We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Meghan Dwyer. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Meghan below.

Alright, Meghan thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear from you about what you think Corporate America gets wrong in your industry and why it matters.

Being in the financial services industry for 18 years has made me recognize that the world views money as an external reflection of our successes – the higher the net worth and the more things we have, the ‘better’ we are. When we have money, we need help managing and planning for that money – and with that comes software, spreadsheets, budgets, projections, etc. This tends to be the idea we all have when we think of money.

But, there are actually 2 sides of money and our relationship with it – there’s the external, which is everything I just described, and is very numbers-based. And there’s also the internal – which so many of us forget or, frankly, don’t even recognize is a thing. This is the way we think, feel and behave around money. This is where we slow down and become more present to our own patterns and behaviors around money so we can become more self-aware, create greater balance and create a healthy relationship with it.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am Certified Financial Planner(TM) and host of the ‘Money Isn’t Scary’ podcast. I am the daughter of a firefighter and a nurse and I always knew I wanted to help people – however, those careers weren’t for me. I found my way into personal finance because I was curious, I wanted to learn more about it, because I was never taught it and that curiosity kept growing.

After spending 15 years working in environments where I often watched women take a passive role in the management of their money, I became incredibly passionate for supporting and educating women in particular. Then, when I became a mother myself, I saw the unique challenges that moms face when it comes to feeling empowered around money. I believe that our relationship with money is directly correlated to our relationship with ourselves and we can’t break through all the noise and influences that culture throws at us until we slow down and do the inner work.

I am now on a mission to help women stop playing small, and have created a podcast, Money Isn’t Scary, to spread that message. By challenging the societal norms around women and money, my goal through the podcast is to to empower women to make money decisions out of a sense of abundance and confidence, rather than scarcity and fear. I also encourage women to embrace who they are, emotions and all, as part of this process, which is often seen as counterintuitive to everything we have learned about money.

I am a mom myself to 2 young boys – Colin, 7 and Ryan, 5. They keep me motivated, even on the tough days, because I know they are watching and absorbing everything they see. My most important job is to break the generational patterns that I was raised with and be a role model for them to a different way of being with ourselves and viewing the world around us.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

The lesson I had to unlearn is: Success is the opposite of failure

In my professional career, I have always been terrified of mistakes – because often times in this industry, mistakes can be costly, especially when you’re dealing with other people’s money. So I wore this fear like a badge of honor. I was always on high alert, always worried that I was going to be the next one to screw up or say the wrong thing. So much so, that I didn’t even want to try. But all that did was make me shut down – and kept me small. It kept me in a very narrow box and not taking any risks. I realized I grew up this way, watching my parents stay within their defined roles, and in particular watching my role models be concerned with what others thought.

Similarly, when I started the podcast, I was terrified of putting it out into the world, or doing any kind of marketing for fear of what other people would think of me. It was one thing to share my inner-most feelings with complete strangers, its another to share with friends and neighbors – the people I’m closest to, who I see everyday. That’s a different level of vulnerability. However, I realized that if I didn’t, I was perpetuating the exact message that I was encouraging women not to do – play small. It was a tough realization, but one that has been life-changing for me.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Pure authenticity. I used to think that I had to be like the people who I deemed as ‘successful’ or really good at their jobs. I used to try so hard to mold myself into who I thought they were and develop all the qualities that they have. It wasn’t until recently that I realized I can do this just being me – and actually I’m pretty good at it.

One of the things that I am pretty good at it connection – mostly because I crave it so much myself (i’m a natural extrovert who thrives off being around other people and their energies). I don’t think we can truly connect with another person without being authentic. Connection, and fully embracing me, just as I am, instead of trying to be like someone else, has truly been the biggest blessing for me in both my professional and personal lives.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.moneyisntscary.com
• Instagram: @moneyisntscary
• Facebook: Money Isn’t Scary
• Linkedin: Meghan Dwyer