Money is never just about money. It's about who we are, what we've been through, and the systems we live within this podcast is about money stories, real stories from real people, and the power of speaking it out loud. This is what happened. This is my story.
I'm Harriet Formby, I'm a chartered accountant, a fractional CFO and trauma informed finance coach, and I know enough about finance to know that you were never the problem. Nobody is truly bad with money.
There's so much that is put on people as individuals, in society and in the systems and the rules and what we think we should be doing with money, that it can feel like we are at fault, and that is not the case. That's really what this podcast it's about. It's about understanding the wider picture and all the influences on us, which are really big things ultimately. So the point of the project is to bring in different people's stories.
But actually, the first episode, I'm just going to be talking a bit about how this has come about, about money and stories, and my own relationship with money and finances. And really what you can expect to be coming up. People generally assume that if you end up in a career which is basically accountancy and finance, that you are probably somebody who maybe at school really loved maths and numbers, and it was always something you were very comfortable with, and that's why you would possibly consider making a career out of it. But I'm actually somebody that all through school, I was not interested in maths at all. Quite frankly, I was always a lot more creative and thoughtful and writing.
So it was very much history and the humanities and English and languages that was the stuff that interested me more. I didn't love school. I was somebody that struggled in the sense of I didn't like the being told what to do thing and not having choice in how that looked. So it really wasn't something that I loved when I look back at my earlier education, but the things that I did like was those more thoughtful and expressive and thinking things really, and that was not maths at all. That was very much something that I struggled with, because it just I ended up being somebody that was quite good at the other stuff and would get good grades. And, you know, was recognised as being able to write well and that sort of thing. And then maths was a subject where I felt stupid.
Quite frankly, I felt like I didn't know what I was doing or why I was doing it. And I'm not going to say everyone else got it, because they probably didn't, but I was just sat there thinking, I don't know what I'm doing or why or how. And it just didn't work for my brain getting my information in. If you'd said to me, when I was probably anywhere in school up to, I guess, early 20s, you're going to become a chartered accountant, I would have said, Why would I be doing that? I think you've got the wrong person. And the reason that this came about that I ended up studying as a chartered accountant.
And, you know, all of the money finance stuff is because I ended up doing a business degree. Was my undergraduate degree. I actually went on did a master's as well. And I don't really know why I chose to do business. I think it was basically because I I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I did. I remember, I did apply to do history and economics and some other stuff. And basically I took a year out, I worked with horses, and then I decided to go to university, I was deciding what to do, and when I did that, I was like, well, business sounds interesting because it's quite broad and it's quite practical, so I'm going to give that a go. And I did this, and I actually really enjoyed it, because for the first time, I felt like, and I know, in a levels, to an extent you get to choose, but I did. I probably didn't choose brilliantly for my A levels.
I did history, which I liked. I did economics, which, to be honest, I wasn't brilliant at the math side of it, but I did all right. And then I also did French, and I'm not sure why I did French, because I wasn't particularly brilliant at it. I did all right at GCSE, but I didn't do so well with a level. So yeah, I wasn't having the best time of it then. But for some reason, when I went to university, I absolutely loved having the autonomy, I think, to be able to choose what I did and how we did it, and the variety and all of the kind of engaging stuff where it's like a mixture of projects and role play and writing. And all of the things. And I was just ended up being somebody that, like, really immersed in in it. And I was always like, doing loads of projects and collaborating and starting things.
I started an entrepreneurial group for for students, and, yeah, society, an entrepreneur sort of society. And I did lots of collaborative things where I did placements with businesses, and research on businesses, all the stuff. I really loved it. And one thing that I came across in that space was the sort of social enterprise end of it, which was kind of new to me, businesses that were about doing good in the world. So, you know, generally, environment, people, society, all of that stuff. And I really loved that side of things. It was the fact that you could create something, you could create an idea for something that would be really good in the world. And it might not be the whole world. It might just be like the local community. So I was local to bath. So there was a lot of things that were to do with bath and the wider, sort of South West Bristol and further afield. So that was really cool, that people could come together and have an idea and then make it happen. And I was involved in, yeah, lots of different things that were sort of environmental, social, all of that stuff.
And one thing that I noticed was and I was interacting with students that were not and, you know, the wider community, they were not studying business necessarily either. And because I was studying business, I sort of ended up getting involved with the financial aspects, because if the people were more creative and environmental and all these things, they weren't necessarily comfortable with the business end of things, and so I kind of ended up picking up bits around the finances.
And what I uncovered is that people had really amazing ideas, but actually what was holding them back almost from being able to really go for it and make these things work and flourish and like, access funding and make the plans and all of this stuff was just this kind of feeling that finance was blocking everything to do with basically what they were building, they were creating. It was like, this is the amazing, expansive ideas side, and then there's finances going to stop us making it happen, and it's going to make us feel stupid. And I thought, wow, that's that was the moment, essentially, when I was like, wow, if we could just make finance this mysterious, boring, logical thing that's blocking everybody make it make sense for people that are doing the creative and ideas driven and empathetic and like this is the stuff we want to see in the New World, kind of vibe, if we can make finance be like an enabler, so that it was actually something that helped people do good things, rather than the blocker, then I thought, Wow, this could be something really interesting, and This is something we need more of.
And the problem is that you are streamed from such a young age as to whether you are going to be somebody that goes on and thrives in finance or not. And for me, I was somebody that I did not get. I did good GCSEs, but the one that was letting me down was the maths. I think I got a C and for loads of graduate schemes and stuff anyway, that was not good enough GCSE. What you're doing at 16 doesn't really matter in the real world, but obviously on paper, to get into graduate schemes and stuff, that was something that you needed. So basically, I had some barriers. But the thing I thought was, if I could figure out what was going on with money and maths and numbers and finances and let in the creative people and the ideas people and the rebels and radical, more radical people with the ideas of like how it works and how we navigate it, that could be a good thing.
So I'm not going to go into the whole story, because I've realised I've just started to talk about I wasn't going to talk so much about, like, my own Well, I guess my own story comes into it, but I'm not going to go, like, step by step life story. But basically the idea here is that I was not somebody that was mathematically minded, and I had heard all the stereotypes of you are either like creative and expressive and writing and, you know, making things nice and lovely and talking and all of that stuff, or you are very kind of logical minded, good with maths, Good with statistics, you know, physics, all of that stuff. And it was almost like I had absorbed the message, I think, like a lot of us do, that you're one or the other. And so I had in my mind that I was not good at maths, I was not good at finance, and all of that stuff was like, no.
Thought I know for me, and there was like a line there that it was just like, almost not mine to step into. And when I did, I felt stupid, which is not a nice feeling, to feel stupid when you're actually somebody that's quite otherwise told they're good at stuff, and they're like, Okay, well, I'm getting the grades here, so I must, that must be true, and I was enjoying things. So this was a line I stepped into where I felt unconfident and stupid, and you can imagine going through the process. Then I was really lucky, because if I'd gone near auditing and big firms, I probably would have lasted about an afternoon and thought it was really boring and rules driven. But I was really lucky that I was able to join a small startup firm, which was a much different experience. It was ft works based in Bristol, literally, it was the beginning of a firm, essentially. So I was like one of the first employees, and I had a very different experience, because I was very hands on. It was very creative, tech driven, and I was very much at the at the front end of of that. And it wasn't the sort of boring tax and compliance. They were very much about making things happen. And yeah, I really enjoyed that.
But the financial money side of that was, yes, I was then training to be a chartered accountant, and I was in rooms with people who, you know, there's obviously differences, and not everybody's the same, but essentially, most people that get into training to be an accountant are people, and this is a generalisation, but they typically are people that excelled or enjoyed maths. There's obviously a range, because they let some of us through the cracks that maybe aren't maths people. I'm joking here a little bit. But there's a general thing, if people understood it, they had a proficiency, maybe, you know, even a degree level, in terms of maths. And it wasn't something that you know was very comfortable with at all. So you can imagine, if you feel fear looking at finance, you feel things coming up, then I get it. Because that was me going, like, I'm going to do this thing that I didn't really think I'm very good at, but it became, like a little bit of a mission. I start, well, if I can do it, I can prove to myself that I can do it. But actually, because it's so so much of an ordeal, 15 exams, three years all this stuff, like really complicated stuff.
Obviously, I was good at the writing bits and the ambiguous bits, but some of the other stuff, I had to kind of unlearn, all of the shame, and I'm not able to do this stuff that I'd learned at school about matter unlearn that. And some of it, you know, took a bit to unlearn, or perhaps I just kind of skirted around it as well. Anyway, I did all that, and then what kept me going was the idea that, actually, I'm gonna use this to help the right PP, I'm gonna come back and explain it all and enable people that I think they're bad at maths. I mean, at the time, it wasn't, I didn't frame it like that. It like that. It was, it was very much I had in my mission led businesses that, you know, the startup people, the entrepreneurs, the creatives that were doing really good stuff and felt like completely shut down, like it was very much a switch. I wanted to turn finance and money from being this thing that turns you off and makes you not want to do it and holds you back from making good projects, ideas businesses happen, to switching it around. So it was the thing that enabled it. It gave you, like the energy, the catalyst, the resources to do what you do really well.
And I think that's built over time is, you know, I'm somebody now that thinks, actually we can use resources for good. And money can have lots of connotations, from being the root of evil and all the things that we hear, but actually, it's a resource, and whose hands are in, whose hands it's in, it really matters. And the more money that we can get in the hands of good people filters out into the world and amplifies the good stuff. Essentially, that's where I came from with it, that I wanted to change how money was perceived, and that meant going on my own sort of unlearning journey. So that's a little flavour of some of my there's more to it. There's lots of different levels that I don't want to go into the whole thing right now. I think this is something that I'll probably reflect on. I want to really make this about other people's stories. So the thing that my story, I think is important because I think I want to be able to share as well, but I also want to make sure that there's Yeah, that I perhaps weave it in as we go. So the thing, then, essentially, that I'm going to jump on to is basically that what I learned in the process was the rules, the how tos, the spreadsheets, the formulas, the formats, the you know, the tax rules, all of the stuff, the jargon and the knowledge that means being good with money. If you do these things, you're then good with money. And I went about putting this into practice. Now I was known to be somebody that could deal with.
The more creative entrepreneurial probably, I probably didn't realise it at the time, because it wasn't something that I was so knowledgeable about, but neurodivergent founders, entrepreneurs, creatives, and I really got on with people that had, like, a million ideas that just jumped from thing to thing to thing, because I just got there like I understood what they were doing. I could manage at that pace. I like chaos in the sense of you don't quite know what's coming next. And I really like working with things where you don't have an answer. You just have I think this is what we're going to do, and we're going to work out how to do it. And I spent a lot of time working in transformation, which is sort of making things up as you go along with a big picture goal, but you're not quite sure how you're doing your day to day. So I think that's partly how I really gelled with these people. But what I learned was, you know, I would be there talking to people about the forecast and the budgets, and we're talking about startups that are raising, like, quite a lot of money, essentially, in the earlier days where I was, this is my interactions with it.
So I was seeing people raising multi millions, and then varying degrees of success with managing that money, which is, you know, I'm not saying that personal, because there's, there's obviously lots of things around, like the market and the products and all the other things that come with it in terms of risk. But essentially, there was varying degrees of success with raising funds and then where you go next, and whether you have enough money to keep going? And what I slowly noticed through the years was that actually there were times when I was surprised because we'd done the right things. We did the cash flow.
And I was having these conversations, and then, like, people go away, and then come back, and oh, the money's got this has happened and, and, like, people were avoiding certain things, or were being very, very, you know, risk seemingly, like risk taking behaviour like, essentially, you could stereotype, well, some people, like, a very, very cautious with money, and to the point where, so if you receive money, you just completely frozen because you don't know what to do to, you know, the startup narratives where you burn through, I'm just generalising here about sort of decade, decades or so different experiences and conversations.
But, you know, there's other ends of it, where you can be kind of like the money's gone and now, what do we do? And being really optimistic, but kind of avoiding it for other reasons. But essentially, there's and there's lots in between, and lots of just not wanting to look at the numbers. And also, just generally, the bit that I uncovered was actually, if we talked about the feelings that were coming up, you know, weird, like I had gone down a path of you learn what to do, like you impart knowledge and wisdom and ideas and frameworks and models, and you do it.
And when you're sitting with the business owners and the the C suite, because I did quite a lot of work in bigger companies as well, you just talk about the money at high level like and the finances, and you don't really talk about them, the people as such. And then what I uncovered was actually that what was much more important was having conversations about how you feel about money, when you sit with it, and what's coming up, and where you've been before. Because actually, we bypass all of that and we try and fit ourselves into
I'm just gonna ignore how I feel and do the things, and then maybe the conversations with people like accountants and CFOs and all of that stuff become quite scary, because you're thinking like they're going to find out that I'm feeling scared about this, or don't know what I'm doing, or there's questions I don't want to ask, or whatever it is. And so I found that creating an environment where we could talk like not just openly, but actually lead with punish to say, look, this is difficult stuff. What's coming up for you? And as I started having these conversations and presenting as it's not following the rules and doing this or you're good or bad with money, it's actually like much deeper than that, we discover that there's so much going on.
And if you just show willing to be open about that, even in like, group settings, you know, you could can talk about, look, I actually deal with the emotional side to money first before we get into it all. And people are, like, much more open about, oh, yeah, when we, you know, did the startup like this happened with VAT, and it was so scary because we ignored it and we didn't register. And then there was, like, this huge bill, and like, people have a lot of trauma, basically, around stuff like that. And then, if you are somebody like me who's got the story that you're bad with maths, from education, probably from school, is probably where we pick it up. It's really difficult because you're sitting with finance as a business owner, and then you're like, but I'm bad with maths.
I've got this message, and now that's sitting with me, and all the memories of the shame and the fear around it come up when you're dealing with it, and then you've got this image of, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm a business owner. I've got to, like, know what I'm doing, but I'm suddenly dealing with so money in so many different forms, and I don't quite. Know what the hell is going on. And I wish I could just be open about this and talk about it. And what came from that is then I delved into, like, the roots of the systems and capitalism and colonialism and patriarchy, and then realised that actually, all of these things that we've been conditioned about money about it's about individuals and their path and their rights and wrongs and rules and not rules, and if you follow this, then you're good, and if you don't, you're bad, and all of this stuff. And I was like, Ah, this explains a lot, actually, because actually, we're all assuming that we just need to funnel ourselves through a load of rules and things to do and don't do, and that's the the answer when there's so much more here, which I'm probably not going to have time to get into on this.
I think it's going to come out as we talk, but basically the wider picture. So I ended up studying something called the trauma of money, which is a Canadian programme about money, but it's it's very different to like this is about money, and we need to talk about what to do and good habits and saving percentages and all of that stuff. It's basically going like making space for what has actually kind of happened in your life and the nervous system and things as well, in terms of actually what shapes our feelings, emotions, proficiency in a dirty comma, our outcomes, our relationship with money, is not rules. And doing this, this and this, and just do this and all that. It's basically what we heard growing up, what happened in our family around money, what happened in our wider community and at school, what messages did we hear about finance and money, and what that means and what is culturally relevant to us. What is our story? You know, where we came from, where we live, who we, who we, what we heard growing up and in our education, and then in workplace, and then in the entrepreneurial world and all of these things.
And then obviously we live in, you know, specific systems like capitalism and consumerism, which, you know, a big a big topics, but essentially, they shape how we perceive money and being good or bad with money and finance and how we should live, you know, is kind of inferred in there, which we may or may not agree with, basically. And this is something that is quite mind blowing then, because you realise that this is not just about being good or bad with money. This is much wider than that, and actually it's not even about money. It might be trauma, like even generational trauma that has happened to grandparents or even further back that has shaped scarcity and stories and risk tolerance in your family and your community, and how that's interacted with. And this stuff is big stuff. You know, things around gender come into it, particularly around stereotypes about women and money, and there's so much history there. And of course, you know, ideas of class, race, yeah, geography, all these, all these things that we'll be talking about, not in the sort of like, this is the lesson on this. This is we're talking about people's stories.
People are going to be sharing their stories, essentially, and we're going to unpick all these things. And yet, creativity is one in there, like, because it's the stereotype. Sometimes, if you're creative, you're not good with the numbers. And obviously I'm not saying like, when I say you're not good with numbers, like, and I'm saying it's not true. Like, you might feel that it's true, but what I mean is it's not like a personal failing. And I believe there's ways we can just change the relationship with money in numbers and look at it different ways. And it's not like there's just one way of doing it, basically so, but it's totally valid if you think, like, actually, I'm better at other things, because that's what we lean into more. Like, why not? And then we get help with the other stuff, and we reframe it. But sometimes it can leave us so scarred around that. And being in an entrepreneurial journey, like, brings up a whole other thing, because there's like, taxes and saving for things and paying ourself and charging and, you know, there's so many different interactions with money that, particularly if you've come from a job where you've got a paycheck at the end of the month, it's very different. So I think that's probably a bit of an intro into the topic. So what, what to expect is, this is like a podcast, but it's gonna be like more so the whole project is also going to be written pieces as well, and maybe some other forms, like more arty kind of forms as well. So we can really look at this through like, you know, I.
We've got a lot of stories that tell us what to do and what not to do, and we've got, like, the business world tends to take everything and go like, this is the one way to do it. This is the formula to follow to be a 710, figure entrepreneur, all of this stuff that we're bombarded with. And then we're also told a lot of stories are very glamorised. So they'll be talking about the rights to riches, and they'll glamorise the down parts when it was all doom and gloom, because they've got this big story of the transformation, and they're selling an image sometimes, and there's nothing wrong with them, and we do need these stories, but sometimes they're just not very relatable, and they are kind of over that we can we can see the formula like we can see sometimes that they're not as authentic. They're kind of formula driven, especially if they're to sell something. So we're not selling anything here. We're just like talking, because, weirdly enough, talking, the bit I probably should mention is actually once I started talking about this stuff and giving people space to talk about their stuff, like just talking about it, was actually a huge thing you can then, you know, there's lots of stuff around being in a position, like nervous system wise, to do that, and it feeling safe to do so.
And it's not saying you should just share everything all at once, but actually doing that is really cathartic sometimes, and a lot of the time, and then actually we can tailor the next steps, and I was finding them, we were much more able to move to the next bits of like, okay, the business plan and the budgets and the forecasts and money management once we've unpicked what's going on. And there's some things done around, like reframing things, but actually one of the most powerful things is just to realise, validate your experience, understand some of it subconscious, or it's from really early childhood sometimes. So it's just about like even looking at that and examining it and going, Oh yeah, that has actually had an impact.
And no wonder this, no wonder that, and hearing other people talking about this as well, can just validate, potentially, what you've been through and why things feel the way they do. And essentially, this is also for people like this is for the good people. And what I mean by that is the people that have seen like the world and gone. I want to do something better. I don't mean you're going to be running a multinational thing that's changing the world, like that sort of thing. It could be that, but it could just be like, with the thing that you do, you are making a positive impact in your community, and actually, if you felt more comfortable around money, that could really move the needle to talk of a business term.
So that's essentially what we're talking about is just like actually making space for the stories that feel more real and authentic, and actually open our eyes. You know, two ways, is validating what we feel, but also understanding other people's perspective. And like, how can we be more inclusive to that so, you know, rather than following generalised advice ourselves, like, how can we make sure we're making space for other people's stories and perspectives on money as well. So that's basically what is, what is going on.
So I've got about five guest episodes in the works so far from some early people that I've reached out to or starting to, and they're going to be released from probably early next week. I'll start doing that. It's a bit of a new thing for myself, because I've had my own little like podcast, which was just me talking. Basically, I've not done interviewing people before, so I'm a bit like, Oh, this is new, new thing. Am I good at it or not? I don't know yet. And then what I keep telling myself is, these are conversations, like it is conversational, and you've had lots of conversations, and what I found is that I was having a lot of these conversations about money privately, because obviously everything I do on that basis, one to one is confidential. And I did think a lot of this stuff would be amazing for people to know, but obviously it's confidential.
And I thought, wouldn't it be amazing to make a podcast where we talk about it so other people know what it all means, and that's really great. But also, I wasn't sure if anyone would want to do it, because I thought, Who would want to do this? Is this even certain people want to hear I don't know. Anyway, I started talking about it, and people like, Yes, this is amazing. We want we want to hear more stories like this. We want to get involved. I really want to tell my story, so this is the point where I also invite you, if you are listening along and you would like, there's no pressure, you can happily just consume what's coming out and engage with the conversations that are coming up by listening or by asking questions or by joining in on the conversations.
Or if you would like to share your story, then you are welcome to to get involved. It's just a case of following the notes that will pop in there, the show notes thingy. We've got a little web page for it, and there's a form basically, just to put your hand up and say, I'd like to tell, tell my story, and we'll do it basically. And when I say, tell your story, like, again, just to reiterate, you don't have to tell. Or like any it's not like, I'm asking for your autobiography. And if there's bits you don't want to make public, or perhaps you don't want to talk about, like, that's totally fine. This is very much something that I want people to be comfortable with, what they're sharing. And you share the bits of the story that you want to share, you don't have to share it all. And the other side to that is, I know that often in stories about difficult things, they can be sensationalised as headlines, and your words can feel like, I know people say this sometimes, that their words got twisted. And so what I'm really wanting to do is a co creation that we're all comfortable with, in the sense of I am then producing the podcast, and I'm creating little articles to go with them, about pulling out some quotes from the conversation, and I'm then sharing and the extracts and things that are going to be shared on social media. I'm sharing that with the guests so that they're comfortable. So I'm saying this is what we've prepared. Are you happy with everything?
Is there anything on reflection you want to take out? Are you happy with the way it's being portrayed? Because I think it's really important that we own our narrative and we have autonomy about how it's shared. So that's just another feature. If you're thinking about sharing your story, but you're thinking, Oh, but I didn't want to say this. Or what if I say something, I blurt something out that is absolutely fine, you have full autonomy to be able to say, actually, can we take this bit out, whatever? So I'm not saying, like, there's nothing that I think you should it's just, if you want to, you can, because I acknowledge that these are sometimes tender stories. They're about people in our life or family or community, you know, and obviously I just want to make sure people are comfortable with it. I think that's important part of it, as well as it's having that control of your narrative.
So this is a slightly shorter episode, just to get us going, and I am really excited to come back and share the first couple of guest episodes very soon. And I would just say as well, if you have enjoyed this so far and you're intrigued by it, do make sure you're following. So this is a feed on Spotify and on Apple Music. And the website's got its own little the web page. Landing Page has got its own little podcast feature, so you can listen there as well, and do so make sure you're following so you'll get updated, I think, then when the next ones come out. And also tell people. So tell if you know a creative, a freelancer, a startup founder, or just like anybody in your life you know is feeling stressed around money and or you'd feel would benefit from this, then just make sure you tell them, because this is a brand new podcast. I've got intentions to like, share this widely on my network and all of that stuff. But the way this is going to have the most impact is if we tell people that we know, who we know are going to be interested in this. So that's one thing I'd ask, if you've got to this point, is just follow and tell people about it, and if you'd like to be a guest, then obviously, get in touch as well through the form or ask me questions by you know the usual thing, it's probably a DM my Instagram is at below the line finance, so feel free to DM me there or voicemail me there if You've got any other questions or thoughts or comments. So that's all from me for today, and I'm really, really looking forward to sharing these incredible guest episodes with you shortly. You
