Money Archives - TinaOLife

Audio- #3 Story from the car- Value

April 24, 2020

These stories from the car are a listening in to one particular word we really want to dive into and today the word is VALUE.

Truthfully, I get hits on things when a word just rumbles in and doesn’t want to leave me.

So this word of value is what I invite us into today.

Even as I say value, it seems kind of mundane. Kind of boring. I have this box of chicken strips and two tubes of ground beef in the back of my car, and I am fortunate enough during this pandemic that the local pub has agreed to place orders on behalf of us islanders to offset the pressure on the general store, but also to keep us from having to go into the city to shop.

That is value.

But I’m also a single mom to three kids and I need to get value for my money. That’s a different kind of value. But it’s always an in and an out. Isn’t it?

Or is it?

Tina Overbury is a core-communications specialist who works with individuals and organizations who feel called. She is a storyteller, performer, and a professional listener who works with narrative and story structure as a vehicle for human connection. Her work is rooted in Myth, Mysticism, and the practice of personal faith. She brings thirty years of collaborative storytelling in theatre, film, marketing, team based selling, and workshop facilitation. She is the founder of Live Your Best Story, a weekend retreat of deep listening held on Bowen Island, BC, Canada and is the voice and story behind TinaOLife, home to Story Stones, TinaO’s online gathering of listening in to sacred stories. Tina is a proud associate of PowHERhouse media where she listens and supports the ‘stories’ of whole and integrated leaders of tomorrow.

If you would like to know more about Tina’s approach to story, click here.

That Money Thang #5 – VIDEO

November 1, 2016

Money, it’s been my silent partner for years.

Avoidance, there’s another one who has been taking up space as a stow-away and not so quiet friend of mine.

Worth, yuck, yup, that one is here too, she lives in my shoe laces because then I can hear two voices. On one foot I hear awesomeness, I know it, I own it, I rock it, and I celebrate it. When that lace speaks I’m totally there holding hands and stepping forward, but then there’s the other shoe…

You see, it depends on the subject I’m lacing up.

Have you ever put skates on a kid? I’m a hockey mom and while my husband has been running the sports department in our house for the last decade, we’re now out-numbered with our third getting on the ice this year so I’m the one in his locker room doing my darndest to keep his ankles from rolling in. Let’s just say that I’m doing a better job with his alternate foot than I am with mine.

I totally wobble with my self-worth in certain areas, specifically my resource of which we all have three: Our time, our money and our energy. I’ve been on a self-avoidance spending tare for years.

That Money Thang is my latest journey through this thing called life because as I’m sure you’ve heard me say before (and I didn’t come up with it), we’re here for two reasons: to LOVE and to LEARN and isn’t it fortunate that the very things we need to learn also deliver us the self-love required to make a radical shift in the icky sticky stuckness of our life.

This week’s That Money Thang sees me celebrating because after eight years of procrastinating over two overstuffed bags of contacts and long over due follow-up to and from business dealings I’ve had, I poured seven hours into cleaning them up. It’s kinda shocking that eight years of hiding and tolerating which btw is a total of 70,080 hours can be tidied up in only seven. I realize that I may have been sleeping for 50% of those hours but let’s be honest about that too – that kind of procrastination does not generate deep slumber. My body did get cancer remember? Hmmm… right, an immune system shut down with invitation for disease to move in, how did lack of sleep not contribute to that?

Never again.

Procrastination = Worry = Sleepless nights = Recycled self-loathing = Empty self-worth = Panic = Procrastination = Worry = Sleepless nights = …disease.

Never again.

Here’s my jubilant walk with my pup as I celebrate rockin’ my own value, and yes that pun was totally intended.

Are you getting my drift here? This thing called self-worth and procrastination and stuffing it and and and… it’s all connected.

Do you want to feel more value in your life?

Maybe you want to join me and eleven others with a similar experience for Live Your Best Story, a weekend retreat nestled in an ecological sanctuary just twenty minutes away from Horseshoe Bay, West Vancouver.

Three times per year I host LYBS a weekend retreat on Bowen Island for those who want to do just that: LIVE their BEST Story. We spend 36 hours together listening to the story within you that wants to be known, loved and honoured.

Nothing can move from a rocky shore until a King (or Queen) Tide comes in, and that tide is you and your self-love.

If this sounds intriguing or delicious to you, why not send me a message below or at tina@liveyourbeststory.com and we’ll set up a free inquiry call to find out more.

I believe in you.

I know you have love inside of you.

xxT

TinaO is a Core Story Specialist, a writer, speaker and the founder of TinaOLife – a hub for all things worth living for, and the workshop Live Your Best Story. She’s also a professional network marketer with a decade in the industry and she teaches: selling isn’t slimey and marketing isn’t make-believe. You can be yourself and be successful in Direct Sales.

That Money Thang #2 No Peace for me Today

August 20, 2016

I woke up feeling mad and trapped this morning. Lets be honest, as I have almost every morning this week (minus the two days I had a friend over and was so happy to be distracted with her awesomeness and her bright eyed kids), and geeze louise, it’s because I’ve finally answered the door and let the money monster in.

‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer’ as they say. No, money isn’t my enemy and all of you know it all money peeps who are prone to spout off all kinds of positive affirmation sound bytes can just relax. I know: money is just energy and it takes on whatever meaning we give it.

I get it.

What I’m really saying is that I’ve had an ‘if I ignore you long enough maybe you’ll just go away’ relationship with money for a long time and guess what? It did. Well, the dollars did, but the relationship didn’t.

Have you ever been the kid who pretends to be playing hide and seek? You know, the kid who hides wayyyyyyyyyy far away because she doesn’t want to play, doesn’t want to be found but also doesn’t want to say no to your game invitation either? That’s me. I’ve been in the money game forever but just pretending to play, slowly grumbling and sometimes even seething in the bushes.

That said, I have also been the all flashing teeth, bright eyes and POSITIVE mindset kid running running running and playing the game – one might even say I have WON a number of rounds of good ole hide and seek.

But that has never been sustainable for me. I always end up slipping away back to the bushes.

Interestingly enough, the kid I’ve never been is the one who is actually engaged in the game. You know, the kid who has chosen to play because she frickin’ loves the rules, loves the game, loves the win and can let loose in laughter when she loses. Oh my goodness, how many times have we heard, “it’s not about who wins or who loses, it’s about how you play the game”? – the secret sauce ain’t much of a secret is it? You gotta play, and more importantly, you gotta play like you wanna play, and when you do, sometimes you’ll win and sometimes you’ll lose but you’ll sure have a heck of a good time PLAYING…

Playing.

So that’s been my issue.

I don’t play. I’d really just rather not.

And when I do, I’m usually the reluctant player, and then worse, a judgemental player, and then worse than that – a resentful player.

Crap.

No wonder I woke up mad.

Ever feel like that???

The good news is, waking up to anything you’ve been hiding from will bring on all of the stages you’ve been avoiding. That’s called MOVING FORWARD. It’s just a blechhhhy part. No wonder I’ve been ignoring this whole mess.

Who wants to feel like this? Yet here it is.

So the deal is:

If I can overcome cancer, dehydration, radiation sickness and burn blisters in my throat, then grow through methodically building the muscle and endurance required to swim, bike and run a triathlon,

I guess I can walk through this fire too.

Oh boy, I guess I have a new mantra don’t I? But who wants to repeat that all the time? So instead, how about when you hear me say… “I can overcome…” – suffice it to say that I’m finishing the long windy proof in the pudding sentence in my head.

…I can do this too.

Even when I’m mad.

Today I’ll accept that being mad is just kinda like living out the feelings of being blistered.

Here are my musings – in the moment. Don’t worry, I’m rather contained. I gave the worst of it to Todd on our daily Saturday morning drive to the boat.

xxT

TinaO is a writer, speaker and the founder of TinaOLife – a hub for all things worth living for, the workshop Live Your Best Story, and her coaching practice: Tall Poppy Living. She’s also a professional network marketer with a decade in the industry and with her Tall Poppy Living for Network Marketers Coaching Program, she teaches: selling isn’t slimey and marketing isn’t make-believe. You can be yourself and be successful in Direct Sales.

That Money Thang #1 – Enough is Enough

August 16, 2016

Enough is Enough I said.

So this is where it all begins, or continues. I don’t know anymore. Oh mannnn my relationship with money is like a best selling romance novel – there’s hot and steamy sexy bits with page upon page of anticipation only to be dashed into sleepless nights and heartbreak in the end. It seems drama has kept me coming back for more every single time. How like a twenty-something I am, except I’m 45.

It’s not like I was raised with victim-ish helplessness around paying the bills. There was no yelling or tears or even deathly silence over our dinner table, but rather the clear unavoidable acceptance of just goin’ with the flow, accepting that what we have is all we need and bloody hell, we’ll survive just fine thanks. It’s those debilitating don’t ask don’t tell claws that have messed with my financial psyche. In our house both awesomely good and stupidly nasty surprises like: layoffs, dying cars, bad gambles and winning the legion meat draw happened, so our rag tag bunch of mis-matched sibling (eleven of us, some kids, some not), all pretty much learned not to invest in anything too deeply. Listen, our sandcastle got built up and kicked down daily in an exploding second. What’s to invest in? Why bother? It’s going to be all good right? It all finds its way? It all works out in the end…? Right?

Maybe.

So today, at 45yrs old, after growing up blue-collar broke, then saddled with theatre school student loan debt in my twenties, claiming bankruptcy after a failed marriage in my pre-thirties, making ‘gangsta’ big cash in my forties in the network marketing industry and now starting all over again after a career change, cancer and just plain craziness, it’s time to take on my money story. I think it’s probably a good idea to get that handled before I’m a half century old.

It’s time to step into my story as the main character instead of watching it unfold like a jaded audience member. Now there’s a frickin’ journey I have wished would just happen without me needing to be involved. Wouldn’t that be nice? Mmmmm imagine if financial freedom was as simple as picking a box full of donuts.

Apparently it doesn’t work like that.

So, here’s where it begins.

Champagne was needed.

If this speaks to you, follow along. I’ll be introducing you to my four financial avengers and support team in the weeks to come. They’ll be lifting my confused head out of my own ahemmmmm… you know what, for the next while.

They’re really cool. I think I’m going to buy them each an avenger cape with all the money I save over the next year. I’m sure they won’t let me be so frivolous.

You see, I have a big hairy audacious goal.

I want to buy a house in the Lower Mainland in the next two years. We have no savings, lots of debt, and a double income that adds up to just a single one – currently, but it looks like I’m going to change that. Remember that gangsta money I earned once before? Well, if I can do it once, I can do it again.

I think I just had to GIVE UP first. Clearly what I was doing wasn’t sustainable, and broken dreams cost more than unrealized ones.

So here’s to financial freedom. To what it really means, and not the lip service everyone seems to give it. I’ll write more about that later.

Come with…They say financial empowerment feels pretty good. I’m up for that.

xxT

A Face, Heart and a Dream

January 8, 2016

Tonight a handful of team members from my network marketing biz are gathering at Xenia Retreat Centre for a Mastermind Retreat away into their business and their lives.

We’ll eat (always). We’ll talk (of course) about how we can live more healthfully and passionately. We’ll dig in (needed) to the areas of our business that are clunky and beg for attention. We’ll get clear about what goals/targets/intentions really matter to us and what we’re willing to truly show up for this year. We’ll sharpen our skills (stretch always) and we’ll take on this live/work balance conundrum that is so personal to each of us. We’ll lift each other up because it’s often easier to see greatness in others before we can see it in ourselves.

It’s just another day at the office – rich and challenging because none of us ‘have’ to go to this work, we choose it instead. Wow, it’s so much easier to procrastinate our way out of that isn’t it? It’s a business of people, as in we get paid when we sell stuff to people and when we nurture and coach people too (which isn’t everybody’s natural skill set and it takes time to learn) – makes it complicated. A lot of us struggle with getting paid when there’s ‘people’ involved! ack! How can that be fair or honest? Here’s the thing I’ve learned over a decade in the industry, it’s actually the most honest work I can do. When there’s a face, a heart, a dream, or a family on the other side of what I do, it is my deep privilege to show up. These are people after-all, not faceless ‘team members and prospects’. Crazyyyy but my best friends have come from this business. These are the people who have walked through personal and professional fires with me and I with them. I don’t need to get paid for that, but wow, what an illogical bonus that I do.

Whatever you do for a living, my wish for every single one of us is that wherever you are Monday to Friday and beyond, that you’re part of a community, you belong, you love and are loved. That’s real wealth.

xxT