So Glad You Asked
Conversations on career, leadership and living an intentional life with CliftonStrengths® Certified Life & Career Coach and Founder of Whole Human Co. Jean Madison
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So Glad You Asked
How do I align my Money Goals & my Ideal Life? So Glad You Asked
In this weeks #MoneyMindsetMarch Episode of the So Glad You Asked Podcast we are discussing how the "$10K month" and "$100K year" benchmarks have become gospel in entrepreneurial circles and career development conversations, but these arbitrary financial targets often lead to frustration, burnout, or surprising emptiness when achieved. In this revealing episode, I pull back the curtain on these money myths to help you establish financial goals that actually matter.
Drawing from my experience coaching countless clients through major financial decisions, I share why most people pursue income goals without ever asking the most crucial question: "Why that number?" This simple inquiry often reveals that we're chasing figures someone else told us represented success, rather than numbers that support the life we truly want to live.
The conversation explores a more intentional approach to money goals that starts with your ideal life vision and works backward to determine what financial resources you actually need. I vulnerably share my own income target of $75,000 for this year—a number some might consider surprisingly modest for a business owner—and explain why it perfectly aligns with my current life priorities, particularly spending time with my daughter.
Through practical examples like the "cabin in the woods" visualization exercise, we examine how to calculate the real costs of your dreams and find creative ways to experience the feelings you're seeking without waiting decades to afford them. This episode offers a refreshing perspective on the balance between planning for tomorrow while living meaningfully today.
Whether you're an entrepreneur feeling pressure to hit certain revenue targets, a career professional eyeing that next promotion, or simply someone wanting a healthier relationship with money, you'll walk away with a framework for establishing financial goals that truly serve your whole life—not just your bank account. Ready to redefine what financial success means on your own terms? This conversation is your starting point.
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Welcome back to so Glad. You Asked a podcast where we have conversations on career leadership and living an intentional life, and conversations with me, jean Madison, certified Gallup Global Strengths Coach and founder of Whole Human Co, where I'm focused on intentional career life and relationship coaching, as well as organizational and team development and well-being. Join me as I answer questions I'm asked by my clients and audience, as well as personal experiences and growth opportunities that I feel we could all learn from. If you have a question or topic suggestion you'd love to hear discussed here on the podcast, visit my Instagram at JeanMadison underscore, comment your questions here on the podcast or tap the link in the show notes that says send questions here to email me directly. Now let's dive into today's episode. Welcome back everyone.
Speaker 1:Today we are talking all about the importance of real money goals. I had originally titled this episode as the myth of the 10K month or 100K year. I would say it's a little bit more geared towards the entrepreneurs in the room. However, I do think there's plenty for anyone who is wanting to learn more about money mindset and figure out how to have a better relationship with your money. You'll get plenty out of this episode as well. Real money goals, and when I say real all caps underlined what I mean is knowing an exact number, having exact numbers, and if you've been around this year, in 2025, you'll know that I have shied away personally from really specific goals. I'm actually going to be doing an update on my goal setting and achievement in April Because, guess what, some specifics have come back into it. That's not a conversation for now, but it does play into this idea of having real goals.
Speaker 1:So, where the topic of this episode comes from, it comes from my work with one-on-one clients. It comes from my own personal journey as an entrepreneur, as someone working on money mindset, working in a nine to five, as someone working on money mindset, working in a nine to five, I always always, always aimed for $10,000 a month, but there was no reason, there was no why behind it. And that's really what I want to talk about today, because I see this a lot, especially with my entrepreneur clients, but also with nine to fivers, where people are like I just need to make a hundred thousand dollars a year. I want to make six figures, right? These are the like, buzz, buzz, buzz words that are out there right now, and there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with having those numbers as goals, but what happens is that oftentimes A this is a massive leap for people, or it could be right. Especially if you're a new entrepreneur like that $100,000 a year dollar amount can feel very, very, very elusive.
Speaker 1:The second thing and this was personal for me is that I didn't have a why for the goal. Besides, that's what entrepreneurs aim for and that's what you know. I was told that I was supposed to make. That was what I was told by every business coach. You know that $10,000 a month, that $100,000 a year which, for the record, those two things do not add up to one another. So there's problem number one. But that was what I was told. Right, that was the mark of being a successful entrepreneur. And, to give you some context, in my nine to five the nine to five that I left in the summer of 2021, I was making $85,000 a year. After taxes and investments and all those things, I was bringing home about $4,500 a month.
Speaker 1:So for me to leave that job with no business built, starting from scratch, being like I have to make $10,000 a month, I have to make $100,000 in the next year, it just it wasn't realistic, it was pretty silly, and because it was kind of unrealistic and kind of silly and I did not achieve it for the record, it was also really devastating and it was also really demoralizing because I was like what is wrong with me? All of these online business coaches, all of these money investment portfolio people are like 10K months, 100k years. If you're not doing that, there's something wrong with you. So that's what we're going to talk about today. I'm going to walk you through some of the things that I work on my clients, with some of the things that I've done for myself, particularly this year. But really I would just say that in one way or another, this conversation comes up with every single client, whether they are an entrepreneur, a nine to fiver, someone going into retirement, it does not matter what phase of life people are.
Speaker 1:In this conversation around money, goals always comes up and what often happens is they say I want to get a new job that pays more, build a side hustle to make more money outside of my career, make $100,000, make $10,000 a month, entrepreneurs. But it always comes back to this like more, more, more. I need more. And my question for them is always why? Look, I am all about making more money, especially my clients, because I know that when they have more money, they will do amazing things with that money in the world for themselves and others. They will do amazing things with that money in the world for themselves and others. But nine times out of 10, they have these goals.
Speaker 1:And I'll say we have these goals because I put myself in that category as well and we're not meeting the goals, or we are meeting the goals but something still feels off, it still feels like it's missing. So are you not supposed to have big financial goals? If you're like meeting these big financial goals and you're still feeling kind of empty, or you're not meeting these financial goals, like there's just so many questions here, and the first thing I will say is, of course you should have big goals. Right, if that feels aligned and if that feels energizing to you, yes, set big financial goals. I just want to help you not get so lost in the number of that goal and like the actual money piece of it that you forget why you have that goal, that you forget to actually live your life. Okay, so let's start there life. Okay, so let's start there.
Speaker 1:In my work at Whole Human Co. There are two things that I can pretty much guarantee we are always going to hit on, regardless of who you are, what your background is, what kind of work you do, why you come to work with me, and that is your strengths and your ideal life. I talk about this in probably every single podcast episode, but I am so adamant about encouraging folks to really identify what their ideal life looks like because I just think it is the best lighthouse, the best, um you know thing that you can aim for top of the mountain, the best, um, you know thing that you can aim for top of the mountain, whatever metaphor you want to use, that visual, that thing that you've imagined. That's what you're working toward, not this dollar amount, not this salary, not this job title. Everything you do in your life should be moving you in the direction of the life that you want to live and, ideally, allowing you to live pieces of that ideal life right now. So when you're working with me, once we've talked about your ideal life, then that's something that we refer back to over and over and over again when we are goal setting, when I am supporting you in making big decisions, when you're determining what kind of work you want to do if a relationship is working for you, if you need to move.
Speaker 1:You know, all of these big life things that always comes back to ideal life vision, and then also some like ideal job description stuff. If that's what we're doing together, that also plays a role. But ideal life is still, first and foremost, the most important thing. Then we obviously talk about your strengths. What are the things that you do? Then we obviously talk about your strengths what are the things that you do, how you do them in the easiest, most efficient way, what you're most naturally adept at, how you most naturally think, feel and behave.
Speaker 1:And knowing these things is going to allow you to set goals and action items that actually move you closer to that ideal life, that vision that you have, without so much resistance, without so much work, without so much work, without so much challenge. So that's why we focus on those two things, and the reason I'm bringing that up is because oftentimes the money conversations are really no different. We are. We are going to go and talk about your ideal life Whenever money comes up. I'm going to bring us back to your ideal life. So that's the thing to start with. You know is what is the ideal life. What is the vision? What is it? What are the big, lofty, dreaming goals? And then let's work from there.
Speaker 1:So I did actually have a client this year who's an entrepreneur, who came to me and, you know, wanted to go to quote, unquote the next level in her business, and when we were discussing this, the thing that kept coming up was $100,000 a year. And that's really what has prompted this episode is because this happens so often, and so you know this kept coming up and it was part of the like intake form that she filled out and the goals that she set. And it has been a year now that we've been working together and I can happily say that the $100,000 number has not shown up in our conversations in at least six months, if not longer. And the reason that I'm excited about that is because that wasn't really the goal, that wasn't really the point, that wasn't really what she wanted. It's just what she had been told she should want as an entrepreneur.
Speaker 1:And so if you are in a nine to five, maybe it's, you know, maybe it's still that a hundred thousand dollar mark, maybe it's like, oh, you're not successful unless you have a hundred thousand dollars, a six figure salary, maybe you haven't made it unless you have a director level title. Right, maybe you are being told you need to move up in your organization into a leadership or management role. But like you don't want to be a manager, you don't want to be a leader. Like not in a bad way, like you don't want to be a leader, but just some people are really really talented individual contributors and then they're forced into management roles because that's the only next step that an organization has, and then they burn out, and then they get demoted or they get fired or they leave the organization and it's a waste for everybody. But they did it because they were told that was the next thing.
Speaker 1:And so I'm here to kind of challenge this idea of constant growth financially and in career, constant climbing the ladder, not because you can't do that. If you're in a phase of life where that is energizing for you and you're enjoying that great, do it. That's what my twenties were. I then also burned myself all the way out. I just want to make sure that when you're pursuing these new roles, this new you know, this bonus, this pay increase, these new clients, like whatever it is for you, whatever it is you're pursuing, whatever dollar amount you've laid out for yourself.
Speaker 1:I just want to make sure that it makes sense. I want to make sure that it actually allows you to live the life that you want to live, because what we often find is that the higher the salary, the less freedom you have. Right, this doesn't have to be the case, but it tends to be the case, especially in like traditional nine to fives. You have more responsibility, you spend more time working, so like, yeah, cool, You're making a bunch of money and you're also not like living your life.
Speaker 1:And so you know, I really harp on this idea of like intentional careers and building visions for intentional careers, because I don't want you to get to retirement and look back and be like what the fuck just happened? Yeah, I have a bunch of money, but like now I'm old and I can't do any of the things I want to do. Like none of us want that. I hope none of us want that. If you do want that, you're probably not listening to this podcast. Let's be honest. But yeah, so I just I want you to be sure not sure, because life changes and things change and nothing's ever in stone and concrete, but I want you to feel confident that whatever money goal you have laid out for yourself, you're not going to kill yourself in the process to get there, that you're not going to waste your life trying to get to this money number only to realize that you wasted your life.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I am always an advocate for that middle way. I don't want you to, like, ignore your money. I don't want you to be like, oh, I don't need money because, like, unfortunately, we live in a world where you do. I want you to be smart about it. I want you to think about investments If that's exciting for you. I want you to think about running your own business If that's exciting to you. Side hustles, whatever it is. But I also don't want that to take over your life.
Speaker 1:So when I'm talking to clients and they give me that number, they say I want this promotion. They say whatever it is. They say my first question is always going to be why? Why that amount of money? Why that promotion? Why that particular career path? Why that investment? Like, whatever it is, why? Because if you can't answer the question why, I would very, very much encourage you to take a step back from whatever it is that you are taking action toward and get clear on that. Why, once you're clear on that, why by all means proceed? But if I ask you the question right now, let's say you have a goal of I don't know. I'll just tell you guys, mine, my income goal, my take-home income goal for my business this year is $75,000. And I am sure that many people listening to this are absolutely shocked by that, are like what do you mean? It's not $300,000. It's not a million dollars or whatever Silly, silly numbers. Yeah, that's my, that's my goal this year.
Speaker 1:Because when I think about my life and I think about how I want to spend my time, I'm only willing to work a certain number of hours. I'm only willing to do a certain number of things, because part of my ideal life and part of what I want to be doing right now is spending time with my daughter. And that's not to say I can't make good money in my work, you know, on less hours, but it's just not the biggest goal for me right now. I want to make enough money that it makes sense to run this business and that I'm contributing to my family. But money is not the ultimate goal right now for me. That doesn't mean in five years it won't be a bigger goal. It doesn't mean that five years ago it wasn't a bigger goal, because it was just the moment in time that I'm in, so being a little vulnerable and sharing that. But the why behind that for me I just shared I want to have more time, freedom, and so if the number is above that, great Happy for myself for that. But I'm not going to sacrifice the things that push me toward my ideal life in order to put a higher number goal on my income. So that why question, when you set your goal for yourself, why is that the goal? And if your answer is because someone else says that should be the goal, or I don't know, or I don't know, it sounded like a good number, I'm just going to encourage you to dive a little bit deeper into that.
Speaker 1:The first part of diving deeper into that is how does that number align with your ideal life? So I do this exercise with every single one of my clients, so I'm going to share a couple of examples that have come up over the last several years. In 2020, 2021, everybody was like super into having a cabin in the woods. I think we can all understand why Many of us were stuck in cities and could not like live our lives, and we're all like I just want to be in the woods. So a lot of my clients were like I want a cabin in the woods. Some of them got super specific. I think of one in particular, like a nice stream behind it and a blue front door and like all these things, love it. And that's not like the whole visualization, that's just like the house, right. And then I'm like okay, how much does that cost? Have you looked for those cabins? Have you determined what that number actually is? You know, what would you need to have for a down payment? What, like, would the monthly payment be? Would you have to sell your current home? Would you, would this be a second home? Like?
Speaker 1:There are a lot of questions to answer to this. Right, there's the dream Yay, dream, love it. And then there's the okay, like, what does that actually cost? And the reason that I asked this question is because I find that this is something that most people don't actually ever look into or answer when they do ideal life visualization type work, which is, you know, tough to hear. But it makes a lot of sense because we have this dream and then we have what we're doing right now, and I just often see that those two things don't align.
Speaker 1:And so, okay, we lay it out. It's going to cost I don't know, because buying properties is insane right now. Let's just say a mere $800,000 for this lovely little cabin in the woods Not that expensive where you live, lucky you. Let's say it's that right. So you figure out like, okay, I'm gonna have to have this down payment, I don't have to do this, and so in order to do that, I'm going to need to make this much money and be able to save this much money. And so maybe you get to the end of that and you're like, man, I'm going to really have to like work myself to the bone to get that savings in order and I feel really motivated by that. Great, go do it. Maybe you realize what the number is and you're like, oh, I'm actually like not motivated by that at all. That's kind of that sounds horrible, like I don't want to do that Great.
Speaker 1:So the next question would be okay, what is the like feeling that you're trying to get from that place right From that cabin in the woods? Like what is it that having that would bring to you? Maybe it's just seclusion, it's alone time, it's creativity, it's an opportunity to be in nature. So then we can kind of break down some of the smaller goals, some of the things that you really want that have kind of come together in this visual of a cabin in the woods, and then we can talk about okay, how are you doing that now? Like, how are you spending more time in nature now? How are you getting alone time for creativity? Now? It doesn't have to be a cabin in the woods. It could be a co-working space, it could be your local library. It could be going, committing to going on hikes once a week, right, like things that are cheap or free. It could also be going and renting a beautiful cabin in the woods four times a year, three times a year, once a year to get that feeling right.
Speaker 1:And that's something my husband and I really realized recently is I have a lot of dreams about like things I want and houses and places, and like everywhere we go. I am that quintessential person. Every time we go on vacation, I'm like we could live here and it's finally just kind of. I finally decided and we were just talking about this on the drive home the other day that we could just spend our money and go to these places once a year. We could go rent an Airbnb once a year at these places, although currently not supporting Airbnb, but that's another conversation. You know, we could spend a little bit more money on like vacations and stuff. We're always very like thrifty, cheap travelers, but, like all of these things that I love, I have places I can go.
Speaker 1:To get that feeling I don't need to own the house, I don't need to buy the cabin in the woods, and that means when I think about my money goal, at least for right now, right, I don't need to be saving a bunch of money for some elusive cabin in the woods. Instead, I'm going to spend that money that I would be saving to just go to a cabin in the woods, instead of waiting 30 years until I can afford it, because I don't necessarily think I'm going to need to own a cabin in the woods if that makes sense. So this is just like a conversation that I have with clients. If they get to the end of this you know question and answer period and they're like no, that's still like something I really want, then great.
Speaker 1:We like set up a process for how you set that goal, how you save that money, what you can invest. I'm not an investment, I'm not a money, see, I don't even know what it's called, but financial planner. So we don't talk about that, but we just talk about the basics of it, right, what's the number generally? What do you want to commit to saving? What do you want to commit to doing to make that happen? Those sorts of things.
Speaker 1:But a lot of the times, the how do you like? Does the money goal that you've set allow you to actually live parts of your ideal life? Now? That question is really powerful, and so part of my money goal that I laid out is that it's enough money that I get to contribute to my family. I can save some things, we can invest in some things and I get to live parts of my ideal life now, like, am I in the dream home? Am I, you know, on land and all that stuff? No, but like I know how to bring those feelings into my everyday life now, while still looking forward and thinking about bigger goals. So this is just what I want to share with you all I hope this is landing is that, when you're thinking about money, when you're thinking about your goals, your financial goals.
Speaker 1:I would just love to encourage you to bring this idea of ideal life into the conversation and bring the thought process of am I doing everything now for some elusive future, or am I doing some now for an elusive future and doing some for my present moment? Am I living my life Like? Am I actually living my life Because that's really what I want for you? I really want you to live your life, and I think that a big part of money mindset work is understanding this, is understanding that like all we have is right now not to get super philosophical and high level, but like we only have this moment and that's not a permission to just like go full FOMO and you know, or not FOMO? I guess a little bit FOMO but full YOLO for the millennials listening here. You know this idea you only live once, so just like burn it all. It's not necessarily encouragement to do that, but it is encouragement to be like how much are you just squirreling away for later when you don't even know what later is going to look like?
Speaker 1:How do you find that happy medium, how do you find that energy and excitement around investing and saving and, you know, building financial freedom for your future, which we're going to talk about in the next episode, and living your life now. That's something that I've just seen so often in my clients is I'm doing all of this stuff for some future time, but I'm miserable because I'm not actually living now. So how do you find that middle? Well, you figure out a number. Then you ask yourself why, once you get to a good answer on the why, you can keep that number, if you can't get to a good answer on the why, let's rethink the number. In order to rethink the number, let's look at ideal life. Let's map out what does that actually cost? Let's take the action to figure it out.
Speaker 1:One of the big things that I have in my mind right now is I want to build a deck onto the back of our house. I don't even know if that's like not even just financially feasible, but just you know construction wise if we could even do that on our house. But it's one thing for me to sit here and be like, oh, I really wish we could build. What I need to do is go and figure out how much building a deck is actually going to cost. Is that actually going to be possible? Because otherwise, I'm just kind of toiling around on this dream and this idea and it's never going to go anywhere Because I don't know what number I need to have in the bank to build this deck. I don't know who I need to contact to make that happen.
Speaker 1:So part of the money mindset piece, part of ideal life and money goals, is inspired action. Denise Duffield Thomas talks about this a lot of like taking inspired action, and taking inspired action could literally be like figuring out how much that costs and then is that a realistic thing that I want to pursue? And once you've figured it out, then you can really keep moving forward with that particular goal. You can figure out your action items, all of that fun stuff. But again, why that number? How does that align with your ideal life? Does that goal allow you to live parts of your ideal life now? If not, keep iterating on it over and over again until you get to the right number, get to the aligned number and, as with everything I always talk about, this can change. My money goals have changed over the last couple of years. They will probably change a few years from now. That's okay. I have different priorities right now than I did in 2020 and 2021. I have different commitments. I have different ways I want to spend my time and so, therefore, my money goals have changed, and that's perfectly okay.
Speaker 1:I say that to say permission to change your goals, permission to not run after that. $10,000 a month, $100,000 a year, six figure salary, million dollars in the bank, whatever you know number has been told to you defines success, defines a good life. Permission to let that go, permission to find a number that makes sense to you, permission to find work that aligns to that, that makes you feel good, that maybe doesn't have the highest salary but has the best work-life balance and the best benefits and opportunities to spend time with your family and opportunities to travel, like whatever it is that's on your ideal life If money were no object. What's the work that allows you to actually do that? Permission to change your mind. Permission to change your mind All right.
Speaker 1:So in the next couple of episodes we're still going to talk about money mindset stuff. I'm going to bring in some conversations about financial freedom in the next episode, because it really relates to what we've been talking about here, about these kind of you know, ungrounded numbers, ungrounded ideas of like what these things mean and really only pursuing things that other people have told us we need and other people have told us. That's the number and that's really what I'm hoping you all can step away from this month. As we talk more about money, mindset is getting more in tune with what you want. What's aligned for you, and not just what other people have said, is the important thing to have With that it in a more aligned and intentional fashion.
Speaker 1:If you enjoyed today's episode I always appreciate ratings and reviews of the podcast. If you want to comment anything that you learned, something you're taking away you're going to think more on or practice I love that as well. If you are wanting to hear more about my work, you can join me over on Instagram at gmadison underscore or join my email list. The link will be in the show notes below. I only send out occasional emails with updates and things like that or just like thoughts that are on my mind, but I would love to have you there and, if nothing else, I will see you back here next time, for so Glad you Asked.
