“Wealth is about more than money.” This week’s episode features my conversation with “America’s Money Maven,” Patrice Washington, about living intentionally, creating a better mindset about money, and making a life that matters.
How does your mindset about money affect your productivity?
Patrice Washington is an author, a speaker, a coach, and a media personality. She is also a wife, mom, and a busy woman like many of us. Patrice and I met earlier this summer at a podcasting conference where she was a presenter. I was impressed by her message and her energy and wanted her to share both with The Productive Woman community.
Professionally, Patrice has been known as “America’s Money Maven” for the past 9 years. She is a personal finance expert, not only by book knowledge but also through personal experience. She built a 7-figure business out of college and lost it all in the 2008 recession. She has always been passionate about financial education but coming through this trial herself motivated her to share her experience and help restore hope to those who have experienced financial ruin. As a podcaster, Patrice uses her platform to redefine wealth, focusing on well-being rather than money and possessions.
A typical day
Patrice orders her life based on the six pillars she teaches on her Redefining Wealth podcast. These are Fit, Faith, Space, Work, Money, & People. She is very intentional about using these 6 pillars to guide her day and makes sure they are reflected on her calendar.
Patrice starts off the day around 5 am with the Faith pillar of praying, meditating, and journaling.
Then she moves onto the Fit pillar around 6 am by working out. She recently started a bootcamp program with her husband that involves working out twice a day.
After that comes the People pillar. She sits down with her husband to have breakfast together and go over their day. Then she gets their daughter off to school.
Patrice’s workday begins around 9:30 am. At 12:30 pm her calendar gives her another Fit reminder to eat a healthy lunch that will support her workout. She goes back into work mode at 1:30 pm.
At the end of the workday, she goes back into People mode and makes sure she is present with her daughter.
In the evening, Patrice has another Fit block for her second workout, and then there’s another People block, which is dinner time with her family.
Twice a week, she gets reminders that she has a housekeeper coming. She realized she can’t do everything so she gave herself permission to delegate so she can be more intentional with her Faith, Fitness, People, and Work time. There was a time when she believed other people couldn’t do a job as well as she could. But once she was introduced to the 80/20 rule, she realized her insistence on doing most things herself was interfering with her business team’s ability to support her and was holding the team back from achieving the big results she (and they) wanted. She’s learned that the more she gets out of the way, the better her business does and the more productive she feels.
Biggest Productivity Challenges
Like many of us, one of Patrice’s biggest productivity challenges is saying no. She calls herself a recovering people-pleaser. In the past she found herself not being a cheerful giver of her time and resources, so she has become more intentional about saying no or taking the time to consider a request before giving an answer. She’s learned that it’s okay to remove herself from people, places, and commitments that no longer move her.
Being intentional with her time has significantly improved the quality of her relationship with her daughter. Seeing that, she’s come to understand the importance of saying yes more thoughtfully, allowing her to focus on those tasks that only she can do and not feel guilty about delegating the rest.
Tools Patrice recommends
Patrice uses her Google calendar because she loves the color blocking.
As for her to-do list, she sits down every Sunday to check What’s Important Now (WIN), and writes down the due dates for the important tasks in her work journal. She categorizes these tasks by category and breaks these tasks into smaller tasks and places those in the Google calendar.
Another tool she uses is mini-vision boards in her journal broken down by her six pillars along with her annual goals. She refers back to these pages once or twice a month to ensure that the to-do lists that she writes out for the week aligns with her yearly goals.
If someone asked “What is the most important thing to know about money?” what would you say?
Patrice says her advice would be
“Money and wealth-building are less about money than you think. It is more about your mindset towards money. You probably don’t have the challenges with money you think you have because you know all the basics. The problem is your mind may be so cluttered with other areas in your life where you are unfulfilled that you can’t take simple advice. If you did the work to unclutter physically, mentally, emotionally, you would have the clarity to make the decisions you want to make about your finances. But you are completely capable.”
What happens on a day when everything gets away from you?
Patrice says she feels like this at least once a week because . . . life happens. She has learned to give herself grace. She also makes it a point to start projects earlier than they are due to create a buffer for when life does happen.
When her “grace for the day runs out” (as she puts it), she’s okay with walking away from a task and finding another time to do it, even if she has to make up for it at 3 am.
She feels like it’s import to model this sort of self-care for her daughter so that as she grows into womanhood she’ll already be accustomed to showing herself grace on difficult days.
What’s on the horizon for Patrice?
Patrice is excited about bringing her podcast community to life. When she first started the podcast, her vision for the first year was to create great content. She’s heard back positive testimonials from her listeners and thought it would be encouraging and impactful to gather her listeners together so they can share the stories of struggling, working through it, and getting to the other side. So next year, she is looking forward to hosting her first conference and doing some live podcasts.
Last thoughts on making a life that matters
Patrice reminds us:
“In order to make a life that matters, first define what matters to you. Many of us allow society, family, and friends to dictate our days and lives; what job we take, where we live, what car we drive. If you took a moment each day to be still and be silent and think about whether everything you’re doing matters to you or is it to appease the request of someone else. Every time you ask yourself this question, you’ll find a place somewhere in your life where you are doing something not because it is in complete alignment with what makes you happy and gives you joy. In order to make a life that matters, you have to constantly check in with that. That is something I’m committed to and I hope you’ll join me!”
What do you think?
Do you have any questions or comments for Patrice or me? Please share them in the comments section below this post or in The Productive Woman Community Facebook group, or send me an email.
Connect with Patrice
More about Patrice
Patrice Washington is an award-winning author, transformational speaker, hope-restoring coach, and media personality.
Patrice got her start as your favorite personal finance expert, “America’s Money Maven”, having tremendous success with her “mindset approach” to personal finance. She has since expanded her brand and mission, encouraging women to chase purpose, not money.
Patrice is committed to redefining the term “wealth”, using its original meaning, “well-being”. She encourages women to have “wealth” in all aspects of their lives by pursuing their purpose, being fulfilled, and earning more without ever chasing money. Through her teachings, Patrice empowers women to look at life through the lens of abundance and opportunity, instead of lack and scarcity.
As the founder of Redefining Wealth and The Earn More Money Movement for Women, Patrice has built a thriving community of high-achieving women committed to creating a powerful life vision–in their careers, home, health, and personal finances.
Resources and Links
- Real Money Answers Series
- The Redefining Wealth podcast
- The 80/20 Rule Explained
- How To Create A Vision Board To Help You Get Exactly What You Want In 2018
- How Patrice Washington Became America’s Money Maven (a podcast episode)
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