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Being generous is a decision. I think many of you and many of people in modern society think that generosity will happen once you've hit a certain amount of money, right? Once you have a certain amount of money in your paycheck, once you have a certain amount of money in your bank account and what I would offer to you is that generosity and creating abundance for yourself is a decision making and a habit of your thinking. Are you growing a business or creating the Most sought after MedSpa in your market? Welcome to the MedSpa CEO podcast where growth means better results, bigger profits and a schedule that actually gives you your life back. I'm Heather, strategist to the industry's most profitable aesthetic practices. From solo injectors to multi seven figure teams, I'm here to help visionary leaders like you pack your brilliance, scale with clarity and build a business that feels as beautiful to run as the results you give your clients. It's time to set the standard, not blend into the industry noise. If you're ready to lead, to be seen and to grow a category of one brand, you're in the right place. Hey beautiful friend. If you're a longtime listener of the podcast who's been dying to work with me but hasn't pulled the trigger yet, I have an incredible opportunity to work with me for a fraction of the cost. If your estheticians can't explain your signature plans or your new injectors panic every time they have to sell a high ticket consult, it's not their fault. It's the system or more specifically, your lack of one. That's exactly why I built Ask Heather AI, the first strategist level tool for aesthetic and wellness CEOs who want to scale with precision and stop flying by the seat of their pants. Inside, you get three powerful tools, each designed to solve the exact gaps that keep your growth tied to you. Turn your basic menu into a branded high ticket signature offer suite your whole team can sell. Train every team member to lead premium consults with confidence, even if they've never sold a thing. Write magnetic messaging that attracts premium patients without sounding like every other clinic online. These are the same frameworks we've used to scale clinics to seven figures and beyond. And they used to cost five five figures to access. Now you can have them in your back pocket. Try ask Heather AI for 30 days and see what happens when you stop guessing and start scaling with words that work. Head over to heathertraveen.com trial to learn more. Well, hello my beautiful friends. Welcome back to another episode of the podcast Today's episode, I wanted to dive into a topic that is one of the hidden pain points that I see in many of you who are in my community, whether you're in one of my paid communities or you're in one of sort of my audience communities. And it's around generosity and abundance. And one of the things I learned many years ago, and certainly once I became a certified life coach, this, like, I could see this so much more clearly, even after this, was the idea that generosity and abundance is causing so many of you so much unintentional pain that you think is outside of your control but really isn't. And it shows up everywhere. It shows up in your ability to actually be able to lead and to experience your business in a way where it doesn't cause as much dissonance and as much resistance. And I was reminded of this. I saw. I don't see all of the comments on all of my Facebook ads because I don't spend a lot of time on Facebook specifically. I. I tend to see things on Instagram more, but every once in a while, catch, you know, a positive comment or a negative comment or what have you. And I got this comment on one of my ads for one of the masterclasses that was. You know, our masterclasses range in price from 47 to $97, sometimes 197 to 297. And this person was a longtime podcast listener, and she commented on this $47 class and said, you know, she'd been listening to the podcast for years and that she was disappointed that this paid product, which, by the way, was about $47, had some of the same material in it that she had already learned on the podcast. And so I thought to myself, wow, wow. Like, somebody who had been listening to the podcast for years, who got tons of value from the podcast, paid $47 for something, and then took the time to write this negative comment on my ad. And, you know, I blocked her and, like, wished her well in my mind, right? And I didn't block her for any sort of bitterness, by the way. Like, I. She's allowed to have all of her thinking that she has about her experience. I blocked her because if you. You're. If you comment on one of my ads, like, you're gonna be fed a lot more of my ads. And the only way I can prevent you from seeing more of my ads is by actually blocking you. So I sometimes block people when I think it's like a gift to them that they don't have to see my ads anymore. But anyhow, I see this pop up so much where there's this energy behind it for so many of you, and this is going to probably be a confronting episode for many of you, because if you're listening to this, if you're watching this, none of us think of ourselves as lacking generosity, right? Some of us might say, oh, we're in a scarcity mindset. We're not as abundant as we want to be, but we don't really connect that to generosity specifically. And ever since I was a little girl, I have many character flaws, right? We all have character flaws. None of us are batting the Ten Commandments and whatever moral compass you use personally, none of us are batting a thousand in those areas. We're humans, and so we have weaker areas of strength. And for me, I have always been a deeply generous person innately. And I know this now after observing so many humans personally in my life and through business, and obviously now after serving, you know, hundreds of clients and having thousands of students in my programs. And so what I would offer to this person who left this comment, and to any of you and your investments that you make, it's. I absolutely love paying people for things. I love it. I do not begrudge it. I love paying all the service providers who help around our house for things. I love paying my contractors who help me with our ads, the podcast team that helps me with the podcast. I love paying my team, and I love having the opportunity to pay them well. And so what this generosity, of course, is great for the people that I'm generous to, right? Because they get to experience that generosity. But what I would offer to you that is even more critical is that you get to experience this generosity as well. And so when I was taking it back, like, when I was in high school, my parents filed for bankruptcy and our house was foreclosed on. My mom had cancer and my dad got sober. He was an alcoholic, and he got. So this all happened within, like, one year, okay? And it was a storm, right? I was shook by this. And I started working at 15 to help, right? Because I have vivid memories of really, actually paychecks not making it to the next paycheck and us having to really, like, engineer, like, what our food was going to be and what we were going to spend money on in between, right? This wasn't a long period of time, but it was such acutely painful period of time that it, like, has impacted my life so much. And so I started working at, like, 15 because I felt this scarcity and I Was definitely old enough to realize all the chaos that was happening in my house. And I started working, and we were really broke, like, literally broke. But even back then, I can remember taking the money, like my paycheck, my little paycheck that I got. I first. The first place I worked at was soup plantation. I was a busser. They called us something like host buster busser. People we like, like, helped and whatever. We did a lot of things at soup plantation. Then my next job was at California pizza kitchen, where I was like a hostess. And you. I thought I was like. That was like a big upgrade in my work. And I think at the time, minimum wage was like $4 and some odd cents. And I remember when I moved from soup plantation to CPK that I think my pay was like $5.15 an hour. But I got tipped out by bussers and the hostesses, got tipped out by the serv serving staff. And I thought, you know, even with the $4 and something cents that I made from soup plantation, like, this money was just incredible to me. And I would sometimes take my whole entire paycheck and take my friends out to lunch or dinner with it. And I remember how incredible that felt. Yes, it was fun for them. I'm sure they liked it, too. But I got to experience all of that generosity. And the difference is, being generous is a decision. I think many of you and many of people in modern society think that generosity will happen once you've hit a certain amount of money, right? Once you have a certain amount of money in your paycheck, Once you have a certain amount of money in your bank account. And what I would offer to you is that generosity and creating abundance for yourself is a decision and a habit of your thinking. And many of you don't notice where this pops up for you. I've had girlfriends, actually, and when they're good enough friends, I will actually reflect this to them that brag about how, like, you know, they're getting work done at their house for something they're doing, maybe like a little renovation or what have you. And you notice that when people brag about how cheap they get their labor for. And now, I'm not suggesting that you're never discerning with your money. You do have to be discerning with your money to have a profitable business. But you could decide that your investments, like I have paid so many coaches and teachers, mentors, educators, throughout the years, I'm always heavily investing in myself because my best business asset is my brain. And so every single year in fact, I just got off a call yesterday. I was on a call with my bookkeeper. And today we met with our CPA and going over my investments this year and then my investments that I plan to do for next year as we look at our numbers and what have you. And I always have a line item that has to do with investing in myself heavily. Right. Because the only limitation you have right now is your ability to lead your company to whatever next level you want to go to. And the only way you can change that is by actually changing your identity and also changing the implementation and the things and the strategy that you're doing. So I will always be heavily investing in myself. But I can remember maybe, gosh, I'm trying to think how many years ago this was. When Amy Porterfield was first launching Digital Course Academy. This is a number of years ago. And she had had webinars that sell and some other. I forget what the other one was now off the top of my head. But she'd had two programs. She essentially was putting it all together and sunsetting those programs and launching Digital Course Academy. And I remember buying Digital Course Academy. I'd already bought both of the other programs that she had and been a longtime listener to her podcast. Okay. And I remember thinking, she has given me so value, even if there's nothing new in this program, I am investing in it. First of all, I always get what I came for. Whenever I invest in myself, I go with the energy of, like, it has nothing to do with them and everything to do with me. Right. Everything has to do with the energy and how I'm going to show up and how I'm going to get an roi. And I always look at things this way because when you make a decision that you are in charge of your own return on investment, whether this is for anything that you're investing on in your company, you will show up with a different energy and give whatever that strategy, whatever that thing is that you're investing in so much more of an opportunity to actually be successful. So I remember thinking when I invested in dca, I was like, of course. And I can give you a dozen other examples, examples of this where I am grateful to be able to give them money. So many of you are like you. You buy. You buy something for $150. Or I'll give you another example. I was sitting with a client, this was probably three or four years ago, and she was sharing with me that her accountant was asking her about the $20,000 that she had spent on marketing and my first thought was like, oh my gosh, she's only spent 20,000 DOL marketing. She's not spending nearly enough. And her whole mindset about it was very scarce because this accountant was like, so tell me about this marketing expense, right? Which by the way, unless you're. You have a. Now I actually have an accountant and a bookkeeper that actually understands my business model and is fully supportive of the investments that I make and totally get it. But many of you don't have those folks. And you have to be very clear on what your values are. And also understanding that the bookkeeper and accountant that you have are likely not the CEOs of multimillion dollar businesses that you are trying to create for yourself. And so if they haven't created what you want or not, are not trying to create the same type of business and life that you want, you have to be kind of careful who you take advice from. But I just see it over and over again where you guys cause yourself so much pain because you have this scarcity around investing in yourself. You have this scarcity around not actually enjoying investing. Many of you think of the money that, the expenses that you have in your business, many of you think of those as a cost and you focus on it being a cost rather than an investment. And what happens is, let's just take. I'll always use, you know, my classic example, if you've been listening to the podcast for a while, is meta ads. And it might be meta ads, it might be Google Ads, it might be that you're investing in SEO. Let's just take any sort of paid investment that you're making into your marketing efforts. So many of you, I have so many clients who've invested like 20, $30,000 into something and they like will talk about it like it was a waste of money and they abandoned ship on that thing. And I'm like, that isn't a waste of money, first of all. And because they think about it like a cost instead of an investment, they end up abandoning ship on this, this thing. Whether, you know, take meta ads or take SEO, right? When I know that meta ads, SEO, paid Google, YouTube ads, whatever marketing thing you're investing in, 1000% works, you just didn't work it correctly. You just didn't work it long enough. You just didn't learn enough about how it works, right, to be effective. And so underneath that though, is this cost versus investment belief system that many of you have that actually has you retract as soon as you make the investment in Something, right? So you'll invest in something, and then you're kind of like, waiting for it to prove itself to you instead of investing in something, rolling up your sleeves and attacking it. Like, hey, I'm going to make this work, right? And that's how I take everything. Like, there are some things that I will sort of experiment on, but my core marketing things, I'm like, it's not like, oh, is meta ads going to work for me? Like, hell yeah, meta ads is going to work for me. And so I. I show up to it with that energy, right? I'm like, I love it. I think of it like an ATM I'm going to invest money in, and I have a really exp. Ad agency that I pay a hefty fee to every single month, and then I have the ad spend on top of that, right? And I love it. I'm like, I love investing in that and building my visibility and my exposure and my leads and my conversions and all of those things. But if in the back of my mind, I was like, oh, like, is this gonna. Is this. Am I gonna make a. A dollar out of 15 cents right away in my first three to four months of a new marketing channel if I. Many of you take that sort of energy like, oh, this is a cost. This is a cost. You're seeing it as a cost. And emotionally, it triggers you into abandoning whatever that thing is too soon. So there's so many. I was doing a little bit of research for this episode, and it's interesting. There are. There's so much research behind the idea that generosity is for the person that is giving, right? Like, getting to experience and invest. And this is like, we're talking about money, but it's also, you know, investing your time. And I will say that if I ever have sunk cost bias on something, it's usually not the money that I've invested. It's usually the time that I have invested. So a few years ago, I hired a instructional design team, and I paid them, I think it was, like, $25,000 to help actually rebuild MSA. So they, like, surveyed our clients, they helped us, like, you know, they were this expert team that came in and, you know, to elevate the experience and all these things, and some of the things I thought were great that they did for me. When I've invested a lot of time into something, I can scarcity. So that's how it shows up for me. It's never usually the money investment for me. It's usually if I have a time Investment. So it might be a time investment for you, too. And so for me, a couple years ago, I decided, like, I need to really shift my thinking and the generosity of time more than the generosity for money. But many of you are stuck in that limiting belief system that actually ends up matriculating out to everything that you do in your life, in your business. And we know this, that billionaires and multimillionaires and, you know, we're putting aside. And I forget what the metric is now because they always shift it with inflation and what have you. But once you have your basic needs met, right? So when you don't have money for food and you don't have shelter, then that we're putting that, we're shelving that aside, most of you are not in that position. Then, yes, like your experience. I'm not suggesting that you should just be generous, generous in your mind, you know, some bs, toxic positivity. But for the majority of you listening to this right now, your ability to actually enjoy your investments this year, the money that you invest in your team, the money that you invest in your contractors, the money that you invest in your coaches, the money that you spend in your community, the money that you put back into the economy every single time I have an Uber driver who is delivering me food, I am so excited to tip them. I love tipping people generously. It's like my favorite thing. Like, yes, I'm sure they experience some joy from being tipped so generously, but I get to experience that generosity as well. And so for many of you, you are like, for lack of a better word, a McCrudgeon around investing in yourself, in your team, in your community, Right. Yesterday I was at a softball game for one of my daughters, and, you know, all the moms that I was sitting around were all kind of yipping about how expensive everything is. And, you know, I look at it like when. And this is why I don't have a hard time charging a premium for things. Why I don't have a hard time really, really coaching you all and helping you all to create an ecosystem and a brand and a business where you can charge a premium too. Because I know that the more generosity that you can create, right? So in order to be generous, it does help to have enough money to pay your people well, to pay yourself. And so I know when I'm selling and charging a premium, like, I have that in the back of my belief system for me so that I don't spend as much time in drama around it as well. So as you go into 2026 right at the time this episode is dropping. I'm recording it at the end of 2025. It will go live at the beginning of 2026. How do you want to experience your investments this year? Like when I first launched my E commerce business because it was such an inventory heavy investment. Like I couldn't sell anything until I invested a large amount of money in the inventory and the ab able to ship it and all of these things, right? And I can remember that even back when I was not even break, even when I was not profitable at all, right? And for some of you, you're not profitable at all yet. And that's normal for many of you if you just opened, right. And you had to actually invest in your business originally, which in any business you need to invest at first for most businesses I can remember that even back then when I wasn't profitable, I got to experience the feeling of generosity and the feeling abundance because of how I thought about things. And so as we go into 2026 and beyond, what I would offer for you is that where are you experiencing scarcity? Where you don't need to be experiencing scarcity. Because one of my goals through this podcast in 2026 in particular is your experience of running your business has an entirely huge impact on the longevity that you will have in this industry. Your ability to create a sustainable business and your ability to lead the business to new heights. Because nobody I know. Yeah, I was just talking to with one of my mastermind friends, she has a coaching business. She does about 5 million a year and she's in like three different masterminds. She invests heavily. I mean she's into the six figures investing in herself and she was doing that. We were talking about this, she was doing that back when she was at like 100k, 200k in her business. And that is one of the things she credits with being able to have a multi million dollar business, right. And so I think many of you are waiting to have the multi million dollar business before you get to. Or some of you have the multimillion dollar business and are still miserable, right? Because that is a circumstance and circumstances can change, right? You can be at 100k or you can be at 3 million in your business. Yeah, that dollar amount changes in the circumstance line for you. But your thinking is what is going to create your experience of that. So for many of you this might have been a little bit confronting because for many of you you're not as generous as you could be. You spend a lot of time in thinking that is scarcity and limiting and where you second guess yourself or you invest in something and you are spinning about it or you go into buyer's remorse right away instead of having your own back. And what I want to offer to you in 2026 is that you get to decide whether or not 2026 is going to be an abundant year for you no matter what life and business and the economy and the market throws your way. All right my friend, that's what I have for you this week. I'll see you next week. That's it for today on the MedSpa CEO podcast. If this show's been valuable to you, the best way to say thank you is to leave a quick rating and review. It means the absolute world to me. I read every single one and it helps more women like you find the support they need to grow something thing they're proud of. I'm so glad you're here.

Podcast Summary: Med Spa CEO

Episode: The ONE Belief About Money That Is Stopping Your Growth (+ How to Fix It Fast)
Host: Heather Terveen
Date: January 7, 2026

Episode Overview

In this episode, Heather Terveen addresses a core mindset barrier that holds many med spa and aesthetic practice owners back: the belief that true generosity and abundance are outcomes only achieved after reaching a certain financial milestone. She explores how this scarcity mindset affects decision-making, business growth, and leadership, and offers practical advice on shifting perspectives so that abundance and generosity become daily habits regardless of external circumstances.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Decision to Be Generous and Abundant (00:00 - 04:45)

Heather emphasizes that generosity is not contingent on how much money you have; it’s a decision and a way of thinking.
- Quote: "Being generous is a decision. I think many of you...think that generosity will happen once you've hit a certain amount of money...what I would offer to you is that generosity...is a decision and a habit of your thinking." (00:00)
She shares that abundance should be cultivated now, not as a future reward.

2. Handling Criticism and the Energy Behind Scarcity (04:46 - 11:55)

Heather recounts an experience with a negative comment about a low-priced educational offering, showing how scarcity and lack of generosity can drive our responses—even when value is present.
- She responds without resentment, reflecting on how people interpret expenses and investments.
Quote: "If you comment on one of my ads, you're gonna be fed a lot more of my ads. ...So sometimes I block people when I think it's like a gift to them that they don't have to see my ads anymore." (07:20)

3. Personal Story: Scarcity in Childhood and Early Generosity (11:56 - 19:45)

Heather details her challenging upbringing, including her family's bankruptcy and struggle with basic needs, and how these experiences shaped her beliefs about money and work ethic.
- As a teenager, she deliberately chose generosity—even when she had little—experiencing firsthand the joy that comes from giving.
  - Quote: "Even back then, I can remember taking my whole entire paycheck and taking my friends out to lunch or dinner...I got to experience all of that generosity." (15:45)

4. The Cost vs. Investment Mindset (19:46 - 34:12)

Many business owners and their advisors (e.g., accountants) focus on the cost of spending, not on the investment potential for growth.
- Heather advocates for reframing business spending as intentional investments.
  - Example: When considering spending on marketing or coaching, see it as building the business, not draining it.
- Quote: "When you make a decision that you are in charge of your own return on investment...you will show up with a different energy and give...an opportunity to actually be successful." (24:13)
She highlights the danger of abandoning initiatives (like meta ads or SEO) too early due to this misaligned thinking.

5. Generosity's Psychological Benefits and Common Traps (34:13 - 38:02)

Research and experience show that being generous benefits the giver as much as (or even more than) the recipient.
- She notes her own experiences tipping service workers and supporting her team, finding joy in the act of giving itself.
Heather reflects on how some people find it hard to invest in their own business or self-development, remaining stuck in a "grudging" mindset.

6. Raising Prices and Leading by Example (38:03 - 40:54)

Heather connects her abundance mindset to her willingness to charge premium prices and coach others to do the same. Knowing that financial health enables greater generosity in turn.
- Quote: "I don't have a hard time charging a premium...because I know that the more generosity you can create...it does help to have enough money to pay your people well, to pay yourself." (39:15)

7. Looking Ahead: Setting the Tone for 2026 (40:55 - 46:18)

Listeners are urged to consider how they’ll experience their investments in the upcoming year—are you approaching business with abundance or with fear and scarcity?
Heather shares a story of a colleague who invested heavily in herself even when her business was small, attributing her rapid growth to that willingness.
- Quote: "Many of you are waiting to have the multimillion-dollar business before you get to—or some of you have the multimillion-dollar business and are still miserable, right? Because that is a circumstance and circumstances can change, right?...But your thinking is what is going to create your experience." (43:45)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

"Being generous is a decision." (00:00)
Heather’s central thesis, establishing mindset over circumstance.
"I love paying all the service providers who help around our house for things. I love paying my contractors...I love having the opportunity to pay them well." (11:30)
A personal affirmation about the joy found in providing for others.
"So many of you...talk about [marketing investments] like it was a waste of money and abandoned ship on that thing. ...That isn't a waste of money, first of all, and because they think about it like a cost instead of an investment, they end up abandoning ship on this thing." (28:20)
"Your ability to actually enjoy your investments this year...the money you invest in your team...in your contractors...in your coaches...the money you put back into the economy—every single time I have an Uber driver...I am so excited to tip them." (36:30)
"Your experience of running your business has an entirely huge impact on the longevity you will have in this industry." (41:45)

Timestamps for Key Segments

00:00 Introduction to the episode’s theme of generosity and abundance
04:46 Example of audience feedback and scarcity in purchasing behavior
11:56 Heather’s childhood story and early experience with money and generosity
19:46 Cost vs. investment mindset, and examples in marketing investments
34:13 Psychological rewards of generosity for the giver
38:03 Charging premium prices and sustaining generosity
40:55 Looking forward to 2026: Choosing an abundant mindset

Final Reflections

Heather wraps up with a challenge for listeners to examine where scarcity mindsets are limiting their growth, both financially and personally. She encourages making the decision to lead with generosity and abundance in 2026, regardless of what external circumstances may arise—asserting that this shift will yield greater satisfaction, sustainability, and long-term growth in business and life.