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Episode #9

7 Ways You're Sabotaging Your Income Goals

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Hey! I'm Jeri!

I'm a financial educator and speaker known for simplifying complex credit and funding strategies. I've helped thousands of individuals and small business owners get the credit they deserve.

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Summary

Are you working harder but not making more money?

The problem may not be your income—it may be the habits, beliefs, and decisions quietly holding you back.

In this episode, Jeri uncovers seven common ways people sabotage their income goals and shares practical mindset shifts that can help you think and act more like a wealth builder.

Why should you listen?

Feeling stuck financially? Discover the hidden behaviors that may be limiting your income without you realizing it.
Think all debt is bad? Learn the difference between debt that drains you and debt that helps you grow.
Wonder why success feels harder than it should? Find out how comfort, procrastination, and a lack of urgency can quietly stall your progress.
Looking for practical advice? Walk away with simple shifts you can start making today to build greater financial confidence and increase your earning potential.

More Resources:

🎯 Take the Free Fundable Quiz: https://smartcreditcoach.com/quiz.html

🚀 Get Matched with a Smart Credit Certified Consultant: https://smartcreditcoach.com/help

🎙️ Explore more episodes: https://smartcreditcoach.com/podcast

🎓 First Steps to Fundable Workshop: https://www.smartcreditcoach.com/fstf

Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Smart Credit Experience, the place where financial clarity, strategy, and transformation begin. I'm your host, Jeri Toliver, CEO of Smart Credit Solutions and the creator of the Smart Credit method. Every week, I break down the truth about credit funding and building a financially abundant life and business. So if you're ready to learn what lenders actually look for, how to build a fundable business, and how to move forward with confidence and clarity, you're in the right place.

[00:00:30] Hey there, and welcome back to the Smart Credit Experience.

[00:00:33] Now, today, I want to talk to you about something that might make you feel uncomfortable. And I just want to be straight up then. I'm not here to judge you or criticize you, but I got to tell you that over the last few years, a decade in this business, I have learned, and I genuinely believe that most people don't have an income problem.

[00:00:53] They mostly have a behavior problem. And I know for some people, that might sound a little harsh.

[00:01:00] Uh, because we like to think that the reason why we're not making more money is because of inflation or the economy or our job, our boss, our credit scores, the banks, or you're just not lucky, right? It's just all these different reasons. And yes, sometimes those do play a role. But after spending more than a decade helping people with improving their finances and becoming fundable, I've noticed something very common across the board, and. And it's that the people who increase their income, they're not smarter, they're normally not more educated.

[00:01:37] They don't always even have better ideas. They don't all come from even wealthy families. But what they do have are different beliefs about money.

[00:01:47] They have different habits, they have different standards. And those beliefs are shaping their financial decisions that they make on a consistent basis.

[00:01:57] So since I've realized that, I decided today I want to share seven ways that I personally see people sabotaging their own income goals without even really realizing it. Now, the first one was actually really surprising to me, and that is that people believe debt is bad.

[00:02:20] Now, it's funny, recently I had a class, and one of the questions that I asked the class and even on my social media, I asked some of the people on my social media what was the first word that came to their mind when they heard the word debt. Now, I want you to think about it, too. What's the first word that comes to mind when you hear the word debt?

[00:02:42] Now, for many people, I was hearing words like stress, bondage, slavery, weight, like all these negative words.

[00:02:55] And it got me to thinking that it's not the debt that's bad, right? Like there, there is such thing as bad debt. There is definitely debt that will make you feel stressed out and, you know, like shackles across your feet for sure. But when you use debt more responsibly, if you use it to make money, if you put it to work, then that's a whole different thing. You know? Know, like think about it. If you use your debt or your credit to borrow money to buy a TV so that you can sit there and watch it all day and, you know, vegetate, basically, you know, you don't do anything even productive with your life. You're just sitting there in front of the tv, just getting older every second, right? That's not a really good investment using debt. But if you borrow money, let's say for your business, maybe you want to hire some employees, maybe you want to launch a marketing campaign, purchase some equipment that'll help you produce more money. Well, if you double your income using debt, that's a pretty good deal. That's completely different. You know, successful business owners, they don't ask themselves, how can I avoid debt? They're not asking themselves, how can I get more for less? They're thinking, how can I use this investment to produce a return?

[00:04:10] Simple debt is just a tool. And so if you use it poorly, it is going to create stress. But if you use it wisely, it can create new opportunities for you. And so the second mistake that I also see are that people are spending money instead of deploying it.

[00:04:29] Now, this kind of goes back to the mindset, right? It goes back to your beliefs and how you think about money and how you think about debt. Because let me tell you, how a man thinketh, so is he.

[00:04:42] How a man thinketh, so is he. And so if you think that debt is bad and it's stressful and it's slavery that you probably speak that way. More than likely you do. You speak like that. And I'll be straight up that you will eat the words of what you say. You're going to eat it. You're going to eat the fruit of it.

[00:05:04] So you don't want to think badly about debt. You want to reset the way you think about it so that your behaviors can follow. Because if you believe that debt is a vehicle to help you create new opportunities, then you have a different intention behind spending it. And so when, when you're looking at managing money and managing debt, a lot of people out here just spending, they are just spending it instead of deploying it. Now, what's the what's the difference? Right? Like, I love the word deploy.

[00:05:32] And the reason why I love it is because it means that every single dollar has a mission.

[00:05:39] It has a purpose.

[00:05:41] Most people, when they get paid, they immediately ask themselves like, what can I go buy? Let me go buy some shoes, Let me go buy some purses. Let me, let me go buy, you know, some entertainment. Let me go hang out with some friends. Let me go, you know, buy things that I don't really need to, you know, have fun, get away from my stress, my anxieties, and, you know, might as well spend it. Money is for spending.

[00:06:06] So that's what they're thinking. But if you're in the business of building wealth, which you probably what you are, if you, if you're listening to this, that you're going to ask yourself a different question.

[00:06:16] And that question is, what can this dollar do for me?

[00:06:21] Can it save you time? Can it create another dollar? Can it bring you back more? Can it help you improve your skills? Can it help you get some assets under your belt? Can it help you buy back your freedom?

[00:06:35] Right? Because when you put money to work for you, when you make it behave like a worker, when you give it a job description, when you give it a purpose, you, you grow it, you get more, they come back to you tenfold. But when you don't, when you don't have a purpose for your money, when you don't have a direction for your money, it just disappears. You look up and you wonder, where did it all go? You ever feel like that?

[00:07:01] Like, wow, I just got paid. Where did all my money go? I got more month at the end of the money.

[00:07:07] Where does it all go?

[00:07:10] Well, that has a lot to do with how we think about money and what we're doing with it, right? Because if you can't think or you can't recall where your money went, that means that you're spending it and you're not deploying it. And that's the biggest difference. And so, you know, the, the biggest difference really is this is how consumers and business owners think. Consumers spend business owners deployment employ capital. That's what they do. And so ask yourself, what did you invest in this year that actually helped you increase your capacity, you know, not your comfort? A lot of people spend money on comfort. They spend money on entertainment. They spend money on things that's going to keep them exactly where they are and safe.

[00:07:53] But ain't no money in there.

[00:07:56] Ain't no, there's no success in your, in your safety net. And your comfort zone, there's no success there. There's no money there, so there's no opportunity there. And so you've got to think through increasing your capacity. There's nothing wrong with enjoying life. I enjoy vacations, I like nice dinners, I like buying things that I like. But I try to make sure that I'm investing in myself faster than I'm upgrading my lifestyle.

[00:08:25] Because the success of even your business and your finances, that's going to grow at the rate that you do. So if you never read the book, if you never take the course, if you never get educated, if you never even take the steps, then nothing will ever change.

[00:08:41] So buy the books, make the investment. You know, the books, the coaching, the education, the software systems, relationships, leadership, all these things will pay you back tenfold.

[00:08:52] Because the greatest investment that I have ever made has been in myself.

[00:08:57] Now I get it. Like, these things don't feel exciting right away, but they are the reason why your income has hit a ceiling and why they're. They're not rising. And so if you really want your income to grow, you have to grow. It starts with you. And you've got to bring value because value follows growth.

[00:09:22] That's where it follows. And so if you're growing, if you're becoming better, if you become better, better skilled, educated, right? There's so many opportunities and things that you can unlock for yourself. But if you're thinking that you don't like the results of your life right now, then you got to look at the things that you're doing.

[00:09:41] So if you want a better life, then you have to develop better habits. And you know, people, they. And they wait.

[00:09:48] I see it all the time. I see it all the time. People, they tell themselves that they're waiting until they're ready. I'll start after I save some money. I'll apply when my credit is better. I'll launch after I finish this course, or I'll raise my prices next year. Or maybe I'll put out that marketing campaign and talk about my business.

[00:10:10] Come on, man, give me a break.

[00:10:12] That's really just fear and procrastination dressed up, you know, to look pretty. You know, we, we put makeup and we put pretty things on. Fear and procrastination.

[00:10:23] But essentially you're hiding from money.

[00:10:28] You say you want to make a lot of money, you say you want to build wealth, you say you want to have freedom, but you're actively hiding from it. You won't step up and get on the field and play.

[00:10:39] How can you Expect to score, right. If you're not on the field, could you imagine that? Can you imagine, you know, going to a basketball game, rooting for your favorite team, but not. Nobody's on the court.

[00:10:52] Nobody's playing.

[00:10:54] And so nobody wins when nobody plays, including you. So you have to play the game of business in order to win it, in order to score points.

[00:11:05] You can't score points on the sidelines.

[00:11:08] So you, you know, if you're somebody that avoids looking at your bank account, if you don't know your numbers in your business, if you avoid checking your credit reports, if you postpone, you know, and. And put difficult conversations to the side, maybe you delay making offers in your business.

[00:11:30] So many people are delaying their own success.

[00:11:35] They've been starting businesses for years.

[00:11:37] I've been working on this business, getting it started for years. What. Why is it taking you so long to get your business started? Why does it take you two years to sell something? To talk about your. To talk about your company, to talk about your business? People say they want to grow a business and never even talk about it. They don't. They never talk about it. They never talk to their friends, their family members, their audience. They never talk about it. How can you make money in your business if you don't let anyone know that you're here, that you're available to help you avoid making sales? And because you avoid making sales, you avoid making money.

[00:12:13] So what do you do? You stay doing the busy work. Busy work. A lot of people get stuck in the weeds. They get stuck doing things that feels productive. But if it's not producing income, you're just spinning your wheels as a business owner. And even if you're not a business owner, even as an employee, your job is to increase your income, whether if it's through raises, whether if it's through promotions.

[00:12:38] You know, if you want to get promoted, meaning make more income, you got to promote yourself.

[00:12:44] You got to promote yourself through better skill sets. You got to promote yourself through better knowledge, through better execution.

[00:12:51] You got to step up.

[00:12:53] You can't expect the law of promotion to work for you if you don't work for it.

[00:12:58] You see? And so you can't be in the weeds doing busy work thinking that that's what's going to produce a return. The only thing that produces a return in business is clarity.

[00:13:11] That's what. That's what creates money. Money likes clarity, y'. All. I tell you, if you refuse to look at your numbers, your numbers will not grow, it will not improve, and you can't grow what you are unwilling to look at, pay attention to and measure bottom line.

[00:13:29] Now, I do want to talk about something that almost nobody really want to hear, but this one is incredibly common and it's that you don't want to pay the cost.

[00:13:41] You don't want to pay the cost. Let me tell you, there is a cost for everything that you say that you want.

[00:13:47] You are going to pay the cost in time and money. Those are the only two resources that you have. Now if you don't want to pay the money, you're gonna have to make it up in time.

[00:13:56] But if you want to speed it up, you're gonna put some money behind it. Either way, you're gonna, you're gonna spend some time. If you're gonna spend some time, the question is, do you want to collapse the time or do you wanna keep spinning your wheels for months, years down the line, being stuck in the same place you've been stuck forever?

[00:14:13] Or do you want to get on with your life? Do you want to finally quit the job? Do you want to finally build the business? Do you want to finally grow your revenue? Do you want to finally have the freedom to take a vacation? Like what do you really want? Because what you want has a cost and there is a price that you're going to pay. Everybody wants to make six or seven figures, but very few people have six figure discipline, six figure focus, and they don't even have the willingness to make five figure investments. Some people don't even want to make a two figure investment.

[00:14:48] You don't want to pay up to 99 to learn what you need to learn to grow and thrive in your business.

[00:14:57] And the reason for this is for many people are addicted to survival.

[00:15:04] You're addicted to the feeling of always being behind, never catching up.

[00:15:11] But we've got to break that addiction. You know, some addictions are more visible and apparent than others.

[00:15:19] But there is a cost of a huge bill that you are going to have to pay.

[00:15:26] Success is going to send you some invoices.

[00:15:29] And those invoices come as rejection, embarrassment, long nights, uncomfortable conversations, investing money before you even made it back.

[00:15:40] You know, like you want the reward, but you don't want the responsibility.

[00:15:44] And so very few people want the price tag attached to the success that they want.

[00:15:50] And then the next thing that I notice are people too casual about it. You're too casual about your goals. You think that tomorrow is going to come.

[00:16:00] You, you, you take life for granted. You are just sure that God is going to give you Another opportunity instead of treating every day like it is your last.

[00:16:12] If you casually approach your goals, then you are not going to make any money.

[00:16:17] You know, casual, casual type of approach don't even get you casual money. It gets you no money.

[00:16:25] Because nobody spends money with somebody that's not excited about their goals.

[00:16:30] They don't. They don't spend money. People that's not confident.

[00:16:32] And so if you sit around thinking, you're hoping, you're trying, you're praying, I mean, that's cool, but it's. It's not going to get you far.

[00:16:44] Think about if an Olympic athlete decide, I'm just. I'm a train whenever I feel like it, or I'm gonna make this call when I feel like I'm in the mood.

[00:16:57] That's. That sounds ridiculous.

[00:16:59] Yet that's exactly how people run their finances. It's exactly how they run their businesses.

[00:17:06] They pussyfoot.

[00:17:08] And if increasing your income actually matters to you, if you really, truly want that, then you need to have a plan, you need to have a schedule, you need to have deadlines, you need to have metrics, and you need to have urgency.

[00:17:24] Because hope and prayer is not a strategy.

[00:17:28] Not a strategy.

[00:17:30] Success only happens when there is clarity. And strategy, a plan, that's where it goes.

[00:17:39] But the more that you pussyfoot and drag your feet, the longer you're going to be struggling with your money.

[00:17:47] And finally, one of the most expensive mistakes that I see are people that refuse to ask for help.

[00:17:55] Now, I say this all the time, that don't let your ego get bigger than your bank account.

[00:18:01] It's pride. You know, you don't want to look inexperienced. You don't want to look weak.

[00:18:07] You know, maybe, you know, you've been burned before or they've been burned before. I understand that.

[00:18:12] But here's what I do know.

[00:18:14] There is somebody out here that has already solved the problems that you're trying to figure out.

[00:18:20] And the fastest way to increase your income is not to work harder. It's not to put in more hours.

[00:18:26] It's not to pick up new side gigs. It's not that. It's not that you're going to find yourself in the same position regardless.

[00:18:36] Sometimes it. In order to really shorten that learning curve, you got to ask for help. You know, hire the mentors, get the coaches, get. Get into the communities, because it's going to save you incredibly expensive mistakes. Mistakes are very costly. And if you don't want to call, you don't want to waste a lot of time and money Ask for qualified help.

[00:19:02] The people that are growing the fastest are not the people that know everything.

[00:19:06] They're the people that are asking the questions. They're the people that are hiring the help. These are the people that are getting connected.

[00:19:13] These are the people that are not allowing their ego to get in the way.

[00:19:18] I understand ego keeps us safe, but it's also going to keep you broke. It's going to keep you poor, because you don't want to look weak and you don't want to look like you don't know it all. And you don't want to like you're making mistakes.

[00:19:31] It's just the nature of how it works.

[00:19:33] And so, you know, I learned even recently that I have a strength in planting seeds and nurturing them. Planting seeds and nurturing them. Planting seeds and nurturing them. But at some point, you've actually got a harvest, right? You actually have to go out there and get what you planted.

[00:19:58] And so you've got to plant the seeds first.

[00:20:00] Plant the seeds. And reaping a harvest will be easy, Much easy. Asking for help would roll off the tip of your tongue because you know you are out here planting seeds, good seeds.

[00:20:14] But if you're planting seeds of disrespect and dishonor, if you're planting seeds of unreliability, if you're planting seeds, if not delivering on your promises, you're gonna reap. You're gonna reap that harvest of that, too. Disappointment, poverty.

[00:20:34] And you don't want that.

[00:20:35] You want freedom, you want success, you want money, you want wealth, you want to be able to live life on your terms.

[00:20:42] But you have to plant the right seeds and the right soil and nurture it the right way.

[00:20:50] And then go get. Go get your crop, go get that.

[00:20:54] And so get into the right places.

[00:20:57] You know, plant the seeds there, nurture those seeds, and get your crop.

[00:21:04] Get it. Your crop's going to be money, it's going to be freedom. It's going to be everything that you could imagine, Everything that you can imagine. I promise you, I promise it's going to save you years of mistakes.

[00:21:16] So before we wrap up, I just want to leave you with one question.

[00:21:21] If your income hasn't changed, which one of these seven habits is costing you the most?

[00:21:29] Is it the way you think about debt?

[00:21:31] Is it the way you deploy your money?

[00:21:34] Is it the way that you investors invest into yourself?

[00:21:38] Are you hiding from the money?

[00:21:41] Are you avoiding the cost of growth?

[00:21:45] Are you treating your goals too casually or trying to figure out everything by yourself?

[00:21:53] Because here's the truth.

[00:21:55] Making more money isn't just about learning another strategy. It's not learning about tips or hacks.

[00:22:00] It's about becoming the kind of person who can consistently make better financial decisions.

[00:22:07] So your income is right, rarely ever going to change before your thinking does.

[00:22:14] So start there.

[00:22:16] So this week, don't ask yourself, how much, much more money can I make?

[00:22:21] Ask yourself, what beliefs do I need to outgrow to become the person capable of earning, keeping and multiplying your money?

[00:22:34] That's where that work actually begins.

[00:22:37] So I want to thank you for listening to this episode of the Smart Credit Experience.

[00:22:41] If this episode challenged the way you think about money, share with another entrepreneur or somebody that you know love and trust, or somebody that's feeling a little stuck with their finances, and if you're serious about living a more fundable life and making smarter financial decisions, then I want to invite you to get matched with one of our Smart Credit certified consultants. They're going to help you with building the habits, the skills systems and the found the financial foundations to create that long term wealth and financial success that you're looking for. And other than that, I want to say thank you and I will see you on the next episode.