You already know what to do.
This episode is about why you haven’t done it yet.
If you’ve been quietly collecting advice, saving resources, and sitting with the weight of your own potential, but too scared to actually take action––this episode is your invitation to move. Today kicks off our brand new millionaire mindset series. But it’s not about becoming a millionaire as much as it is about thinking like one. In this first episode, I’m exploring what it really means to take risks—not just the headline-grabbing kind, but the real, uncomfortable, sweaty-palm, heart-racing decisions that stretch you and shape you. I’m sharing all of the life-lessons that have allowed me to take bold action (even when terrified), and design a life I love. Whether you’re navigating a big career change, craving more autonomy, or just ready to stop living for everyone else, this episode will give you actionable tools and advice to move through fear and into the best version of yourself.
Key takeaways:
- A dream without discomfort isn’t a dream—it’s a performance. The life you want will cost you comfort, certainty, and approval. If it doesn’t feel like a risk, it likely isn’t a leap.
- Risk isn’t loud. Often, it’s the quietest decision in the room—the subtle “yes” to yourself that no one else sees. Those are the risks that change you.
- Confidence is built, not found. Confidence is not a personality trait—it’s a muscle. And the smallest moments of courage are what strengthen it.
- Let go of the outcome. Releasing control of how something ends allows you to fully enter the moment of action. The risk is the reward.
- Perfectionism is a polished version of fear. It’s seductive. It wears stilettos. And it’s keeping you stuck. True growth is messy, unfinished, and deeply human.
- You’re not missing anything—you’re resisting the start. You already know what needs to change. The work is in choosing it, repeatedly, without a guarantee.
- Progress doesn’t feel like progress while it’s happening. It often feels like weakness, like vulnerability. But that’s how you know you’re doing it right.
- Passive self-development is self-abandonment. Insight without action is a way to delay your life. Begin. Even if it’s imperfect.
Notable quotes
“You have one chance at this life, and you’re going to live it for somebody else?”
“You expect perfection of yourself. Let that shit go. You think it’s the thing that makes you successful––it’s actually your Achilles heel.”
“Weightlifting makes you feel weak when it’s actually making you stronger. Going to therapy feels extremely vulnerable, but it’s actually making your mental health better. Looking at your money feels terrifying, but it actually is building your savings and paying off your debt.”
Questions to ponder from this episode:
- What dream have I put on hold because it feels too risky to pursue?
- When was the last time I chose comfort over growth—and what did it cost me?
- In what areas of my life am I performing for approval rather than living for myself?
- What “small risk” could I take this week to practice being uncomfortable on purpose?
>>> Download free journal prompts + worksheets for this episode <<<
>>> Want your questions answered? Leave us a voicemail <<<
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Transcript:
Tori Dunlap:
If you’ve been wanting more from your life, but getting stuck and terrified when it comes to building the confidence to actually get it, this episode is for you.
Hi, Financial Feminists, welcome to the show. I am so thrilled because today we’re launching a brand new series on Financial Feminist called Millionaire Mindset. Now, why are we doing this? One, because you all seem to love a series. Every time we’ve done series of episodes on this show, they’re some of your favorites, so we want to bring that back.
The second thing is because there is so much information out there. There are a lot of podcasts to listen to, there’s a lot of YouTube videos to watch, there’s a lot of books to read, there’s a lot of TikToks to scroll. And my number one pet peeve is when people tell you that they’re going to change your lives and then they give you bullshit, manifestation hacks. Nothing drives me more crazy than people promising the world and delivering no actionable information. Telling you that they’re successful, that they are smart, and that they’re rich and that they’re beautiful, but giving you no way to follow in their footsteps, that isn’t practical and actionable.
So you know me, actionable advice is my favorite. And the reason, number three, while we’re also doing this show is that you all have so many questions for me that are sometimes related to personal finance, but sometimes not. And the reason we’re calling this series Millionaire Mindset is because you don’t have to be a millionaire to listen to this show, right? But there are certain traits, there are certain habits, there are certain things that you can cultivate in your life to show up as the best version of yourself, to show up as the best version of yourself in your career or in your business, to show up as the best version of yourself in your relationships, and to show up as the best version of yourself to yourself. And so, this series is going to be all of the things that I have learned in my life to cultivate the life that I have now, but also the things that I’m constantly learning throughout growing this business, throughout building my relationships, throughout each season of my life.
So, we’re thrilled to bring you this series, this has been a long time coming. And this is going to be one of those podcasts where yeah, you can listen while you’re driving your kids to school. Yeah, you can listen while you’re doing chores, 100%. But if I’ve done my job correctly, these sorts of episodes are going to be the ones where you’re going to be reaching for a notebook every two minutes. That’s the goal here, is to give you very specific, actionable advice that can help you transform your life, transform your thinking, and so you can show up as your best self.
So with that in mind, I would love for you, this would just absolutely thrill me, if you all did this, even if 10% of you did this, this would be the coolest thing. I want you to start a journal or a notebook during this episode, and I want you to keep track of all of the things you’re learning throughout this series. And I don’t know how long this series is going to be. It’s going to be at least 10 episodes. Who knows? It could be more than that, but I want you to take notes. I want you to apply everything I’m teaching you in your life and reflect. And hopefully, as you progress through this series, you can start to see specific life-changing transformations in your relationships, in your career, in your life.
I know that anybody listening to this show, you dear listener right now, are committed to self-development. You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t, and this is a way to take that learning even deeper, both for yourself, and it would also just mean the world to me to know that these episodes are making an impact.
I’m going to make this even easier for you so that this is an immediate yes. I want this to be easy, I want this to be like, yeah, Tori, I’m doing it. So, if you go to herfirst100k.com/mindset, and you give us your email, we will send you worksheets and journal prompts for every single episode in this Millionaire Mindset series. In every episode of this series, you’re going to get a nice little email from me and my team with a bunch of reflections with worksheets so that you can stay committed to this practice and it feels like a ritual for you. So again, herfirst100k.com/mindset, it’s completely free. I would love to be able to deliver you those resources.
So, when I asked you all, what should our premiere episode be? What should the first episode of Millionaire Mindset be about? You all said risk-taking. So when we think about risk-taking, I first want to acknowledge, there’s a reason it’s called risk-taking. These are risks. Risks are inherently scary. Even when people like me might make risk-taking look extremely easy, it’s not. It’s scary, it’s deeply uncomfortable. And I have done some wild things in my life. I have quit jobs without other ones lined up. I have started businesses. I have traveled across the world sometimes by myself. I have spoken in front of thousands of people, sometimes tens of thousands of people. I have packed up all my shit and lived out of a suitcase for a year. I still felt nervous every time, at least a little bit nervous. So to get you more comfortable taking risks, even when things feel scary, I have a four part formula to get you comfortable taking risks. Okay? So this is the perfect thing to write down, or again, you go on herfirst100k.com/mindset and we’re setting you up with that workbook.
So part one, I’m going to give you the truth about risk. This is from Big Sister Tori, okay? The truth is, is that there’s no such thing as a risk-free dream. The very definition of a dream means that it’s slightly outside of reality, right? It’s slightly outside of what society expects of you. And as women especially, we live our entire lives very rarely doing what we actually want to do, and doing instead what makes everybody else more comfortable. We put aside our own dreams and our own excitement and our own pleasure and our own joy in order to not rock the boat, and in order to make everybody else around us feel more comfortable.
And we’re taught as women to value certainty, because the world feels very uncertain. It is not a safe place to be a woman, right? The world is a very unsafe place for women and for other minority groups, right? So no wonder we are so interested in certainty, no wonder we are so interested in controlling our realities. And so taking a risk feels deeply, almost genetically unnatural because we’ve been conditioned to prioritize being safe, being liked, making everybody else more comfortable, and yes, being perfect. But that is not a life you should be interested in living. A life where everyone else is happy at the expense of your own happiness is not a life that you should be living.
We hear this all of the time, but when you actually sit and think about this, I just want you to take a second. If you want to close your eyes, great. If you’re driving, don’t do that. Every time somebody tells me or I hear somebody say, “You have one life,” we hear that so often as human beings, right? “You only have one life. You only live once,” right? We hear that so often that it almost doesn’t feel real anymore, but you have one life. You have one chance at this life, and you’re going to live it for somebody else? You’re going to live your life to please your mom? You’re going to live your life to please your boss? You’re going to live your life to please society at the expense of your own pleasure? That’s criminal. You have one life.
And inherently, every time you do something, even if it’s small, that feels outside of what society expects for you, it feels like a risk. It feels like life or death because we are told and taught to play it safe, both for our literal physical and mental safety, right? but because it’s easier to control us when we’re taught to not rock the boat. I think about our brains a lot. The fact that when humans came to be or the cavemen before humans, there is something again in our brains that tells us to pick the safe option, or else you might get eaten by a bear. Right? Because back in caveman times, you had your caves and you had your berry bush that you knew wasn’t poisonous, and if you ventured far out from those things, that was an actual risk to your life. That’s still what’s going on. That’s still what’s going on in your brain. Your brain doesn’t know the difference between a bear about to maul you and asking somebody out on a date. It feels like life or death because your brain interprets risk the same way.
So, no wonder it feels scary. No wonder it feels like a big deal, because anytime you step outside the lines, even in those small moments, there’s something that triggers in us, especially as women, that goes, “Ugh, but what about our safety?” So I have to tell you again, there is no such thing as a risk-free dream. And there’s especially no such thing as a risk-free dream that feels like you might be pissing everybody else off but honoring yourself.
When we come back, I’m sharing my second part of the risk taking formula, and thank you for supporting our sponsors, they allow us to do this show for free for you.
Part two. I want you to think of risk like weightlifting. You are not going to start by deadlifting a thousand pounds. Okay? What happens if you deadlift a thousand pounds after you’ve never lifted a weight before? You can’t do it. That’s the best case scenario. The reality is you’re probably going to get significantly injured, right? But we have to get comfortable with risk in the tiny moments. And you might’ve heard this advice before because it’s common advice, but me to you, this is the single thing I did to catapult my entire life. This is the single thing I can point to that has made me a more confident person. I’m not kidding, that’s not hyperbole, I’m not just saying it for the mic. If I had to point to one thing that has been the absolute paramount to help me be a successful business owner, to help me be the confident person I am, it is this. These little moments of risk, and again, tiny, tiny, almost imperceptible, those are the things that build your confidence, that build your comfortability in risk taking.
So, let’s go back to the, ask a stranger out thing. Okay? If you’ve been following me for a while, you might know that I’ve done a couple videos about this. I have been with my partner now for a couple years. But back when I was single, this was a couple years ago, I just thought to myself, okay, I’m going on these apps and I’m trying to date and I’m trying to meet new people. And if I had done what society told me to do as a woman, I would’ve sat there and waited to be approached, right? This is what women are supposed to do, is you’re supposed to sit there at a bar or at a restaurant and just hope that somebody comes up to you and starts talking to you.
That didn’t feel fun, that had no buy-in on my part and felt like I was just leaving what I wanted up to chance. Right? If I wanted to go on a date with somebody, but I was expecting that someone was going to have to come up to me every single time, I was not taking charge of my own dating life, right? I was not taking charge of that.
So I was like, okay, I’m going to start asking people out. Let me tell you what happened. I still remember the first time I did this. Okay, so I think it was at a coffee shop. It was the person who was taking my order. Okay? I walked up. I did not intend, this was not like a coffee shop I had gone to multiple times to gird my loins and get the nerve up, but I went to this coffee shop and I was like, oh, the person taking my order is cute, and then I was flooded with sweat. My like armpits started sweating, my palms really sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy, but everything in my body was like, bear, the bear is going to attack me, because my thought had been, you should ask him out. And that was the bodily response. I immediately felt my heart was going crazy. It felt as if there was a bear in front of me that I was going to have to fight or flee from, because again, my brain didn’t know the difference. This felt like a risk.
What if he says no? What if he laughs in my face? What if he doesn’t hear me the first time and I’m going to have to speak louder? Terrifying, right? And so in that moment, I had a choice. I could pick the safe option, which is I could grab my bagel, I could grab my smoothie and I could say, “Thank you so much,” and then walk out the door. That would’ve been the easier option, 100%. That would’ve been the easier option, but that wouldn’t have been the fun option. That wouldn’t have been the interesting option, and that wouldn’t have helped me build the muscle of risk-taking.
So I made a vow to myself in that moment, because we’re all afraid of rejection. We’re all afraid that, okay, if they say no, was my hair bad? Did I say something weird? Oh, they must hate me or they think I’m ugly, right? The rejection thing comes in immediately. So I made a promise to myself that I was going to ask this person out, and I did not care about the outcome. I’m going to repeat that. I was going to do this scary thing. I was going to ask this person out, and I would not care what they said, because that’s not really why I was doing this. The outcome did not really matter, it truly didn’t. If they said no, okay, if they said yes, cool. Actually adds a cherry on top. But I was doing it so that I got comfortable with uncomfortability. I was doing it to build my tolerance, start lifting the weight of risk, and I could build my confidence in that.
So I went up and I said, “I think you’re really cute. Could I buy you coffee sometime?” And he said, “No.” He said, “Oh, that’s really sweet. I have a girlfriend.” And I said, “No worries. I hope you have a great day.” It didn’t go the way I planned but I didn’t care, because success to me was not a yes or no. Success was, I did it. And this is what I have to have you understand about risk. I don’t give a shit about the outcome, and you shouldn’t either. We’ll talk more about this in a second, but you’re putting too much weight in everything that could go wrong, right? Again, what if he thinks I’m ugly? What if he tells me no? What if he laughs in my face? Those are all outcome specific reasons to not do something. Instead, success is, you did it. You tried, you went for it. The outcome doesn’t matter. The goal isn’t to be fearless. Fearless is not the absence of fear. Fearless is, I felt the fear and did it anyway.
So, the way you get comfortable with these bigger risks, the quitting your job to launch your business, the getting divorced from a relationship that you know has no way forward. These things that feel massive, these risks that feel utterly terrifying, is that you start building your own confidence, your own comfort with being uncomfortable. Experiencing the fear, and then doing it anyway.
So, my challenge for you for this part two of risk taking. Pick one small risk and do it and then journal about the experience. So, maybe that’s asking a stranger out. Maybe that’s calling your phone or cable or internet company and trying to negotiate your bill. Maybe it’s reaching out to someone you’ve wanted to get coffee with, and it can be romantic but it also can be a friend or somebody you want to mentor you. And my favorite, if you have never gone to dinner by yourself, go to dinner by yourself. Bring a book, go to dinner by yourself, see what comes up. You will be uncomfortable, it’s just going to happen. Bring your journal with you. But we have to start taking these small risks in order to be more comfortable when life demands us to be really, really brave.
The last thing I’ll say in this part two of building our risk muscle, is that when you’re at the gym lifting weights, weightlifting makes you feel weak when it’s actually making you stronger. Going to therapy feels extremely vulnerable, but it’s actually making your mental health better. Looking at your money feels terrifying, but it actually is building your savings and paying off your debt. The things that you are doing to grow yourself make you feel in the moment like you’re not growing at all. They feel like you’re regressing, actually, right? I’m going to the gym and I’m lifting this weight and I’m struggling, I’m sweating. And I feel weak in that moment, but those are actually the things that are making you stronger.
Part three to getting more comfortable taking risks. This quote, I heard this at the beginning of my 20s, single-handedly changed my life. Okay? So if you’ve been tuning me out, I need you to come back. “Perfectionism is fear in stilettos.” This is from one of my mentors, Liz Gilbert, we have met very briefly. I don’t think she knows I exist. No, I actually do know she knows I exist, which is incredible, but we don’t personally know each other. But she has mentored me through countless moments in my life and she has no idea, and this quote changed everything for me.
I know you, dear listener, I know you. You are most likely type A, eldest daughter energy. You have worn perfectionist as a badge of honor for your entire life. You actually pride yourself on being a perfectionist. You think that’s a good thing, and I hate to break it to you, it’s the reason why you can’t take risks. It is single-handedly the reason that risk-taking has felt so scary and unapproachable, because you value being perfect over progressing as a human being.
So what happens is when we value perfectionism, our brain immediately gets in the way of trying anything. What if I fail, says my brain. What if you look stupid, says my brain. What if everybody laughs at you, right? What if the guy laughs in your face when you ask him out? What if you’re not good enough? What if you’re not as good as you think you are? This is the perfectionist part of your brain demanding perfection, that’s what it does. And again, back to the fear, right? And what I love about Liz Gilbert is she says, “Perfectionism is fear in stilettos,” meaning again, that fear has been upgraded. Right? The fear we all feel that prevents us from bettering our lives has stilettos and lip gloss, right? And now we think it’s a good thing because we call it perfectionism.
I am no different than you. I have no different skills than you do. I’m not special in any way, I’m not. I have some privilege, we all have some privilege. I have worked really, really hard and I care a lot about what I do, but you’re the same. I have nothing that you don’t have, and that’s not me being self-disparaging. It’s true. I have nothing that you don’t have. But the only thing, only thing that separates someone like me from someone who is not going for it, is that I do not aim for perfection.
I got rid of my perfectionist mindset in my 20s. And I did all the right things. Right? I worked really hard in school, and if I did not get an A, I cried. If I did not get straight A’s, I did not feel like I did enough. Then I got to college. Well, getting into college, right? I wanted to get into a good college. I wanted to get a bunch of money and scholarships, and then I got into college and I’m like, is this going to be my entire life? I had that conversation with myself when I realized that I was just chasing the next thing. I was just trying to be perfect over actually living my life. And I thought, is this what we’re going to do for the next hopefully 60, 80 years? Is this what we’re going to do? That’s not an interesting life. And frankly, again, it’s always the safe choice because I valued perfection over an interesting life. I valued perfection over building the muscle of risk-taking.
So, the thing I cultivated that you right now don’t have is that I truly believe that done is better than perfect. That’s the only thing I have that you don’t. That is the only thing that is separating you from the person that you dream to be. That is the only thing. You have all the other credentials, you got all the other shit, but you are still wearing your perfectionist badge front and center on your chest, and that is single-handedly holding you back.
We value progress over perfection in this house, because perfectionism is unattainable. And I know you know that. I know you know that perfectionism is unobtainable. You would say that to your best friend. When your best friend’s beaten themselves up, you’d go, “Yeah, but I don’t expect you to be perfect.” And then weirdly, you expect that of yourself, right? You expect perfection of yourself. Let that shit go. You think it’s the thing that makes you successful, it’s actually your Achilles heel. I am not braver than you. I’ve just practiced at being scared and doing it anyway. That’s it. I value progress and done-ness better than perfection.
When we come back. We’re wrapping up this conversation with a few reminders as you go into these next few weeks implementing the practices I’ve laid out in this episode. See you back here soon.
And finally, part four. None of this that I just spent however long, I don’t know, talking to you about, none of this actually helps you unless you help yourself. I know that’s obvious. Tori, I don’t get the thing unless I do the thing. But how many of us are sitting on the sidelines watching other people live the kind of lives we want, listening to the podcast and reading the books and watching the TikToks about how we can be the best versions of ourselves and going, yeah, that sounds good. And then promptly doing nothing. This is my plea to you every single episode of this show, but especially every episode of this series. Do not be a passive passenger in your own life. Do not let somebody else drive the car of your own life, whether that is your parents, your partner, your boss, your societal upbringing. Do not let life and everything that could change it pass you by. Let this be the wake-up call that you need.
I’m not doing this podcast just so I can talk to a microphone for 40 minutes. That’s not why I’m doing this show. I’m not doing these episodes just to hear myself talk. I can talk to myself whenever the fuck I want. I’m doing these episodes for you. I’m doing these episodes for every single woman on this planet because I’m sick and tired of women playing passenger in their own life. Now, you and I both know that there’s a million obstacles that are systemic, that are barriers, that have so much to do with the reason we might not be able to succeed that we have no control over. But there’s also no excuse for you having certain tools that could make your life better, and then you not using them.
So, every single time you get the opportunity to learn something new, take the risk. Start building your muscle. Start maybe thinking outside the box. Commit to showing up as the person you want to be and the person you want to be listens to information like this, and then applies it to their life. The person you want to be journals about everything they’re learning so that they can understand their own minds and their own growth. The person you want to be gets other people in their lives as an accountability group to do this with them. The person you want to be sends this episode to other people in your life so you can start that accountability group. Right? Do not be a passive passenger in your own life, especially when you get really good information that has the power to change everything.
So as we wrap up this first episode of Millionaire Mindset, taking risks is uncomfortable. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. And I would love to know, what is one tiny risk that you can take this week to move one step closer to what you actually want? I would love to hear from you. You could go to speakpipe.com/financialfeminist to leave us a voicemail. Keep yourself accountable. I would love to share these voicemails in the next episode of this series. Tell us one risk, and again, I don’t care what the outcome is, I don’t care about that. I care that you did it.
Thank you for being here. Thank you for joining this incredible series. I hope you liked it. I would love to hear what you want me to talk more about in the future. Thank you for listening to millionaire mindset on Financial Feminist, and I’ll see you back here soon.
Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist a Her First 100K podcast. For more information about Financial Feminist, Her First 100K, our guests and episode show notes, visit financialfeministpodcast.com. If you’re confused about your personal finances and you’re wondering where to start, go to herfirst100k.com/quiz for a free personalized money plan.
Financial Feminist is hosted by me, Tori Dunlap. Produced by Kristen Fields and Tamisha Grant. Research by Sarah Sciortino. Audio and video engineering by Alyssa Midcalf. Marketing and Operations by Karina Patel and Amanda Leffew. Special thanks to our team at Her First 100K, Kailyn Sprinkle, Masha Bakhmetyeva, Sasha Bonar, Rae Wong, Elizabeth McCumber, Daryl Ann Ingman, Shelby Duclos, Meghan Walker, and Jess Hawks. Promotional graphics by Mary Stratton, photography by Sarah Wolfe, and theme music by Jonah Cohen Sound. A huge thanks to the entire Her First 100K community for supporting our show.
Tori Dunlap
Tori Dunlap is an internationally-recognized money and career expert. After saving $100,000 at age 25, Tori quit her corporate job in marketing and founded Her First $100K to fight financial inequality by giving women actionable resources to better their money. She has helped over five million women negotiate salaries, pay off debt, build savings, and invest.
Tori’s work has been featured on Good Morning America, the New York Times, BBC, TIME, PEOPLE, CNN, New York Magazine, Forbes, CNBC, BuzzFeed, and more.
With a dedicated following of over 2.1 million on Instagram and 2.4 million on TikTok —and multiple instances of her story going viral—Tori’s unique take on financial advice has made her the go-to voice for ambitious millennial women. CNBC called Tori “the voice of financial confidence for women.”
An honors graduate of the University of Portland, Tori currently lives in Seattle, where she enjoys eating fried chicken, going to barre classes, and attempting to naturally work John Mulaney bits into conversation.
