Ep. 69 Money Mindset for Online Business Owners w/ Melissa Mittelstaedt

Apr 7

Does your stomach drop a little when it is time to talk about money? When bookkeeping rolls around, when tax season hits, or when you have to say your prices out loud on a sales call?

You are not alone. Most of us grew up absorbing messages about money without even realizing it, and those messages follow us right into our businesses. They affect how we price our services, how we talk to prospective clients, and whether we ever feel truly comfortable with what we are earning.

Melissa Mittelstaedt is a financial consultant for conscious entrepreneurs on a mission to get women feeling so comfortable with money that they talk about it easily, work with it effortlessly, and receive it without question. This post covers everything we got into: where our money mindset actually comes from, how to start shifting it, and the financial numbers every online business owner needs to be paying attention to.

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What Money Mindset Actually Is and Where It Comes From

Money mindset is not some abstract concept reserved for self-help books. It is simply the story you have about money: how you look at it, how you interact with it, and how you feel about having it or not having it. And almost all of it was formed before you were old enough to know it was happening.

Melissa grew up in a household where money was not talked about. It was treated as an off-limits topic, something rude to bring up. So she internalized, very early, the idea that talking about money was inappropriate. That belief followed her into adulthood and eventually into her own financial journey, which included digging herself out of roughly $50,000 in debt after college.

Most of us have some version of this. Maybe your family openly stressed about not having enough. Maybe money was always described as something only certain kinds of people had access to. Maybe you watched adults make financial decisions driven by fear or shame and absorbed that as the normal way to relate to money. None of it was intentional on their part. But it shaped you all the same.

The two most common money mindset poles are scarcity, where there is only so much money to go around and you are probably not going to get your share, and abundance, where money is accessible and you trust your ability to create it. Most of us live somewhere between those two, often without realizing how much our position on that spectrum is driving our decisions.

How to Start Uncovering and Releasing Old Money Stories

One of Melissa's favorite exercises, drawn from the book Get Rich, Lucky Bitch by Denise Duffield-Thomas, is a money memory journal. The idea is to get into a reflective space and write down specific memories that have an emotional charge connected to money, whether that is shame, regret, fear, or even joy. The goal is not to relive them so much as to surface them, because you cannot work through what you cannot see.

A quick note before you try this: if you start and the memories that come up feel too overwhelming or too connected to real trauma, pause. A financial therapist can help you navigate that more safely. Not every money story can be processed through journaling, and there is no shame in needing more support.

For those who are able to go there, Melissa recommends following it up with a forgiveness practice. Not to let anyone off the hook, but to release the weight of the memory for your own sake. The Hawaiian practice of Ho'oponopono involves four phrases: I love you. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. Revisiting a memory and moving through those phrases, in whatever order feels right, can help loosen the grip it has on you over time.

The second practice Melissa recommends is flipping specific limiting beliefs. Not vague affirmations, but targeted rewrites of the actual thoughts that are holding you back. One of hers was "rich people are greedy." She had plenty of real-world examples that seemed to confirm it. But she started asking herself: is it that rich people are greedy, or is it that greedy people are greedy, with or without money? Money amplifies who you already are. If you are a generous, values-driven person, more money gives you more capacity for that. Identifying the exact belief and writing a more accurate version of it is how you actually start to shift it.

Even small language swaps can help. Instead of "that's too expensive," try "that's not something I'm choosing to spend money on right now." Instead of "I can't afford that," try "that's not a priority for me at this moment." The difference is not just semantic. One comes from fear and scarcity; the other comes from agency and intention.

The Book Recommendations Worth Adding to Your Reading List

Melissa referenced several books throughout the conversation that she uses with clients and in her own practice:

The Soul of Money by Lynne Twist explores how our relationship with money is shaped by scarcity thinking at a cultural level and offers a reframe around sufficiency instead.

Get Rich, Lucky Bitch by Denise Duffield-Thomas is more out there in tone, but packed with practical exercises for clearing money blocks and building a more abundant mindset.

We Should All Be Millionaires by Rachel Rodgers is grounded, practical, and full of tangible steps for building genuine wealth as a woman in business.

The Having by Suh Yoon Lee is more abstract but contains one of Melissa's favorite passages, which she shared during our conversation. A teacher holds up a glass of water, shakes it, and watches the water spill. Then she explains: when your mind is turbulent, money cannot stay in it, just like water cannot stay in a shaken glass. It is not that rich people are comfortable because they are rich. They are rich because they are comfortable.

That idea, that a settled, non-anxious relationship with money is actually what allows money to flow toward you and stay, is worth sitting with.

How Money Mindset Directly Affects Your Business

Everything we have talked about so far applies to anyone. But when you are a business owner, the stakes get higher, because your money mindset is not just affecting your personal finances. It is affecting how you price, how you sell, and whether your business is actually sustainable.

The first place it shows up is in pricing. There is a phrase that has made the rounds in online business for years: charge your worth. Melissa is ready for it to retire, and so am I. When you conflate your pricing with your personal worth, you are mixing two things that should stay separate. Your worth as a human is not for sale. Your services have a price that should be based on your costs, your market, your experience, and the value of the transformation you provide.

The "charge your worth" framing tends to lead to two equally unhelpful outcomes: either you underprice because your self-worth is low and you cannot justify charging more, or you pick a number that feels emotionally significant but has no grounding in the actual economics of your business. Neither serves you.

The second place money mindset shows up is in sales conversations. If you cannot say your prices with confidence, your clients will feel that. If there is a hesitation or an apology or an unnecessary qualifier in your voice when you name your number, it signals to the person across from you that you are not fully behind what you are offering. Your clients need to feel that you stand behind your prices before they can stand behind them too.

The third place it shows up is in financial decision-making. How many programs, courses, or templates have you purchased because they felt like they would solve your problem, without stopping to ask whether they would actually deliver a return on that investment? This is not a judgment: it is a pattern that is much easier to fall into when you are not looking at money clearly and objectively. When you start making financial decisions from a grounded, informed place rather than from anxiety or excitement or the fear of missing out, both your spending and your earning tend to shift significantly.

The Five Numbers Every Business Owner Needs to Know

Melissa keeps this simple. If you are currently flying by the seat of your pants financially and dreading tax time every year, here are the five numbers you need to start tracking.

Revenue. Everything the business brings in. This is your total sales before anything comes out.

Expenses. Everything you spend to run the business.

Profit. What is left after expenses. This is not the same as revenue, which is a distinction worth repeating: revenue and profit are not the same thing. A business that brings in $10,000 a month and spends $9,500 is not doing nearly as well as it might appear on the surface.

Taxes. What portion of your profit needs to be set aside for taxes.

Owner's pay. What you are actually taking home.

Those five numbers, tracked consistently in whatever system works for you, whether that is a simple Google spreadsheet or accounting software like QuickBooks, will take tax time from a scramble to a manageable process. Melissa did her personal and business taxes in just over two hours because her systems meant everything was already organized. That is the goal.

What to Do When a Client Has a Pricing Objection

This one comes up constantly in business, and Melissa's answer is refreshingly clear: it is not your job to fix it.

When someone is hesitant about your prices, you can answer their questions and offer a payment plan if that makes sense for your business. But you cannot, and should not try to, overcome someone else's money mindset in a single conversation. If someone is in a scarcity place around money, no amount of justifying your value or restructuring your offer is going to shift that. And trying to is exhausting.

The more useful reframe is to recognize that a pricing objection is often a sign of misalignment, and that a client who is not ready to invest at your level is not your client right now. Trying to force that fit will tend to create a difficult working relationship and leave you resentful on top of everything else. The more sustainable approach is to answer honestly, leave the door open, and release the outcome. They will come back when they are ready, or they will not. Either way, your energy is better spent on the people who are.

Where to Start If You Are Ready to Work on Your Money Mindset

If anything in this post has made you realize that your relationship with money deserves more attention, Melissa's suggestion is to start with a basic money journal. The next time you do any kind of financial transaction, whether it is paying a bill, reviewing your bank account, or sending an invoice, note what you feel. A smiley face or a frown is enough to start. Over time, those notes will show you exactly where your friction points are, which is a much more actionable starting place than just deciding you are "bad with money."

From there, pick one of the books listed above that resonates with where you are.

And if you are ready for more hands-on support, Melissa works with clients one-on-one through three to six month financial consulting packages that cover getting organized, understanding your financial ecosystem, and building a healthier relationship with money in your business. You can find everything at melissamitt.com/links.

Getting comfortable with money might be the most important thing you do for your business this year. It is a longer game than updating your pricing page or hiring a bookkeeper, but nothing else you do will have quite the same compounding effect.