My Dad Asked How I’ll “Fill the Fridge.” Here’s a Better Question.

A quote from Star Trek and a painful phone call showed me we’re asking the wrong question about our work, our lives, and our purpose.

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

You know the question. You’ve heard it from a parent, a friend, or the nagging voice in your own head at 3 a.m.

“So… how are you going to fill the fridge?”

It’s a question born of love and concern, rooted in a world where survival is the baseline. I (Cristof) got it from my dad just this morning. He was congratulating me on our new newsletter before deftly pivoting to the critique: “The only thing that’s not clear to me is how are you going to fill the fridge?”

He’s not wrong. But the question itself is the problem.

It had me thinking about a quote I’d just read in Rainn Wilson’s book, Soul Boom (affiliate link). On page 16, he quotes Captain Picard from Star Trek:

“Money doesn’t exist in the 24th century. The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity.”

When I read that, I didn’t feel a sci-fi fantasy. I felt a deep, resonant longing. Not for a world without money, but for a world where our driving force has fundamentally shifted.

Look at the immense dissatisfaction, the lack of meaning, the rising depression and suicide rates in the most “developed” countries. It’s a screaming signal that more wealth only matters to a certain point. Beyond that, it’s empty calories for the soul.

I know this because I’ve eaten those calories. I’ve been in the high-paying world of investment banking and capital markets advisory. It was absolutely soul-sucking. I knew if I stayed on that path, focusing only on maximizing my income, I would be dead in 10, 15, or 20 years. Maybe not physically, but emotionally, relationally, and spiritually. I’d be a ghost in a gold-plated cage.

So, we made a choice.

(Sophia here.) Let me paint a picture of that choice. Around 2012, Cristof joined a folk-rock band touring the US Southeast. We lived under the poverty line. We didn’t own a cell phone. We lived in a 450-square-foot apartment and shared one car. A croissant at Starbucks was a luxury we actively calculated against our rent.

When our cat got sick, we took on a $4,000 credit card loan for her surgery. That was our reality.

Make no mistake, we are not glorifying having less or making poverty a virtue.

But here’s the secret no one tells you: we weren’t miserable.

We aspired for more but didn’t feel poor. We felt purposeful. We were living a life of our choosing. We could have gone back to six-figure jobs, but we consciously chose a different path. The music Cristof was creating, the meditation videos I was making — it felt transformative. We were giving value, and that provided a sense of contentment no paycheck had ever matched.

We weren’t “Wealth-Acquirers.” We were becoming “Value-Givers.”

And that is the identity shift that changes everything.

The Identity Shift: From “Wealth-Acquirer” to “Value-Giver”

The old paradigm forces you to ask: “What do I need to DO to earn money?” This question puts you in a constant state of lack and chasing. You are always behind, always trying to extract from the world in order to…

fill your fridge, 
fill your house, 
fill your bank account.

The new paradigm, the one that Picard hinted at and we’ve lived, starts with a different identity: “I am a Value-Giver.”

The core belief is this:

I am a person who gives value and thrives financially, emotionally, and spiritually. My thriving is directly proportionate to me giving my true, authentic self. The more I give, the more I receive.

This isn’t spiritual bypassing. We live in a society that requires money. The goal isn’t to become a monk or nun who renounces money (unless that’s your calling!). The goal is to flip the equation.

Instead of doing things to get money, you focus on giving immense value, and you learn to monetize that value in an aligned, integral way. When you do this, the money that follows feels like a natural byproduct of your service, not the grim reward for your soul’s surrender.

Your work becomes like that of a monk or nun — you are taking care of a core need (spiritual, creative, transformational) for your community, and the community, in turn, supports you. It’s a virtuous cycle. It’s no wonder studies often find clergy among the happiest of professionals. They live in the flow of giving and receiving.

Your Simple & Aligned Starter Kit to Become a Value-Giver

This shift starts in the mind long before it manifests in the bank account. Here are two simple practices we use daily to cement this new identity.

1. The Daily Value Question (From Cristof)

Every morning, I journal the answer to this one question:

“What’s one thing I can do today to be of service to others?”

I just jot down whatever comes through my stream of consciousness. It takes not even two minutes. This isn’t about crafting a business plan; it’s about setting a daily intention. It immediately orients your brain away from “what can I get?” and toward “what can I give?” The answers can be as simple as “send that encouraging email to a fellow creator” or “finally write that post that’s been on my heart.”

2. The 3–6–9 Abundance Alignment

This is a powerful method to reprogram your subconscious and connect your authentic gifts with financial abundance.

First, craft your new identity statement, such as “I am a person who gives value and thrives financially, emotionally, and spiritually,” see the core belief above. Then repeat it throughout the day, saying it out loud:

• 3 times over breakfast

• 6 times after lunch

• 9 times just before bed.

3. Bridge the Gap with “What If?” (From Sophia)

This final journaling prompt is where the magic happens, building a neural bridge between your authentic desires and your abundant future. This is how we shatter the myth that giving your gifts and building wealth are mutually exclusive.

The journaling prompt is:

“What if my life was filled with financial abundance by expressing the gifts that are wanting to come through me? What is it that I truly want to express in this world, knowing that me doing so is my most expansive, abundant expression — financially and spiritually?”

This exercise isn’t about begging the universe for a check. It’s about building a neural bridge between your deepest, most authentic joy and the belief that it deserves and can create abundance.

The Journey Ahead

This journey from the “soul-suck” of chasing money to the fulfillment of being a Value-Giver isn’t a random event. Sophia has actually mapped out the exact spiritual and psychological process for how this shift happens, which we call The Bridge to Your Next Self. We’ll be diving deep into that framework in one of our next pieces.

It all starts by changing the question you ask yourself. Stop asking, “How will I fill the fridge?”

Start asking, “How can I fill my soul by filling the souls of others?”

The fridge (and other forms of bounty), I promise you, will follow.

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How I Climbed to a $100k Year by First Changing My Identity

Spoiler alert: it’s not about hustling harder — but about becoming the person who already has what you want.

Photo by NEOM on Unsplash

Disclosure: This article links book titles to their Amazon.com listings using affiliate links. If you choose to click them and make a purchase, we may earn a small commission.

Struggling to hit your income goals? Discover the 3-phase mindset shift that helped me reach my first $100k year.

I (Sophia) was a web designer who knew her craft but didn’t know her worth. 

My goals were vague — “be successful,” “make more money.” My calendar was packed with small, underpaying projects that left me exhausted and financially stagnant. I was chasing a revenue number, but I was running in place.

The breakthrough didn’t come from a new marketing tactic or a louder hustle. It arrived when I finally understood a simple, profound truth: You don’t attract what you want; you attract what you are.

Reaching my first $100k year in 2022 wasn’t about doing more. It was about becoming more. It was an identity overhaul, a systematic rewiring of my subconscious mind using ten powerful mindset shifts.

But ten shifts can feel overwhelming. I learned they only work when applied in sequence, like building a house. You can’t put up the walls before you pour the foundation.

This is the exact three-phase framework I used to climb from overwhelm to aligned abundance. This is the ladder I built to reach $100k.

Phase 1: The Foundation — Clear the Internal Blocks

Goal: Shift from an identity of “scarcity and limitation” to one of “clarity and self-worth.”

You can’t build a new identity on a cracked foundation. Before I could earn more, I had to become someone who was ready to receive it. This meant doing the deep, often uncomfortable internal work first.

• Shift #1: Uncover Your Money Blocks. I started by journaling on the messages I inherited about money. Did I believe it was scarce? That rich people were unethical? That I wasn’t good with numbers? I discovered my blocks were rooted in old stories that weren’t even mine. As I learned from Denise Duffield-Thomas in her incredible Money Bootcamp, the course power-charging her bestselling book Get Rich, Lucky B*tch!, simply bringing these blocks into the light robs them of their power. You can’t change what you won’t acknowledge.

• Shift #2: Declutter Your Space. This was my physical act of defiance against scarcity. I cleaned my office, organized my digital files, and let go of clothes that no longer fit the woman I was becoming. As Fumio Sasaki writes in his liberating book, Goodbye, Things, decluttering isn’t about perfection; it’s about making space for new energy to flow. It was a powerful signal to my brain: “We are making room for abundance.”

• Shift #3: Affirmations. With a clearer space and mind, I began imprinting my new blueprint. I wrote, “I am a six-figure web designer,” 15 times a day, a technique I adapted from Suze Orman (see for example her classic The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom). At first, it felt like a lie. But I understood the assignment: repetition builds new neural pathways. I wasn’t affirming my current reality; I was programming my future one.

Phase 2: Vision — Define Your New Reality

Goal: Shift from “dreaming” to “knowing.” Embody the identity of someone with clear goals.

With a solid foundation, I could now build a detailed vision. A vague dream is a wish; a specific plan is a command to your subconscious.

• Shift #4: Get Super Clear on Your Revenue Goal. “More money” became “$100,000 this year.” Then I broke it down into monthly targets. This specificity stopped the ambiguity and gave my mind a clear target to hit.

• Shift #5: Get Clear on How Much Your Dream Costs. This exercise, inspired by Rachel Rodgers and her millionaire-making book, We Should All Be Millionaires, made my goal emotional. I calculated the cost of my dream life — travel, investments, lifestyle. The number stopped being scary and started being motivating. It became the why behind the what.

• Shift #6: Be Your Future Self Now & Shift #7: Create a Congratulations Scene. This was the quantum leap. I stopped visualizing my success as a future event. I started embodying the successful version of me now. I asked myself, “How does the $100k version of Sophia feel? How does she talk to clients? What does she do on a Tuesday?” I followed Dr. Benjamin Hardy’s advice in Be Your Future Self Now and made decisions from that future place. I even used Neville Goddard’s technique from The Power of Awareness, crafting a brief scene where a friend congratulated me on my incredible year. I fell asleep feeling the feeling of accomplishment.

• Shift #8: What Kind of Business Do You Really Want? I defined my ideal client, my ideal projects, and my ideal workweek. This ensured my $100k goal was built on alignment, not just grinding. With the guidance of my coach, I was designing a business that served my life, not the other way around. 

Phase 3: Embodiment — Live in the Flow

Goal: Shift from “striving” to “allowing.” Embody the identity of someone to whom money flows easily.

The final phase was about releasing the desperate energy of chasing and stepping into the calm confidence of receiving.

• Shift #9: “Dollars Want Me”. This mantra from Henry Harrison Brown’s classic, Dollars Want Me, felt silly at first. What does it even mean, “dollars want me?” But it completely flipped my energy. Instead of “I need to get this client,” my mindset became “I wonder if this project is a good fit?” I went into calls knowing money is coming my way, some way or the other — whether with this client or another, and that there are plenty of clients for me. This shift alone changed my closing rate dramatically. (By the way: this is not about becoming arrogant and thinking “I don’t need this”; but rather about becoming detached from a specific client and becoming more relaxed while conducting business and trusting in the process.)

• Shift #10: Make an Identity Shift. This is the culmination. It’s the deep, internal knowing. I wasn’t trying to be a successful web designer; I was one. Just like I don’t try to be my name, I just am. This identity, solidified by all the previous shifts, became my new operating system. The revenue, the clients, the opportunities — they were just the natural output.

The Aligned Result

The $100k wasn’t even the best part. The best part was who I became in the process: a woman who trusts herself, knows her value, and operates from a place of abundance, not scarcity. The money was simply proof of the internal change.

If you’re ready to start your own journey, we’d love to guide you. Get our free guide, ‘10 Mindset Shifts’, the moment you join our weekly Simple & Aligned newsletter. Each week, we send a powerful affirmation, a wisdom nugget from a bestseller, and a practical step to build your aligned abundance — just like we did in this article.

Download your free guide here (look for Guide #5 on the Thank You page right after signing up for the free newsletter)

It’s time to build your abundance ladder.