Statistics show that in 2021, women lost $800 billion in the pandemic globally. Getting rich is only getting harder, especially if you’re a woman. This is why author Sara Connell wrote her newest book, The Science of Getting Rich for Women. In the book, Sara lists down steps that women can follow so that they can find financial success. It doesn’t matter if you know nothing about money; all you need to do is follow her playbook. Join Michelle Seiler Tucker as she talks to Sara about her newest book and how you can get rich in 4 simple steps. Sara is a bestselling author and the founder of Thought Leader Academy. Learn how you can shift your mindset so that you can achieve your goals.

—

Watch the episode here

Listen to the podcast here

The Science Of Getting Rich For Women: The Steps To Financial Success With Sara Connell

Welcome to another episode of Exit Rich. I’m so excited to have Sara Connell. Sara Connell is a bestselling author and the Founder of Thought Leader Academy, where she helps coaches, writers and entrepreneurs become bestselling authors. I think that’s amazing because a lot of times, entrepreneurs are sometimes the best-kept secret because nobody knows who they are or what they do, so that’s amazing. She also helps authors and in-demand TEDx speakers, which I want to do.

She has been featured on Oprah Winfrey, Good Morning, The View, Fox Chicago, NPR, Katie Couric and TEDx. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Forbes, The Quarterly, Good Housekeeping and Parenting. Her first book Bringing In Finn was nominated for the Elle Magazine Book of the Year. Sara, welcome to Michelle. I’m so excited to have you on.

I’m happy to be here, Michelle.

Before we jump into the book launch because you’re launching The Science of Being Rich for Women. I have my copy here. I’m excited and thrilled to be featured in this book. It’s an amazing book. A wonderful book. We’re going to jump right into this but Sara, real quick then we’ll press for time here because it’s your launch day and you are a bit late. Tell us how you got started and how you went from making $20,000 a year to over $1 million a year?

Not the numbers you would want to see Michelle, with the women that you help sell their businesses. I grew up in that theme. I’m creative. I’m a writer and there’s that mythology in our culture, a lot about the starving artist. I played that out. It was like, “I don’t understand numbers,” and I didn’t empower myself. I wanted to be a writer. I thought I wasn’t good enough. I took a bunch of jobs I hated. The journey a lot of us take but when I was in one of those jobs, it was a very, me too sexually abusive job that a lot of us had those experiences.

I found a book that I credit as saving my life. I was in a dark place. It was a book by a woman named Margaret Bullitt-Jonas. She’s not a famous celebrity. She’s a woman who told her story in a memoir called Holy Hunger. I was on a trajectory where I was spiraling into disordered eating. I was in depression. I was having this trauma at work. I didn’t know how to get out and that book saved my life. When that happened, I decided, “I don’t think I’m good enough. I don’t do all the stuff that some of us have.” You didn’t have it as much, Michelle and I love your story for that because you were more like, “I’m going to show them.” I love that.

It took me a little longer to get there but I decided to go forward anyway. I said, “I’m going to become a writer. I’m going to pay this forward. I’m going to see what happens,” and not right away but that led to that did lead to the first book. The book deal and Oprah and all these exciting things that we love to have to happen as authors. When I got through that first book experience, I said, “I’m going to dedicate the rest of my life to helping other women, particularly those who have a mission and a story and help them get that on that TEDx stage. Get that bestselling book so they can make an impact.”

Congratulations on the book launch. That’s so exciting. I’m writing four books myself. I had a book launch with Exit Rich. I know how tough it is. All the things that go into it. I’m very excited to be featured in this book. Tell us about The Science of Getting Rich and dig into the book a little bit. Give our audience some golden nuggets so they can go out and purchase your book.

The Science Of Getting Rich

I was taking a walk as I did during the pandemic a lot of days. I heard a statistic, it was at the end of 2021 that said, “Women had lost $800 billion in the pandemic.” That was the global hit that women took, whether it was from furloughs. I thought, “That has to be a mistake.” I thought there was no way. I went home and it was an OCAM study. I looked up a few other things and that is the number. When I realized that I thought, it was like a punch to the gut because, I, for so long had struggled to earn money and I’m a writer, all the stuff I said. We were having our first million-dollar year in our company and that was a big milestone for us.

That was in 2020?

This was in 2021.

That was your first year, you broke $1 million?

It took three years in the business to break the million but this is coming from someone who was making $20,000. These are big jumps and I said, “I want to pull out what I teach our clients in Thought Leader Academy a put it into this book where I can give a roadmap.” Maybe someone is like me and said, “I don’t understand numbers. I’m creative and I’m a mom. I’m a whatever the reason is they’ve thought they can’t have that financial success.” I know it can happen because it happened for me and hundreds of our clients. I put that together then, I sought out 25 other self-made women millionaires, multimillionaires like yourself, Michelle.

This is funny. I met Michelle because of her book. A friend of mine read Michelle’s book and was in Mastermind with you and Sara Sullivan. She called me and said, “We have to do Michelle’s book for a book club together. We need to learn this and start thinking about setting up our businesses to sell it later on.” I’d never thought about it. We got your book and I got admitted forms. I listed the audio, I read it and all the things. It’s such a great book and so that’s how we found you. That’s how I connected with you. It was through your book.

Without the book, you might have never connected with me. Everybody should have a book. I do think it’s very difficult to make money as an author. I use it for lead generation, so I make money from lead generation but it’s very difficult because there are so many books being published. To me, the objective is lead gen, brand awareness, brand recognition, that type of thing. Tell us a little bit about what the book is about.

Essentially, I offer what I call the secret equation. To give a little history quickly. The title The Science of Getting Rich is from a book by a man named Wallace Wattles, who wrote that text in the 1920s. It was a contemporary of Napoleon Hill and some of these men that were writing in the ‘20s about using your thoughts, your mindset to create wealth. It’s a great book. I loved it but I kept thinking it’s very patriarchal. It’s very, “A man shall,” and all this stuff.

I said, “I wish there was a woman’s version of that book,” then I found out because it’s in the public domain. It’s over 100 years old. I could use the title and have a fun homage to the original book but right from the perspective of what I needed as a woman. What were the mindsets I needed to overcome? What were the actions that worked for me and for now thousands in our community to take?

I put our whole system. I put the step-by-step guide to going from struggling to making $1 million a year or more, whatever someone’s goal is and I gave the whole playbook. The first half of the book is my playbook that I teach and that I use. I hold nothing back, so anyone can use it and the stories of you and the other 24 women who share their tips.

Getting Rich: In 2021, statistics say that globally, women lost $800 billion in the pandemic.

Is it like 5 or 6 steps or is it something you can rattle off quickly with the steps?

Be

It is. I’ll share here. I have a four-step equation and because it is called the science, I thought we better have some equation in here, a little chemistry equation. I do believe it starts. Michelle, you and I have talked about this with generating an inner experience. The first step is be. Being the person, the leader who is a multimillionaire because sometimes we are very much stuck in what’s happened up until now. If I stayed stuck in that $20,000 a year mindset, I would never have generated anything new. I started asking myself every day, “What does the seven-figure CEO do here?”

That sounds like nonsense because I wasn’t anywhere close to that. By thinking and being in the room with and learning from and reading books by women and men and other leaders who were multimillionaires and creating successful businesses, I needed to start being that. First, it was an identity shift. It’s about knowing we’re worth it, that we’re capable, even if we haven’t experienced that abundance before.

Can I say something real quick? That’s very important. When I used to work at Xerox when I had that job, I said I would never get a job. I was a senior manager, a high-volume manager at Xerox then within six months, they asked me to throw my hat in the ring and interview for a regional vice president overseeing 100, 150 sales reps. “You’ll never get it because you’ve only been here for six months.” I said, “If I’m never going to get it, why should I go through this whole three-month process?” They said, “For the experience because you will learn so much from this process.”

For me, to think like, “I deserve this. I’m going to get this,” I went out and bought a Mont Blanc pen. Remember how famous they were back in the day? I bought a new couple of new suits and I’m like, “I belong. I’m going to be. I’m going to get this position.” It made me feel more sophisticated. It made me feel like a winner. I think this be is amazing. I’m sorry. Go ahead to number two.

Release

I love that, Michelle, because you were doing it. Identity drives behavior. We know this from neuroscience and psychology. You adapted, you embodied the new identity of that person who was getting that position and look at what you’ve accomplished. I got to start embodying that identity. The second step is one that’s not usually in a lot of these personal growth books but it was crucial for me, which is release.

What happens is often, we start being, “I’m going to be a multimillionaire. I’m going to sell a company. I’m going to go on Oprah,” whatever those visions are. Consciously, we’re all in but under the surface, there are all kinds of stuff subconsciously and in whatever you want to think of energy in any of these ways. You don’t even have to get woo-woo. It’s science, which is that we have a lot of the iceberg, meaning what drives our behaviors under the surface.

I interviewed four women neuroscientists and they all use different modalities to help people clear those counter-purpose ideas that are going on below the surface. You’re saying, “I want to have a multimillion-dollar business and sell it.” Underneath someone’s going, “You can’t be more successful than your father. You can’t outshine your sister. You don’t deserve it. You were told by your teacher that you’re not good at math,” whatever the nonsense that we took on.

The second chapter of the book is helping you clear out and use some of these modalities. We have them on the website that goes with the book. The actual neuroscientists are taking you through those techniques as a reader. You can use NLP if you’ve heard of that. You can use hypnosis. The point is to get them out of our way so that we’re not doing this push-pull. I want it but I can’t then it feels like we’re swimming upstream or we sabotage or it takes so long. We’re going to clear all that out of the way in the second set.

It’s all based on how you act. It’s based upon your paradigms. That happened to me when I was going to leave Xerox, which was a six-figure position with great benefits, everybody’s like, “Are you crazy? You’re going to go start out franchise sales, franchise consulting business and franchise development business? You’re crazy. You’re even six figures with benefits.” At some point, when you keep hearing it, you start to believe it. Now for me, when I hear those thoughts, I’m like, “Shut up. Devil, get out of my head.” You’ve got to focus on the why. If you focus on your why, it’ll drown out all the naysayers and it’ll drown out the voices in your head.

Do

After we embody that identity, we start thinking and acting like that person. We clear out the junk that’s underneath. The third step is do and that’s simply, align our actions with that new identity. If I’m saying, “I want to be one of Michelle’s clients in three years who sells my company,” then I’ve got to start taking different actions. I get to make sure I have an operations man. I’m thinking about EBITDA. I’m learning. I am going to take new actions based on that vision then if I say, “I’m going to do my thing and I’ll zero out at the end of my company,” and whatever I was thinking I was going to do.

The new actions are fun because that’s where we have the skin in the game. That’s where you’re hiring before you’re ready. That’s where you’re investing in a mentor. That’s where you’re taking risks and going and pitching yourself to. I have a meeting. I can’t give details because all those things are confidential until you sign the deal. We might have a potential partner coming in and opening up a new division of our company. That would never have happened a year ago because I wasn’t doing bolder actions. Did that come up for you too, Michelle? Did you start taking after you got the pen?

A thousand percent. I always say you got to get comfortable with being uncomfortable because it’s in the uncomfortable where you experience true growth. One of the biggest things for me is writing my first book Sell Your Business For More Than It’s Worth in 2013. That was a huge game-changer for me because nobody knew who I was. I was the best-kept secret. I’m selling all these companies helping business owners exit rich and nobody knew it because it’s private companies. We can’t talk about private companies. That’s when I wrote the book and everybody’s like, “Oh my gosh.”

It was a number one lead generator. It was a game-changer for me and I was uncomfortable. The first time I spoke in front of 800 people, I thought I was going to pass out, throw up and I kept trying to talk myself out of that. I said, “I don’t need to do this. They’re ridiculous.” My mentor at the time said, “If you don’t go up there on your own, I’m going to drag you up there by your hair.” Sometimes you have to have a good mentor to keep you uncomfortable and push you beyond that comfort level. You’ll never grow unless you get comfortable being uncomfortable.

It’s so crucial because we think comfort is so prized. We think, “It’d be so good,” but everything we want is on the other side of that comfort zone, everything. Michelle, no one knew about you and then you decide, “I’m going to be bold, be uncomfortable, write the book.” Now you’re a leader and you are the leader in this space. I think that’s so exciting. Also, the idea when we take the new action. They always say confidence is not a feeling. It’s a skill developed through consistent action.

I love that because that’s true with self-aware. We don’t feel it and then, “I’m inspired. I’m going to take the action.” Usually, you’re scared like you. The mentor thing is so important because everything changed for me when I got a mentor. The year that I went from $20,000 to six figures, mentor. When I wanted to go to $500,000, next mentor. To the million-dollar and multimillion-dollar, a new mentor.

Getting Rich: Be it to get that identity piece going. Release the junk that says you can’t do it. Take new actions that align with your vision. And know that you will have the result.

I knew that you got a new mentor because what got you from $20,000 to $50,000, $50,000 to $100,000, $100,000 to $500,000 to $1 million is not the same person.

No.

What got you here, won’t get you there. There’s a book in that.

It’s a great principle. It’s a true principle. It’s the same with your team. The team that got you here, isn’t the team that’s going to take your next level necessarily and often not. That’s hard. We don’t like change. I don’t like it but it’s important.

Was that four steps?

Have

The final one is the result. The final four of the four steps have. Be, release, do. We hear be, do, have. I put in the release step because I was finding people were getting stuck. Be, release, do equals, you have the vision. If your vision is the million, multimillion-dollar company or selling your business or getting on TEDx or starting your podcast or starting a philanthropic organization, you will have it by doing the first three steps. That’s a receiving step. It’s an automatic result. I rode crew. If anyone ever rode, it’s such a weird East Coast sport. Anyway, I rode crew in high school.

We had a coach who said, “I want to be very clear at the beginning of the season. Our goal is not winning. Our goal is strength and unity and the result will be winning.” We won everything, national champions, international. We won gold the whole season because he understood that if you focus on the correct pieces of the equation, the winning will happen anyway. We were undefeated.

I think it’s the same in business, entrepreneurship and creativity. Be it to get that identity piece going. Release the junk that says you can’t, all the lies, all the BS we pick up then take the new actions. Take the actions aligned with that person you’re here to be, that leader that you know you are. You will have the result. Those are the four steps and they’ve never failed me.

You will have the result but I also want to say that happiness is not necessarily achieving the result. It’s in the journey. Everybody’s like, “I’m so stressed out. I’m trying to get this go. I’m trying to get this product.” You have to identify your why too. Why do you want to study business for $100 million? Why do you want to start a podcast? Why do you want a TED Talk? It’s not easy. Running a company is not easy.

I run several of them and it’s hard work. The bottom line is if your why is not strong enough to keep you in the game, to keep you motivated, to keep you weathering all the financial storms and all the other storms that all of us women go through because we go through a lot more storms than men do, it’s imperative to know that why.

When I work with buyers, I’m always like, “What’s why? Why do you want to do this?” I got to make sure their why is profound enough to keep them in the game. We saw the media company one time, we merged it with another media company. Here’s why he wanted sell for a certain price tag. His wife was diagnosed with a debilitating disease. He wanted to have enough money to cure her. The why to me is so important to keep you in the game.

I had a team member we needed to let go of. It was painful. It hurt and I kept thinking, “Why are we doing this business?” For me, it was a book that saved my life and I’m going to spend the rest of my life paying that forward and making sure that you, Michelle, and getting on that TEDx stage, your message is getting to the person that’s needing it. I believe it’s a call and response.

If someone’s reading this and you’re thinking, “I know I’ve got that book in me or that talk in me or that business in me,” that’s not random. That’s being sourced by someone who’s in their therapist’s office crying like, “I need a new solution. I need help.” Your book or your talk is their help. I believe it’s a call and response. Many of my clients say, “Who needs another book on whatever or another talk.” We do because, Michelle, I could have read a lot of books on how to sell a business but I like yours. Yours is the book I want. I’m like, “I don’t need to look further.”

Mine’s the best.

I think it is.

It’s not about selling a business. It’s all about sustainable, scalable business so when you’re ready one day to sell, you don’t wake up in a panic and say, “I want to sell my business for $20 million,” and it’s worth $1 billion. My book talks about building that up. I know you have to go. I do want to ask you real quick. How did you get into Oprah and how was it?

The Science of Getting Rich for Women: Your Secret Path to Millions

Oprah

I’ll say it was for my very first book, which is a bizarre true story of how my son was born. This will be the 30-second version. After a lot of trauma my husband and I had, my mother, at almost 60 years old, offered to be our surrogate. Picture the craziness of this. My son came into the world through his super grandma. She’s doing great. We had this miraculous experience. I wrote a memoir because it was a lot about reproductive technology. A lot about the age that we live in. It’s science-fictiony. It was the last week of Oprah’s show. My mom made a joke, “We’re not going to do any press unless Oprah calls.” That was her joke and the book was in development.

She put it out there in the universe.

She sure did then they called. We were on the final week of the show and it was magnificent. My mother and I grew up loving watching Oprah together. We adore her. You know when you meet someone and they are exactly congruent with their external facing persona and that is our experience. It was loving and fun. My son found a picture of Oprah holding him that day we were on the show. He’s like, “Who’s this lady holding me?”

Young people don’t know who Oprah is.

She is more famous than the president.

More likable.

Much more for sure. Anyway, thanks so much, Michelle, for partnering. Thanks for being in the book. Your story is incredible. You all have to read Michelle’s chapter and I will be shouting, “Exit Rich,” from the rooftops always. I love it.

Page 145, I believe it is, in The Science of Getting Rich for Women. Tell all of our audience where they can find your book? How we can help support you in this launch? How we can help you make some of the bestsellers lists?

Thank you very much. I know we started getting texts that it hit the Amazon list. We’re excited. Now, we’re inviting everyone to go to Amazon. If you go to The Science of Getting Rich for Women, it will pop right up and it will be sold in bookstores. We’ll be on the book tour but we’re sending everybody to Amazon. Keep it easy and simple.

Holy Hunger: A Woman’s Journey from Food Addiction to Spiritual Fulfillment

Anyone that decides to get the book now, we’re having a few fun bonuses that you’ll see there. We’re going to do seven days of riches, which is basically a little mini gift that you’ll receive every day for seven days. We are donating profits from the launch to United Nations Women, so we can make that global economic comeback.

How can all the audience connect with you if they want to hire you, to help them write a book, get a TED Talk and any services that you offer?

Our website is SaraConnell.com. On Instagram @SaraConnell. You can find us on Instagram or on our website.

Thank you so much for being a great guest on the show. Thanks to all of our audience, all of our subscribers. If you haven’t subscribed to Exit Rich, please go do so. Please share this show with all of your friends, your family, your peers and your coworkers. It’s good stuff. It’s for everybody. It’s for all women and men, maybe. Do you work with men?

Yes, and there’s no difference in the system. Whether it’s selling a company, writing a book, or making millions, we’re all in it together.

Go purchase a book now, everybody. I’m in it. You can read my chapter and most importantly, let’s support Sara in her launch. It’s so exciting. Connect with her as well. Thank you so much. You’ve been a wonderful guest. I’m praying that you make all of the lists.

Thank you, Michelle.

Important Links

• Thought Leader Academy
• Bringing in Finn
• The Science of Being Rich for Women
• Holy Hunger
• Exit Rich
• Sell Your Business For More Than It’s Worth
• @SaraConnell – Instagram

About Sara Connell

I’m Sara Connell. After a book saved my life 17 years ago, I committed to making a contribution as an author and devoting my life to helping women and men with a story to share, change- even save lives- by becoming bestselling authors and speakers.

That vow has created a magical life- took me to Oprah and The New York Times and Forbes and to have the gift of coaching thousands of amazing individuals who are now changing the lives of millions through their stories and talks.

What I know now is that if you have the calling to write, to speak, to share your mission, not only are you capable and worthy, but someone right now needs your message- the one only you can share.