Tino Ruzive, Founder of redefiningSelf |Confidence & Healing Coach | Speaker

“We have restructured, and your role has become redundant.”

I still remember the moment my boss said those words. She asked how I felt and I responded, “What would be the worst thing that could happen?”

But inside, I was blank. I had no plan, no backup, and 3 daughters who still needed me to show up. Life didn’t stop to sympathise with me. The reality was, my job, the safety net that had allowed me to grow my business while keeping a stable income was gone.

For the first time, I had no choice but to fully rely on my business. And that terrified me.

I became obsessed with the numbers in my account, watching my savings drop and panicking about what would happen when the money ran out. I had spent years helping other women regain confidence and rebuild their lives, yet here I was, frozen in fear of a much needed change. That’s when I had to face something I had been avoiding for a long time, my relationship with money.

Looking back, I realised that my mindset around money had been shaped from childhood. My mother used to give my brother and me her bank withdrawal slips when she got paid and it was our job to go withdraw the money and budget for groceries. We had to make sure it lasted. That experience taught me something I carried into adulthood: Money is never enough, save it, because it might run out.

I didn’t even realise how deeply that belief had taken root in my life. Even as I built my coaching business, I hesitated to charge my worth. I felt guilty asking for money. I had unknowingly tied my self-worth to how much I could give, not how much I could receive.

But when my job was gone, I had to snap out of it. I had no other option.

I reached out to my money mindset coach because I needed to do the work. And I quickly realised I had been focusing on the wrong thing. I had spent so much time worrying about what I didn’t have, fearing that my money would run out, that I wasn’t paying attention to what I could create. My energy had been tied up in lack instead of focusing on how I could use my skills, experience, and passion to create real value.

That shift changed everything.

When I stopped worrying about money and started focusing on serving in the best way I could, the flow started. Opportunities opened up. And for the first time, I stopped caring about what people thought of me. I didn’t have the luxury to doubt myself anymore, I had to make this work. And once I shifted into that mindset, everything became clearer.

To me, wealth isn’t just about money in the bank. It’s about peace. It’s knowing there is always enough. It’s financial freedom, not in the sense of having endless riches, but in the certainty that I will always have what I need. True wealth is not stressing over whether money will run out, because I know that when I give value I will always receive in return.

Losing my job forced me to step up and in the process, I learned the most valuable lesson of all: The moment I stopped waiting for security and started creating value, I became unshakable.”