Meagan Francis is a mom of five kids ages 11 - 22, author, writer, and co-host of The Mom Hour podcast. She regularly speaks and coaches women and moms on building sane and satisfying lives, embracing creativity, and reinventing their careers.
Meagan has been momming for her entire adulthood, having her first child in her early twenties. She has been writing, blogging, and reinventing herself online for 15 years. She has learned a lot of lessons along the way. Her energy is infectious and her perspectives are so refreshing.
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Many of you have shared that the biggest and most relentless challenges of this time are finding motivation and personal time in this current version of Groundhogs Day.
It is definitely challenging to motivate when you don’t know what’s coming, you feel you have very little control over your future, and you have no space to think through what you want your life to look like right now.
I know one of my biggest challenges during this time has been the constant closeness of my family. Don’t get me wrong, there has been some magic in this. But also, it’s a LOT. And it’s never-ending. I was pretty accustomed to (and appreciative of) my quiet days working solo from home. There is nothing solo about my days anymore.
Yes, I’m grateful to be working, but it’s overwhelming and exhausting to work full time with a child and a dog constantly by my side. I know many of you are doing this with more than one child by your side. I bow down….
During this time, we must create and fiercely protect small spaces of personal time. This will tremendously help us find motivation and stay motivated. I have been creating little pockets of personal time that break up my day and really help keep me moving forward with a decent attitude.
Listen in to hear exactly how you can find more motivation by creating pockets of personal time each day.
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Patrice Washington is a Shameless Mom to a 12-year-old daughter, an award-winning author, transformational speaker, hope-restoring coach, and media personality. And she is committed to redefining the term wealth for our generation.
Patrice got her start as your favorite personal finance expert, “America’s Money Maven”, having tremendous success with her “mindset approach” to personal finance. A licensed real estate professional by her sophomore year in college and a real estate and mortgage broker at 21 years old, Patrice took her boutique brokerage from the dining room of her 700-square foot condo to a 7-figure real estate empire by just 25. After losing her fortune in the Great Recession, she dedicated her life to not just rebuilding and reinventing her own life but helping the masses move from debt management to money mastery. 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.
Every week, millions of listeners have tuned in to her weekly segment, Redefining Wealth with Patrice Washington as part of a top-rated and nationally syndicated radio show. Patrice’s podcast, The Redefining Wealth Podcast with Patrice Washington, which takes a deeper dive into her radio segment content, launched in 2017 with overwhelming success. Her popular podcast was recently featured on Forbes.com as one of "15 Inspiring Podcasts for Professionals of Every Stripe".
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As we get deeper into pandemic life, there is more and more need to take a critical look at what’s working for you, what’s not working, and what beneficial changes could be made during this uncertain time.
Along these lines, there are a few things you may benefit from quitting.
Years ago, I did an episode called, “Be a Quitter.” I’m a long time fan of quitting things that don’t serve me. In fact, I can’t stand supposed inspirational quotes that suggest we should not be quitters. I think we should frequently assess what’s no longer working for us and quit those things quickly and without hesitation, in order to make space for the things that serve us, promote good physical and mental health, allow for appropriate boundaries with others, and keep us evolving in the directions we want to grow and thrive.
As you have settled into new routines over the past 6 weeks, it is likely that you’ve also settled into some routines that aren’t optimal. Listen in to this episode to assess where you’re at, what’s not working, and what you might consider quitting in order to maintain optimal mental health as you continue to move through this time.
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RB Fast is an activist, leader, envelope pusher, magic maker, and mother of a child who is creative, brave, and transgender.
I asked RB to come on this show because I wanted to have a parent of a transgender child share with us what parenting can look like when there are major shifts around a child’s identity - shifts that the rest of the world might not understand or might not accept.
When RB and I first started talking about doing this interview, she said she had to talk to her son about it. She wanted him to fully consent to this conversation - as well as set any boundaries he needed. RB also set boundaries around this conversation, as you’ll hear us talk about. This is such a beautiful and powerful example of sharing someone’s story in order to help others more clearly and deeply understand something, while also protecting someone’s boundaries.
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The life you are living right now is not normal. It is far from it.
Pretending this is normal is dangerous. We can’t afford to normalize this because we would risk losing our compassion, our fighting spirit, and the opportunity to innovate and create solutions that are desperately needed right now.
If we normalize this, we risk bypassing our grief and our suffering. We risk not learning critical lessons in order to know better and do better next time we are faced with a similar crisis.
Right now, we are not ok. While we may be counting our blessings and feeling lucky and grateful in many ways, we are not ok. We get to be both. Two conflicting emotions get to exist:
Not ok and lucky.
Sad and hopeful.
Tired and cheerful.
Scared and joyful.
Overwhelmed and grateful.
Isolated yet overly connected and enmeshed with every member of our household (am I right??)
We are not ok and we will not normalize this, but we do need to create a sense of normalcy in our everyday lives.
Listen in to learn 4 ways to create normalcy when life is anything but normal.
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Natalie Hixson is a Shameless Mom, wife, auntie and certified professional life coach who helps discouraged moms overcome destructive anger and burnout. After learning to thrive in motherhood and process anger in a healthy way, Natalie became convicted to help other moms avoid those dark years of motherhood by helping them to appreciate and process their anger, learn to identify their triggers, and ultimately control their reaction to those triggering situations. She enjoys her own motherhood journey by hanging with her husband Mike and their three daughters in beautiful Bozeman, Montana. She recharges with Jesus, coffee and adventures with her family like skiing in the winter, hiking and swimming in the summer and traveling year-round!
Natalie was extremely transparent and generous in sharing her experience with destructive anger in motherhood in this episode. So many of you have reached out to me asking to talk more about anger and I couldn’t be more grateful to Natalie for taking this DEEP dive into this topic with me.
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Sometimes we forget that we have power. So much power. That no one and no circumstances can take from us.
We forget that we have the power to make choices, the power to decide (and upgrade) our thoughts, the power to manage and adjust expectations, the power to pause before reacting, the power to find joy in the middle of deep sadness, the power to build something when everything around us is seemingly falling apart.
When we are in pain, it can be hard to find our power.
But what if your pain is a prerequisite for your power?
What if it is the pain that pushes you to reach in, lean in, own your power, and stand back up?
Your power is abundant. It is limitless. It is expansive and constantly evolving.
Right now you are likely in pain in one way or another, or perhaps in many ways. Know that from that pain you have the power to:
* Manage and upgrade your thoughts
* Determine your actions
* Demonstrate love, compassion and kindness
* Make choices that serve you and your family
* Set boundaries
* Choose to be purposeful and intentional
* Restore hope
* Connect with others in new ways
* Be creative in how you operate in new norms
* Adapt to circumstances that initially felt overwhelmingly uncomfortable
* Change you see the world
* Create new guidelines for how you want to live
* Grow into new ways of being that feel positive and purposeful
* Channel joy in the smallest moments of the day
* Nurture relationships in new ways
* Thrive under conditions that would normally seem oppressive
I want you to look at the verbs that kick off each of the above examples of power:
* Manage
* Determine
* Demonstrate
* Make
* Set
* Choose
* Restore
* Connect
* Be
* Adapt
* Change
* Create
* Grow
* Channel
* Nurture
* Thrive
These are all actions you are capable of, actions you have power over. What forms of power will you choose today? How will you harness your pain and turn it into something that allows you to KEEP GOING, to KEEP SHOWING UP, to KEEP SHINING?
Listen in for more guidance to tap into your innate power during hard times.
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Monica Packer is passionate about teaching practical transformation. As a podcaster, growth coach, and podcast educator, she guides women to find sustainable growth by adopting progress over perfection. Monica is a former middle school teacher, a forever Oprah and Harry Potter fangirl, a perpetual cookie dough maker, and a beginning swimmer. She's a mama of four living in the Bay Area, CA.
We recorded this interview before COVID-19 reared its ugly head. But there has never been a better time to learn how to better manage and even overcome perfectionism. We are all working so hard right now to keep the world spinning and Monica and I want to give you a ton of permission to just keep taking one imperfect step after another.
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