Q&A to New Patterns: Tracey Walker on Breaking Money Self-Sabotage

You do all the right marketing, follow the exact script your mentor gave you, run the ads, make the calls. And somewhere underneath all that activity, a part of you is quietly making sure the money never actually shows up, because some older version of you is still terrified of what happens the last time it did.

That’s the scenario Tracey Walker works through live with an attendee during this Unstoppable Mastermind Q&A, and it’s worth sitting with because it isn’t really about marketing at all. It’s about a pattern buried underneath the marketing that no script will ever fix.

As someone who’s had money before and watched it slip away, you already recognize the shape of what she’s diagnosing here. This session is a real coaching exchange, not a lecture, and it surfaces something that a lot of the tactical training in this industry never touches.

Why would someone unconsciously sabotage the exact result they say they want?

Tracey Walker draws the connection out of an attendee named Terrence, who admits he’s a “spender” and traces it back to blowing through a large sum of money decades earlier. Her diagnosis lands quickly: he’s not failing to attract money because the marketing is wrong. He’s failing because some part of him doesn’t want to risk repeating what happened the last time he had it. As she puts it, “you’ve got to forgive yourself, for one, for making some mistakes out of doing things that you didn’t know.” Not permission to repeat the mistake. Permission to stop punishing the present self for a decision made by a version of him who genuinely didn’t know better yet.

The forgiveness isn’t a one-time affirmation either. Tracey Walker has him rehearse a specific replacement thought to say out loud every time he sees a rising balance in the operating account, so the emotional trigger gets a new, calmer response attached to it instead of the old fear response running the show unchecked.

Why does one big number in an account make people spend recklessly?

This is the sharpest insight in the whole exchange, and it’s about perception rather than discipline. Seeing one large lump sum sitting in a single account creates a kind of psychological permission slip. A big number makes any single expense look small by comparison, even an expense that would look reckless against a smaller, more honest number.

To you, you’re going to see $275,000 in one account. This is an illusion.

That’s exactly why splitting money across the six accounts from earlier in this mastermind matters beyond simple bookkeeping. It isn’t just about tracking categories. It changes what your brain perceives as available before you spend a dollar of it, and that perception shift alone prevents a lot of the reckless decisions that a single, oversized balance quietly invites.

What does real financial discipline actually look like day to day?

The exchange moves into concrete territory too, walking Terrence and the room through how a business can legitimately lease a vehicle from its owner, how home office deductions get calculated off actual square footage rather than a guess, and how consistent, documented use of business credit builds a track record over time. None of it is a shortcut. Every piece requires real documentation, because the alternative, trying to claim expenses without paperwork behind them, is exactly what invites the kind of scrutiny that can undo a legitimate business structure.

Tracey Walker sums up the underlying principle plainly: “It could be because if you cannot be a good steward with a little, why should I bless you with a lot?” The systems only work if the discipline behind them is real, not performed for an audience.

Notice what this exchange doesn’t do. It doesn’t hand Terrence a new script or a better funnel. It goes straight at the belief underneath the behavior, then backs that belief change up with real structure, documentation, and a plan he can actually repeat. That combination, the mindset work paired with the mechanics, is what separates a coaching session from a pep talk.

A few things worth taking from this exchange:

• Self-sabotage around money is often an old fear wearing a marketing problem’s clothes.
• A single large balance distorts your sense of what’s actually safe to spend.
• Forgiveness of past mistakes, paired with real structure, is what actually breaks the pattern.

Create your free account at empowernetwork.com/watch to watch this full Q&A with Tracey Walker and download the audio.

The full session transcript follows below.

Transcript

If you were to set this up, that if you saw 100,000 in your operating account and in your travel account, you saw $500. Actually, I take this back. I take this back. I take this back.

You know why? Because the truth of the matter is that you can, once it's here, you can transfer funds where you need to accordingly, within the business transactional aspect of things, not outside into personal. You are not ball and chaining yourself to yourself. This is teaching you how to create structure, number one, have discipline, number two, and then have executive power and decision to do what you need to do in order to fund.

So if you have $500 in your travel account and $100,000 in your operating account, and you know that the event was coming up in another month, and you didn't have the money for your hotel or your flight or whatever, you could transfer money from here to here for that. Now, when you say you're a spender, what are you saying? You're saying that you're going to spend the $100,000 that's in your operating account for your business? Blue Yankee hat that you want?

You know what I'm saying? Like, what are you saying? What do you mean you're a spender? It's okay you're a spender, but how does that?

I just like, I mean, I just love money, so that's just me. And, I mean, I've been through it before, so I've had, I've gone through, you know, in my late 90s, I've gone through a lot of money. So I know that feeling, and it actually put me in the situation I was back then, and, you know, I'm just trying to rebuild that back up. It's just harder for me now, you know, because of what I did in the past.

So you're self-sabotaging? Yeah. So you won't let yourself make money because you're afraid yourself is going to spend it? Yeah, gee, yeah.

I was, yeah, I'm being transparent right now, so, yeah. You see what I'm saying? This is emotional things that affect our business. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right? So now, Terrence will go out there and do all the marketing strategies I give him in the whole world. But he is not going to attract… He's not going to attract the money because he doesn't want to attract the money.

And he doesn't want to because of what happened 20 years ago, right? 30 years ago. So the issue is that you've got to forgive yourself, for one, for making some mistakes out of doing things that you didn't know. Okay, you didn't know.

That's fine. You didn't know. But now you do know. Right?

Now you do know. I mean, when I lost my house, the thing was, okay, there was obviously some things that I did. I was spending, too. Because I never thought that the market was going to downturn.

In my mind, I guess. You know, I don't know what I thought. I just thought I was going to be milk and honey forever. And what we would do is we would bank on the next big deal.

That was a big mistake we made. Because we would make lump sums of money at one time. Right? So it wasn't like, oh, I'm getting $2,000 this week and $2,000 this week and $2,000 this week.

I'd go to a close and, boom, I got a check for $35,000. Boom. Deposit. Thank you very much.

Two weeks later, I got another close. And guess what? I got a check for what? $40,000.

Thank you very much. Right? And it's an illusion that you get more money than what you got. Because it's so much of it at one time.

When you see it, right? So now you go from not having hardly any money in your bank account to not having a separate account anyway. Because now you're just co-mingling funds. Right?

You make that money and you deposit it into, you know, whatever. And then you get another deposit. Another, right? Another one.

Because there were deals where far and few in between. But there was one deal where we had easily $200,000. Boom. Deposit.

Right? So what happens is I had to forgive myself for mismanaging money. Because it really, you know, okay, it's my fault I lost my house. It's not the economy.

The economy, you know, oh, yeah, it did this or it burned me. Well, really, I was not disciplined. Disciplined enough. Right?

So I had to experience some consequences. So now as you move forward, though, Terrence, that's over and done with. And God's giving you a new opportunity, a new chance to do something different. And so now when you see the money in the operating account, you have to start saying things, I am so happy and grateful that I now have the discipline to manage my money.

Do you understand what I'm saying? It's not an overnight thing, but you have to, you're never going to forget where you were before. But you shouldn't allow yourself to fall into the same pattern again because you know better. You know better.

So you have to do this. If you don't do this, it's the same thing. To not do it is worse than to do it. Because to not do it means that you actually are now, so look, I see this in one account.

I see this in one account. And I see this in one account. Right? Right.

To you. To you, you're going to see $275,000 in one account. This is an illusion. It's the same money, but you're looking at $275,000 and you say, man, it's not going to be a big deal for me to go below $5,000 at the casino tonight.

It's not that big of a deal. I got $275,000 left. I'm still good. I'm good with money.

I'm good with money. I didn't spend, you know, $20,000. I only spent $5,000. Right?

That's what you're doing. But see, when you're here and now you only have, you know, $35,000 in an operating account, well, not that you won't still say, I'm going to spend that at the casino. The difference is that you're playing the game with $35,000, which is obviously a lot less money than $275,000. So this one is still necessary.

But you got to, you're better off doing this. You're better off doing this and saying, okay, look, it's just like, it's just like if you had to put food on the table for you. Well, not if, because you do, but let's just say that, that all of this money in the operating account was designed for food for the whole rest of the year. Right?

And then let's just say the taxes account was designed for rent or mortgage. Those are the two things that most people fear. Like, I'm not going to have anything to eat. Right?

I'm starving. I got to eat. I don't have shelter. Food, water, shelter, like the top of like.

Hierarchic needs, right? So if you have full water and shelter and you're squared away and everything else was just whatever else it was, something in you probably would not let you spend money that would take away from food, water, and shelter. If you had it allocated for food, water, and shelter. If you had it lump sum for personal is what you have it.

And there's no breakdown of food, water, shelter. Then you'll spend. And what was allocated in your mind for food, water, and shelter, but it wasn't written out for you to accept that that's what that's for. Right?

So you play mental gymnastics with it. So you have to do this, Terrence. You have to. Yes, ma'am.

When you go to the bank and you say I would like to open six checking accounts, are those like personal checking accounts or? Business checking accounts. That's why you need this tax ID number. Okay.

All right. They can all attach to the same tax ID. Okay. Mm-hmm.

So technically or not technically, if we're not operating correctly, that could be a blockage from us taking our business to the next level? Well, you know, being that that was one of the things you wanted to talk about, it could be. It could be because if you cannot be a good steward with a little, why should I bless you with a lot? Comprende.

You are all over the place with a little. You cannot see the blue sky for the clouds right now. And if I were to give you access to so much more, you would literally destroy yourself. Self-preservation is what's happening possibly, Adrienne.

All right. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. What's up, Travis?

The account is for the business travels only. Well, it's travel period. It's business travel. It's not for you to go on vacation with your family unless it's the board meeting because the board meeting is designed to talk about salary increase.

And fixed assets are not to be broken ever? Fixed assets. Okay. So let me give you an example of how I use fixed assets.

So I'm not giving advice. Disclosure. CYA. So I need to have you all sign one.

I know how to have you sign one. Trust me. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

My business did not have business credit at that time when I wanted to get the car, right? So I was the guarantor. My credit went up for the car. But the company and I were partners, right?

The company put up the money and I put up the credit. Okay. Likewise, with me being the guarantor on the car, I technically let me put it right okay you know like in a house with a house how you can have a separate person can be the owner of the house with a second separate person could be the mortgager of the house whoever has the debt doesn't necessarily have to be the owner right you got the deed could be in your name but the loan can be in your name right okay with the how with the car it was not the same thing it's like all right well it's my credit that's going up but it's in the name of the company right so because in the name of the company the company is loaning me the money to make payments right long so I had to create a lease I had to create a lease between myself and my company right so it's really property of the company it's in a company name it's like a yeah it's like a holding tank now it's like a holding tank now it's like a holding tank now the license plate on my car says pretty the license plate on my car says pretty the license plate on my car says pretty fly but the name of my company is pretty fly but the name of my company is pretty fly but the name of my company is pretty fly enterprises LLC so then the question fly enterprises LLC so then the question fly enterprises LLC so then the question came well how can I prove that this is a came well how can I prove that this is a came well how can I prove that this is a car for a company that's just it's a car for a company that's just it's a car for a company that's just it's a marketing marketing purposes for my marketing marketing purposes for my marketing marketing purposes for my company well I put pretty fly as a company well I put pretty fly as a company well I put pretty fly as a license plate now it's cool I like that right but there's more behind it right from that perspective if it were any question about it my corporate veil all this type of stuff i want to say no this is owned by the company look the name of the company is even on the car the name of the company is on the car except for the spelling kind of because you can only have like seven letters you got to manipulate it whatever but that's what it is right so this pays my car note the business the business pays the car right so when i pay myself down here i don't pay my car note from my two thousand dollars a week the business is a business expense yes yes yes yes yes you guys see you know what i'm saying you can't co-mingle right so now i can't now let's say i didn't have it set up that way but i wanted to pay i wanted my company to pay for it but there was no like documentation behind any of that type of stuff and then i had to approve it oh well then now they could go back and say oh all the money that we did give deductions for those aren't real deductions and you got to pay taxes on that from the company side which i don't want go ahead now why wouldn't you pay your mortgage from your operating expenses since you have a business that you work from home because your home is a dual purpose what happens is that the they will give you they will give you all the parameters that there is probably a room in your house where you're conducting business you are in no way conducting business in this entire house all the time with your kids your family your friends coming over you're cooking dinner in the kitchen every square foot of this house is not a business that's not for business purposes so they want to they want you to identify what's the square footage of the space in which you're running a business so that's why i have an office is important yeah home office now even if you even if you don't have you know like in my other houses i had you know i had a bigger space for my home office so the accounts will uh the cpa will say uh what's the square footage of the the room right and then he would look at okay your internet expenses your cell phone expenses anything dealing with the business um office phone expenses you're going to office depot you're getting paper you're getting ink you're getting all those different things within the confines of that room then a percentage so then what they do is they take well what's the total square footage of the house well what percentage is this room with that house okay this is five percent usage of the house then that's how much deduction you get to have is five percent you cannot use your whole house you can use the office or the portion of the house by which you are conducting the business do you still take that five percent from operating expenses uh no because your mug your mortgage your mortgage payment is number one you took out a loan for a mortgage and your personal name for homestead purposes more than likely you did not buy that home with business intent right you bought the house to live in so it's your obligation as a homestead homeowner this is your primary residence this is where you are if you so then choose to then use a portion of your home for your business then they will give you a write-off on your business for it what you get benefit-wise from your mortgage is you get to write off your interest you can't you can't pay your mortgage your whole mortgage which are so what you you want to take five percent of your operating account you want to you want your business to go partner with you on your mortgage right so if it's occupying five or ten percent of the total square okay here's an idea now again i'm not giving advice i'm just throwing out an idea if you ask your accountant if you created a lease with your company and your company is leasing space from your house and they're paying you rent that's different you guys see what i'm saying it's different but you can't just out the blue oh well I use 5% of my room.

That's audit time and that's corporate veil and it's not going to fly. Right. So now if you want to legitimize that, I would ask my accountant, but I would throw the scenario. What if my company or a company, right?

A company leased this room in my house to run a business. And this, these people paid me lease of $500 a month. Now the thing is that that would be income to you, right? Now you got a report that you're getting $500.

So, so now from your company, your company is getting an expense of $500 because your company is paying lease, but you are on a receiving end, which is income to you. So you're going to pay taxes, whatever you think you're saving. I'm here to probably end up paying. Oh, you said, I'm saying you're not really helping yourself, but the scenario is you could create a lease.

You're, company could pay lease payment to you. It would be a tax deduction for a company. It would be income for you in which you as a person would now have to pay taxes, usually in a higher tax bracket because that's just individual income. I don't know.

You have to weigh the options on whether whatever the tax liability is, if it's worth you just going on and paying the difference between the 500 and whatever the rest of the mortgage is. But creating that lease to access, does that help build business credit? What helps build business credit is when you get credit, loan, like you can get a Dun & Bradstreet number, right? And then you have to work on your, like it's similar to your personal credit.

How do you build your own personal credit, right? You might want to get, you want to, you want to get a couple of credit cards or something like that and start having activity on them, charging stuff, paying it off, charging stuff, paying it off, or not off, but leaving out like $2,000. 10% or 20% on there, right? But the consistency of you using some of your credit but not using all the credit that you've been extended and paying it down and then reusing it again and then paying it down and then you get a higher offer, you extend your credit, right?

Doing that. Business credit is the same way. Now, this is a whole different conversation, but like there are, there are situations where you can get like different business trade lines and all this and I don't want to get into all that. I don't do that.

I haven't done that. Excuse me. I haven't done that with this business. Yes?

With the savings, is that savings for your business and your personal or do you take, start using it out of your personal? Okay, so let me, I'm going to answer your question right now, but let me show you better than I can tell you. Everybody have this either mentally or written down? So I can erase this.