A resource for the whole year
The circle
glossary.
Every word on this page names a different thing. Confusing them is the fastest way for the method to dissolve, and it always happens in the first months.
You do not have to learn it. It is for coming back to when you are unsure, and so that two women in the same circle do not use two names for the same thing.
Each entry says, where it applies, what it gets confused with. That is where almost all the value of the list is.
The most common confusion, and the costliest
The 5% is the concept · My three axes is the sheet · What weighs on us is the block.
The correct sentence is: «in What weighs on us each woman shares her three axes, looking for the 5%». If somebody says «let's do the 5%» or «the What weighs on us sheet», they are mixing levels and the group loses its bearings.
The eight roles of the year
They are shared out at the start of the circle year and last the whole year: they do not rotate monthly. Nobody repeats the same one two years running, and from the first year you carry one. They exist so the guide can listen instead of administering.
Who does what
The guide
Runs the session. Holds the space without occupying it: she looks after the timing, the turns and the agreement. She is not the expert and not the one who knows most, she gives no view on anyone's decision and does not recommend professionals mid-session. There is one per circle.
The guide-elect
Supports the guide during the year and is training to run the circle next year. She also carries another role: this is not an observer's seat. That way the succession does not start in month eleven.
The keeper of time
Gives a five-minute and a one-minute warning for each block. She does not negotiate the time: she announces it. If the group decides to run over, the group decides — not whoever is speaking.
The keeper of the agreement
Interrupts when somebody gives unasked-for advice, minimizes or rescues. One word is enough: «agreement». She does not judge, she names. And if the guide has to step out to accompany someone, she holds the group.
The note-keeper
Keeps the circle's record of themes: session by session she writes down the theme that comes up for each woman and whose it is, in a few words, and what stays open. Who presents a case comes out of that record. It is not minutes: no stories, no figures, no sentences. Other forums call this a parking lot.
The retreat planner
Organizes the yearly retreat: date, place, budget and program. It is worked on months in advance, not two months before.
The second retreat planner
Only when the circle is larger than six. With six there is one planner, and somebody carries two roles.
The treasurer
Operational and only for two things: the costs of the meetings and the retreat. She keeps the count and does not hold the money: she keeps nobody's money and there is no common pot.
And two that are not roles of the year
They change with every case
La acompañante
Accompanies the woman presenting. In the scheduled accompaniment she prepares the case with her, one hour and in private, before the session, and the woman presenting chooses her; in the live accompaniment she accompanies right there, in front of the circle, and everyone decides together. She rotates: she changes with every case, so sooner or later it is your turn. She does not solve, does not advise and does not tell her own. She gets confused with the guide and with the roles of the year; she is neither.
The woman presenting
The woman who brings the case that month. Also said as the woman who brings the case. In the block she is simply called «she».
The eight blocks of the session
They are the same and in the same order in every circle. The timings are adjusted with your guide, who can change the agenda if something else needs room.
In order
- 01Entry
Each woman names what she arrives with. One word, without explaining.
- 02Agreements and clarification round
The agreements are recalled and what stayed open from last month is reviewed. This is where you say what made you uncomfortable, not in the middle of what another woman is saying.
- 03The door
An opening question answered in one sentence, without developing it. It is there so everyone has spoken before speaking costs something.
- 04What weighs on us
Each woman shares her three axes, about seven minutes. The group does not respond. It is the longest block, and the first to be sacrificed when the circle starts late — which is exactly what not to do.
- 05What stays open
The note-keeper reads the record of themes: the ones that came up today and the ones still alive from other sessions. This is where the circle sees who presents a case next session: the theme is always her own, from her own 5%.
- 06The prepared case
One participant brings the situation she agreed to bring, prepared beforehand with her acompañante. One hour, in seven steps. It is prepared with the scheduled accompaniment.
- 07The open space
45 minutes. The first thing to check is whether anyone brings something urgent; if there is, that wins. If not, it is used to learn together.
- 08Exit
Each woman names what she leaves with. One word.
«The door» names two things and it is worth knowing: the third block of the session, and also the resource of 52 questions that the question for that block comes from.
The concepts of the method
What you need to understand
The 95% and the 5%
The 95% is the summary you give at a gathering. The 5% is what is underneath, and the whole method exists to get there. You recognize it because it has a date, a number and a feeling verb inside it. The test: if writing it down made you a little uncomfortable, you got there.
The four pillars
Vulnerability · confidentiality · circle mindset · personal responsibility. They are not values: they are the four things that break, and each one addresses a different failure mode.
Circle mindset
Being on the side of the woman speaking, not on the side of the solution. Three sentences sum it up: we are among women, nobody knows more than anyone else, each woman has the answers inside herself.
The difficulty underneath
What actually weighs on her, beneath the facts she told. That is what the circle can work with; the story is not.
The two layers
The story — what shows: what happened, who said what, how much it was — and the difficulty — what weighs: what she feels, what she fears, what she needs, which part she is holding in place. It is the same distinction as the 95% and the 5%, seen from the listener's side.
Relevant experience
It matches in the facts. You bring the what: what you did, what worked, what it cost you.
Resonant experience
It matches in the feeling, even if the situation has nothing to do with hers. You bring what it feels like — which is often what she has not been able to name. It is usually worth more than the relevant kind.
The four failures
Minimizing · rescuing · competing · advising. They are a mirror for looking at yourself before you open your mouth, not a tool for correcting the others. The one who interrupts is the keeper of the agreement.
The accompaniment
What la acompañante does with the woman presenting so she reaches the difficulty underneath. Other forums call this coaching; Money in Her Voice calls it accompaniment because here nobody knows more. There are two: the scheduled accompaniment, booked as a meeting before the session, and the live accompaniment, done in the session, in front of the circle, when something cannot wait.
The four skills
What the woman accompanying needs, in both accompaniments: quiet mind (not solving), reflecting back (giving her words back without interpreting), listening underneath (looking for the difficulty beneath the story) and focusing (reaching a single difficulty).
The introduction
The four things la acompañante writes at the end of the preparation and reads when the case opens, before the presenter tells it: the core in one sentence in the presenter's words, the difficulty she heard underneath, the feelings she heard, and the sentence that opens the group.
The sentence that opens the group
The fourth part of the introduction, and the piece that decides what the circle is going to talk about. Fixed format: «Think of a time when you felt [her strongest feeling] because [a general description, without her details]». It is not «the door»: that is the third block.
The silence
Five minutes between her telling and the first woman who speaks; three in the live accompaniment. The guide announces it and the keeper of time counts it. Without it, the woman who speaks first is not the one with the best experience: she is the one who thinks fastest.
Entry into and exit from the case
One word each at the opening of the case and another at its close. They share their names with the Entry and Exit of the session because they are the same thing — a one-word round — but these open and close only the case block.
What I take with me
The second-to-last step of the case. Each woman says, in one sentence, what she takes with her. It is not an action plan, and nobody asks the woman who presented what she is going to do.
The two conditions for a case
That it is emotionally complex and that it is not resolved. If it does not move you, it is a topic and goes to the open space. If it is already resolved, it is an experience and goes in What weighs on us.
There is no money between us
Inside the circle nobody does business, nobody lends money and nobody gives financial advice — that last one is the fourth failure with credentials on top. It applies between the six to nine women who make up the circle; the wider Money in Her Voice community is another matter.
Red line
The threshold at which you stop accompanying and activate help: intent to self-harm, severe disorientation, loss of consciousness or difficulty breathing. It is in when someone breaks down.
Holding the space without occupying it
What is asked of the guide, and one of the things the thermometer measures. Occupying it means talking too much, summarizing what another woman said, giving her view on a decision, or becoming the source of the answers.
The sheets and the tools
What gets filled in and what gets used
My three axes
The only sheet filled in before each session, by hand and alone. Three axes — money and work, money and partner or family, money and myself — and three columns: feelings, what caused it, why it matters to me. That is the tool; the block where it is shared is What weighs on us.
What I am going to share
On the back of My three axes. Everyone fills it in during the case, to choose which part of their own is useful to her before saying it. At the end of the session you tear it up or keep it with you.
The emotions wheel
48 words for naming precisely. Used alongside the three-axes sheet, not after it. «Bad» is not a feeling; «ashamed» is. Not to be confused with the money wheel.
The two sheets of the woman bringing the case
The sheet of the woman bringing the case — the facts and what hurts — and What I have to look at — what she has to see for herself. They are filled in before the meeting with la acompañante.
The two sheets of la acompañante
One for preparation, with all the questions of the woman accompanying, and one for the introduction, filled in at the end of the hour.
The note-keeper's sheet
The record of themes: the date, whose it is, the theme in a few words and whether it is still alive. It is kept from session to session, because who presents a case comes out of it.
The lifeline
The milestones of your life in order. It is not a money exercise: it is how a circle gets to know itself. Everyone tells hers, a few per session, during the first months. Also when a new woman joins.
The circle thermometer
Two minutes at the close, anonymous and from the phone. It measures how the circle is, not how you are: that is why it does not ask what you are leaving with. The guide creates it on its page.
The circle agreement
Read out loud on the first day and signed. It has fixed clauses — without them it is not a Money in Her Voice circle — and others each circle chooses.
The clearness committee
One woman brings a question she is stuck on and the circle may only ask her questions. No conclusion at the end. It fits in the open space. It is the opposite of the case: in the case nobody asks, and here there is only asking.
The three formats of the open space
When there is nothing urgent: topic discussion (when what each woman brings is her experience), idea storm (when one woman needs options) and invited expert (when what is missing is information).
The money wheel
A retreat tool. Eight questions about life with money, and out of that comes a wheel from which you choose one segment to raise first. The wheels are not compared and the numbers are not said out loud. It is not the emotions wheel.
The organizational words
What it is part of
The circle
A fixed group of six to nine women that meets every month with a guide. It is not financial advice, not group therapy, not a business network, not a course, and not a collective fund.
The circle year
Twelve gatherings: eleven monthly sessions of four to four and a half hours — except the first, which lasts two and a half — and one retreat.
The regular session
The full session with its eight blocks, the one that repeats month after month. It is named that way to distinguish it from the first one, which has its own agenda and no case block.
The retreat
Once a year. It is not a longer session and it is not a trip: it is where the group gets to know itself in a different way, and it is what separates a circle that lasts from one that fades out in month four.
The hub
The circles of a city, with a link to Money in Her Voice. A city can have more than one hub.
The ambition
To reach 50 million women so that no woman has to make her life's decisions in silence. It says how many we want to reach and what changes.
The purpose
That every woman in the community changes her world by talking with others about what she talks about with nobody. It says how it changes: not with an expert in front, but with other women alongside.
Words that come from outside
The circle format inherits from the forums among women of other organizations, and words come with them. Money in Her Voice translates them, and the ones it does not translate it names as borrowed — because a word nobody understands does the opposite of what a circle does.
Translated and borrowed
What we say here
- Accompaniment, not coaching.
- Guide, not moderator or facilitator.
- The case, not deep dive.
- What stays open, not parking lot.
- Entry and exit, not check-in or check-out.
- Member of the circle or participant.
- Clearness committee, from the Quaker term.
Borrowed, and why
- Forum — what other organizations call their version of the circle. Used only when talking about them.
- EO and YPO — two international entrepreneur networks, where the case format comes from. Named when citing its origin.
- La acompañante — kept in Spanish because English has no word for it that does not bring back the idea of a coach.
- Genogram and motivational interviewing — technical names that only appear when citing the source.
Where it comes from
This glossary has no external source: it is Money in Her Voice's vocabulary, collected from the participant booklet, the online training and these pages. The words inherited from forums among women are marked as such in the last section, with their provenance. When a word appears with two names in different materials, the booklet's wins, because it is the only printed piece.
Updated