"That salary is more than I ever paid myself."

She said it quietly, and I could hear the weight of it. And I understood why it stopped her. I just knew it could not stop her for long.

Kim had been running a luxury interior design firm for almost twenty years, building an almost seven figure business entirely on word of mouth. She had come to me barely profitable and quietly considering walking away from everything she had created. In our first sessions together we had done something most CFOs never do. We looked at her money story before we ever opened a single report. And what shifted in that conversation changed the foundation of everything that came next.

The problem was she was barely profitable, she was not paying herself what she deserved, and yet I was asking her to hire a junior designer at a salary she had never offered anyone, including herself.

From the outside it looked like the wrong move, and on paper it looked like a risk she simply could not afford, which meant that every practical voice in her head was telling her the same thing: you are not profitable enough for this, you cannot afford this person, and the smart thing to do is wait until things are better before you make a hire like this.

And there I was, sitting across from her, seeing something she could not yet see herself.

This is where my work is different. After more than twenty years as a CFO to multi-six, seven, and eight figure businesses, I have learned to see around corners. I have sat inside companies far larger than hers and watched what happened when the right investment was made at exactly the right moment. I knew what was waiting for Kim on the other side of this decision, even if she could not see it. I knew the junior designer was not a cost. She was the exact thing Kim needed to take her business to the next level. She had the skills to take real work off Kim’s plate, and the moment that happened I knew it would open the floodgates for more sales, more projects, and more of the revenue Kim’s business was more than capable of generating.

The only thing standing between Kim and that version of her business was not her numbers, her market, or her talent. It was the story that was telling her she could not afford to grow before she felt ready.

I remember telling her something that I have said to many women at exactly this crossroads.

"Sometimes you have to build before you can grow."

And I meant it in the most practical CFO way possible. You cannot take on bigger projects, attract better clients, or step into the CEO role your business needs you in if you are still doing everything yourself.

What I saw sitting across from her was a woman whose biggest financial risk was not the hire in front of her but rather what it would cost her to continue staying on this path. She had spent almost twenty years doing everything herself. But now it was time for her to step into a bigger role in her business. And that new identity started with the beliefs that were keeping her where she was.

So that is what we worked on together. Not just the numbers, though the numbers mattered, but the story underneath them that was making a decision feel impossible. And that is where having a strategic partner that could use both CFO expertise to see around corners and NeuroCoaching skills to help her work through the beliefs that were keeping her stuck made all the difference.

We were still working inside the Manifest phase of my Manifest. Manage. Multiply. framework. And that is not unusual, because if we do not get to the other side of the subconscious programming and the beliefs that are keeping us exactly where we are, we will never be able to fully step into the Manage phase and build the business we actually want.

From the outside this hire might not have looked logical. She was barely profitable and being asked to bring on someone at a salary she had never even paid herself. But working with someone who has sat inside companies far larger than hers and could see the impact a hire like this would have on the other side made all the difference between staying exactly where she was and finally being able to grow.

The goal was not only to get Kim comfortable with making a hire. It was to allow her to start stepping into the CEO role of her business for the very first time.

She made the hire. And four months later, when I asked her how it was going, she did not talk about the salary or the risk or whether the numbers had worked out the way she hoped. She said something that has stayed with me ever since.

"I keep thinking, oh my gosh, where would I be if she wasn’t here?"

That one hire changed everything. Not because it solved every problem overnight, but because it gave Kim something she had not had in almost twenty years of running her business. Space. Space to think, to lead, to step back from the daily grind of doing everything herself and start showing up as the CEO her business had always needed her to be.

And here is what happened when she did. The pipeline grew quickly. The right clients started showing up. A business that had been generating under a million dollars a year and barely breaking even began to move in a direction she had only dreamed about.

Fast forward two years and Kim now leads a team of five, including two full time designers, and has grown from one location to two. When we first met her business was generating under a million dollars in revenue. The following year it grew to $1.7 million. And this year she is on track for multi-million dollar revenue.

It started with one hire she was terrified to make.

Growth does not happen by doing more. It happens by doing less of the wrong things so you can do more of the right ones. Every woman who comes to me at the multi-six and seven figure level is working at capacity. The question is never whether she is working hard enough. The question is whether she is working in the right role inside her own business.

What I have learned after years of doing this work is that the numbers are NEVER just numbers. Underneath every financial decision there is a belief system quietly running the show, and most of the time we do not even know it is there. And for women at this level that belief system often says the same thing in a hundred different ways that my ears are trained to hear loud and clear.

Financial phobia shows up in places most people would never think to look. Not only in the avoidance of your financial information but also in the avoidance of a financial decision that the numbers can help us see how to expand. The fear was not really living in the hire. It was about what the hire meant, or rather what she was making it mean about herself.

If you have ever felt like you have one foot on the gas and one foot on the brake, or talked yourself out of a decision you knew in your gut was the right one, I want you to sit with that for a moment. Because that hesitation is worth paying attention to. It is not a sign that you are not ready. It is a sign that there is a story underneath that decision that has not been heard yet.

The CEO Money Rewire was created exactly for you. It is a free private audio series designed to help you listen for and identify the stories that are quietly keeping you stuck, so you can finally start making the decisions your business has been waiting for you to make. You can access it at audreyfaustconsulting.com/moneyrewire.

And if you are wondering what came next for Kim, once she made the hire and finally had space to look at her numbers clearly, what she saw changed everything about how she priced her work. Stay tuned for next week because you are going to love the next article in this series. It is all about the pricing decisions that changed everything for Kim.

Choose to Be Financially Powerful.

Audrey Faust, MBA is a CFO strategist and Certified NeuroCoach who works with women business owners at multi-six to seven figures and above. She is the only CFO strategist who works with financially phobic women business owners, creating the clarity, confidence, and profitability that turns them into financially powerful CEOs.