Paco:

No matter what you charge for your hourly rate, the issue there is that you're having a conversation where you're trading time for money. And the reason why I don't think that works is because if you've had 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 years of experience, not only do you have 25 years of good experience and wins, but you've had a tremendous amount of losses and failures and you've made a ton of mistakes. And I think that can be best reflected in the project rate.

Chris:

I got a confession I want to make to you right now. I love to make money, but I hate accounting. Okay, so maybe we'll just put that out there. I know you talk a lot about the emotional energy, how we feel about money and all that kind of stuff, but it's exciting to me to solve a big problem. It's not so exciting to me to look at the numbers where I'm like, oh, here's where every dollar, every cent goes. And my trick in life in order not to have to deal with the bookkeeping stuff is to make so much money and have so much profit margin it won't even matter.

Paco:

I don't disagree with you in a lot of ways. I call that the fire hose strategy, which I also implement in my own business because it does make things easier, right? Having money doesn't make all your problems go away, but it makes a lot of them go away and it makes a lot of friction go away. So I can see where you're coming from there. I also have a confession to make. I too, I don't jump out of bed in the morning and think, I can't wait to reconcile my accounts or I'm going to-

Chris:

Shut up, get out of town. You don't wake up thinking that, come on

Paco:

Nope. I kind of accidentally fell into finance more because my time was running out in college and I am first generation, so my parents are immigrants. Everybody in their generation are immigrants. And I saw working class people and middle class people and they really instilled those values. And it was like if you were serious and you wanted to make money, you became a doctor or went into the medical field. And when I was surveying my options, I was like, there's no way, me and blood not going to happen. Also, it seems like you have to do a lot of work and I'm not into that. You got to go to extra school, not for me. And I was like, but these people doing finance, no offense, but they don't seem that smart and they seem to wear nice suits. They go to an air-conditioned office all day long, they think and type on a computer.

That's for me. Then I can go home and play in my band and just do whatever I want to do. So I chose finance as like this kind of like safety net. It's practical. I could always fall back on it. I'll always be employable. And the one thing I'm really good at is just gritting my teeth and showing up despite how I'm feeling. That has its pros and has its cons. And I think I did that enough times over enough years. I learned enough that one day I could just see it from a completely different perspective and instead of it feeling like, oh, this is a burden and I hate it and I want to turn my back on it and I want to run away from it, I realized I actually don't really like it that much. I have a high tolerance for boring things and for pain, but I bet you there's a bunch of really interesting, cool, creative people who are doing really fascinating things in the world and they need help with their money.

Is there a way that I can have my cake and eat it too, where I can speak this language and be this person, but then I get to meet cool people and not have to hang out with accountants all day long?

Chris:

Okay, I'm going to call your confession and raise you a confession.

Paco:

Okay.

Chris:

I'm going to share another confession with you. In high school, I didn't have a lot of direction. I didn't know what I was supposed to do. And also first generation immigrant myself. And I took an aptitude test. I took an aptitude test and it told me I was supposed to be an accountant or a stockbroker. And I'm like, this must be my life. This is my destiny. And for the same reasons in which you said, which was I want to work by myself on, I'm an introvert. I like machines, I like logic. And luckily something intervened and I was introduced to the concept of a professional working artist called the graphic designer. And that was my salvation ray of light that pulled me in a totally different direction, but I would've probably warmed up where you did for a period of time had I followed that path. So it's quite interesting that you had this love for music and you tolerate finance and accounting as a way to be a professional adult in real life, right?

Paco:

Yeah. But I raged against it clearly, and obviously as much as I thought being a professional creative is not for a person like me, I've now published a book and yeah, it's just interesting to be in this position where I write and I share my thoughts and I share my ideas and I'm drawing. And it's like the Godfather keeps pulling, I try to get away, but it keeps pulling me back in. I tried not to be a professional creative, yet the wave took me and here I am.

Chris:

When you said a person like you, is there anything else that you haven't mention mentioned that defines a person like you?

Paco:

I mean, coming from an immigrant family, being first generation, brown, I never really met working artists or creative professionals until I was older in my twenties. And a lot of those people were white and a lot of those people were well off and a lot of those people were in my eyes quote unquote cultured. They went to museums with their family and they had conversations about [inaudible 00:06:12] and [inaudible 00:06:14] and I didn't come from that. And so I think for me, my approach to art and my approach to creativity has always felt, I don't want to say wrong, but it's really different. It's like in my eyes kind of pure because it's very childlike. Nobody shaped my ideas about art at a young age. It was always very playful and very free. And so I think that's very obvious for anybody who becomes familiar with my work that, Chris, I'm just trying to have a good time here on earth.

Chris:

I love that. We just jumped right into it so for people who don't know who you are, can you introduce yourself and tell us a little about who you are, Paco?

Paco:

Absolutely. My name is Paco de Leon and I help creative professionals feel less weird about their finances. And I run a company and we really do two things. One side of our company is a service-based company called Hell Yeah Bookkeeping, and we run the books for creative businesses like production companies and marketing agencies. And the other side of my business is what you are experiencing inside of your ears right at this moment. I go on the internet and I talk to people and I create content and I share ideas, and all of it is in service of having more conversations about money so that we are all just feeling more comfortable about this topic. We're learning practical things, we're facing our feelings, we're unpacking our emotions because I think that's really the first step to change is what happened to us? How do we feel about it? How are we weird about it? And how can we build better habits and a better future for not just ourselves, but for everyone.

Chris:

I feel like as you're talking and sharing your experiences and the fact that we're both in Los Angeles or the greater Los Angeles area, there's a lot of commonality here and I'm trying to sort in my head right now, what can I use your professional expertise and experience in that will help this larger community of creative people that we speak to? I believe the things that you're saying are going to hit right in their heart and in their brain. So if you don't mind, I'm going to throw up a couple of things that people seem to have struggles with. And you mentioned the emotional and the psychological aspects of money, the guilt that people feel, the shame or the lack of wanting to talk about it because it creates too much negative energy for them. If I can enlist you in this endeavor to get people more comfortable with money, is that okay?

Paco:

That's what I'm literally on earth to do.

Chris:

Perfect. And you have the background where I just pretend to be one. So here we go. Let me just dive into this. A lot of creative people have what many would consider a fix or finite or a lack mindset when it comes to money. And before we get into the solutions, can you speak to a little bit about the problems, the hangups, the things we've been socialized to believe about money? Can we start there?

Paco:

Yes. I actually want to talk about evolutionary biology instead of how we're socialized, if we could start there first, I think that would explain a lot.

Chris:

Okay.

Paco:

So there's this theory in evolutionary biology that human beings have this quirk in their mind where they pay attention to things that are scarce. And from that perspective, from an evolutionary biological perspective, if you think about it, that makes absolute sense, right? Because think about early humans sitting on top of a grassy mound, cold and naked or maybe in loincloth, in order to survive, it would behoove us to pay attention to things like, oh, there's not that many buffalo hanging out here, or berries or whatever we're eating. And the clean water supply seems to be dwindling. And so the ability to pay attention and give a lot of our attention to scarcity makes sense in that context.

Normally what happens is we see scarcity, our body gets stressed, and that kicks us into action. Some people might freeze, but other people, it kicks them into action. And so kicking into action is finding more water, mobilizing and moving. So we have this chain of response. Our brain is alerting, our amygdala is scanning for scarcity, it's looking for it, it finds it, we get stressed out, and then we are kicked into action. And different people are going to be kicked into action in different ways. One person might freeze and freak out, another person might want to numb out and watch Netflix, another person might just let their mind go in circles. So I think from just a purely biological perspective, we're already kind of screwed when it comes to this lack mindset. It becomes very natural. And when we look at things like sales or different types of sales language, the people who are writing the sales copy, the sort of things that we're seeing happen online now really lend itself to really pushing on that thing inside of our mind that freaks us out about things being scarce.

So things like only three left. Whenever I see that, I can feel a visceral reaction in my body of like, well, I have to buy it now because there's only three left. I need to be a greedy human and take what I can get. Things like Black Friday is a perfect example of a 24-hour period where if you don't get it now, you're going to miss out on the sale. So what is scarce there and it's time. So yeah, not only are we I think biologically predisposed to pay attention to scarcity, there's all these things in society that are looking to exploit that within us.

Chris:

Okay. I love that. I think it is seemingly true this theory that we're not as motivated to get the things that we want, but we're more motivated to protect the things from losing something, right? So there's this negative mindset that we're going to be triggered to take action. I understand it. Perfect sense. Let's advance this conversation further then. So now I am a teenager or I'm a new college graduate and I'm going to go into business. Let's assume, look, for the sake of our conversation here, I'm going to be a freelance creative. How does this translate into me not charging what I want, not being able to have this conversation? You mentioned this kind of stress reaction that we have, but what else is it about this? Can you unpack this a little bit more?

Paco:

Yeah. I think that there's probably a lot of different things going on. I think for creative people in particular, there is much more of a A to B, a direct connection between what you're creating, which ultimately is a part of who you are. When you're a creative person, my opinion is that you spend a tremendous amount of time feeling life and experiencing it and feeling it and letting that data that you collect become synthesized inside of you, and then you create something that speaks to that experience, everything you're feeling. So I think creative people are very feeling oriented people. Their job, in my opinion, is to feel and then express that through a medium. And so therefore, the thing that they're creating, whether it's a graphic or a photograph, a film, a score, it's very much a part of who they are. And then to try to go to the marketplace and say, hey, there's this thing and I made and it's very much a part of me.

Would you like to buy it? And then when the exchange does or doesn't happen, or when you're offered a lot less money, I think that's when we start to see a lot of this friction and a lot of this conflating of my work is who I am and the prices that people pay is a direct reflection of who I am and my value and my worth. I think there's a lot of commingling going on, and it makes perfect sense to me that that would go on. But yeah, I think sometimes we have to take a very cold and calculated look at the skills that we're creating. And I mean, you talk about this a lot and the value that the person that we're selling our product or service to, how valuable is it to them? And sometimes we have to take a step back and understand it's not a reflection of who we are and our contribution to the world, it's just tragically market forces.

Chris:

One of my friends and somebody that I look up to, Blair [inaudible 00:14:39] often will say things like, "Those who don't talk about money, don't make it." And I want to just tee you up to this thing and just kind of try to tie all these things together. How a person's view on money affects their ability to earn and how they're interconnected. These things are tied together. So can we talk about that?

Paco:

Oh yeah, let's talk about that, Chris. So earlier when I said, oh, I thought I'm not the kind of person who could be a professional creative, people will pay me for my ideas, right? That was a worldview that was instilled in me. It was programmed in me because of everything I observed, the environment I grew up in, the media messages, who I interacted with and who I didn't interact with. And that happens to us. That's like the whole, that's what we're doing when we're growing up. We're observing narratives and stories and biases, and we're synthesizing all of those things inside of us, and that's creating our worldview. And our worldview dictates how we think things work in the world. And money is just one of those things. We have stories about love and relationships. Oftentimes we learn that from our parents and their relationships or the dynamics we have with our siblings, and we observe this with money as well.

So I want to be careful here because your mindset is very, very, very important. It's one of the few things that you can alter and control. We can't control when a recession happens. We can't control if Elon is acting like a weirdo and you're holding Tesla stock. We can't control when a war is occurring, but we can control how we think. And so that's why I think people like you, people like me, we tend to really, really focus on where our agency lies. And mindset is one of those things. So if you grew up in a household where money was never talked about, or you grew up in a... Let's give a really extreme example. I came across a person who was associating money with abuse because she grew up in a household with an alcoholic father. And every time he would come home from work after a payday, he would spend the money at the bar, get really drunk, come home, and he would be abusive.

And so this person, it took them many, many, many years to understand that they were drawing this direct connection between literally payday and abuse. And I know that's a very extreme example, but I think it illustrates it really well, and it shows that it would be [inaudible 00:17:12] to really put in the time to really consider how we have drawn these conclusions and what we think about money and how we think about value and what you think you're allowed to do in the world. And once you start to really unpack that, you'll start to see that these through lines, they do it impact you in terms of money, but that inevitably impacts your career choice. That inevitably impacts just how you think you can be in the world. And I think once you start to untangle those things, there's a more lightness of being, there's a bit more freedom of expanding and changing.

Chris:

How do I become aware of maybe a not so healthy narrative around money if I don't have that or if I'm not already aware of it right now, are there signs that you can point to or symptoms and then you can say, okay, look, this is probably a good indicator that somewhere in your past you had an unhealthy relationship with money?

Paco:

I think there's a few different ways you can start to do that. One thing to do is try to watch your thoughts, which I know is I'm literally recommending Zen Buddhism to people. But if you can start to observe the things you say to yourself when it comes to money, that's a really good indicator because what's happening there is that's just a script that's on repeat, it's playing in the background. For me, the one that I said earlier, it's such a great example. It's just I'm not the kind of person that invests or people like me don't invest or people like me are not wealthy, things like that. People like me can't afford to do this thing. People like me will never work for it, I'll never work for myself. Trying to catch your thoughts is a really good place to start.

Observing other people talk about money, I think is also a really good thing to do. It's like if you have a friend who's constantly like I can't do that. I'm broke, we're broke, I'm poor, I'm broke. When you start to see other people's stories on repeat, I think it becomes easier to see your own stories. And then since you're from Los Angeles, you're fully weird as I am, there's a lot of weird things you can do. You can meditate. I think a meditation practice is not just for you. I think it's to help make the world a better place so that you're just not popping off at a Trader Joe's and stuff like that. You're just a little bit more chill. And the thing with meditation that's really important or the thing that I took away from it that I continue to take away from it is this whole idea that you can think of thought and not be that thought.

Well, a thought can be a cloud floating in the sky, and you don't have to grip to that thought so aggressively and believe that you are that thought. Sometimes the thought just comes, and that's that. And I think the more you can internalize that idea, the easier it is to start to catch the thoughts and then decide, hey, let's do a different thought, let's have a tell a different story.

Chris:

Okay, so I want to quickly just recap some of the things that I heard you say. Creative people tend to have a double whammy when it comes to relationship with money. It's a luck of the draw depending on where you're raised by who and how you're raised with your relationship with money. But then if you're on the bad side of that, and you're also a creative person who's really led by feeling and how you observe the world where there's a connection between what you create in your own self-worth. And if we feel toxic things, maybe a creative person feels them twice or four times as much as someone else. And so we're having this not so good relationship with money. Now, here's where I see it manifesting itself, and I'd love to get your insight on this. Maybe we'll agree, maybe we'll disagree. Let's see where this goes.

I have a video that I put out on the internet, and it's about pricing a logo and it's our most watched video. And so I get a wide range of people who tune in and then they leave some kind of comment. They are usually on the extremes of reaction. Love it. Of course, this is true. This is what I'm doing, and now I need to learn more about this. And then there's this other side which really confuses me. And it's not coming from clients, it's usually coming from other creative people where they say, this is total BS. If you charge this much for a logo, they'll just hire someone else. And it's almost like they're arguing against your own self-interest, which really confuses me. Do you have any insight on that? And then I'll lead you to the next thought.

Paco:

Yeah, I think that it must feel very frightening or alarming. And I don't know if embarrassing is the right word, but if I'm out there charging $75 for a logo and you're charging 1500 or a multiple of that 15,000, that is going to shock me. And sometimes I think, they would rather mess with the devil they know. They would rather keep their mindset smaller because at least in that way, they understand how that world works. They've created rules for how that world works. You just have to do a lot of logos. You just have to kill yourself working. But I know how that world works.

I think it's very uncomfortable for people to look at something from a different perspective and to truly have their mind exploded and everything that they've been doing, even if, let's say I've only been doing it for three months, but let's say I've been doing $75 logos for three years. It's really painful to be like, I wasted three years doing $75 logos when I could have expanded my thinking and looked at this from a different perspective. And that creates a whole cascade of other questions. What problems could I solve? If you're in debt, you're like, oh, Jesus. It's kind of a ball of wax and I think it's much easier to keep a close mind.

Chris:

So it's some form of self-protection mechanism that it's too painful to accept what might be a true reality versus the one that you created for yourself because then you're really going to beat yourself up to say, I could have changed and other people are doing it, I'm just an idiot doing this. So it's actually, we'll stay with this low fees, low self-worth. At least that aligns with our worldview. Is that what you're saying?

Paco:

I think that's one reason, I don't think maybe that's every person who's leaving you mean comments on your videos saying this is ridiculous and completely false. But I think a good amount of people. If you look at the same thing with different circumstances like somebody who's working a job who's unhappy, and let's say they're not making as much as they need to be making, and somebody posts a video and the video is like, it's the same advice. You can make a lateral move, right? In an industry that's growing and that's how you can make more money. That same person might say the same thing of that's just not how the world works. And so I think there's a lot of people that they just don't understand the power of your own mindset, of your own thinking and how powerful having a much more growth oriented mindset truly is.

Chris:

Okay, so to continue on this thought here, before we get into solutions and remedies for this, I want our audience to suffer for a little bit longer as you're probably sitting there nodding your head in the car or wherever you're listening to this. So I took it a step further. I went on Twitter and I said, I'm curious, what was the most amount of money you ever charged for a single logo? No strategy, no marketing analysis, just a logo. And of course, I knew what was going to come back, which was a wide span of in terms of budgets from zero to the highest. One I saw was $750,000 for just a logo. And people on the internet are losing their mind. And this is now no longer me saying it's possible. This is random people on the internet, whether you believe it to be true or not, are saying it.

And they're just sitting here. I just can imagine them looking at their phone or their computer screen, eyes glazed and face like in utter shock and disbelief. And what I was trying to do with this tweet was to show people how your limited thinking will actually limit the kind of success you're going to have. Now, I'm not sure where the social experiment goes here. If anybody will wake up and suddenly have a different conversation with themselves and I can already see so much pushback, that's not possible or it's because of X, Y, and Z reason, do you want to expand on why you think they're responding this way and before we get into what we can do about this?

Paco:

I stand by my original answers. I do. I think that it's painful for people to change. It is painful. Transformation is a fun word, but actually transforming is hard work. And again, I don't think people want to believe that they're much more powerful than they are. Our potential for change is limitless, I believe. And like my whole vibe is step into your power. And a big part of that is taking responsibility for the programs you already have running in your brain and thank them. Great, they got you this far, but what's going to take you to the next level is unlearning a lot, learning a lot of new things, thinking differently and allowing possibility into your life regardless of how heinous it looks, right? Like 750K for a logo is insane, but I'm glad that you told me this information. There's so much more possibility than I even realized.

Chris:

Yes. So we might be slipping into letting go of the scarcity and lack mindset and moving into a abundance mindset first of all, saying, okay, this exists and this is possible. And then if you try and then you ask yourself again, well, what else is possible? Maybe there is no limit and the only limit is the one I put on myself. So you mentioned that transformation is actually painful, it's a lot of work and there's a lot of resistance. So as a person who works with creative people and helping them with finance and money, if a somebody's not ready for that transformation, if they're pushing back so hard, are they for now a lost cause, you just leave them alone, or can you help the people who seemingly are dug into this position?

Paco:

See, this is the lovely part of having a book. It's asynchronous communication, so I don't have to be in the trenches with people in terms of helping them change. There's a world where I would do coaching and I think I would have to do deal with this on a more real basis, but I actually think it's easier to deal with creative people because they use their imagination. They close their eyes or go for a walk in the park or roll a joint and they imagine something and then they make it exist in real life. So they're already doing the work of thinking a thought and then making that thought exists IRL. And I think once people start to just understand that they've already done this and they continue to do this, it makes it easier for them to face the music, that their minds are powerful and that they are powerful and that they can use their imagination and create tangible change externally.

Chris:

The funny thing that I read in the comments usually on one of our videos like this is this is so stupid, this person doesn't know what they're talking about. I'm never going to watch this stupid channel again. I'm thinking, friend, I put out advice on how you can make more money, and I'm not even selling you anything and you're so angry about something. Well fine, shoot yourself on the foot. The bullets are yours. You do what you want with them. It's totally okay. You actually don't hurt me by not taking my advice and making more money for yourself and for your loved ones. That's on you, and that's totally okay.

And I always think that maybe one day I'm going to craft an argument so well, or create a beautiful illustration like you have in your book Finance for the People where they'll see the illustration like, oh, that's the model I needed to see and understand in order for me to process this, I'm ready for that transformation you're talking about now. Does such a thing exist or are you saying, well, when they're ready for the book, that means they're ready to learn and that's a time in which you can have that dialogue with them?

Paco:

I mean, I think we talked about pain earlier. I think a lot of people, if you ask them, you do talk to people who've transformed their lives, and you ask them why did they do it? It's oftentimes because the pain of staying the same was they could not tolerate that pain anymore. And the pain of transformation was just ever so slightly less painful. And so let's just do the ever so slightly less painful thing and the results are amazing. I think maybe the people who are not seeing your perspective, the ones who are angry about the very expensive logos, maybe they just haven't reached that threshold of pain where they're like, okay, something's got to give. And then it cuts to the montage of them transforming.

Chris:

I see. So are you saying that the very real pain of not achieving what you want, if it's greater than the pain of changing your mind or transforming, then they'll go for the less of two evils in their mind?

Paco:

I think so. In a lot of ways I think we're motivated by pain and pleasure. And that's exactly it. You hit it on the head.

Chris:

Yeah. Okay. So if I were wanting to help people push them off that cliff and jump into that pit of pain, I need to paint a more vivid high-fidelity picture where they're going to feel that pain the most. Is that what you referred to in marketing before, where people are really tuned into exploiting this part of it, making you feel so much pain that you're then now motivated to change?

Paco:

Yeah. Now I feel like I'm leading you down a path where the phrase, the path to hell is paved with good intentions. I feel like we started off with good intentions and now I'm suddenly leading you down a path where I'm like, yeah, all of your marketing messages should be really agitating. They should really make the potential customer feel a tremendous amount of sense of pain. And then that will make them change. That works. I know that that works. We know that that works. I'm sure you're signed up to people's email lists and that's their strategy.

And you can see it because you spend so much of your time dissecting and understanding marketing. I haven't spent as much time thinking about marketing as you have, and even I can see it and that works, but that doesn't feel good to me. That doesn't resonate with me, and I don't want to exploit other peoples... They are already in pain and I don't want to make them feel like... I don't want to put them in more pain just to sell them a thing. So that hasn't been my approach, but I can see how it's very powerful and useful.

Speaker 3:

Time for a quick break, but we'll be right back. Welcome back to our conversation.

Chris:

So if we're in the middle, if we're undecided and we're like, you know what you're saying resonates, I feel a lot of pain around money and my refusal to talk about it to price appropriately. It always feels like this lowest mentality wins where it's a race to the bottom. I'm ready for a change. What do I need to do? Are there steps I can take, things I can think about.

Paco:

Yeah, I think if you are working for yourself, the one thing that's very actionable that you can do it right now, you can start doing this right now, is schedule weekly finance time. And it's exactly what it sounds like. It is a block of time that you dedicate every week to starting to care and mind and manage and foster your relationship with money. And I think the least amount of time you should dedicate is 20 minutes. I think an hour for people who are working for themselves is a really solid start because maybe the first month you do it, you're like, what am I going to do for an hour? Over time you'll realize when you work for yourself, you have your personal finances, you have your business finances, you have invoices that you need to send, you have invoices you need to follow up on.

You probably need to call your cell phone company and you're like, hey, you totally charged me 100 more dollars now than you were two and a half years ago. Can we have a conversation about this? There's a lot of administrative things that are required to mind your financial life, so you can make a list and do all those things, but the important thing is to just start showing up for yourself. And if you've never done this before, during your first weekly finance time, I think you should just log into your accounts, just get your logins, because I know there's a lot of folks out there who they don't even remember their student loan logins or there's like a business loan that they're like, I don't know, I pay it, but I don't log in, get all your logins and put them in a password manager.

And now you're just one step closer to being much more organized and having everything together. And then the next week you can just start to poke around and just look at all the things you charged on your credit card over the last week or the last several weeks and just look, lay your eyes on it. And it might feel uncomfortable at first, but it's kind of like going to the gym. I'm not asking you to wake up tomorrow and join Equinox and do 50 burpees. I'm really not asking for that. I'm just asking for you to go there, park your car and stand outside the door for a little while and be like, next week I'm going in. Be gentle with yourself and really give yourself that space because whatever you focus on it expands.

Chris:

I have to say something, Paco, you have a kind healing energy. It's very different than the way I would talk about this, and I appreciate that. So there's lots of different flavors for everybody in the world. It's soothing to hear you say this. Okay, no judgment, try, expose yourself a little bit at a time and see what you get. The funny thing is, I mentioned earlier in the podcast, I don't like looking at numbers. It kills my creative brain. And every once in a while when I look at the numbers, bad things happen. I have to tell you.

Paco:

Really?

Chris:

Yeah. So here's a very small silly thing. I was on the Converse site and I go and check in my account, like you say, log in. I'm like, what is going on here? Then I see in my purchase history, I bought two pairs of the same shoe. I'm like, no, I didn't. This is stupid. I know what's in my closet. I only have one pair. This is crazy. So you know what? I started spinning myself into some narrative and I'm not happy. So I'm chatting with a customer support person, which I'm sure doesn't care whether I'm happy or not about what's going on. And they basically give me no answers. Like, oh, you purchased this last year. I'm like, yeah, but I just noticed right now that you charged me twice. It doesn't make any sense. Why would I buy two pairs of shoes? And they couldn't figure it out either. And then they said, "It shows that you bought two sizes." Can you tell me what the sizes are? They're like, "I don't have that data." And then I was frustrated, end the chat and I start revisiting my mind.

I'm like, oh my God, I'm an idiot. I did buy two pairs of shoes. I bought two pair because I wanted to try one on and return the other, but it doesn't show that I returned one. So I spun up into a negative state and I probably gave this person a hard time for 10 minutes for no good reason. This is why I need to stay out of the day-to-day finances. So the way I usually manage money, it's like I saw this interview with Gene Hackman. He goes, "I know how to act, directors don't tell me how to act." He says, "All I want you to tell me is one of two things faster or slower." And that's kind of how I am with finances. My wife, poor her, she's a creative person, but she does the finance for our company. I just need her to tell me faster or slower, spend more money or slow down than spending the money because this is where we're at. And that's all I need to know. Is this a horrible recipe for disaster?

Paco:

I don't want to say that this is a horrible recipe for disaster, but I would encourage you to be more engaged. And I have a little tip for you the next time you want to be mean to somebody in the chatbot or you want to be mean to the chatbot, God, I sounded old. So there's this psychiatrist, I think his name is Daniel J Siegel, and he created this tool called the Window of Tolerance. And the Window of Tolerance goes from a scale of one to eight, and it is meant to help you identify how you are feeling. So the Window of Tolerance is somewhere in the middle. Let's say it's like a 3, 4, 5. And anything above or below is you're either feeling hyper or hypo. You're either feeling very numb and withdrawn. You're like ostriching, right? You don't want to face your finances, you don't want to look at your accounts, you don't want to do anything.

You don't want to open the mail. You want to ignore it. And then on the other end of the spectrum, you're fired up. You're just ripping that Bank of America customer service rep, a new one. You're being very hyperactive. You're stressed out. And so before you sit down for your weekly finance time, and especially before you do anything that's like a bigger financial decision, try to ask yourself where you are in your Window of Tolerance. And if you're feeling all worked up, okay, what are the things that are going to bring me down to this Window of Tolerance? And I forgot to say what the definition of the Window of Tolerance is, that the Window of Tolerance is a state that you're in, where you can deal with life's ups and downs in a really natural, healthy way. So you're not popping off with people and you're not just ignoring the situation.

So ask yourself where you are in that Window of Tolerance and then do something to bring you into the window if you're outside of it. So a couple examples. If you're feeling numbed out and withdrawn and you just kind of want to scroll and not do anything, you might want to splash cold water on your face or go for a run or a walk or listen to Lizzo very loudly. And if you're on the other side of the spectrum, if you're feeling really stressed out and you need to calm down, you can pet your dog or FaceTime a friend or take three deep breaths or rub some essential oils between your hands and smell it. I mean, you know what works for you. And this concept is important for finances because the state that you're in determines the quality of the decisions that you're going to make. The example I always love to use is if you go to the grocery store hungry, you're going to make bad choices, period. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

That's just how it works. And it's because of the state that you're in. And we need to start understanding that with financial decisions, the state that we're in matters as well. And I just want to also say, for the world to be a better place, we should all take responsibility for our feelings and learn how to self-sooth and self-regulate.

Chris:

I like that. So when we're feeling disconnected and indifferent or numb, we need to shock our system back the other way. We need to care again. We need to bring some of the energy and the passion back in. And if we're feeling too stressed out, maybe hyper or just in an uncontrollable state, we need to cool down a little bit and bring ourselves back to center, right?

Paco:

Totally. I mean faster or slower, right?

Chris:

Yeah. Hey, there you go. Way to tie it in. Okay. And then you get into this Window of Tolerance where you're making natural, healthy, maybe rational decisions, and you're not too far on the other end of the spectrum.

Paco:

That's exactly it. Your decisions are more rooted in cognition and rationality instead of just an emotional response.

Chris:

I just want to let people know, I usually don't get upset and my level of getting upset, I'm not going off on the person. I'm like, oh, this is not helpful. That's usually what I write. I'm like, could you give me more information? And I'm mostly frustrated that in the time in which I'm talking to this person, I got zero resolution to the problem. And also my time is worth more than the $45 I'm trying to save and get back here. But that's usually how I calm myself down. It's like it's really not worth it. It's just not worth it. No amount of money really is worth me getting upset over and changing my state, my flow state.

Paco:

That's very healthy of you.

Chris:

Well, if you always snap back to look at the bigger picture of life, very few things will actually really bother you, right?

Paco:

Totally.

Chris:

Yeah. Now I need your help here. Oftentimes I try to get creative people to learn to price their projects to be more so that they can be paid more, so they have to work less and they can do higher quality work, employ people, treat them better, grow the economy, all kinds of things. But sometimes that doesn't work. And I came upon this kind of a way of arguing or looking at a problem called inversion thinking, where you take the opposite stance, I'd like your help here, and you have to do it earnestly. Tell me why it's better for us to charge less.

Paco:

You want me to make the argument for that?

Chris:

Yes, please.

Paco:

Okay.

Chris:

Why should we charge less?

Paco:

So that we can be affordable for people. So that we can, I don't believe this, so that we can get clients, we can make sales. I don't know why. Can you help me?

Chris:

Well, there's a whole bunch of people who seem to want to argue for this and not realize that's what they're arguing for. When we get into a discussion about why charging hourly punishes efficiency and innovation and experience, like no it doesn't. If you charge a certain amount and you're able to do it faster, you'll get paid less, but you'll be able to take on more work. I'm like, how does that make sense? I don't even understand where you're going with this.

Paco:

Right.

Chris:

So I try, I try real hard to say, okay, what would motivate someone to charge less? Well, there's less friction in the sales process. You don't actually have to learn a new skillset. You'll be liked and you'll be affordable for everyone. So you don't even have to be selective because choosing the niche or lane, which I know you talk about, you don't have to do that. You don't have to make the difficult business decision. So there's all these things that can get looped in there, and then if you just go one layer deep, you realize all the problems with that kind of thinking, well, I don't want to have to manage people, so if I just charge less, I'll do the work myself. I'll be happier. I don't want to be a manager. I want to be a maker so I can keep going on and on. But the arguments are fake on my part because I don't really believe any of them.

Paco:

Right And they could be, I mean, again, if you just go one layer deeper, you're kind of screwed.

Chris:

You're screwed, only one layer deeper. It doesn't take much more than that. So let's try the opposite. Let's argue for the things that we do believe in. Why should creatives charge more?

Paco:

They should charge more because, well, I believe in a high tide all boats rise. So the value of creativity in society will go up if everybody charges more, because we shouldn't have to kill ourselves working. We can work less. We can take on less work if we charge more, we can increase profits, we can hire people, we can serve various different demographics actually if we hire, we can subsidize actually helping people who can't afford us. So we could actually help more people in that way. If we charge high rates to big corporate clients, then we can charge lower rates or maybe even afford to do pro bono work for let's say non-profits. Then this creates a whole cascade of other things like we can afford insurance and we can afford to save for taxes and have a living wage. We can afford to have a retirement account and fund it. We can afford to have a company that pays employees living wage and maybe even provides benefits. I feel pretty good about those answers.

Chris:

That's a good list. And it seems pretty obvious then why you should charge more, but there's a whole group of creatives who want to argue on why that's a stupid idea. I like that, you brought one to my attention that I didn't really think about, but is 100% on nail on the head, which is if we all charge a little bit more, we lift up the entire profession, it makes it easier for people who are at our level who are starting out have something to aspire to and to grow into. Because what is disheartening to me is senior level people who have tons of experience moving their prices in the wrong direction, creating no room for anyone just getting out of school, which creates a whole new set of problems now. And you mentioned hiring people, the only thing I would add to hiring people is you could help forward to hire the best person if you were able to charge more.

And what would that do for your transformation that the people that you hire exceed the talent level in which you're at today? Because we often think they're never as good as us, but that's an arrogant statement to say that there isn't anyone in the world who could do the work better than you. That's like, you're not looking hard enough then. And there's one other one that I would add, which is what would charging more do for your self-esteem, self-worth, self-confidence? Just to know, my gosh, I put four years on my life to go to that school and when everybody said I couldn't do it and I did it, and I'm making this kind of money, which is equivalent to what a dentist or high profile lawyer might make, this is pretty cool. Our society values art and design and creative thinking, divergent... Whoa, this is really super cool.

Paco:

I want that for everyone, Chris.

Chris:

Me too.

Paco:

I want that feeling for everyone.

Chris:

Wouldn't the world be better a place?

Paco:

Yeah, I feel like if I grew up in a world where that narrative was much more pervasive, I probably wouldn't be doing this. I'd probably be doing something else in the creative field, but it makes me wonder how many other little Pacos out there didn't believe in themselves, didn't believe in their ideas and their imagination, and they didn't invest in that part of them. And are those people who become adults, how are they robbing the world of their contribution?

Chris:

I feel like we're both hitting this same desire for society from slightly different angles. You have a podcast that you do. You have Ted Talk, you've written a book called Finance for the People, and you also have a service firm called Hell Yeah where you do bookkeeping and financial stuff for creatives. Is that right?

Paco:

That's right.

Chris:

Okay. I'm taking it from the other side, which is I have resources, courses, and tools for people to use and hopefully to pull them upward so that they can be in a good place where they can afford to hire people like you and to be able to get their finances in order. Because look, if you make enough money, you can hire people to do all the parts that maybe make your brain hurt.

Paco:

Absolutely.

Chris:

And I like that part. So we'll push together and then hopefully move this forward. So my final question for you, it's not a small question, and the question is this. Somebody's listening to this right now, and then I go, oh my God, hell yeah. I need to get right about all this stuff. I'm ready. What are my next steps besides having the daily money conversation? And I think you write about having this kind of gratitude practice. Is there anything else that I can do to start to write this ship and have a more positive relationship with money? Is there anything that you can tell me to do that's practical, tangible that I can do today?

Paco:

This is going to sound incredibly promotional, but you should definitely read my book Finance for the People or listen to the audiobook and I narrate it, or I read the book rather. I mean, I wrote this book for you. If you're sitting there and you're a creative professional and you know that you need to start putting more time and care and energy into your financial life and you feel overwhelmed you know that there's free information on the internet, but you're just like, you don't want to compile it together. And there's not anyone who you feel like is speaking your language.

I wrote the book for you. I wrote the book for people who feel unseen and underserved and ignored by the personal finance industry. I wrote it for people who have thought that they're bad with money their whole lives, but that's just not the truth. It's that people were not meeting you where you are at, and they're not taking, I think, a playful approach that speaks to you. And so I'm here to bust that myth, and I'm here to help as many people as I can step into their power and find their agency.

Chris:

I love that. And you know, I sometimes can be abrasive and rub people the wrong way, and I love my job in that I'm able to talk to interesting, fascinating, experienced people like yourself who have maybe a different approach, a different energy and a different way of looking at things. And so there are at least 31 flavors of ice cream. There should be at least 31 flavors of coaches and people to talk about finance and money and help you get right with it, because we don't have to be doomed by how we were brought into this financial universe. Anything that you want, any transformation you desire, if you're willing to put in the work and open yourself up, you can achieve, you can achieve it all, whether it's with myself or with Paco or someone else. I want that for you.

So I'm hoping that something that was said today in this conversation between the two of us spark something inside of you and you're ready to have that real earnest conversation with yourself and get the help that you need so that you can profit and you can provide for the ones that you love the most and not be in this place where if the slightest shift in economics and finance happens in your life, that you'll go into financial ruin. I just want to make sure that there's some cushion for you to fall back on so you're not panicking at your lack of finances or ability to be able to weather a temporary storm. I forgot. I do have one more question for you, can I do that?

Paco:

Yeah, of course.

Chris:

Okay. You had said before when I was talking about money that you want to be able to have something that's more tangible to talk about versus theoretical. And so in your life, your experience, you must talk to so many different creative people. I'm wondering if you can share a scenario that's fairly common in your practice where someone's having a not so great mindset about money or wealth or pricing that you can then convey the lesson learned in the dialogue that happened between the two of you without revealing any identities.

Paco:

I mean, I deal with the same kind of pushback that you deal with terms of the hourly conversation where people are comfortable charging an hourly rate, and the argument can be made that if you charge high enough hourly, that is a reflection of your experience or that is a reflection of the value that you're providing. I just don't like that having that conversation of trading time for money. And I think that's the main thing that I try to convey when I speak to people or when I try to get them to think differently, is that no matter what you charge for your hourly rate, I think the issue there is that you're having a conversation where you're trading time for money.

And the reason why I don't think that works is because if you've had 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 years of experience, not only do you have 25 years of good experience and wins, but you've had a tremendous amount of losses and failures, and you've made a ton of mistakes, probably painful ones where you've had to pay out of your pocket or your reputation was tarnished. And so you really learned from that mistake. And I think that can be best reflected in the project rate because at the end of the day, if a mistake happens, you are going to fix it, right? And what they're paying for are all of the mistakes and all of the wins, all of the knowledge that you've accumulated, the network that you can tap. I mean, it really is a true reflection of the value that you're providing to your client at the end of the day.

Chris:

Paco, I love the way that you said that, and it is an argument that people do bring up a lot to me, which is, Chris, why are you so stuck on value-based pricing or project base? Because at the end the day, you just take the amount of money you were paid and whatever hours you worked, and that's your effective hourly rate. I understand that, but the way that you said it, which is it's a conceptual, philosophical problem that you're still focused on selling time and you're not focused enough on what really matters to clients whose impact or deliverables or feeling, you're still exchanging time for money, and it's a habit that I think many of us just need to get out of thinking, so I appreciate you saying it. I don't think anybody said it that way before, so I think that's going to be a gem for people.

Okay. My guest today has been Paco de Leon. She runs a firm called Hell Yesh and they do bookkeeping for creative people. She has a podcast, you need to check that out, and she recently published a book called Finance for the People, and get your hands on this people. It is written for you. And what's neat and novel about the book itself is it's filled with illustrations. It says like, there are 50 illustrations and diagrams, and I'm a visual person, so I like reading words, but when there's a really good illustration to go along with it it's a mnemonic so I can remember it easier. I can recall it later, so I'm looking forward to digging into it myself. It sounds like a wonderful book, Paco, thank you very much for being on the podcast today. If people want to find out more about you, where can they go?

Paco:

You can go to the hellyeahgroup.com, and I would encourage you to sign up for our weekly email newsletter called The Nerd Letter. It drops every Wednesday morning, and yeah, thank you so much for having me on your podcast, Chris.

Chris:

Thank you.

Paco:

This is Paco de Leon, and you are listening to the Future.

Speaker 3:

Thanks for joining us this time. If you haven't already, subscribe to our show on your favorite podcasting app and get a new insightful episode from us every week. The Future Podcast is hosted by Chris Oh and produced by me. Greg [inaudible 00:58:52]. Thank you to Anthony Barrow for editing and mixing this episode, and thank you to Adam Sandborn for our intro music.

If you enjoyed this episode, then do us a favor by rating and reviewing our show on Apple Podcasts. It'll help us grow the show and make future episodes that much better. Have a question for Chris or me? Head over to the future.com/heychris and ask away. We read every submission and we just might answer yours in a later episode. If you'd like to support the show and invest in yourself while you're at it, visit thefuture.com. You'll find video courses, digital products, and a bunch of helpful resources about design and creative business. Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next time.

Speaker 4:

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