Needing vs Desiring: The Difference Between Desperation and Magnetism

I'm Kinsey Machos, your host and founder of the category Queen. Welcome to the podcast for coaches, consultants, and course creators who don't just want to dominate their niche, but they desire to play in their own league. My mission is to help you unlock the power of your unique brilliance and use it as a vehicle to gain recognition, reach more people, and make more money. Not too long ago, I took a bold leap, leaving behind a six figure corporate salary with nothing more than a used MacBook and a burning desire for more freedom. Today, our brand has become globally recognized, helping thousands of female founders to become industry leading experts. Join us each week as we go on a journey together to discuss mindset, marketing and money, and more importantly, the real life discussions about balancing success with motherhood and marriage.

Because we're a community of women who build and scale impact driven businesses, but do it without sacrificing the things that matter most to us. Welcome to the category queen show. Hello my friends. It's so good to be here with you today. I hope you are having such an amazing week. I am just overflowing with so much gratitude. We have been slowly just unraveling some of the things that have been going on over here at the category queen and some changes and adjustments and just really unlocking deeper parts of my personal journey and what that looks like. And I have been getting so many amazing messages from you all and really just thanking me for the honesty and the vulnerability. And I know that this space needs more of it. And so it's my promise to you to bring more of those conversations to you.

But if you are not really sure what I'm talking about, definitely make sure you get on my email list, I have been sharing little bits and pieces of where I'm at, what I'm going through, and really what the journey is going to look going forward, and just a lot of little parts and pieces of just reinvention and realignment. And I'm just sensing the collective feeling of needing to get back into alignment or really making sure that you are building a business that gives you the true sense of time and financial freedom. So more to come on that. But today I want to dive into this topic around needs versus desires and how that plays into desperation and magnetism. This is a really hot topic because this can, in my opinion, make or break an entrepreneur and I see this happen time and time again.

And of course, I have been guilty of components of this and I think that it's natural to ebb and flow of through seasons of abundance and or lack but the faster that you can check yourself here and make sure that you are really staying in an energy of desire and abundance and magnetism, the better off you'll be. So what I want to talk about is, first of all, where this is actually stemming from, because there was a circumstance, there was an event that happened that really opened my eyes to so much possibility. It gave me a brand new perspective on my life, my business, and what I wanted going forward. But what I want it to do for you is that I want to gift you this same awareness and openness.

Because the way that it was really put in front of me was so divine in its timing. And I think that we can really hack our life's desires if we continue to position it in this way. So a couple months ago, my husband and I were having a really beautiful conversation, and we're both at a really big pivot point in our careers and businesses where we have the financial comfortability and we're really creating amazing success. And for the first time, he really asked me the question in relation to do I love what I'm doing? And it was so fascinating in the way that he put this question in front of me, because my husband is the most wise man I've ever met and really has this way of prompting me in the right timing and in the right way.

You know, he's really careful about the things that he says or the things that he doesn't say. And he's just so good at really making sure that he's thoughtful about the questions or statements that he makes and really making sure that if there's a big topic at play, that he's going to think through the potential impact of that. But we're at a point where his business has totally taken off and we're both going full bore. Meanwhile, our life continues to get fuller and fuller. Our personal life. The kids are just so busy, and I hate using the word busy, but they have full schedules with sports and school and friends and their own social life. And between the five of us, it's a very full life.

And while our businesses are just expanding and growing, you know, we haven't actually sat down and had the conversation around, like, is this working or not? And, you know, it's kind of maybe a harder conversation to have, but I think that it was so natural and organic in the way that it came up, that it opened up such a beautiful conversation. But we have always been really good at getting the help that we need in order to support our goals. But ultimately, when were really evaluating it. It's sort of like no matter how much help you can get or whatever you delegate out, there's just certain components of a home and the energy within that you cannot outsource or replace. And were both sensing a little bit of this energy kind of being out of sync and figuring out where the gaps are.

And ultimately, it really just was a matter of us both kind of pedal to the metal in our businesses while also still sustaining a very present life with our family. We have such flexibility, and we haven't missed any one thing, and our schedules remain very flexible, and so it can be easy to sort of get wrapped up into, well, I don't miss anything. I don't go to work early. I don't stay up late working. But yet there was still sort of a disconnect in the rhythm that were experiencing. And he really was so gracious in even just saying, you know, I don't know that we can both be going full bore at the same time. And ultimately, I can slow down if you want to speed up, but I'm getting the sense that I don't know if you want to speed up.

And when he was just talking through this and were just, again, having this really beautiful conversation around this, I started to feel something come to the surface that I think I knew was there, but I didn't really want to address or maybe be honest around. And it was really just a sense of burnout. And I hate even saying that out loud because I'm always the person that's, you know, like, part of my message is helping you build something that gives you life, not takes away from it. But sometimes we actually are in seasons of burnout, and we don't even know it. And I think I needed a prompt or a conversation to really bring me to the surface to see what was actually happening, because the next question after that was really the catapult to me evaluating everything that I was doing.

But he was like, you know, we're really financially sound. Let's say money didn't matter. He was like, if you didn't have to contribute financially, which you don't, would you be still doing what you're doing? And this was such a profound question, because ultimately, I never am just, quote unquote, doing it for the money. Now, mind you, I'll be honest, I am very driven by money. Very driven by it, and I love it. I am very abundantly minded. I've always known that I want to be really financially comfortable, and I never want to go without just coming from the childhood that I had, I think I just had it ingrained in me that I never want to have constrictions in my financial life. As an adult, I've always been driven by money, but I've always, too, loved the game of entrepreneurship.

And so I've justified it in that manner that it's like, well, I'm doing it for the money, but it's just so fun. And I'm always operating in my zone of genius, and this is just, you know, what I've been called to do. But when he really asked me that question, I think that it was just the season that I'm in. And again, it was divine timing in that I all of a sudden just felt this huge sense of relief. And, in fact, I really just started sobbing because I realized that for a while, I have been out of alignment and that maybe my priorities were a little bit out of whack, but I just hadn't noticed it yet. And it was sort of this white knuckling mentality that I lost sense of, like, what's actually fun.

And I don't know that we can ever avoid season like this, but I know that we actually have to go through these experiences to give us that contrast of, like, what we absolutely want and what we absolutely don't want. And through this, even though I'm just kind of, like, you know, still kind of in that, I don't know, messy middle, if you will, or kind of on the other side of it, I have already gotten so much clarity. I've since made some really big decisions to get back into realignment with myself, my lifestyle, and really what I want for the vision of my business. But it had been a while since I actually asked that question, what do want? What do I desire? And if money was off the table, what would I be doing?

And so it opened up this whole new way of looking at things. And this is why I want to bring this conversation, because whether you're, you know, considering, you know, pivoting, realigning or not, there's no doubt that when you approach business from needing it versus wanting it, you will completely change the type of outcome you get. I hear all the time, you know, I need clients, or I need this launch to go really well. And a lot of times, I will really take a step back and really coach my clients through that thought process. Because if you know anything about NLP or neuro linguistic programming, it's that your words matter. The way that you talk about something has a profound impact on your life and business.

And so when you're saying things like I need XYZ, it is really actually at a detriment to what it is you actually need or want. And so I want to talk about a couple things here. I want to really define needs versus wants or needs versus desires and what that looks like. And then how this feeds into desperation versus magnetism and how to really shift your energy so that you can walk into anything that you want. Right? Because again, when you are approaching your business from a needing of it, a desperation of it, I promise, promise you will not have fun, you will burn out and you will throw in the towel. Because approaching something from lack or approaching something from a white knuckling mentality is just going to be an uphill battle.

And you're going to feel tired all the time, you're going to feel frustrated all the time, and you're going to just wonder, what's the point of it all. Let's talk about needs versus desires. Now. You'll hear me kind of interchange wants and desires because I'm going to talk about why here in a minute. But there's not a ginormous difference between wants and desires. But let's talk about what the definition of need is. Need refers to essentials or requirements that are necessary for basic functioning or survival. Okay, so this is literally like, these are things that you need in order to survive. I think about needs as your basic, the basic components of, you know, food, roof, maybe clothes. Do you even really need clothes to survive? Maybe. Right? So it's like really the basic elements of surviving.

However, desire, on the other hand, is defined as a strong feeling of wanting to attain something or wishing for something to happen. So just in that context, when you think about need versus desire, and you start to even put it in a formula, like I need a client versus I desire a client, which one is it going to be that most make sense now, some of you might be thinking, well, I do. I need the money to feed my family, or I need the client to give me money to so that I can pay my mortgage. Right? But that's where the delineation really occurs.

Because at the end of the day, if you need your business to survive, that means that you may need to consider having some other options to allow for you to not be in a fight or flight mode with your business. Now that's a conversation for another day. But I still want to argue that you don't need a client or you don't need a launch to go well. And that at the end of the day, there could be a plan b that allows you to really sustain those basic needs for survival. And this is, again, a whole other can of worms. But if you don't have six months worth of savings or you are constantly living revenue to revenue, month to month, then that is unpacking a whole other topic around sustainability and the viability of your business.

But ultimately, at the end of the day, the needs are really meeting your basic survival components and the desires are what you wish for, what you want, what you really hope for, and to strive for in your life. And so even in the way that you talk about your needs and desires is going to shift even your energy, right. When you think about I need a client versus that I desire a client or I need to get on a podcast, versus I desire to get on a podcast, the energetic shift, even just in the way that you talk about those things, is huge.

And when you start to really even allow yourself to soften in the desire versus the need, you're going to notice even how you approach the thing that you want and what you're going to do after that's going to be different. I actually also want to introduce another concept in alignment to this that I found in the gap in the game. And he says psychologists have separated needs and wants into two different types of obsessive passion and harmonious passion. Obsessive passion is highly impulsive and fueled by suppressed emotion and unresolved internal conflict. Harmonious passion is intrinsically motivated and healthy. You control your passion rather than having it control you. I love those two definitions because it also kind of aligns with needing versus wanting. But even within the wants or desires, it's sort of like, are we obsessing over something?

So much so that it's actually putting us into a state of fight or flight, and it's having us become very impulsive and highly unregulated in our emotions versus does this feel natural and healthy and am I in control of this passion? Right. Those give you also a really good all about the energetic shifts, right? Even if you sit in that obsession versus harmonious, if you sit into those different words, your body is going to have a completely different reaction to each of them. And so the impact on your business, whether you are needing something versus desiring it, or even when you think about obsessing over it versus really that harmonious passion, you're going to approach your business completely different from those two lenses. And so it's important to really start to ask yourself, what do I need? Are my basic needs being met?

And if not, then we need to look at additional options or plan b so that you can have some safety in your life. Because if you're kind of like in that I'm going to burn the boats and go all in type of mentality that may not work for you. Because if you're white knuckling your business right now and you are constantly in a survival mentality, I promise, again, it's not going to get you the results in your business. So let's talk about how this feeds into that desperation, right? Because again, needing something is going to turn into that desperation. When you think you need it, right? Your body's going to go into fight or flight, and so you become desperate. Now, desperation feeds into making hasty decisions. It's really about a short term focus. And you're going to be in that stress driven mentality.

So you're going to be under high stress. And instead of building something that's long and sustainable, it's going to be a constant short term band aid solution. And being in that month to month where it's like, I'm going to just do what works right now or making decisions out of like, I need this just to work right now, that's never going to get you those long term results. And so we want to really cut the cord from this idea of I need something so that it doesn't turn into desperation, okay? So when you think about even how you feel when you need something, when you're really thirsty or you're really hungry, your body does start to shut down. And this is why it's so hard to make sound decisions and be in your most authentic self.

Because your body's like, dude, I just need to eat, right? Not that again. You need a client to eat. But your mind and your body, when you're in that desperation mode, that's what you're telling it. And the consequences of this are so severe, not just in your business, but just in your life, right? High stress, high anxiety, you know, potentially depression. And then it's like, what is all this for? And so what we want to do is shift, right? A lot of times this is just really a mindset shift. Most of you don't need this to work. You want it to work so you don't have to go back to a nine to five, or you want it to work because you desire to have more money in your life, right? But you don't need it to. You won't die if it doesn't work.

And even in the question that my husband prompted with me, he's like, if you don't, we don't need the money, would you still be doing this? And the question ultimately was, yes, but how I was doing it was a no. And what that opened up for me was, what would this look like if I completely unattached from sort of these material things and really just ask myself, what do I want and what's fun for me? Now, of course, like, we're always, if we're growing and we're trying to do things we've never done before, there's going to be discomfort in there, and not everything's always going to be fun, but you can absolutely start to get rid of the things that are out of this need for thinking.

You need to prove your worth, or the ego around having more money or needing all these things, right? There's really a clear line there between, like, what do you actually want versus what do you think you should want? And so I started to really separate those things out, and I realized that there was just a lot of things I was doing that I didn't want to do. Not from a task perspective, but even from a delivery perspective, an operational perspective, how I was paying my team. I mean, so much there really was unfolded, but it was, again, because I had gone so long just asking the question, why am I doing this and what do I want? What do I want? Right? Not what do I need, but what do I want?

And so let's just assume your basic needs are covered and start to get into more of the wanting, the desiring. Now I want to quickly share something. Also, in the realm of wanting versus desires, there's actually even a deeper delineation right there, because in a happy pocket full of money, the author actually talks about wanting is assuming that you are in lack. And so he goes to even say that it's not even about wanting something, but the desire. He actually says in the book that the dictionary defines the word want as to be without lack, to be destitute or needy, a defect of character or fault, to be absent, to be deficient or lacking, to fail, not to be sufficient, to fall or come short, to lack.

So even within want versus desire, there is a further delineation between wanting coming from a place of lack versus a desire, which he says desire is not a perpetual state of not having. In fact, it does not necessarily have to mean you do not have what you desire. It is sad and funny to think that billions of people are kept away from what they want. By such a simple difference, it all lies in the precise execution of the universe, he says. So, again, that's why I kind of, to me, need versus want are a little bit different. But in the way that he explains it, he actually is framing it as wanting is also still kind of in that needy energy. And that's why I really wanted to lean more into this word of desires.

And if you ever heard me talk, I will always say something like, I desire. I really have changed my language in the way that I talk about the things that I want to bring into my life. Because, again, when you think about even the energy in your body, when you say certain things, you'll notice it, and it matters how you talk about it. But I love that delineation between sort of wanting just implies that it's something that we don't have. And this goes to even show our desperation versus magnetism. If you're operating out of lack, that is a low frequency, that is a low vibration, right? If you're doing something already from a frame of lack, it is going to produce a different outcome than if you're doing something from a frame of desire or abundance.

And that's why I believe when you desire something, that's what turns into magnetism. It produces a different energy in you. It's going to shift how you show up, how you make decisions and the quality of those decisions, the quality of the presence, you know, in a room or on your podcast or when you write content. So when you are operating from a place of magnetism, you're also really bringing in that emotional intelligence. You're also bringing in that confidence, that certainty, that positivity, right? It automatically sends you into a completely different state, which is going to bring you, again, the results that you want. And so how you think about what you want, or in this case, what you desire matters, right? And so I think it's so helpful when you start to kind of clear the clutter.

And we really think about, at the end of the day, do I need this? Do I need all of this? No, we desire it. And if you don't desire it, that's another roadmap similar to even, you know, when my husband asked me the question and it started to unpack parts of what I did desire and what I don't desire and really allowed me to, you know, either dissect certain parts of my business and either tear down or rebuild and realign. And that's what I'm really asking you to do here in making sure that you understand first, needs and desires are completely different and most of what you are reaching for, if it's a goal, it's not a need. You have your basic needs met and that should soften so much for you.

And if you are white knuckling your business, it's because you are operating out a state of lack or you just don't want to and you think you should. And so we have to question that too, right? But here's some really specific examples of operating out of need versus desire in sort of these different scenarios. Because I want you to start sitting into these different circumstances of knowing when you're making good and sound decisions out of abundance, out of magnetism, out of desire versus decisions out of lack, fear, anger, ego. So let's say you need to launch a new coaching program because you notice others are doing it and you feel pressure to keep up. You're fearing that you're falling behind. So the decision is rushed without market research or alignment with your core business values.

But desiring could look like you launch a new program when you realize there's a gap in your offerings that aligns with your expertise. The launch is planned, well researched, and feels like a natural extension of your brand. Two completely different scenarios, also two completely different outcomes. Let's talk about this through the lens of pricing. Needing right your price. You price your services low because you're anxious about the economy or competition, thinking that lowering prices are the only way to secure more clients quickly. Desire is going to have you set your prices based on the value you provide, understanding your unique selling proposition and the results you deliver. You're confident that your pricing reflects the quality and outcome of your work. Again, approaching the same problem or the same scenario from two different states of mind.

Which one do you think is going to get you the better result? I promise that lowering your price out of fear is never going to get you what you want. The energy of needing would probably have you take on any client, even those who are not an ideal fit, because you quote unquote need the business. This might lead to difficult relationships and projects that do not play to your strengths, or worse, spending energy and time with clients that are not a good fit for you. This is going to cause resentment and anger. But if you lead with desire, you are selective with clients, choosing to work with those who most align with your business values and those that you can have the most impact with. This selective approach builds a stronger, more fulfilling client base.

Let's talk about this in regards to your marketing right. Approaching it from a needing energy your marketing is reactive, often prompted by a sudden dip in engagement or sales. You might frequently pivot strategies, tracing trends without out a clear plan, trying to fit the algorithm, resulting in an inconsistent messaging that confuses your audience. But when you desire to have great marketing, your marketing efforts are proactive and strategic and consistent. It's based on a clear understanding of your target audience and long term goals. You use data feedback to refine tactics, maintaining that consistent and authentic voice. Needing to grow you might sign up for various courses and certifications out of fear of being left behind or seen as less credible, without considering if they are actually beneficial or necessary for your specific business.

But the desire to grow in your professional or personal development might look like you carefully selecting development opportunities. You know, courses, mentorship, programs that directly enhance your skills and offer clear benefits to your business strategy and growth. Those are really amazing examples that I see literally every day, every week in my audience in some of you. And again, it's through this lens of are you approaching these things? Are you making these types of decisions from this idea that I need something which creates this fight or flight type of energy, which creates this desperation which never gets you the results you want? Or are you approaching these decisions, these strategies, with that abundance desire type of framework that allows you to truly remain in your most authentic self striving for those longer term goals.

It really comes down to do you want a short term business that burns you out every month, or are you looking more long term? And sometimes that might open up new conversations like, do I need to have a supplemental income here so that I can feel more safe in my business? Because you will not get what you want when you're operating out of desperation or need, you don't need your business. So really, to sum this up, the first step is to really assess, what do I need? Again, just getting really honest with yourself and noticing that you don't need any. You don't need any of it. Do you have your basic needs met? And this is really going to stretch you into a form of gratitude, right? If you're not practicing gratitude every day, that's going to help this.

Because if we're always focusing on what we don't have, we're just going to get more of what we don't have. But if you're focusing on everything that you have and all of your basic needs being met, you're going to feel really so much more anchored in your life. And then you can shift into what do I desire and how can I surrender to that and really open myself up to longer term results. Knowing that I don't need short term approaches, I'm going to really sustain myself and hold myself in that space of desire and opportunity and abundance and be more thoughtful about the decisions I make, not from a place of need, but from a place of desire. So I hope you enjoyed this my friends.

I know, I know so so, so much what it feels like to be in that state of feeling like you need something or you want something to work so badly or just white knuckling those results. So I know what that feels like. But I promise these really simple shifts will get you out of that. And sometimes, moment to moment, we just have to walk ourselves through this framework. I hope you enjoyed this and I hope you have such an amazing day. I will talk to you next time. Hey, if you're ready to stand out online and get paying clients consistently without having to fumble your way through tech run ads or create complicated funnels, I want to invite you to join us in the category queen school, where you're going to learn my simple, proven formula for getting clients online. It's risk free.

You either make your money back or we'll get give you a refund. Just head over to kinseymachos.com/theCQSchool and join today to get instant access. We'll see you inside.