Career

It’s time to change your relationship with money

Kimberly Sumner left behind her banking career to help women transform their relationship with money. She shares her tips on how to make sure you’re getting what you’re worth.

“Transforming people’s relationship with money is transforming their relationship with themselves,” says women’s ‘prosperity mentor’ Kimberly Sumner.

“Women sometimes struggle to put themselves forward for a pay rise or even to just claim their value. I think the traditional model for getting ahead and wanting for things is quite a masculine way of doing it. It’s not working for us.”

Fear-driven decisions

“Often women will accept less than they’re worth because they want to keep the peace. But sometimes it comes down to that fear that ‘if they don’t hire me/pay me, I’m not sure anyone would.’ Fear-driven action never gets you anywhere. But when you own your own value, people recognise it.

“For women, money and prosperity are not about a theoretical number, they’re about the feelings. If you’re in a position where you need to negotiate, ask yourself, ‘What do I want that prosperity for?’ Is it that you want security for your family – what does that mean for your family? It’s not about the numbers; it’s not about the status for women.”

Kimberly Sumner

The emotion of money

“What I’ve found with my clients is that the biggest results we get are when we look beyond the strategy and the numbers and look at the behavioural stuff that’s going on: the ‘money wobbles’. The way we look at money, it can be a very emotionally charged thing.

We think: ‘This comes easily to me, so how can I charge for it?’. Or ‘If I’m wanting this or that, I’m just a bad person.’ ‘People who have a lot of money are just very selfish and greedy’.

“The thing is, you need money. You need it to get your voice out there, you need it to support yourself. You need money to give yourself energy. You need money to feed your family. Putting it into the wider context can help give women the confidence to ask for what they are worth.”

More money, more freedom

“Prosperity also means having time to take care of yourself. I’ve had times when money was tight, and I have been in situations when I’ve had no money – and I know how hard you work when you have no money. But that doesn’t also make you the most caring person because you go into survival mode. The great thing about prosperity is that it allows you to give yourself space.”

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