people can connect you
with you where’s the best place for people to find you
to be able to keep learning more about what you’re doing
where you’re doing it and how you can help people yeah
sure thanks for that
so I’ve got my website kimmacdonald.com.au and
you can connect with me there
I’m on Facebook as well Kim Macdonald & Co
I am on LinkedIn a little bit kinda still
still tippin my toes in the water with that one there
but yes I am around and by all means
you can always email me directly at kimmacdonald.com.au
I’m out there to serve and to help people through these little
mindset things that get us stuck awesome
really appreciate you sharing those details and as always
we’ll put those in the show notes so that people can connect
and I highly recommend following Kim’s content
and also reaching out for a chat
because you’re going to get loads of value
there’s so many little nuggets in there already that even
I’m taking away even having worked with Kim for a bunch of time
there’s always something new as Kim alluded to in the chat
doesn’t matter how many times we see or hear something
sometimes we just need to be open to it at that point in time
and so I recommend you reaching out
thank you again Kim for your time
it’s so appreciated at the end of the day
Thank you so much for having me Craig!
Happy to be here
good stuff
and so that’s a wrap here from The Healthy Business Lab podcast
and as always make sure you like and subscribe
and we’ll see you and hear you and hear from us
as I jibber away to wrap up this chat here
over and out from us here at The Healthy Business Lab Podcast