All week, I’ve been sharing my own inherited money story and the foundation of my Money & Mind framework… but this isn’t just my story. For our first Saturday Spotlight, I asked Karen Mathewson to reflect on the financial scripts she grew up with, any discomfort of success, and how she is intentionally rewriting her story today.
Her response is a masterclass in vulnerability, radical candor, and leadership. Karen… thank you for your courage, your friendship, and for sharing this so openly.
1. The Inherited Script
Mine was scarcity. My dad worked overtime constantly. My mom took the bus. We lived simply on what was on sale. I never went without… but I learned early that money wasn’t something you kept. It was something you chased, stretched, and survived around. That belief quietly followed me into my career.
2. The Discomfort of Success
When I started making real money, it didn’t feel like freedom. It felt like pressure. I needed to prove I was good enough. That I deserved it. That I could keep it. But I didn’t always know how. I had to start over more than once — credit card debt, patterns I saw growing up repeating themselves. Even with a background in banking, even understanding investing and saving, there was still a gap between knowing and believing I could hold it.
So what did I do? I spent. On myself and others, for approval. On things that signaled success. And as I stepped into leadership, something interesting happened… I became two people: one still working through old beliefs, and one determined to teach others a better way.
And life tested me in a different way. When I moved to Sudbury, my life was turned upside down. I could have gone back home to London. I could have quit. But I didn’t. I started again at ground zero. In rebuilding my life, I also had the opportunity to help rebuild something bigger than me, Agilis Networks. And in that process, I rebuilt my financial outlook too. I’ve earned. I’ve lost. And I’ve rebuilt again.
3. The Intentional Shift
Today, I’m doing the deeper work. I work with a coach to regulate my nervous system and peel back layers of beliefs that were never truly mine.
Now: I use money as a tool for creation, not validation. I focus on good debt. I build sovereignty over my financial future. And most importantly… I’ve stopped measuring my worth by what I spend and started measuring it by what I build.
Emily, watching you build your life, meeting Ken, buying your place on the lake and how you explained that decision… that it didn’t have to be the biggest or the most expensive, it just had to be yours. That changed something in me. It gave me permission to believe I could have my own version of a dream. So I rolled up my sleeves… and I went to work.
I’ve come a long way and I know I’m not alone in this. I was operating from a story that was written a long time ago. The good news for me is I can rewrite it.
With gratitude to Karen Mathewson for sharing her story.