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Show Notes
I’m Steven M. Hughes financial therapist and Reiki master teacher, and I help people understand why money is more about the thoughts and feelings than it is about math and numbers.
For those of us and are unfamiliar with Reiki, could you talk about what that type of energetic work is?
Absolutely. Reiki is a healing practice.
Uh, it’s been around for thousands of years. It was preserved in Japan. But really it was started in ancient ChemE, which we call Modern Day Africa. But it’s a, a healing practice that really helps people reduce their stress, reduce their anxiousness, and really just come back to themselves. And the science of it is really helping people rebalance and clear their energy centers in their body that we often call chakras.
So how did you…as a six foot black man get into, and yes, it’s originally from ChemE, but when I meet African Americans who do energetic work, sometimes they’ve got a certain vibe. I include myself in this with no judgment. So like how, how did you land on this marriage of interest? I’m really intrigued by this and, and that was one of the big reasons I also wanted to talk to you, um, and bring you on the podcast.
So, uh, I’m someone who likes to take their own medicine, and if I’m gonna tell somebody about something or guide somebody in something, it’s generally because I have experience doing it and I have expertise in it. Uh, and so, uh, this is no different. Reiki came to me as a practice that I could use to get over some experiences that I was having during the pandemic.
So, uh, March 18th, 2020, the pandemic started. That’s also my birthday. Um, and April the next month, uh, my father slipped into a coma for. 11 months before passing away in February, 2021. But when that first happened, I’m someone who loves talk therapy, can’t suggest it enough to people who need to unpack the things.
And it’s not just for people who are feeling bad or sad or mad, but, um, talk therapy just wasn’t enough at the time. Mm-hmm. And, uh, someone suggested to me that I try reiki. And I was like, Hmm, I don’t even know what that is for real. And come to find out, my therapist was also a Reiki master teacher. And so, um, I scheduled a session with her and once I scheduled the session and went through the session, I felt lighter.
I looked lighter, and I was like, well, how do I do this for my myself? How do I continue this work? And she told me that she was going to have an attunement for Ricky one and two in October of 2020. And so, uh, I. Went to that class, I got attuned as a reiki practitioner. And at first when I started doing Reiki, really, I did it for myself so that I could use it on myself.
But for 21 days I was just learning more about reiki and how I could use it. And also it was during the pandemic. So a lot of the things that I saw. With Reiki before 2020 were people having in-person sessions and people laying on like massage tables. But I came to find out that, you know, energy is not, or I came to remember that energy is not bound by time or space.
And so, uh, a lot of my clients in the five countries that I’ve worked with clients in has been virtual. And when I did become attuned at the end of 2020, it wasn’t until like the top of that year that I decided like, okay, I’m gonna use reiki not only for clients who want a Reiki practitioner, but also for people who wanna feel better about their money, uh, because.
You know, reiki and financial therapy are two things that people don’t know a lot about, but I do my best. I think that my gift that God has given me is to take complex things and make ’em a little bit simpler and a little bit more relatable so that people can find them and use those tools. And so, um, it really came from me needing Reiki using it, then becoming a practitioner, and then infusing it in my financial therapy practice.
First, I wanna say huge hug to you and I’m sorry to hear about your father.
Thank you.
For us here. Covid fell on my mom’s birthday, which, so she’s also a Pisces, I’ll tell you that date later. But we, it was her birthday and all of a sudden the nuggets were done. Post Malone was like, sorry, I have to stop my concert.
And every, it was crazy. And I was like, mom, we’ll never forget that birthday. I love this story so much because. I feel like in. The personal finance space, there’s a lot of conversation around, well, why don’t you do this habit? Why don’t you do this thing? And I always feel like there are other components to why we do what we do with our money.
By the time this goes live, I. My new rebrand for my project, Michelle’s Money Hungry will be live and it’s called Your American Money Pop Culture Polarization and Policy. And for me, like I’ve always talked about policy, I’m like, um, you don’t think there’s this policy? And then I was like, no, they don’t know.
There’s this policy. And I feel like the energetic piece is something that is actually so important because. There have been moments when I’m just like, why? Why am I doing this thing? Like where I can’t understand why I feel. The way I do about the actions I’m taking, about the communications that are coming at me, about the choices I may or may not be making with my money.
And so when you’re speaking with clients and clientele, what does it look like to get people to buy into this type of conversation and build a practice? Because to me it’s not even a business, it’s like a practice. You’re helping people. Build a practice around their money. What does that look like?
Practically?
A lot of people who I work with, they come to me, whether they were referred to me by someone in their network who loves them, or they were on the internet at one. I have a lot of website hits between 12 and 3:00 AM. What that people are looking for something to reduce their stress around money.
People are looking for reiki, they want to know what money reiki is. They’re, they’re just trying to figure it out. And so, um, for people who are closest to me, it looks like them taking a few years to decide like, all right, I’m gonna take you up on that offer. You know, you’re in my network, you’re in my family even.
Mm-hmm. And I’m gonna get a reiki session. But for. Most of my clients, they’ve been referred to me from somebody in their network, or they have followed me for a little while and they’ve seen the different transitions of myself and the businesses that I run.
I wasn’t, when I originally sent these questions, it was a while ago.
What I’m about to ask you wasn’t even a glimmer, uh, like a top a thing in my mind.
Okay.
The election has happened. The results are what they are, and I am very aware that we are going to have a lot of economic turbulence, if you will. What are you doing or thinking about as. We transition into this next year.
We have a new administration. They’re indicating that they’re gonna be doing quite a bit of, uh, they’re going to be implementing a lot of change that’s gonna harm people financially in a lot of ways. And the reason why I’m asking this is I am very aware that people in our space are going to be really needed, but at the same time.
It would be a very lucrative time for people in our space. It’s like this weird, like conjuncture, you know what I mean? Of we’ve been working to do a thing and then need, how do you one, prepare to help people, but how do you balance that other reality? And, and the reason why I’m thinking about this is 2008.
How all these folks were in the personal finance space, and they helped a lot of people, hopefully, but then they also became very well to do, if you will. People thrived. They were helping, but they were thriving. It’s like a rambling question because I’m trying to, I’m trying to ask, do you ever feel conflicted about how you earn money when oftentimes people aren’t well and they come to you like, you know what I mean?
They’re at a hard moment in time and you, you’re earning money to help them. I, I don’t know, go with it. What, wherever you wanna go with that.
Uh, so however
you hear the question.
For sure, for sure. Um, the, the question that I’ll answer is the last one that you asked, like, when we’re in a position as financial professionals to do work, how do we.
How do we reconcile that we’re doing work for people who need help and also charging the money that we’re charging for it? Because this may be a time where there’s an uptick in a lot of help. Mm-hmm. Right? Um, so to that, um, first thing that I’ll mention is that I’m someone who believes that you can do good and do well at the same time.
So any business that I build, uh, I focus on two things. I focus on impact and income. Hmm. I think there are a lot of people who focus on income. I think that when there are a lot of nonprofits and organizations that are community and, and, uh, thought based, that focus on impact, I think that we should do both.
If you’re building a thoughtful business and, and I am also looking to put myself out of business. I would love to get to the point where people are feeling great about their money. They can build good money habits, they can talk to their family and friends about money without being anxious or feeling bad.
Um, they can reduce their stress and anxiety around money. They don’t feel guilty or shameful about having a lot of money, even in times of turmoil. Uh, these are things that I want everybody to have the tools and resources for. Uh, but in terms of how I reconcile with. My income going up in times where people are really in some, uh, tough financial straits.
I think in those times, uh, we do have to band together and provide resources for the people who need them. Mm-hmm. Uh, and for a lot of, because I don’t do a lot on social media, um, a lot of people don’t know that a lot of my business is built. On B2B income. Um, my one-on-one work is like 15% of what I do.
And so for me to be able to help individuals oftentimes is being paid for by someone else. Um, and that’s the difference between clients and customers. But um, yeah, I think that as long as the people who are well intentioned are also focused on the impact that they’re gonna have, not just the income that they are going to receive, and, you know.
Changing of the guard, what, what might happen. Um, I think that we’ll be all right.
It’s so funny, my word for 2024 was impact. So I did a whole, you know, thing about that and, uh, I love that. That was your answer. Before we get into my next question, I do wanna have you define attunement for those people who are like, I still don’t know what that means.
So could you share what it means to be attuned? And then we’ll go to my next question.
Sure. Uh, so to be attuned in the reiki sense attunement is, uh, when you are given the resources to do the work. Mm-hmm. So as a practitioner, when it comes to me being attuned from my reiki master teacher, they are opening me up.
In terms of, Hey, this is exactly how you should practice. This is what it means to practice this work. This is what the symbols mean. This is what the hand motions mean. This is all these different things that you can learn on. Maybe Google or, um, there’s another website that was giving out like reiki one and two classes for like $20.
And I was like, whoa, this is crazy. What? Oh. Um, but the attunement happens as the, uh. As the work is passed down, because the reiki is, is very, uh, focused on lineage. So I can trace my lineage as a reiki master teacher back to a sui sensei, the man who is credited with preserving reiki in Japan. Uh, and it’s o it’s between me and him, it’s five people.
And so, um, you know. For those who remember six degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon, um, like it’s kinda wild to be able to see, hey, this is exactly how this got here. But, um, to pass the context attunement is when you’re given the resources to do the work in Reiki and atunement has to happen from a reiki master teacher.
Okay. Okay. So are you planning on a trip to Japan anytime soon?
Um, no, not right now.
Well, I, I used to live there as a kid and I’ve been there as an adult. I highly recommend 10, 10 recommend. Okay.
When I’m, when I’m not saving for a wedding, I will. You’re like,
Michelle.
Thank you for that,
Michelle. Um, or maybe
someone, maybe someone can sponsor a trip for me to go to Japan.
I’ll, I’ll take that. I’m okay with that.
Speak that to the universe. Um, I
love that.
So you mentioned something very compelling to me, and it’s actually at the heart of how I have shifted my business. A lot of the wonderful folks that I speak to on creators getting paid have a similar focus, which is that you have a B2B approach to building income within your business.
How does that work? And very briefly, because we’ll continue this conversation on video, but why did you decide to do that versus a heavily clientele based work?
In the same time that I’ve been a financial education and financial wellness professional, um, along that same timeline, I have been a B2B sales professional.
So in 2008, I, I started in B2B sales and I realized that. If I want to help a lot of people, I can work with a company that already has a lot of people. Right? Okay. Instead of working with people one-on-one and trying to grow to go from zero to one to 1000, I could just go to a company that has a thousand employees and say, Hey, I want to help y’all, and I might have to go to multiple thousand employee companies, but once I get one.
I’ll have a thousand employees that I can talk to instead of trying to grow from one to 1000. And so, um, when I started my company, and I’m trying to think of like the, the different iterations it has gone through as it’s evolved, but when I started my company, um, I was never focused on one-on-one work. I knew that it would come as a byproduct of people.
Attending our events, getting access to our educational resources, uh, coming to a workshop that people would say like, Hey, how can I work with somebody one-on-one? And, uh, I could suggest or refer them to someone, but, uh, I didn’t pick up that mantle at first as like, oh, this is the work that I need to be doing.
Um, because I didn’t see like a real possible and profitable way of building that business like that. Mm-hmm. And, um, I’ll also say that since I’ve been speaking for so long, like, uh, which is something that you and I have talked about, I’ve been speaking since around the same time that I got into sales, um, it just made sense to me because I was never only speaking to one person.
Mm. I was, I never only had one person in the room. There were were always rooms and even as I was growing my business, as people kind of started to attend events, the events. You may have started with 24 people, but they got bigger to hundreds and thousands. And so, um, yeah, it’s ne it is never been a business model for me to say like, all right, I’m gonna take as many one-on-one clients as I can and just see how I can really crank this up.
And another thing that I’ve learned as I’ve done more one-on-one work is that there’s just buzz so much. One-on-one work you can take. Like if that’s not scalable, it’s just not. Um, and I believe that the workshops and the resources are scalable and I wanna build a business on that.
All right everyone.
So you heard Steven here. We are going to continue this conversation over at Creators getting paid. We’re gonna be talking about public speaking of which is a huge part of what he does. We’re gonna be talking about a lot of other things that I’m nosy about and if you could do me a huge favor and share.
Where we can find you. Anything that you know, if you have a book, whatever you wanna share, share it please, so that I can link to that in the show notes.
You can find **@************es.com. I spell my name with a V for victory, so S-T-E-V-E-N-M. H-U-G-H-E s.com. The middle initial is m like mother or money.
And then, uh, you can find me on Instagram and LinkedIn. Those are places that I’m most active. Uh, Steven M. Hughes on both of those platforms. And if you are someone who still uses Clubhouse, because I know there are a couple of us, you can find me over there too. I love Clubhouse as an audio only platform and for a place that people can still connect.
I was like, clubhouse is still there.
Clubhouse is still there. Okay. When the pandemic happened in 2020, I wanna say that they got enough money to try to run that thing for at least 10 years. So what it should be, it should be there for a little while. Okay.
Well, there you have it.
