season 3, episode 5 - healing our money, healing ourselves with the money witch

our guest for episode 5 is jessie susannah karnatz, aka the money witch! she brings capitalism-critical, shame-free education to healers, hustlers, and creatives in order to catalyze change in their financial lives. she believes healing our finances will bring blessing to our lives, our lineages, and our communities. she offers education, money magic products, intuitive financial coaching, and tax preparation online and in the bay area (unceded ohlone land) and does it all with impeccable business lady style. you can find her (and her new book!) online at healyourfinances.com and on instagram @money.witch.

each season we read a new book about witchcraft practices around the world with the #snortandcacklebookclub, with a book review by ash and the occasional guest helping us close out the season. this season's #snortandcacklebookclub read is brujas: the magic and power of witches of color by lorraine monteagut.

take the fibre witch quiz at ashalberg.com/quiz. follow us on instagram @snortandcackle and be sure to subscribe via your favourite podcasting app so you don't miss an episode!

seasons 1-3 of snort & cackle are generously supported by the manitoba arts council. you can support future episodes of snort & cackle by sponsoring a full episode or transcript.

transcript

snort & cackle - season 3, episode 5 - the money witch

ash alberg: [Upbeat music plays.] Hello, and welcome to the Snort and Cackle podcast. I'm your host, Ash Alberg. I'm a queer fibre witch and hedgewitch. And each week I interview a fellow boss witch to discuss how everyday magic helps them make their life and the wider world, a better place.

Expect serious discussions about intersections of privilege and oppression, big C versus small C capitalism, rituals, sustainability, astrology, ancestral work, and a whole lot of snorts and cackles. Each season, we read a new book about witchcraft practices around the world with the #SnortAndCackleBookClub with a book review by me and the occasional guest helping us close out the season. Our book this season is Brujas: The Magic and Power of Witches of Color by Lorraine Monteagut.

Whether you're an aspiring boss witch looking to start your knitwear design business, a plant witch looking to play more with your local naturally dyed color palette or a knit witch wondering just what the hell is a natural yarn and how do you use it in your favorite patterns, we've got the solution for you.

Take the free fiber witch quiz at ashalberg.com/quiz and find out which self-paced online program will help you take your dreams into reality. Visit ashalberg.com/quiz [upbeat music fades out] and then join fellow fiber witches in the Creative Coven Community at ashalberg.com/creative-coven-community for 24/7 access to Ash’s favorite resources, monthly zoom knit nights, and more. [End of intro.]

I am here today with a guest that I'm really excited about. I am here with Jesse Susanna Karnatz, aka the Money Witch, and Jessie Susanna brings a capitalism-critical shame-free education to healers, hustlers, and creatives in order to catalyze change in their financial lives. She believes healing our finances will bring blessing to our lives, our lineages and our communities.

She offers education, money magic products, intuitive financial coaching, and tax preparation online and in the Bay Area, unceded Ohlone land, and does it all with impeccable business lady style. Hi, thank you so much for joining me today.

jessie susannah karnatz: Hi, I'm so glad to be here.

ash alberg: I'm really excited about this. You are like the ... when I started running my business and before I was even like aligning myself as being a biz witch, like I was a witch and then I also ran a business, but like before I combined those two things, I still was searching out services for biz witches.

And you're like one of, I think, the main biz witches in the landscape. And so I am stoked to be talking to you today. [Laughs.]

jessie susannah karnatz: Thank you! That's such a compliment. I feel like it's one of those examples of which, it's true for me, but it's true for everybody, right? Where it's you don't always even know where you are providing support or magic or care or inspiration, until ... there's just no way to know.

ash alberg: Totally. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. And we'll get into the questions today. But I'm just gonna forward this whole conversation with the fact that you do have a book that's coming out. I was very lucky to receive an advanced copy that you gave me so that I could read it. And I think everyone will have links for pre-orders, but like everybody needs to read this.

And I'm especially excited about it because like I was saying, resources for biz witches are honestly like, witchcraft in general in a really whitewashed way, is very trendy right now, but like actual resources that are accessible to folks and are also neutral in modality is ... there, there's like the, like a little too light and fluffy version. And then there's like really specific, depending on what tradition you follow, but having something that regardless of what your magical practice is, is going to be useful. And also if you're like feeling a little uncomfortable with your magical practice, or aren't quite sure how to dip your toe in, that it's important.

Finding those resources, I think is really like necessary and also a little tricksy. So I'm super stoked that you are going to be very soon offering this thing to folks. But now I will stop talking and let you tell us about who you are and what you do in the world.

jessie susannah karnatz: First, I just want to say it's really thrilling because at this point, almost no one has read it except my editors. And even like my mom and my boyfriend have looked at it a little bit, but no one has like sat and read the book. [Ash laughs.] So it's like very exciting to get positive feedback.

And also to hear that, for all of us who are professional like magic engagers or magic bringers, we're always trying to make sure that we're like hitting the right dosage. And that was a really big focus for me in creating the book because,

you've seen it, but it's a very visual book also and that's an important thing to me. I'm like, I am a very visually creative person, so it's very visual and very like beautiful.

And there's like a practical element, but I really wanted to make sure that there was like a heavy enough dose, but also not like too esoteric dose of like medicine in there. So when I was writing it my balance for myself as I was like, this book is a balance of like candy and broccoli and psychedelic mushrooms, [Ash chuckles] and there needs to be like just the right amount of each one and it feels so that feels like a really great compliment because it makes me feel like I really did what I wanted to do.

So thank you so much. I really appreciate that.

ash alberg: Yeah. I think you definitely got that kind of trio there balanced out really well.

jessie susannah karnatz: That's the recipe, it’s the recipe. [Both laugh.] Yeah. A little Mary Poppins. It's like psychedelic ...

ash alberg: Yes. Oh my god. Yes. That is a delightful reference point. I like that a lot.

jessie susannah karnatz: Yeah.
ash alberg: So ...
jessie susannah karnatz: Ok, but who I am ... ash alberg: Yeah. [Giggles.]

jessie susannah karnatz: So well, like you said, so my name is Jessie Susanna Karnatz and I am aka the Money Witch and I am an intuitive financial coach, a tax preparer. Although I am actually, in my eighth year of business, giving that up. I've been a bookkeeper.

So let's say I've been a tax preparer. I've been a bookkeeper. I'm a financial educator. And I guess like a writer and a content creator about this idea of healing our finances.

And to me it's, I feel like there's a huge feedback loop between our finances and self-awareness. Just like anything ... I am, I think you can enter into like magic or spirituality or religion, and I identify with all three of those ways of being actually, through like almost any door and it's the same way to like healing our self-awareness. Like, you can enter so many different doors you could enter through.

You could explore food, you could explore a sexuality, you could explore, attachment wounds. You could explore whatever. You ... but you can explore money and that is not just about improving your financial life, it's about improving your whole life and your concept of yourself and entering through a door, through healing, which is ultimately evolution, which is ultimately like our purpose on earth and part of how we're contributing or weaving our story in to the larger human story.

ash alberg: Yes. I love that a lot. And I love your approach of, the goal is not to make X amount of money. The goal is to like, learn how to be financially responsible and understand our money. And then like, how does that, how does that then radiate out into the way that we are living out the rest of our lives so that we have what we need in order to live like a really great, beautiful life and be able to provide for ourselves, provide for our loved ones, be able to deal with emergencies and be able to engage with and support our communities.

And that's going to look different for everybody in terms of, what does that dollar amount actually result in? And I think that's honestly what we need to be looking towards just generally when we're talking about like economics and money and we're living under capitalism still and for our lives probably will continue to, but it is also at a stage where like we're dealing with climate crisis. We are dealing with like degradation of the earth.

We are also dealing with lots of inequities between and like growing inequities between a very tiny few who have the vast majority of money and resources on the earth versus everybody else and everything else. And I love the approach of learning how to be in communion with our money in a way that feels healing and feels helpful, and that also acknowledges that there, there is a point of enough, and there's also a point of, we don't need to attach a certain like number amount to what is enough it's figuring out for each of ourselves, like what makes us feel good and what makes us feel like in alignment with our values and with our integrity?

jessie susannah karnatz: Yeah. And it's people's personal business like what their financial goal is. Like I can't be in their circumstances, it’s so vastly

different for some people. I don't know. It's, and it depends where you live and what your circumstances are. And just how many people you're responsible for and whether there is like the contribution of generational wealth or an explicit absence of that, and just so many things.

So it's really it's up to you to set your own goals and then my job is like to help you figure out what you need to know about yourself to get there, I guess.

ash alberg: Yeah, reading the book and I'm sure like accessing your other services, it feels very similar. It does feel like going to therapy in like the best way. I love my therapist. [Laughs.]

jessie susannah karnatz: I love my therapist too, yeah.

ash alberg: So like reading the book, I was like, oh, it's like going and hanging out with Ann, where it's very direct and also very kind, and that combination of things is really lovely. Where it's okay, like this is the thing, we're going to be accountable. We're going to talk about it realistically.

And I'm also not going to make you do it in a way that feels retraumatizing, but we are going to need to work our way through it, and it might feel icky at points. And this is just, support yourself as you --

jessie susannah karnatz: Yeah. It's information. It's just information.

ash alberg: Exactly.

Tell us a bit about how magic and ritual and witchcraft has come up for you in your personal life and maybe what's your background with it and the way that you move as a witch through the world.

jessie susannah karnatz: I am probably most specifically a bit of a Jewish witch. And honestly, most of my magic is a little more in the priestess realm.

Like I'm actually really more like money priestess, but I feel, in my role in the world, but I feel like for me, my like witchcraft is so personal.

ash alberg: Yeah.

jessie susannah karnatz: That and so like homey. And so it's for me, my witchcraft really is in just the little ways that I do everything and less about a formal practice or engaging in religious community in that way.

I am not really like explicitly part of any kind of pagan community or whatever, but I do have also, I'm in devotional relationship with Hermes/Mercury, so that's my sort of pagan trip. And I'm, this is like it totally blasphemous, but I'm very interested in ... because like Judaism is the original like Abrahamic like one god, that's the whole point. If there's nothing else, it's there's one god. That’s the point.

ash alberg: Yeah. That's the thing.

jessie susannah karnatz: That's the bottom line for me. That's the crux of the matter. But I actually am very interested in the way that Judaism ... there's a way that it is a little like polytheistic.

ash alberg: Totally it is!

jessie susannah karnatz: And I'm ... I’m really cur-- I, I have a lot of opinions about it and I'm a little, “Make Judaism Polytheistic Again,” but it's, that would be a real, it's a hard one.

I think that there's definitely like cults within Judaism. And we have it's oh, there's, like hundreds of names for god and ... whatever. My Mercury is in Pisces so I'm like, yes, all gods are like one god, which is also many gods, which is also whatever, however you want to call it, man.

ash alberg: Yeah.
jessie susannah karnatz: It’s the same to me.

But so yeah, I would say my witchcraft really lies, my relationship with witchcraft really lies in just like my personal habits, that I'm like work with plants, talk to plants, do things ritualistically, like I'm in relationship with everything. All the time.

And then religiously, I'm also religious which is in that I am like, I wouldn't, I would say like I'm a moderately like religious Jewish, like mystical Jewish person and follow that calendar, which, to me sacred timekeeping is a magical practice whether it happens like within religiosity or outside of that.

And then, also religiously in a kind of like cult of Hermes/Mercury. Obviously there's a million more things I could say, but I'll cut it there for posterity. [Both chuckle.]

ash alberg: I love that though. And I think it's, it feels like very, it does feel like very much rooted into the Jewish magic of just okay we're gonna, we're going to make the food, and there's like a whole bunch of magic that goes into the food. And like we do all of these like little things that are very magical.

And then also the religious, but I think there's something really lovely about, and I do ... the conversations I've had, the Jewish witches I know have an easier time combining or having an easeful relationship with both their witchcraft and also their Jewish religious faith and practices than a lot of the Christian folks I know, like across backgrounds and sex and all of that.

But I think there's something really lovely and juicy and interesting about folks who can have a religious background, which like I don't do religion. And it's something that I've actually really enjoyed having conversations with people about because I find it interesting and lovely when people can have religion and then also function as healthy humans in the world, whether they're not, they also then have like other things that they follow.

Because I think the religion can cause a lot of problems when it goes to the extremes of control and power in the same way that like all power structures and power dynamics can become very problematic. And I love when there's a lovely kind of balance between and interchange of ideas within a single person's practice.

There's something lovely about that.

jessie susannah karnatz: Yeah. I like could say 5,000 ... I'm very interested in like the interplay between religion and power structure, religion and colonialism, religion and like the spread of white supremacy. I think a lot about like the Roman Empire and really, I could talk for several hours.

ash alberg: [Snort-laughs] That's a whole podcast like series. jessie susannah karnatz: About any one of these things. Yes. Any one of these things, like I could go on for hours.

ash alberg: Yeah. Yeah, but I think that's why the ... it's like the good parts of it, right? Like it's, I have learned to have less of a hard-line approach in the way that I ... like other’s religious practices that don't actually impact me and where it's like the, to have less of a, “oh god, why would you do that” sort of thing.

Because there, there is real like loveliness and beauty in it, and it is a very human thing to be looking for and like searching for ... I think a lot of it comes down to like answers and learning to trust faith and trusting the universe for things. And there is actually quite a bit of correlation slash it's the same thing with like spiritual witchcraft practices that are not rooted in any specific, like tradition of anything as the good parts of organized religion.

And it's just when something goes a little too hard-line into controlling others and saying “this is the way it is.” I think that's where things start to fuck us over. But there, there is something really lovely and like good for humanity in the practice of having faith in something outside of ourselves and learning to trust in things outside of ourselves is ... that root of things, I think, is something that can be useful.

jessie susannah karnatz: It's, it's natural, like human awe. ash alberg: Yeah.

jessie susannah karnatz: Awe at something that is larger than us, whether it is the earth or the ocean or any of that. That's important because it cultivates humility, which is like a very necessary human trait. And I think religion, yeah, like just anything, right?

Like religion can be perverted. But, so it's there are ways that humility can be perverted into like subjugation and that ... but that's not, I don't blame religion for that.

ash alberg: Yeah, totally. It's, that's where the humans have fucked up. Like it's not, the essence of it is not the ... and it's not all ... well, yeah, it's not all humans. It's, greed comes into play and then things go sideways.

jessie susannah karnatz: Yeah, it's like supremacy ideation of any sort. Which is like that same idea, like supremacy of a person, supremacy of an idea, supremacy of a path. It just is like, that concept can't possibly be true.

It's like a very unnatural concept because like diversity in nature is like the only, is that's the only thing that is true.

ash alberg: Yeah. Yup. And I think that all also completely applies to then when we look at money because we see the same thing, right? Like capitalism in and of itself might not have been, as damaging as what it has become at the stage where we have now been living at for a couple of hundred years.

And it's okay, this is, this has gone really off the rails and in a way that is harming everything. And did it need to get there? Regardless of whether it did or not, that's where it's at now. And so now how do we work our way around and also within and with the system to bring it to a better balance?

And I've been reading recently about donut economic theory, and that feels like a way into that where it's like figuring out what is that kind of balancing point where we are not, we're not stopping humans from having what they need so that there ... there is a concept of like enough, and not enough has both like a lower barrier where we don't have enough to live a good life and by a good life I mean like healthy access to whatever we need, all that.

And then also the upper end of it, where now there's too much of now we're degrading the earth. Now we're doing things at the expense of others and there's like a happy medium and that medium can actually be like quite a large range, but there is a, like a top point on a low point of that range.

And working within it is good, and it's within therapy, when we talk about there's the like regulation point where we're good, and then we are deregulating outside of that. And the goal is to stretch it, to make it a little ... give us more places where we have capacity to still be regulated and functioning, but there is still like a point where we go off of one end or the other.

jessie susannah karnatz: Yeah. I want to look up that theory. Cause I haven't, I actually barely read anything ever about like finances or economics. [Laughs.] Like honestly, I, just ...

ash alberg: I, yeah, this is, it was like a new one that I like literally was just introduced to. And I've been concerned. I've been doing a lot of work on money mindset over the last, like three years now, I would say. And so going through your book, I'm like, okay, like I did, that feels really good. But if I had picked up your book three years ago, a lot of, especially like that foundational stuff, which I have now spent three years working through, would have been just like so fucking hard.

And I love the how, again, like you're like gentle and also very clear and direct of, we need to work on this stuff. It's not going to be comfy. And I'm like, oh

yeah, I remember that not being comfy, like that fucking sucked when I was addressing that particular thing.

And I think like even now, three years into doing my money mindset work and reading through those things, it's okay. Yeah. This feels easier now. And I also know that there's been a recent thing that has hit one of those old triggers and that I am actively working through. So ...

jessie susannah karnatz: And that's the thing, right? Like things happen. Okay. You get, you work through whatever it is. Okay. I'm gonna work for myself. I'm gonna set my prices. I'm gonna, okay, I did all the work to do this.

Then maybe something new happens. Like you get an opportunity to buy a house or you get a higher paying job or you get an inheritance or something happens on the opposite end of that, like you have a massive, economically devastating experience or somebody in your family like wants to borrow a lot of money from you or whatever. And it's oh, actually, a lot of this stuff up again, or like I'm pushing my edge the same way that we do in relationship with anything, like our romantic relationships, we keep attracting situations that will take us to our growth edge, and I feel like that is true with finances also.

ash alberg: Yeah, totally. Yeah, so I guess, okay, then this segues us quite nicely over into our next question, which is like, you very explicitly have your witchcraft intertwined with your business life. So how do you find, like you work your witchcraft in both within like practice for yourself, and then also the way that you are using witchcraft very explicitly, like you've aligned the two as being of the same thing.

Which honestly is not always the safest thing to do in our society. Like there's like a certain acceptance right now within most of mainstream society, of like a sprinkling of woo. But then there's like, you dive out a little bit further and people get real uncomfy.

And yeah, so I'm curious about how you intentionally have your witchcraft, both in terms of how your magic helps with your work and then also how you do your magic through your work.

jessie susannah karnatz: A lot of it is very similar because it's, I have a small business and then so it's like I’m engaging the same types of practices that I then am like recommending out to other people. Like I said before, I feel like, for me personally, the witchcraft is just in the way I do everything, in the way that I take care of my house, in the way that I think about protection.

I probably am like pretty heavy on the protection magic side of things. I am like evil eye everywhere all day, all the time. [Chuckles.] Just every it's like almost comical, like how much like evil eye jewelry I have, to the point where like my boyfriend who's like pretty ... we've been together for about a year, but like his mom who's like never met me is ... He was, they were at Ross and she's, “Oh, that has like an evil eye, you should get it for your girlfriend.” [Both laugh.]

I'm like, I'm glad the message has travelled far and wide. [Both laughs]

ash alberg: That's fantastic. I feel like it's the way that I like burn black candles and have obsidian everywhere. I'm just going to neutralize all this shit.

jessie susannah karnatz: Yeah. It's just everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. Yeah.

I'm pretty heavy on that. Heavy on the glamour magic. Heavy on the beauty magic and just like paying attention, right? Paying attention to time, paying attention to cycles, paying attention to the piece of lands that I live on.

By piece of land, it's my little tiny city backyard, no lot, zero lot line yard, but I'm like very much in relationship with it. Yeah. And just like little money magic practices that I do all the time. I have a very active money magic practice of finding spare change. And I have a little ritual that I do when I find it.

And that is like a constant relationship for me. And then, I don't know. I bring, there's always been a magical element to my work with people's finances in that I am bringing like coaching or counseling to people through essentially channeling, like just accessing other realms of knowledge in order to help people make movement in their financial life.

And my sort of like underlying joke is like that really what I do, and if I had a podcast that it would be called, like what your problem is because really what I do is tell people what their problem is. And sometimes it's just not, you're like, oh, I can't save money, whatever, like really it's like, you need to grieve your father or you need to, whatever it is.

So uncovering, like what is actually some other dimensions of what's going on and really just like validating those dimensions because I think like validating the emotional, energetic, spiritual realm is very helpful to people's finances because we feel like, oh, I just need to focus on the practical side of this, but I'm like, yet you have to do the practical side too.

You can't like, just do the spiritual, emotional, but like my, for me, my healing work goes in, is in this triangle. So it's like you, if you really want to see movement, healing movement on something, and to me, I think like movement of energy is my definition of healing, that you are going to see the most movement if you address it through all three angles simultaneously, which is from the practical, logistical side, from the spiritual, emotional side and from the like magical energetic side.

So I'm like, okay, if you put in that magical, energetic energy when you're tending to those realms and simultaneously you're tending to the practical and you're doing the self-awareness work, that's when you're really going to see shifts.

ash alberg: Yes.

jessie susannah karnatz: So just like permission. Permission to bring in and validate like those, the energetic realm, the magical realm, the spiritual, emotional realm, into people's finances work. So really it's just, it's all about intuition. And I think I am less in touch with, I think, stigma around witchcraft than a lot of people seem to be.

Which in some ways I credit to my upbringing, which was not pro-witchcraft, but it was just like very spiritually neutral. I was raised Unitarian Universalists and it's whatever, sort of very light, like humanist woo. And it's just whatever path you want to take, like that's a valid path and it's not comfortable, I think, for my parents.

Like a lot of the spiritual practice is not ... it feels foreign to them, but they're not really saying anything about it. I just there's been so many other realms we've had ... we had to work through queerness and we had to work through like a career as a sex worker, which was like my career before this.

And it's just we've had to, I think they've just had to go down so many paths with me. They're ...

ash alberg: They're like, this one feels fine. [Laughs.]
jessie susannah karnatz: They’re like, whatever, you have a job, you have a

book, like I have a 12 year old, I'm fine.

I'm fine. They're like not really gonna go there. And I've just been in a, I'm in a little bit of a bubble of just, and the biggest gift I gave myself and ... but I had

the emotional resourcing to do it, was when I started my business. I just was like, I'm not ... I don't know. I'm just like, all I know is I can do this thing and it works for people. And I do not need to concern myself with anything outside of that.

ash alberg: Yeah. That's, yeah. There's like a whole bunch of just like your benefit of being able to have that as your starting point. And I feel ... like not the, not necessarily the exact same in terms of the way that I started my business, but I, by the time I was like very clearly identifying myself as, this is what I am doing, this is who I am helping, I'd already been doing that just not as explicitly for a few years.

And had already made a point for so many other reasons to just have really strong boundaries around who I was willing to work with and that also, I didn't need to work with everybody and that I was very okay with being like, fuck you. You're not my customer. You can go away. I will find money from people who are more aligned with me and I am okay with that.

jessie susannah karnatz: And I just really, truly, I don't, when people are like, I want to ask you a bunch of questions about what you do. I really am like probably we shouldn't work together.

ash alberg: Yeah.

jessie susannah karnatz: Which is not to invalidate anyone's need for, to understand. Or I definitely am like never trying to waste anyone's time or push their boundaries. I want people to understand like what to expect, but also, the majority of the time when I do private sessions with people, there is a lot of kind of, I didn't exactly know this is what was going to happen, but it's what ... it was very transformative and it was like needed, but the thing is I don't totally know what's going to happen.

Like I hold space to just do what needs to get done, like whatever, like transformative work needs to get done in a period of time. And I trust myself to push the edge a little bit, but also to be ... I guess the technical word is like trauma-informed, and to not take people where they don't want to go, but also to be like able and willing to take them to places that like, maybe are edgy for them.

ash alberg: Yeah. Yeah. Totally.

jessie susannah karnatz: But I'm like, truly, if you have to ask a bunch of questions, we probably shouldn't work together. And I get, most of my clients are like, oh, I just feel like I should get a session with you. And I'm like, yeah, then you should.

And I always have operated that way when I get sessions with people, like I don't go into like intuitive sessions or tarot readings or whatever usually with a very specific question. It's more I'm like, it seems like you have arrived on my path and so I'm going to assume that you are holding some information for me. Could you let me know what it is?

ash alberg: Yeah. Yeah.

jessie susannah karnatz: And that's how I feel about my clients. If I have arrived in your path and you have a feeling that I have something for you, then I believe, I also believe that to be true. But also, I, so it's, I know there's so many like unskilled coaches or whatever out there, and I am not a trained, like I am a coach but it's, I am not a trained coach.

I am not a trained therapist. I'm not a trained anything except a tax preparer. I'm a trained chef and that's it. [Ash chuckles.] And tax preparer and that's truly it. And I want to put that out there, ‘cause I'm thinking a lot right now about imposter syndrome. And I know like imposter syndrome happens across the board to like lots of people, but also I definitely do feel like, the way that I was socialized, like I do have a fair amount of undereducated white lady confidence.

ash alberg: And it's yeah, imposter syndrome’s also one of those things where it's a little fucker where it starts to, it ... once you've dealt with the biggest root of it and are like more aware of your self worth and also like aware of these are my limits and dah, and it's still, it has a habit of cropping up when we're doing like big, scary things that are about to like, they're good for us.

And they also push us into an area of, this is, we're going beyond where we were at before. And so this is when the imposter syndrome beast decides to come again. Which totally makes sense with your book coming out soon, where it's, I find that every single time I'm doing a thing where it's okay, I've been thinking about this for a while, people have been talking with me about it for a while. I know, and like energetically and like universe-wise, I know this is where I'm supposed to be going.

Like everything and everyone, and all of the spirits are being like, yep, this is what you're supposed to do. And that's also the moment where it's the biggest,

like maybe we shouldn't. Like, maybe we'll just sabotage this a little bit in this little way over here. And becoming more aware of it for myself has become useful because I've almost started to like correlate, oh, imposter syndrome has cropped up or I'm feeling these feels and I am like aware of the desire to do that specific self-sabotaging behavior again. So probably that means this is exactly what I should be doing right now, but it's super fucking uncomfortable.

jessie susannah karnatz: Yeah, I think my growth, although at times it has been frustrating to me or I have felt jealous of other people's businesses or careers, my growth has always been like slow, but very steady. Like I feel really blessed to have not suffered a major setback, even though it hasn't necessarily grown as fast or as big as I wanted it either.

But I think that ... and I think some of that is impacted by my own internal system of limitation for sure. And also, I think of ... I'm very, I'm very religious in that I am like, I really believe in God and I'm just like divine. Like I have a lot of like faith and surrender, so I'm just like, it is actually none of my business on what timeline this unfolds.

I do not have all the information. I can show up, I can try to gain self-awareness about like myself, the way I work, the way I create. And I can like, continue to encourage myself. I'm not going to say push myself because I don't think that's necessary, but I can encourage myself to keep showing up to meet the moment.

But it's, you know, how the moments unfolds are like, I'm only a co-creator of it. And I, but I do think in some ways the slow and steadiness has been a gift from God, because it has allowed like a lot of groundedness in the growth. Like I'm like, okay, I'm going to grow like a little.

I'm always like, I'm growing a little bit. I'm growing a little bit, I'm growing a little bit. Now I'm doing this, now I'm learning this. And it is when you have your own business, you're always like, I'm like, I had to learn about graphic design. Then I had to learn, now I'm learning about photography. Then I'm learning ... like I'm doing group offerings this year in like upcoming in 2022 in a different way than I've ever done it.

I've always been a very like one-on-one lady or I've just done like one-off workshops. So I'm like getting into the extended offerings or like programs and I've never done it. And it's all very awkward and in real time, like if you get my newsletter, I'm like, I'm doing this.

And then I'm like, oh, sorry. Actually, we didn't even know that we had to do this. Okay, so now I'm doing this like actually, okay. The form is over here now, actually. Sorry. Okay. Payment plans. I don't know how to do that, but okay, we set it up. Now there's payment plans.

And it's now we're like our registration for everything is like on three different platforms and it's, we don't want to shut any of them down because they've all been like disseminated to different places that we're just like, okay, this is fucking awkward, but I'm just like, okay, we're growing in real time.

That's how it is. But I am curious to see what happens when the book comes out. I am ready, I think, for a period of like bigger growth, like real growth, but, but I know that there will be things that are confrontational about that as well.

ash alberg: Yeah. I think there's something really lovely about slow and steady growth, because there's a sense of safety within that that is really stabilizing.

And not safety in terms of like you're like coddled in all of the layers and you don't feel any bumps or bruises like that, but when I look at my friends who have very similar business models to me and are in my industry and also outside of my industry who went viral, it is almost always highly damaging and takes time to then come back from because they ... I think there's a point where we can have enough foundations built for ourselves where then the going viral is just, it's a lot of growth and there's like growing pains associated with that, and you're probably going to feel sore because your muscles got stretched so far, but like the foundations that are at play are set and so you're at least able to roll with that in a more prepared way.

jessie susannah karnatz: Yeah, the flexibility and the range and the like ...

ash alberg: Exactly. Exactly. But there's like points of businesses where if you were to go viral at this particular point in time, it, I've seen it like actually just fully fold businesses ‘cause they just were not prepared.

I've seen it like destroy people's mental health. I've also seen people like rise to it in some ways but then in the meantime also then seeing them take two or three years to crawl themselves back over to their values because inevitably it's like, people who are friends of mine who also run values-based businesses and like I know them personally and I know okay, like this is how you function in your personal life and this is how you like exist in the world normally and now all of a sudden you have this audience that is exponentially larger, is not aligned

with you because usually when we go viral there's, it expands beyond folks that we are necessarily aligned with.

And there's like kind of a period where like A) you're just like jolted and you're like, what the fuck just happened? And then realizing oh, okay, now we need to get this a little bit back more under control. And if you can then get to that point after the fact and have done whatever culling you need to do, and now you have a larger audience than you had before that you have now realigned with your values and you figured out, okay, here's how we now move forward from this place that is very different from where we were at before, that place is a nice place to get to.

But I, even for me, like this past year I had at the beginning of 2022, I was like, okay, I'm going to scale all these things. I like, know how I'm going to do that. And I started going for it and then I realized, oh fuck, like all of my financial systems and foundations are actually not where they need to be and if I scale to the level that I want to scale at anytime soon, I'm actually going to get fucked on the other end of it, because I don't have the systems in place to make sure that I can do all the legal things.

And if I drop a ball at that level, I'm not prepared for the consequences. And so I ended up like slowing myself way down. 2021 instead became a year of doing that foundational set-up. And so now I'm like, okay. And there was still growth within that time. It was just, it happened without me necessarily being aware of it.

And I feel okay, now I've got a little bit more settled so that we can continue doing more growth this year. And I have a tangible, like, idea of what that growth is for and what its purpose is, and that feels good. And also there's certain points where I, it still would be like I'm, I was not prepared for that and that does not feel comfortable. And in a way where I'm real glad that I started going to therapy this last year and would be booking a lot more sessions with my therapist. [Laughs.]

jessie susannah karnatz: Yeah, there's two points that you talked about that I really want to touch on. One is about that the viralocity or the high level of growth and then the alignment of the audience. Because I think like, I actually consider that to be like one of my assets that even the assets of my business, like if I think about tangible assets that I have, it's like an audience that, like a really authentic audience that is really aligned.

Like I would say, pretty heavy, like I would say like 80%. I'm the most heavily on Instagram. I, please, if you're on Twitter, follow me over there and talk to me because I have so much ADD that it's, if there's not enough like feedback, like I just cannot do something, which is why I'm like, I can't go on Twitter because it's just I'm just like talking into a fucking void.

But if there were people to talk to, I would over there. So anyway, that, and my YouTube, I'm going to get like a bunch more stuff on YouTube this year. So there's different ... TikTok, once I get that together, but Instagram is really like my place and it's like, definitely people I came up with in the same kind of like witch biz eschelon have 10 times as many followers as me.

Like I think I have 23,000 followers, which, you know, and everything's fucking relative because for some people they're like, oh my god, like that's massive. But also, there's people that I came up with who easily have, a hundred, 200,000 followers.

And that could have happened. It could happen at any point. But what I see with like growth is yeah, then you get the people who are like, yeah, we just want to talk about astrology or like we thought that crystal looked cool or, whatever, which I'm like fine. I think crystals look cool, I wanna talk about astrology, but it's ... I get a lot of followers, but I lose followers all the time and just no matter what, rapid.

But I think that part of that is like cycling through everything that is authentic to me and like these kind of like values-based things. So I'm just at some point, if one of these things is going to cut you out of the picture, like if it's the politics or it's the queerness or it's the sluttiness or it's the humor, or, it's the, whatever it is. Like if you need to go for any one of those reasons, let me make sure that like my digital cleansing practices are active, so that one of those points, like you will cut off, you cut yourself off, remove yourself from the situation.

And I'm grateful because then I feel like the people that I'm interacting with online are like real people that I'm really in relationship with. Like I've made so many like real friends from the internet, from my business Instagram in the last five years. And that is so meaningful to me. And I feel the people on my Instagram, like they care about me as a person and I care about them as a person and it's not random and they're not super entitled and they're not like, rude or rude to other people on my page or any of that.

So I, even though at times I have been definitely, if I'm going to be honest, for sure I've definitely been jealous or been like, why am I not growing as fast as I

want or whatever, but I know like when I come down through it on a foundational level that like the fact that the growth has happened so deeply, authentically, like that is an asset. That's actually an asset.

And the foundation piece I think is like so important ‘cause for me, I feel like that slow, steady growth, like has built the foundation for making more money, but I want to get back to that money piece because I see that happen, right? If you jump, even if you have a business where you jumped in a year from making, $50,000 in sales to $100,000 in sales, like that is shocking to people, and even though like making $100,000 in sales is not like a six figure salary ...

[Both talking at the same time.]
ash alberg: It doesn't equate to like a six figure business ... [Both talking at the same time.]

jessie susannah karnatz: But, and I remember my first client who made a $100,000 in sales, which we both thought was a huge deal. It is a huge deal. But we were like, she's, “I just don't know.”

I remember having a meeting with her being like, she's, I just don't know what it's like to make $100,000. And I was like it's like making $50,000

ash alberg: Literally though, I’m like ...

jessie susannah karnatz: You're like subtraction. I'm like, it says a hundred thousand at the top of the profit and loss thing but what does it say at the bottom of the profit and loss?

ash alberg: Exactly. Which like I think is also, it drives me fucking nuts with the number of, I'm putting this in quotations, financial coaches or like coaches in general out there who are busy talking about their like six and now seven figures seems to be the thing that everybody is focusing on.

They're, you know, they're like quarters where they made X amount of dollars or yes, they're, their clients made like this figure and I'm like, okay, that's gross. How much? Like also the number of people who I know are making that and literally not paying themselves because somebody else in their life is able to fund their basic existence, which is, that is a gift that you ...

jessie susannah karnatz: Yeah. The privilege of support, right? Yeah.

ash alberg: Exactly. I'm like, that's, if you're comfortable with that ... I am not. I am also a triple fire sign so like anybody supporting me to that level is real uncomfortable. But if you're comfortable with that, it still does not do you any good in the long-term to be existing with that if you were going to be a business owner, because you're basically just running a really expensive hobby at that point.

If you're making that much money gross, but then you can't even cover your basic expenses then ....

jessie susannah karnatz: Net, like if what's the, yeah. What's the net?

And people go into a lot of debt, too. And I don't like shame any of those choices. Like it's ... but I, but for sure people can be riskier. That is capitalism, right? That's girl boss capitalism, to be like I could afford to take the risk of what you have to do to scale to a level to have a seven figure business.

I could do that quickly because I had the capital to do it basically. I had, I could ... whether that is like through debt or through financial support or through even like the time capital, the bandwidth capital, like any of those things, in order to make that happen because it gets really expensive. I, in 2021, it was definitely like my kind of chanciest financial year ever because ... and I did, I tried for probably five years, I was like, I want to do a $100,000 in sales, like in my business. That was my goal.

And it took a long time. It took several years longer than I thought. But I got there, I think 2020 was my first year that I broke $100,000 and then I did it again in 2021, but it was like, fuck, I spent so much money on my business last year. Like last year, so after like in my seventh year in business, after being at my second year of breaking $100,000 in sales was the year where I was finally like, okay, I am going to pay thousands of dollars to get help in different ways.

And I don't mean like assistant help. I mean videographer, editors, like, designers, photographers, massive amounts of cost of goods sold, supplies. All of that. To the point where I was like, okay, I think 2021, I probably ... but it was my highest like grossing year ever and I think probably it was like 107 or something like that. But honestly, truly at the end of the day, I think I netted 30.

ash alberg: Yeah. Completely.

jessie susannah karnatz: Because I was like, okay, I paid some real big bills last year, and partly I did it by taking a small business loan from one of the like

pandemic small business loans, so that infused another $25,000 into my business that I could like, afford to do that or manage to do it. But it was the slow, steady growth that like, it was those seven years of like slow, steady growth that even allowed me to do that.

I couldn't, I don't think psychologically, even I could have pulled that off in my, year three or four of my business. And I've seen clients like having ... like one of the reasons that I'm like, okay, get your money together in your, especially if you're a small business person, is so that you have that foundation so you're ready to do the growth when psychologically and creatively, it's like to be able to meet yourself at whatever like psychological and creativity place you get to and not have to be like, have the year you had where you're like, which is fine to have that year too. That was important.

But it's to be like, oh shit, actually, like I really have everything in place to make this leap of growth. And I want to, and I'm ready to meet that, and I know, I'm also fire sun, so it's you want to go. When you want to go, you want to go.

And it's, and then to be like, fuck, like I did not set my finances up to meet me here, but if you wait until that point, then that's what happens and who knows what else? Like I have had multiple clients too, who like rapidly grew financially, like I had a client who, I did a couple of years of back taxes for her and she, it was like one year she was like working at a cosmetics counter and she had employee job for and made $50,000, and we're it's, I know you're in Canada, so that way, whatever it's different, but like $50,000 US. And then two years later she was making $200,000.

ash alberg: Oh shit.

jessie susannah karnatz: Three years later, she was making half a million dollars and obviously had to pull in, had an agent and had a assistant and had whatever and was like all these like massive deals. And she didn't have bookkeeping.

I have two, I have had two clients in the last couple of years where it's they're, they're basically like low level, like celebrity clients, and it's, they're really out there like doing a lot of stuff and it's like, they, yeah, didn't have bookkeeping.

ash alberg: Yeah, I think it's this is also where though the ... and the pandemic has not helped shit because the number of people who are moving themselves online and starting businesses as coaches, because honestly they are at home, bored. And then the people that they are helping like that ... there was a very

clear shift from pre-pandemic to about a year into the pandemic, where coaches who had prior been helping people who were like, beginning businesses, but had established businesses that they were making money from and were treating as businesses, and all of a sudden those same coaches had tripled their prices.

And that in and of itself is not a problem, but the people that they were helping literally had not sold a single thing and had not even settled on whether or not this was the business that they wanted to do. And so they were suddenly in the same space coaching, I put that in quotations, both sets together and it's, this is not, you're not helping the same people.

And the services that you are providing cannot act ... like they would dumb their services down in order to help, like most be providing for those people who ...

jessie susannah karnatz: Yeah, like 101.

ash alberg: ... like literally didn't ... yeah. And that's fine, but meanwhile, you've got these other people who you were more directly helping and now you're not. And you changed the game on them and the rules of play without actually ...

jessie susannah karnatz: Oh, I really, I'm like when we stop recording, I want to name names because I like, I don't even know. I have really ... and this is part of the bubble. I just, it's like I have my own world and my own scene that I'm a part of, in my own little like gossip world, of course, but it's like for the ... like I have I am a coach, but I have stayed completely out of the coach sphere.

I am not, partly through not being on Facebook, honestly. I think that's been extremely helpful to like, stay out of everybody's business. [Ash snorts.] It's I'm not in, I've never been in like a mastermind or a group. And to some extent, there's ... I have, I don't think that's necessarily the best way to do things.

Like I don't need to like lone wolf, like everything, but to some extent, I'm just like blissfully unaware of what goes on in the like business coach world. Partly because it seems a little distasteful.

ash alberg: And it is, and it's also this is the thing that drives me up the fucking wall is that all of these people are like getting people started and/or like prior to the pandemic, were actually helping people who are like in business. And specifically I think this is the bit that drives me nuts is that they are positioning

themselves as coaches who are experts across the board and not acknowledging the like really important parts of business.

Like I am a creative who ended up running a business. I don't have a business background. So that's why this past year suddenly I realized oh shit, there's like a bunch of legal things that thankfully I don't live in the States and so the legalities of things are a little less, like they’re still ...

[Both talking at the same time.]
jessie susannah karnatz: Yeah, like less sue culture. ash alberg: Exactly. [Laughs.]

And so I have a little bit more leeway in playing catch up on those things, for which I am very grateful. Like I legit didn't know, oh, I missed that step. Or oh, I needed to register that thing and I didn't register that thing. Or like fucking, I had registered for my federal taxes and had been remitting my federal taxes, but did not realize that I, that wasn't the same as doing the provincial taxes.

And so then I was like, oh shit. So I like filed that separately. And then they were like, you need to ... I was like, oh, I was told if it was like collecting under a certain amount, I didn't need to do anything. They're like, no, you still do. I was like, I'm so sorry. Here's my back taxes. And so, and I just legit didn't know those things.

And I would not expect a coach living, especially in a different country, to know individual tax laws. But the fact that they're like not even talking about taxes or they're not talking about, here are some basic legal boiler plate things that you should know.

There are some coaches who are doing that and they're often coming from a background of oh, I was a lawyer in a past life or oh, I was a financial accountant in a past life or a bookkeeper. And so they know that those things need to be there, but then there are these other folks who are like, I'll help you on the marketing side, I'll help you on the branding and I'll help you on setting up your social media, paid advertising and things like that.

But then they're positioning themselves as being a coach of like across the board as being like I'm your one and done coach sort of thing. Not necessarily one and done, but I'm telling you all the things you need to know, rather than saying I have expertise in this specific area, that is what I am teaching you.

Like for me, with my students I'm like, I am a knitwear designer. If you study knitwear design with me, then I will provide you all of those things and then I will also tell you general things about if you're running this as a business, you need to be considering this and this, here are some resources, some of my favorite tools for those things.

And now go and find people who are specifically about those things. And when it comes to your legal shit and your finances go to your local whoever to organize that stuff, because it will be dependent. And I am not going to pretend like I know what you need to be doing in your particular location and situation like ...

jessie susannah karnatz: Yeah, I don't, I think it's not even the internet. It's the internet, it's the pandemic, it’s the small business boom, it's you know, witch capitalism, it's whatever. But I'm just like, it's charlatanism is not new and it has always existed everywhere. [Ash laugh-snorts.]

And part of it is the shittiness of capitalism and like just having to have a hustle. And it's, if you want to have a fake ass hustle, like that's ... I've just always felt like that's your business. I have never felt any type of way even about I'm like, what about like witches on the internet that are like not authentic? And I'm just like that seems like a rough way to live, you know what I mean?

But I'm a little, I'm like only God can judge, like at a certain point. I don't take it personally or necessarily feel like it is like personally detracting from me. However, I do know that there are people ... like number one, I am not living in a kind of like spiritually persecuted or marginalized paradigm, so I don't have to deal with holding on one hand. Like, okay, like I'm experiencing persecution for this thing that's being glorified somewhere else. Even though I do identify as ... I, it's like I'm spiritually weird, but I'm, I don't know, I'm in a bubble about it and that's just always been the way it is.

I'm not experiencing any persecution or people are not like even talking crazy to me on the internet usually, but also I feel like I have not had a direct experience of this company or this person like took my shit and is injured my business or my livelihood through it, so I think like, I have not been like personally injured through charlatanism, and even though I definitely, there are definitely plenty of my ... there are plenty of profiles out there that I could look at and be like, your business, I can see directly where your business was like informed by my business and that's okay.

But I also am like, I do what I do. It's so weird and random and esoteric, no one can do what I do. And it's, I don't worry about it because truly, and I think to a certain extent there has to just be that. Like, I have had clients who are like makers and have had like copycats and that kind of thing.

And I'm just like, it's there's a whole industry of knockoff Gucci bags. I love it. It's, Gucci's fine. No one's Gucci has been demeaned through ... probably like Gucci [indecipherable, both talking at the same time] is upset, but it's there's space for ... in some ways I'm like, there's space for the original and the copy cat, and just really inhabit your lane.

So I'm just like, I don't know, I feel bad for people who have trusted, or turned over all of their trust to like coaches that are dabbling in charlatanism, and I also feel bad for those coaches because I'm sure that they have things that they legitimately, genuinely excel in and it would be better for everyone if they would just fucking stay there. But it's, I don't ... the kind of like glamour of it. Like that, yeah, that glamour, like the launches and the sales funnels and duh nah nah nah nah.

I just, it doesn't appeal to me and I don't, like I don't sell it and I don't buy it. So I don't even worry about it.

ash alberg: Yes. I, there were like, there were a few things in there that I will try to have my brain remember to touch on.

jessie susannah karnatz: Yeah.

ash alberg: Yeah, I totally am with you on the ... especially, I function in knitting world, which is ultimately just an extension of fashion world. And if you're going to get fucking precious about ... like we are all operating from the same resources, it is an old fucking practice, true innovation within our industry honestly, doesn't really exist.

jessie susannah karnatz: It's very like minor. And I feel like it's always been important to me. I only recently have been like, okay, I'm comfortable saying I'm the Money Witch, but even in that is part of a pivot where I'm like, actually everyone who works in my business and everyone who touches my business is also a money witch, because I've always been like, I did not invent money magic.

I did not invent money. I did not invent magic. I did not invent witchcraft. I did not invent self-awareness. I did not invent intentionality. I did not invent, like

bringing spirituality to your finances. Like none of these things. Like I have my unique lens that is obviously informed by so many different people and then also just from God.

I'm like, I just try to say focused on what am I channeling but it's not, yeah, like the preciousness too.

ash alberg: Yes, exactly. The preciousness, where it's honestly, when you think about it, if somebody was to like ride your tail for your entire fucking career and be constantly siphoning off of you and copying you, A) it means that they are always behind you so who gives a shit? B) that's exhausting and is basically the same amount of labor as just going out and doing your own shit.

And then it's like, there are, I feel like also there's a difference between when somebody is ... I have seen it where really large companies will do like they’ll look at a pattern that is popular and they'll make like a shittier version of it. And it is actually shittier. Like the patterns are ...

[Both talking at the same time.]

jessie susannah karnatz: Yeah, like Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, like all those ...

ash alberg: Exactly. And they're just turning things out and it's okay, yes, that's shitty also the fact that they are really large entity and have more power within the industry, that is shitty. To me that's not okay because of the power dynamic and also the people who are following them, if you are working from a certain value-based space, that clientele is probably not aligned with you anyway, so why are you worrying about that?

Like the amount of just emotional energy that gets siphoned off and is like really negatively attached to that, is energy that you could just be like, okay, fuck that shit. And it's hard, right? Detaching ourselves from those situations is not always easy, nor is it always appropriate.

I'm not saying this is the way to be all the time.
[Both talking at the same time.]
jessie susannah karnatz: Yeah, it's not always the right thing to do. Yeah.

ash alberg: Right? But like most of the time, I think it just routes back down to our egos and our sense of self-worth. And for me, I know that like I can tell when I'm not in as healthy of a mindset and I am not operating out of abundance mindset, which is what I try these days to operate out of as much as possible, when I open up Instagram and every single post that I see is pissing me off and where I'm feeling like jealous or feeling like I'm judging myself against it.

And I know in those moments, that's not them. It's not ... even if it's like consistently a certain person or account that's doing that, it's not them. It's me and how I am feeling, and so then it's okay, now I'm going to go and do my own work and dig into what is it that is making me feel jealous? What am I perceiving that they have that I don't? And what is that envy suggesting to me that maybe I want to start looking into, and then how do I get to my version of what that end point looks like?

Like that's all my own work to do. That has fuck all to do with that other person who honestly, probably doesn't even know that I exist. And if they do know that I exist, like they're not doing their work based on how I am then feeling about their work. Like it's ... I don’t know.

jessie susannah karnatz: Yeah. I feel like jealousy is definitely a tool. Jealousy is information. I feel like you’re saying, if it is consistently the same account, like you can block them. Feel free to block people. It is not, it doesn't have to be like an insult. It can just literally be like, this is not, I don't want to see it. I just don't want to, for whatever reason.

I think too, for me, my friend Lizzie Silva, who is an amazing fiber artist, has a zine and a class and so many brilliant things to say about copycats and like craft and ethics. She like really has a lot of very intelligent things to say in that. And she's very big on things, for example, like there are places to draw a line, right?

Okay, if you are hosting or organizing a craft fair, are you vetting copycat, direct copycats, of the situation? And I want to say too, like I think having ethics around it, valuing ethics around it, saying that ethics in crafts and in small business are important.

Also holding and validating that, for me, like we mentioned before, right, like I am, a privileged person, like I am white, I am cis, I am, was raised middle-class and it's, I do not have like trauma or damage around, like wreckage around people constantly like riding my ass and like taking my shit and then doing way better. ‘Cause that's, I think the problem is not when people are taking your shit and riding behind you, it's when people are taking your shit and then using their

privilege to do something, to become way more successful, like with your things.

So that's not a problem that I personally experienced and then I've been lucky enough to not experience it. Like I'm privileged enough to not have that as like a life experience. And then it's, I'm not, I've been lucky enough to not have it as a business experience. There's ... there, whatever, people dabble, but it's not, but I just, I choose not -- but, but then also there is like what you're saying, which is okay, our mindset about it, how much time and energy do we want to give to it?

How much of it at a certain point is there just okay, surrender? Like that, you just do have to like accept and surrender certain things. And then like, how do we put these protection and foundation pieces in place? Like the legal pieces. And that was like, for me, I didn't want to trademark Money Witch, because I was like, that feels fucked up because I didn't make up like Money Witch, like come on.

But honestly, but I did it because, and what kicked me into gear of doing it was getting in a sphere where I was about to be like negotiating with a larger corporation who ... and that the deal did not go through, but they were like interested in using Money Witch as the title of a podcast that I would be doing. And I was like, I need to make sure that I have the like legal stuff in place to make sure that if we're using this, it's only in reference to me.

And I was really kicked into gear or I felt like what was like legally inspirational to me was the big trial that happened around Fire Cider. Do you know about this? So I was just like, I don't actually want to trademark Money Witch. I don't want to be like writing people letters around mah mah mah mah.

However, I do not want for a corporation to do that to me with my own shit. So I'm going to like, just do it because that's, that's what needs to happen. So I think like much more empowerment in the legal sphere, especially for like makers and creators coming from Black and Indigenous traditions or culture where it's, their shit is getting ripped off all of the time.

Much more emphasis there. And in some ways like you're saying like equal knowledge and education and conversation about those things than these kind of like fluffy coachy, just ....

ash alberg: Yeah. Like we're not going to ... and I think that’s ... jessie susannah karnatz: [Inaudible] or whatever ...

[Both talking at the same time.]

ash alberg: Yeah. And the legal bit of it is tricky because depending on what industry you're in, sometimes it's going to be really explicit and obvious and so it's a little easier to then navigate, and then other times it exists in gray scale, and so then it's okay, now your values need to come into play.

Like when it comes to copyright and intellectual copyright when it like, within knitting industry, you, there's honestly very little that you can control. The only thing that you would be able to go after somebody legally for is if they have literally taken your exact pattern digital file and used it in its existence and then are selling it or using it without your permission.

But if they were like, I'm going to copy and paste all of your words and I will update the photos, now you have no control. And so it's like figuring out okay, where ... and everybody's personal opinion and boundary lines are going to be different and figuring out for yourself like, okay, where are my hard lines? Where are the areas where I am going to let it go? Where are areas where I'm not going to let it go?

One of the questions that I get most frequently, which I think is a really interesting question and also a really good question and also something that does not have a clear black and white answer, is how can I create a pattern without plagiarizing a stitch?

And it's okay, the vast majority of these times, these stitches, even if you find it in a stitch dictionary that is a copyrighted book, that stitch also has existed for the last 150 years and has its roots back over here. So like that, like you're not plagiarizing it. If you were to like, take the book and put the book out then like, that's now you're plagiarizing, but like you are allowed to use those stitches. You are allowed to use these techniques.

If you want to, you can acknowledge where you learn the thing from or where you found the thing from. You're not beholden to. And so now you have to decide for yourself, what are your values? What are you comfortable doing?

And if you create something or you think you've created something new, if you choose to put it out there as a technique or a stitch or something, you need to understand that once it is out there, other people are also allowed to use it, whether or not they credit you, and so figuring out what are your feels about preciousness around that. But then meanwhile, there are clearer, I think clearer, but then ultimately end up still gray scale in terms of like cultural appropriation.

That stitch is maybe not copyrighted, but is actually like a really ... or that technique is not copyrighted, but it is ...

jessie susannah karnatz: But it's traditional.

ash alberg: Exactly. And so if you don't have ancestral ties to that, if you've not been invited into that practice and you are now going to use it, and then also, especially if you’re ...

jessie susannah karnatz: Yeah or like, even if you have been invited into that practice, have you been invited to sell it?

ash alberg: Exactly. And so that's where capitalism starts to make things even more complicated where now we are literally profiting off of it. And so it like, is that okay or is it not?

And like some, there are some motifs that literally everywhere across the globe uses those same motifs, so like maybe you using that motif and it being similar to somebody else's is not, you're not copywriting, but if you don't acknowledge that hey, this is what I am using, and this is its roots, and this is my connection to those roots, if I use like the wolf's teeth motif, which is an old, old, old pagan Polish, Slavic protection rune, and I choose to use that in color work, but I don't say that's what I used it from, it's also a motif that honestly is attached to most other indigenous communities and cultures and traditions.

And so, it can suddenly look like now you are culturally appropriating for somebody else. And like not, I think it comes back to, are we acknowledging our privileges? And also are we acknowledging our sources? And are we citing our sources?

jessie susannah karnatz: That is, that is a symptom of white supremacy culture is to erase lineages, so it's like you are in a lineage and you have to acknowledge, like explicitly acknowledge sight, all of those things, like claim that lineage and be transparent about what the lineage is, and then simultaneously, like you're saying part of it, like a lot of the work is the process of not just seeing something somewhere and just doing it and then selling it, but to know, okay, like this is a pattern that occurs like globally and here is like a bunch of different examples of that.

And maybe there's a subtlety in like different color ways, and that means different things to different people. So if I did it in this way, it would mean this,

or if I did it in this way. So it's like the actual process of taking the time to be a student.

It's like part of unlearning like, as white people in like part of unlearning like settler culture, right? Like unsettling, which is a parallel but different piece of work, to like decolonial work. But it's like unsettling your spirit and your mind is in taking the time, one to do that work, and then to acknowledge yourself as a part of a lineage to be transparent and explicit about it.

And like to take the time to follow the path of being like a student and then a practitioner and then a teacher, that is important. Every ... the stages are important and like spending time in them is important. And that is like about doing things with ethics. And when you do things with ethics, they are, they have value, right? Like they have nutritional value is like what was coming to my head, it's like doing your practice with, I don't know, in a whole great, like it's like the whole grain practice rather than the like refined practice.

ash alberg: So that was like a long tangent that I did not necessarily ... [Laughs.]

jessie susannah karnatz: I know, I think like time-wise we have to go onto our other questions.

ash alberg: Yes, and this we're near the end, which is good, but also tangents. So what is something that you wish you'd been told about magic and ritual and witchcraft when you were younger?

jessie susannah karnatz: I wish that I had been given more information about, I guess, like knowledge and discipline around my feelings and sensitivity and awareness and discipline of our emotional energies is different than the repression of them or the like sidestepping of them. But I really do wish that someone had taught me, I dunno, how to use my big feelings as like a superpower and not as the detriment and also that like you can protect yourself too.

So it's like that training of the ways that you do have to be disciplined and like take control and agency in your mind in order to operate in a way where you can like, see multiple dimensions or speak with entities or you're like channeling information or you're feeling the feelings of the room or the feelings of tapping into realities of all points in space time and on the timeline at the same time.

That is really overwhelming until you learn how to validate it and work with it and be safe within it. And I would have really appreciated that work earlier on. Not that I'm like, rocking discipline right now, but or ever, but even knowing that I could is helpful.

ash alberg: Yes, I, that resonates a lot with me. So what's next for you? This episode is going to be coming out, I think, a couple of weeks, maybe two or three weeks before the book comes out.

jessie susannah karnatz: Oh, okay.

ash alberg: So that's exciting, but just generally, what is next for you?

jessie susannah karnatz: What is next for me, since we are recording this right at Gregorian new year is all of 2022. My book will be coming out in, on March 1st. I'm trying to clear a lot of space to see just like what that brings. I would like it to bring like paid speaking opportunities, media opportunities, a high paying podcast deal, all kinds of opportunities.

A much higher advance, a second book, which I would like to be about specifically for small business people. I like, I want my second book to be a business coven book. Putting that out there.

ash alberg: I’m in.

jessie susannah karnatz: Yeah! And I'm experimenting and dabbling with group offerings this year. So I have programs. I’m, it's the year of the Lovers tarot card. And so I've been thinking a lot about integrating and deepening relationship with things we already are in relationship with rather than bringing on a lot of new.

And so I think both for myself, re-exploring like different relationships, different ways of being in relationship with pieces of work I've already done. Maybe in like the one-on-one way, but I'm doing it as a group offering or I've talked about it, but now I'm writing about it or just like exploring different dimensions of relationship with things that I've previously explored in my business.

I'm doing group practices because what I decided was like, it's not that I really want to teach people a bunch of new stuff this year. It's that I want to hold space for people to like, be in relationship and have like accountability and space held

for them to be in relationship with getting things done that they already have been attempting to be in relationship with.

So I'm going to do that for both bookkeeping and budgeting this year. I'm doing what I'm calling Bad Girls Tax Club, which is open to all genders, but we're going to get together quarterly based around the U S quarterly tax dates and basically get people caught up on bookkeeping, tell everybody this is what you should be thinking about.

Like at this point, have you filed this form? Are you doing this? Okay. And then get stuff done. Let's catch up on your bookkeeping. Let's make your quarterly tax payment. Let's like, all those things.

And then I'm going to do the same thing for budgeting, with a program called Club Budget, where we're going to just get together once a month and catch up on all the documenting from the month before, set some goals for the next month.

And I love, I love to, I call it like show up and blow up, like I'm really good at just like arriving in the moment and doing the thing. And I think a lot of people are like that, if given the opportunity. And I hate ... so I'm really like, a personal goal of mine is that I want to let go of having this like massive lingering to-do list that is just like never really done and has stuff on it from 10 years ago.

And I'm just like, I'm over it. I don't want to live like this anymore. And so I'm just like, how could we just hold ... I want to hold space this year for people to show up and get their things done in a way that has like emotional support and skill building and education woven into it but isn't about like amassing other concepts of things that they need to do.

So that's my work this year.

ash alberg: I love. That feels really practical and delightful and also like really just like creative and fun and delightful. And also before we go, there were a couple of things that I also wanted to point out about the book before we end, which is that I really appreciate that it, the book is ... there are very few books, especially about finances and healing your finances that are not also heavily gendered.

Even like the most like progressive, “this is for everybody” and acknowledges that there's more than two genders and things like that, it still ends up being written as like, “you go, girl.” And it's very like the, I find that the gender

options are either heal your finances and it's directed at cis women and may or may not acknowledge that like we also know that there are others, but we're still going to write it as though you're a cis woman. And then the other, like traditional business books are written like you’re a cis het man.

And so I love that the book, as I'm reading it, I'm like, this is really nice ‘ause it's talking to you the reader without assuming the gender of the reader. And there's you use the word babe a lot, but to me, like babe is super neutral. Like, everybody’s a babe.

[Both talking at the same time.]

jessie susannah karnatz: Oh, yeah, I'm always, yeah, I'm very, it's like gender neutral babes, like gender neutral dudes, like gender neutral like ...

ash alberg: Yes.

jessie susannah karnatz: Oh yeah.

ash alberg: So that's super nice because --

jessie susannah karnatz: Even with Bad Girls Tax Club, I'm like, I know it's a stretch, but like gender neutral girls, honestly.

ash alberg: [Indecipherable, both talking at the same time.]
jessie susannah karnatz: Gender neutral dick, gender neutral pussy, I'm here

for all of it.

ash alberg: Hundred percent. So I appreciate that. I'd like, as a queer body person, I'm like, thank you. This is nice. Because especially I am queer and many of my students are queer and folks that I speak to are queer, and so every time I end up providing resources, specifically around money, I end up doing it with these caveats of like FYI it's written in this way, just remove the --

jessie susannah karnatz: I'm sorry if you're not a girl boss or like a ... ash alberg: A hundred percent. Yes.
jessie susannah karnatz: Like, tycoon.

ash alberg: Exactly. And I'm like, please just turn that part of your brain. Which is like hard to do when you're, especially when you're trans or non-binary and that shit’s triggering. I'm like, I'm at a point with my gender journey where that shit's not triggering any more for me.

I am also like most of my life into my gender journey and live in a world where I'm able to also navigate in a way where it's just whatever for the most part, but that's also like many years of my own work that I have done that not everyone is able to --

jessie susannah karnatz: It's nice to not have to do fucking gymnastics to read a book about budgeting or ...

ash alberg: Right?! Exactly. Exactly.

jessie susannah karnatz: I am not like, I, like I, 100% have bias and like I'm not, but I just, I, and I didn't even ... that's great reflection, thank you. I didn't set out to do that.

I think it's just on account of being like, so gay, it's just you're just like, I guess I wrote a real gay book.

ash alberg: It’s great. It’s wonderful. I love it. And then the other thing that I do appreciate too, is again, like I'm Canadian and our tax laws are very different from Americans. And so while going through the book, it's also providing practical stuff that like, if you're in the States, yes, like all the IRS comments are actually going to be like very specifically for you, but also I'm able to go through it and be like, oh yes, this is an exercise and we're not talking about the IRS in my case, we're talking about the CRA, but it's not, again, like financial books often can end up being very, if nothing else, like country-specific. And so it starts off being a useful tool and then very quickly falls into, okay this is no longer a useful tool because you're talking about things that literally don't even exist and we don't have equivalents and so now half of the book is not actually useful for me.

And depending on my financial literacy within my own country, I may or may not realize that. So the book, I appreciate, because it's all, regardless of where you live, it provides you with work to do that does not matter where you live and what your tax laws are or what your financial rules are in whatever particular place you are living.

You can just go through it and all of the exercises and all of the chapters are beneficial and will result in you having, I think, if you engage with the book like with intention, you'll come out of it stronger and with a stronger financial relationship as a result.

jessie susannah karnatz: Thank you. That is exciting to hear. I'm going to put it out there because I think speak out what you want, but I would really love to see my book translated into other languages. My boyfriend's mom really wants it to be translated into Spanish and we've been joking that he's going to translate it and then we're going to sell bootleg copies, like out of the trunk of the car. [Laughs.]

ash alberg: At least the money will stay in the family. It’s fine.
jessie susannah karnatz: Yeah, totally. I'm like, don't tell my publisher, but ...

but I'll tell them please translate my book into at least Spanish before I do.

ash alberg: Man, I love that. Okay. We are over time a little bit, not by too much. I'm impressed with us, and you have shit to do, and Willow has decided that her nap is over and we need to go do the things.

Thank you so much for this conversation. I really appreciate it. I also thank you for sending me your book.

jessie susannah karnatz: It was really fun. Oh yeah.

ash alberg: I'm so excited for when ...

jessie susannah karnatz: Did they send you a paper copy of it?

ash alberg: No, but I'm, I would not say no to that.

jessie susannah karnatz: I know. I don't know. I feel like the publisher, like some of the ... I didn't understand what they were doing. Anyway.

I feel like I like, I'm learning just like every step of the way. Like we learn about ... I'm like, and then you have to learn about like publishers and then you have to learn about editors and then you have to learn about like the marketing team at a publisher and like what they do and what they don't do.

And then you have to learn about like how to make a book marketing plan. Like it's just every, it's just like everything, every time, every step of the way.

ash alberg: I've only done self publishing because I'm like, those are too many people. They take too much of my money and I’m not going to get enough of it. [Laughs.]

jessie susannah karnatz: Same, I know. ash alberg: So I’ll just do it all myself.

jessie susannah karnatz: Which I, I do have my little I have two zines, but one is, it's pretty hefty for a zine. It's just, it's a very small book. Like I would, if we're going to talk shit, like I have definitely seen people selling books that are as, have the same amount of like girth as my zine.

I would prefer, I'm like a little bit of a like under promise, over deliver. Like I prefer to stay in, I'm more comfortable in that realm.

ash alberg: Same.

jessie susannah karnatz: Like I, I have gotten ordered books that I'm like, glad I have, but when I got it, I was like, oh, this is like a very small book. I'd rather be like, this is a zine, and then have someone be like, damn, this is like the nicest, biggest zine I've ever seen in my life.

ash alberg: Yes. I agree. Especially, I never think about, I don't know why, but especially when I order books online, rather than going to the bookstore and buying them in person, and I like don't think about like, I look at page count, but then I also don't look at what's the physical dimensions of the book.

And so sometimes I get them and I'm like, oh, like not only are you like smaller on the page count, but the pages are literally half the size.

jessie susannah karnatz: Yeah. I don't think about it either. And I'm like, that's fine. I think people should make whatever they want, but yeah, I don't ever, I guess to me, I just don't think of it as a book and not everybody grew up in like zine culture even knows what that is or that it's an option. But to me, I'm just like, I don't know.

ash alberg: Just call it a zine.

jessie susannah karnatz: Yeah, totally.
ash alberg: And it's a great zine and I will absolutely disseminated across all

the humans, but ...
jessie susannah karnatz: Exactly. [Ash laughs.]

ash alberg: [Upbeat music plays.] You can find full episode recordings and transcripts at snortandcackle.com. Just click on podcast in the main menu. Follow Snort and Cackle on Instagram @snortandcackle and join our seasonal book club with @SnortandCackleBookClub. Don't forget to subscribe and review the podcast by your favorite podcasting platform.

Editing provided by Noah Gilroy, recording and mixing by Ash Alberg, music by Yesable.