Yo Work Fun Nation,

Today, I am writing about our trip to my home province, Leyte. I'm originally from Tacloban and it's not that often that we get to visit as a whole family.

This was several months ago. We stayed there for a few weeks to get some much-needed rest.

It was also a great opportunity to see my parents and go home again because we haven't been able to since the pandemic happened.

We went all out with the trips, beaches, resorts, reunions, and restaurants, and towards the tail-end of it, we even caught this weird flu that wasn't covid but took my voice and had us debilated for a couple of weeks.

Once we got back though, my son Julian and I had a conversation.

Julian: Dad, let's bring Ate Lianne on the airplane from Leyte here to Batangas! (Lianne is his slightly older cousin who lives there.)

Me: Why?

Julian: Because I love playing with her and having fun all day. I miss her na.

Me: We can't just bring her here

Julian: Why?

Me: Because it costs a lot of money to bring her here

Julian: Why?

Me: We had to work hard to go to Leyte and back

Julian: Why? We always travel and buy things and eat out naman.

Me: (getting flustered with the whys) Because it's hard to make...

I stopped mid-sentence.

I realized that I almost planted one of my own biggest limiting beliefs around money into my son's head. Literally at the edge of passing on something to him that held me back for so long.

I even had to unlearn these from a money mindset coach I signed up with to let go of some of the old conditioning I've been routinely told by my parents.

I tried to see it from Julian's perspective.

He's never lacked any of the necessary (and sometimes unnecessary) comforts in life.

He's always been provided for and never had to wonder how we can afford his toys, vitamins, food, books, and school.

One time we tried to teach him the value of money by giving him some play money from Lazada to budget with. The plan was to show him that stuff costs money.

He ended up giving the money away sa playground dito, like a politician pag malapit na eleksyon hahaha kalorkey. Fail yata ako don a.

He uses an iPad Pro for his online classes (talk about overkill), and he even started traveling internationally for vacation when he was two. Who needs a vacation from naps? lol

Even as I wrote the paragraph above, I started to get feelings of shame or ickiness forming behind me like a cloud.

Somehow I feel like I'm betraying an oath to remain in scarcity mode.

Shet.

But for Julian, he's been living in a state of abundance. 

We're not affluent, but what you might call comfortable. It's something I'm grateful for as a freelancer, for this ability to provide while being present in my loved ones' lives every day.

I was shocked at how young Julian was imprinting all of this unconsciously at his age. 

I thought he didn't remember anything (or won't make concrete memories at this point), but he remembers details of our trip when he was two.

In his mind, he only sees his parents go to any restaurant and buy what they like and not look worried. 

They travel around a lot and go to all sorts of places. He also has nice things and lots of toys and good clothes (this part, he totally takes for granted)

So oonga naman, why can't Ate Lillian come over here to visit? 

yup, wala silang matinong photo. never leave your son to take selfies on an iPad. 3 dozen photos lahat ganyan. haha

It's not like we can't afford to bring her over for a few weeks to visit.

It was one of MY OLD BELIEFS about money going back to default. 

I have several negative beliefs about money, but this specific belief came from my mom. It was about being careful with money because it doesn't grow on trees and it's very hard to earn this much. (She also liked to add how she did so much back-breaking work just to put us through school).

And my parents' experiences are valid. I saw them struggle din talaga.

My dad had a salary and single-source income from the bank he worked for, as well as my mom who worked as a teacher for a while, then stopped to take care of my brother on the spectrum. 

She found work again later as a jewelry appraiser at a pawnshop. The was when my dad's work fiasco happened.

We didn't lack for any of the necessary things, but for them, spending money for vacations felt frivolous, and they would have been justified. 

They have 5 kids after all, and one with special needs.

For me now as a Freelancer, the experience is quite different. 

I was getting inquiries and even closed clients WHILE I was on vacation. 

I got that email above while we were out swimming with whale sharks in Oslob.

Can you guess how near and how big the shark is?

Basta mejo malaki sya hehe.

There was even some income coming in as an affiliate for some products I support.

We even had a new client (who messaged me out of the blue from LinkedIn) pay us a 5kusd setup fee just to start a project while we were still on vacation.

So objectively for what I currently experience and from the skills I've honed, earning 6 figures is actually NOT that hard. 

My son was actually right.

But.. why was my brain STILL trying to say otherwise?

Deym. 

MY OLD LIMITING BELIEF was trying to break out of my mouth and was almost imprinted on Julian. 

Come to think of it, baka may mga nasabi na din ako dati that I didn’t even catch. :(

And here I thought I'd worked through the negative beliefs I had. 

That money is so hard to attract. 

That you need to scam people to make good money. (There’s a whole different story on this about what happened to my dad.) 

It's still more deeply rooted than I previously thought.

Scary.

We really have to re-affirm our empowering beliefs regularly, unless we slip back into our old thinking.

Kaya , if you have family or especially young kids around you.. be mindful of what you say around them.

Please remember that the lifetime of conditioning you received is still more powerful than the handful of months you've been consciously trying to improve your mindset. 

The big ones will never be totally gone, so we have to keep working on it, and keep being exposed to empowering beliefs.

Speaking of conditioning and limiting beliefs, I dived into it and had a lot of inner work done just to help me get unfc*uked up in my head.

I found out din that a lot of other freelancers have some form of conditioning holding them back and causing them to self-sabotage.

That's why I documented what worked for me in my new ebook "How to Stop Self-Sabotage for Pinoy Freelancers" to help people get out of their head and into their full potential.

This eBook is on pre-sale for 399 pesos only until November 1.

After that, 997 na sya.

Even then sobrang sulit pa din yun, considering how I've spent thousands of dollars with international mindset coaches just to fix my shiz.

Osha, Crush your week!

Surf's up,

Shoden “the whale shark rider” San

PS. Just in case lang hindi clear sa taas haha “How to Stop Self-Sabotage for Pinoy Freelancers” is now on pre-sale! Grab it here before mag-taas ang price on November 1.

PS2. Guys meron na naman sa inyo nag send via Bux without a name, and hindi ko alam for what. Can you please email me again  if ikaw yun? Kahapon GCash, now Bux naman.

Gedemet I'm supposed to give you the 399 pre-sale eBook on November 1. Di ko magagawa yan if I don't know who sent the payment. ^_^

💡Need guidance and clarity on your own reinvention? I’m opening a few paid slots after several of you messaged me about getting some extra coaching outside of TFMT. Limited lang ito, and first come first served basis. I'm starting with clarity calls muna with a 90-day action plan. Learn more about it here.

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