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Cash & Sass
Are you ready to ditch the hush-hush attitude towards money? If you're craving real talk about your finances, you're in the right place! Join me as we kick the money taboo to the curb and dive headfirst into the candid cash-versations you have been dreaming of. I'm Lisa Marie, and this is the Cash and Sass podcast. As a Fractional CFO and Wealth mentor, I am known as the Sassy Wealth Queen and the brains behind the Sassy Wealth Coach. I'm here to take you on a thrilling ride from financial chaos to sassy and sexy money. I've gathered a squad of amazing guests to fearlessly explore everything under the sun about money, money mindset, and money management. No topic is off-limits!! Consider this podcast your judgment-free zone for all things money. I'm not just your host; I'm a fellow warrior who turned my business from food stamps to six figures. Now, I'm on a mission to share the secrets of sassy and sexy money with as many incredible women as possible. Get ready for an empowering journey where you can finally build a fantastic relationship with your money. If you're eager to break free from the money taboo, and ready for candid cash-versations then buckle up, because the Cash and Sass podcast is here to revolutionize your relationship with money. Let the sassiness and sexiness of your money begin!
Cash & Sass
Is Your Productivity Sabotaging Your Financial Success?
In this episode of the "Cash and Sass" podcast, host Lisa Marie Robinson, the "sassy wealth queen," explores the link between productivity and financial success with guest Mark Struczewski, a Houston-based productivity coach known as "Mr. Productivity." They discuss the importance of focusing on tasks that align with one's goals rather than just staying busy. Key takeaways include the significance of calendar management, self-care, setting boundaries, and strategic social media engagement. Mark offers a free 20-minute call to help listeners improve their productivity and financial outcomes, emphasizing intentional time management and goal-setting.
- The relationship between productivity and financial success.
- The importance of focusing on the right tasks to achieve financial goals.
- Identifying personal motivations and setting clear goals.
- Strategies for overcoming distractions and enhancing clarity in work.
- The significance of self-care in maintaining productivity.
- The need for effective calendar management and time blocking.
- Addressing feelings of overwhelm and burnout in productivity.
- The value of open conversations about money and financial education.
- Encouraging small, consistent actions for improving productivity and financial management.
- Offering resources and support for individuals seeking to enhance their productivity.
Today, we’re joined by Mark Struczewski (STRU-CHESS-KEY), known as Mister Productivity, a Houston-based productivity coach and host of The Mister Productivity™ Podcast. With over 1,290 episodes of experience, Mark draws inspiration from his daily running routine and commitment to continuous learning to offer leaders practical strategies for conquering overwhelm, overcoming distractions, and achieving clarity in both professional and personal realms.
https://misterproductivity.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/markstruczewski/
https://www.youtube.com/@MisterProductivity
https://x.com/MarkStruczewski
https://www.instagram.com/misterproductivity/
https://www.tiktok.com/@misterproductivity
Get Mark’s Free, 30-minute Efficiency Breakthrough Session. https://misterproductivity.com/
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The Sassy Wealth Coach™
https://www.thesassywealthcoach.com
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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheSassywealthcoach
You're listening to Cash and Sass. I'm Lisa Marie, your go to gal for all things money. As the sassy wealth queen and the brains behind the sassy wealth coach, I'm here to take you on a thrilling ride. From the financial chaos to sassy and sexy money. Hey my sassy friend, welcome to another episode of Cash and Sass podcast. My name is Lisa Marie and I am the sassy wealth queen, the brains behind the Sassy Wealth coach, and this podcast, of course. And today with me, I am joined by with Mark Struczewski. Did I do that right? Yes. Okay, good. He's known as Mr. Productivity. Productivity, a Houston based productivity coach and the host of the Mr.. Productivity productivity I Cannot Talk Today podcast. With over 190 episodes of experience, Mark draws inspiration from his daily running routine and commitment to continuous learning to offer leaders practical strategies for conquering overwhelm, overcoming distractions, and achieving clarity in both professional and personal realms. Welcome, Mark. Thank you for joining me today. And I'm going to say, I know that I, um, had an idea of what we were going to talk about before we went live, and I've now changed my mind. Welcome. That's okay. You're in my podcast with a woman. I will start reading. As soon as I started reading your bio, I was like, nope, I know what I want us to talk about today. Um, and honestly, that's going to be how, uh, and, you know, everyone knows my podcast is Cash and Sass we candid conversations about money, but I think productivity and money go hand in hand. And I have yet to have an episode of how it affects money. So you're going to be it. All right, let's roll. And because I'm productive, I'm productive to a To a certain degree. Um, what I realize is it's more on being laser focused because, like, as a mom, I have two kids. I'm an entrepreneur, but I have a hard stop at a certain point in time during the day, if I have to go pick up my kid from, you know, if I get to go pick up my kid from school. And then being able to then come back and say, okay, I was gone for an hour and a half, now I need to get back into that mode for another hour and a half to two hours, when you know what I mean. When you had that break right before I stopped for the day, and then start doing the mom with the homework and all those things. So I from your experience, how does being productive or not being productive affect, uh, being able to bring in money or how does it affect them with even with that mindset of the money? Well, I appreciate you saying that you are productive to a point, because one of the things that annoys me is when people say I'm always productive. No, if you're a human being, you have days when you're not doing crap, okay? I don't care what your name is. I don't care where you live. We all have those days. I'm Mr. Productivity, and even I have those days where I just don't feel like going. Now, in relates to your question, because I'm not a politician, I will ask actually answer the question when you are trying to make money. You got to be working on the right things, not just working. I like to say you can be busy being productive, but just because you're busy doesn't mean you're productive. Think of the hamster on the wheel. I mean, he or she is like trucking along in that wheel, but is it really doing anything unless maybe it's doing a weight loss program? We don't know. But you have to identify. First of all, what is your why. And I know we're probably going to talk about that. So I teach a three step process. What is your why. Then you create goals That feed your why. And then when you go plan, you look at your goals and say, okay, what should I be doing? What activities should I be doing to achieve my goals? Most people come to me and they start the backwards. They start. I want to be a better planner and I'm like, no, we have to start with the why and the goals because what are you putting in the calendar? And so if you want to build, if you want to write a book, well, you probably should spend a lot of time writing your book, not surfing on TikTok or Instagram. You should be spending writing your book so everybody knows if they're doing something that's moving them toward their goals. I mean, you don't have to have read a book or listen to a podcast. You know, in your heart if you're wasting time or if you're being productive. I don't need to explain that to people, you know? Yeah, four hours on TikTok probably isn't going to get me to my financial goals. So I think imagine that. So I think people need to imagine. Yes. So people need to figure out. Okay, I got my goal. Great. Good for you. A lot of people don't have a goal. Even fewer people have a. Why? But they don't put anything in their calendar. And like, I'm not making more money. I'm not making any. I'm not. I don't have any new clients this month. What's going on? And I'm like, okay, where are you spending your time? And people will look at me like, what are you talking about? Well, are you spending your time on activities? And I believe 80% of your day should be spent on those needle moving activities that are moving towards your goals. And if you're not, there's a problem. And I always tell people, real simple thing to do. Do a time audit. Where are you spending your time? Really not the story you tell yourself, but where are you really spending your time? Are you four hours on TikTok followed by three hours on YouTube? I mean, if you actually start writing this down, you're going to be horrified. Yeah, I mean, I can honestly say I do not spend three hours on TikTok or YouTube. I can honestly say that without a doubt, because I just don't have the the capacity. Um, do I find myself at times on TikTok? Um, you know, in the evening, like right before I'm going to bed or whatever scrolling. Yes. For like and I could easily spend 30 minutes to an hour. I mean, it's easy to get lost in that, but I think what I want to know is when you have clients and you have client calls with people, how do you relate to okay, making sure. And I think it's important for people to realize you can be productive. And a lot of times we get wrapped up in what we call busy work. So like we'll make a to do list and we will be we'll check it off. And and the And the reason why is because when we worked corporate, if we got all those things done on that checklist, then we were productive for the day. And in some ways, our brain has to be retrained because I've even noticed it with me. I'll make my list, and if I get majority of those things checked off, then I was productive that day. However, it wasn't productive in moving my business forward. And I think that that's a, a a distinguished a something we have to distinguish, differentiate with you know what I mean to be able to tell the difference. So like I'm going to grow my business. And I had a call with my coach. And so one of the things he's wanting me to concentrate on is he says, I want you to spend an hour a day doing connections, making connections with people. So that's a productive thing to move my business forward. It wouldn't be 80%. And because I also have current clients, however, being able to designate a certain amount of time and he even said set a timer, make sure you are spending that one hour a day doing that. And I think that that's the key is because when we do that, we're especially if we do it at the beginning of the day, we're able to say we did something to move the business forward. Now we can concentrate on the clients, right? The current ones you have. And then later, if you have time, you're able to go and do more. Right. Like, do you see what I'm saying? Because I find if I wait till the end of the day, it's not happening because I'm too damn tired. It's that's the reason why I do my workouts first thing in the morning is because if I say I'm going to. If I don't, my trainer will tell you I've been with her for seven years. If I do not do it at the beginning of the day, eight out of ten times, it is not going to happen. Now I've gotten better. I end up doing it. Sometimes, however, things happen. Especially when we're we're parents. If, you know, we're I don't know, all of a sudden there's a fire with a client, right? Something happens. And by the next thing you know, it's 830 and you're just eating dinner. The last thing you're going to go do is get on a treadmill or go do work, you know, work out. Um, I don't know about anybody else, but I'm ready to go to bed. Well, that's why I get up between 430 and 5:00 in the morning. The world's still sleeping. So I get up and do my daily run, and I do all this stuff. Now, this works for me. I have no kids. My kids are grown and gone, and it's just my wife and myself and my two dogs.
So my wife doesn't get up at 5:00. I get up at 5:00. And so I do my morning routine, my exercising, my cold shower. I go through and really quickly go through my email. So then when I start working, I'm starting from a clean slate. But I want to tell people this works for me in my current familial situation. I don't want people to say, well, I got eight kids. I'm not saying that you should do what I do, but for me, I take that first couple of hours a day to do work on myself. That way I'm not doing have to worry about doing it later. And for me, I can't exercise. I go to bed around nine. I can't exercise up at 3:00 in the afternoon or I won't sleep well at night. So for me, this is for Mr. Productivity specifically. I frontload all that stuff and I sleep really well at night. Now you can make it work. Regardless of how many people in your house and what responsibilities you have. You may have to get creative with it. One of the. I had a client once who told me that they they are they're not getting a lot of stuff done. And I asked them I said, well, you have little kids, right? They go, well, yeah. I said, well, what time you kids go to bed? Oh about seven. What time do you go to bed? Midnight. Like midnight. What are you doing from seven to midnight? Oh, just watching the ball games. You got five hours, dude. Thank you, thank you. So you got five hours. So don't tell me that you can't get things done. And you're watching every sports event from seven to midnight. Yeah. So. And I think that's the key is, is and I love the fact that you said this is what works for you because so many people will say, oh, start getting up at 430 5:00. Okay. That's great that it works for you. But and some people say that's what you need to start doing. But and I love the fact that you said this is what works for me. Excuse me. The key is, is for my listeners to find what works for them. And when you find what works for you and it goes back to that focus, what are you focusing on during the time you have? And you know, Mark is right. And and my coach told me the same thing. If you have an hour, okay. And that's all you have. What are you doing? Are you on TikTok or are you on YouTube or are you doing something like my coach said, for one hour, I want you to set a timer and I want you to do this, okay? That's going to be something I'm going to do, right? So if I can designate that at least one hour a day, then I'm going to know over a course of time, right? So in a month that's 30 hours. Over time that's going to compound and it's going to help move the business forward. When it's when we say, oh, we're productive, why isn't our business going anywhere? Because we're not actually focusing on what will actually move our business forward. We've got time that's being lapsed. And I'm going to be the first to tell you. Look, there are times where I'm just so blasted tired, I know I even catch myself. I'm like, I didn't get nothing done today. I don't feel productive. And I'll look and I'll go. This is not moving. Well, Lisa, what did you do? And I'll go back and like you're saying, I'm productive to a point. There are some times when I think I'm being productive and I'm not. um. And, you know, and sometimes our mindset will get involved in that, right? Sometimes, you know, I think it's important when you're struggling with money or, um, you're in that scarcity mindset, uh, of growing your business that can stop you from focusing on focusing on those productivity times to build the business. What advice would you give someone if that's actually the struggle? Because I think that that's a one. It's a mindset shift, I know that. But what advice would you give them so that they're able to switch it and then focus on that money making task? If this is, uh. Goes along the line, a lot of people ask me about getting into podcasting. I've been doing it for over seven and a half years, over 1300 episodes. And they'll say, hey, Mark, I want to start a podcast. Any advice? I'm like, don't do it for the money. Because you're not Joe Rogan. The Spotify is not going to give you $100 million Spotify contract. You have to think about why are you doing this thing? Why are you going to write a book? Why are you going to start a podcast? Why are you going to start a YouTube channel? Because if you're not excited about it, forget about the money for a moment. If you're not excited about it, if you're like, oh, gotta start a podcast because everyone's got a podcast, or I gotta write a book because everyone has a book. Do you think that you're going to have passion with that project? Because people can tell where you're not passionate about it, like, why am I going to buy your book or listen to your podcast or watch a YouTube channel? And so I think a really big key to making money, it's not guaranteed. I want to make sure that's bolded and highlighted and circled and like all kinds of fireworks around it. Yeah. Neon signs. There's no guarantee. Just like I used to be a night owl. And I read a book by Robin Sharma called the 5 a.m. club and I'm like, I'm gonna try this thing out. What I learned about being the 5 a.m. club for four years. It's not getting up at 5:00 in the morning. It's what you do. So it doesn't matter if you get
up at 5:00, 6:00, 8:00, 10:00. What do you do after you wake up? Do you grab your phone and scroll on social media for two hours? So everybody thinks the 5 a.m. club is magic?
Oh, if you get up at 5:00 and all you're doing is watching TikTok for two hours, you might as well sleep in for two hours because you're wasting time. So I think people need to figure out what lights them up because it's very hard to make money. In my opinion, legally make money if you don't want to do the thing. Yeah, you can go get a corporate job and be a robot. But if you want to be on your own, an entrepreneur, a solopreneur, whatever. You gotta have that fire in the belly. You gotta really love it. Because then people are going to feel that by watching your work, listening to your work, reading your work. So if you don't want to do it, why should anybody pay you a dime for it? Right? Absolutely. Absolutely I totally agree. So we're going to shift a little bit. And I'm so glad that we talked about that because I, I just think it's really important for people to realize that, you know, being productive has everything to do with with your money, because if you're not focusing on tasks to make money, then you're not going to make money. You have to be able you have to make sure that you're not wasting time, and you're focusing time on the tasks that are going to make you money. You know, I call it working on the business, not in the business. And I know that as you grow, it can be really difficult, especially if you are having coaching clients and you're doing the coaching calls, you know. I, I that's one of the things I, I told my, my coach is that okay. I have all these coaching calls I need somehow I need to reorganize my calendar to because I was feeling like I didn't have any time to focus on the business, to do the things that I needed to be able to see what was going on with my business and to be able to grow it. And when you sit down and you analyze it, you actually will be surprised on what you can do. I was able to shift my calendar. I was able to shift things. I was able to say, okay, going forward in 2025, I'm not going to have calls on Thursdays. They're only going to be on Monday and Tuesdays, with one exception. And this one client and I'm I'm she's been with me for years and I'm letting her stay every other Thursday. So that now means I have room for connection calls and working on the business. I can block them, right? I also have my podcast recordings now only on Fridays starting in 2025. It's only going to be one Friday a month actually, after January 1st, Friday a month, and it's going to be a max of two recordings because I'm doing so well with those recordings and what that does, if it's one Friday a month, or even if I do two Fridays month, but I'm doing one right now. That's what I'm trying it out as if I do one. Now I have three other Fridays freed up to where I can work on the business. I can focus time, right? Some, you know, extra hours growing the business, doing some of those things along with that hour a day that we want to make sure I do, because you don't want to wait until that one day because I've tried that and it doesn't happen. And and so it you're the whole point though is if you look at your calendar, you'll be surprised. Really analyze it and look at the gaps. You'd be surprised to where you can, um, you can change things. And one of the things I did to help me be able to see where there was actually truly gaps is literally everything goes in the calendar. So if I need to leave by a certain time to go pick up my child, I put leave to go pick up child. Then I have it blocked. Picking up child so that I can see where there's no blocks and I don't ever schedule something, but my eye can actually see, oh, I'm not wasting time. I am actually doing something here. Oh wait, I do have a time block here. What could I be doing here that'll help my business move forward? Or is that a self-care time? Because I really think it's important to have self-care. That's not being lazy. That's not wasting time. Self-care is. 150% important in order to grow your business, in order to, um, take care of everybody. Um, so I, you know, I have it on my calendar there that, you know, there's there's journaling. It's on my calendar. There's, uh, listening to meditation music. It's on my calendar. I have it on there to remind me to do it, and it's blocked, so I see. Okay, that's what that time is set for. Can I can I interject here for a couple things. So I release one new episode every Monday, and I do a maximum of two interviews a week for my podcast. Now you can book any of the five days Monday, Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday, Friday. As soon as I hit two. I block out that week. Okay. I also determine, and this is something I learned several years ago, how many clients I will take total, how many client calls I'll do a day and how many clients, how calls I'll do a week. So I will never do back to back calls, back to back interviews. I only allow one interview a day. So when I'm done with this, it'll be lunchtime for my wife and me. So I do not go back to back to back. I do break back. I do mean I do something that takes some brain energy. Podcast, interview, coaching, call, whatever. Then I take a break. Now break could be 15 minutes. It could be 45 minutes. Where I go outside, put the bare feet on the ground, sit in the sun and read a book. Personal development. Okay, so I've talked to so many people who work wall to wall, and they do coaching clients from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and I'm like, I would never want to be your last client. They're like, why not? There's no way you're as fresh as 7 p.m. as you are at 7 a.m.. I would always, if I you were my coach, I would always book early. And I did have a coach that actually did that. They went from 8 to 4. I always booked first thing in the morning when they're fresh. Why would I want someone to be on the phone all day or behind a zoom call? So I think there's something to be said. I want to make sure the listener doesn't miss that of having limits. How many calls are you going to do today? I, I spend at least two hours a day, seven days a week on LinkedIn. Now I could be DMing, commenting, whatever two hours a day. People go two hours a day. It's really not that long if you want to do it. If you're like, if I do this, I may get this financial reward. It's not that hard to do. I mean, really, and you don't have to do it one chunk. You do 30 minutes four times or two one hour chunks. But don't make excuses. I hate when people make excuses like, I can't do it. Then you better not have a Netflix or Hulu or Amazon Prime Video. You better not tell me you have time for that. But you don't have time to build your business. Yeah. And and, you know, and you don't have to do two hours a day. I don't do two hours a day. I do 30 minutes on LinkedIn, 30 minutes on Facebook at least, and I have it as a minimum of 30 minutes each. What I have found is I end up doing 45 to 10 minutes to an hour on each one. And that's messaging, that's doing the connections. And so that's one of the things that, you know, we're making sure that I focus on is we want to do an at least an hour. And so if we're spending an hour on each one or if I'm doing 45 minutes on each one, then I'm getting over my hour. Right. And and when we say that we're talking about being laser focused and not just sending messages and sending messages, you're being strategic on who you're talking to that could possibly grow your business. That's the key. And you know, you don't you don't have to do two hours. My coach would even said if you if you only do an hour, do 30 minutes in the morning, 30 minutes in the evening, 30 minutes on Facebook, 30 minutes on LinkedIn. Get your hour in. And you know it's the same way with self-care. You don't have to do two hours. You don't have to do, uh, you know, an hour. Uh, sometimes my self-care walking outside is ten minutes. I take ten minutes. I put my feet in the grass, and then I turn around. I come back inside. I, however, do calls back to back because I prefer to have them, uh, in a short time frame. So I only the max I'll do in a day is three. I'll have those three back to back. It's lunchtime, I have lunch, then I go and pick up my daughter from school. Um, and then I have, you know, the chunk from after that where I can work on stuff. Now it depends. Again, I have a different situation. I have a kid that is still in school. Right? He doesn't. You could have five kids still in school And in no way, shape or form am I going to even say figure it out. What I'm going to say is, is if you're truly, truly passionate about it, when those kids are in school, if you only are doing your business, you could chunk some time to where you do it. Like him. I only have two calls a day and then you block out time to work on those stuff. There's a way to do your schedule that'll work for you. When I first started my business, I did. I had those calls for all the wall. Man, I was so damn tired. It wasn't funny. I didn't want to do nothing afterwards. I didn't want to work on the business. I didn't want to do nothing. When I started my podcast back in February, I had podcasts on Tuesdays and Fridays, and I had four every Friday. Wow. No I know. Dawn stopped because there were times I was just. It was. It's too much. doing. Figuring out having to, you know, and and and I was able to break it up down to two, 2 to 3 on a Friday. And that's when I said, okay, I have enough built up and I've got a good stream going and I've got awesome guests coming on. I can do one Friday a month and I'm good and I can make it max of two and that's it. So I don't do any more late in the evening like I did before, you know. Now, if there's one that I really want and they can't do it any other time, yes, I'll work with them. But there's still that boundary and that limitation of I'm making sure my calendar is working for me so that I can be productive on growing my business. Now here's the key. I recently realized that I'd gotten out of having a productive calendar when I realized I was doing, you know, and I thought I had a productive calendar. And then all of a sudden I realized all these podcasts, all these connection calls I was doing, they were all scattered everywhere. And there was there. It was just a mess. Like, where do you fit anything in for self-care or actually to work on the business, right? And I went in and that's where I reanalyzed it. I had my coach looked at it with me and we reanalyzed it, and I that's when I said, okay, no more on this every Friday, no more on this. We're we're going to tweak it and we're going to see how it works. And that's the key is to be able to tweak it, not be married to it, and understand that you may have to adjust it. So like, for example, next year my daughter's going to high school when she starts high school, instead of her having to be dropped off at leave here at 730, she will have to be at school until Do you see the difference? My time and my calendar is going to change. I will be flipping. I will probably do my workouts earlier instead of at 830 because at eight, at 815, I'm leaving to take her to school because she has to be at school at 845, so that you have to be willing to say, okay, how can I work it now to make it to where my calendar works for me in whatever situation um, you have going on? When you started your business. You know, one of the things we talked about is you weren't ever. Your parents never talked to you about money, right? And, you know, how do you have those conversations with your clients when it comes to the productivity and, uh, how it affects their money or if there's a money mindset issue? And honestly, what I and what I also want to dig into, um, just a little bit is how are you able to, um, adjust your mindset because you know, that you said that that's one of the things that you realize is like, uh, making a lot of money, which is very relative. Um, being wealthy is not selfish, but it's very beneficial. Because you can do more good. Well, I've never had a client come to me and want to talk about money, ever. They come to me and they are so overwhelmed. Their to do list is endless. They are. Calendar is an utter chaos. They have. They don't know how to say no. And so even though it's affecting them financially, they don't see that part. All they know is I'm burning the candle at both ends. I am exhausted. Something's got to give. And so at the end, they're probably making more money because now they have clarity. But when they come to me, they're just like, I don't know, like someone ran a marathon and they just stepped in on the zoom call with me and they're like, help! And I'm like, okay, what? So we had to go back to the very beginning. Find out what's going on. And so, in answer to your first question. I've never had a direct question about money because people aren't even thinking about it. They're just trying to stay. I don't want to say alive in terms of like, actually dying, but they're. They're they're wanting to. They're wanting to they're wanting to get out of burnout and and really and and they're wanting to thrive. They're wanting to thrive in their business and not be burnt out because then otherwise, what's the point? Which affects your money and being able to make it and have your money mindset and being able to truly thrive. Because now, once you get productive, your calendar is aligned with your values and your goals and you, instead of it being pure chaos. And I think that's really, really important. Oh yeah. And I don't think people think about it on the front end. But if they stop and think about it, how the stress and overwhelm is affecting their ability to make money. If I explained it to them, they'd go, oh yeah, I wasn't thinking about that, but that's not why they come to me. Now, your first question. I'm an only child. My my parents are both deceased. My mom passed away from Alzheimer's in 2022. My dad died suddenly in 2023. But all while growing up, it was never. I didn't know how we were doing financially. The lights were always on. The mortgage is always paid. You know, I got to go to McDonald's once a month. That was a big treat, but my parents never explained to me anything about money. And I remember after my mom passed away, I, I live in Houston. My my parents used to live south of Orlando. I fly over there. And of course, my mom used to always take care of the finances. Well, now my dad had to do it and I tried to convince my mom to do auto pay. She was old fashioned. Just mail check in. Finally got my dad on auto pay, but he still wouldn't talk to me about money. It wasn't until after he passed away that my wife and I had to fly over there and go through all his things. Find all his accounts and, you know, become the executor. Stuff like that. I realized what his financial situation was. And I remember a couple of years ago, we both worked at the steel factory up in Rochester, New York, and we had the opportunity to get a one time payout. Now I took it because what's going to happen, you know, 20 years down the road. And I my dad got he worked there for like 35 years. He got a big, you know, big, uh, payout. And he kept going back and forth. So I take the payout and then I and I did I ran the numbers down. I said, how much money do you expense for a month? And and I'm like, okay, you're going to get this big chunk of money. And I said, if you just maintain your standard of living or if you just increase 10%, you have enough money to last you 20 years, which puts you at about 102. But he was so he liked having that check coming every month, even though I could tell him on paper he'd be fine. He. Even though the money would sit in the savings account, he wanted that money every month and I I because my parents I couldn't make them understand that you're going to be okay because my parents never talked about money. I think they talked about money when they went to their like, tax guy, but never talked about it. I was my mom. I was, uh, 52 when she passed away. I was 58 when my dad passed away or something like that. I'm not good at math and that I could never get them to see that there's it's okay to talk about money, but they came from generation. We don't talk about money. And I have gotten over that because, you know, I would explain I wouldn't tell my daughters when they were young, oh, I make this amount of money every day. I would just say, you know, we're okay. And as they got older, I would explain, because sometimes the answer to what they want is no, not because you can't afford it, but because it's not appropriate or, you know, you know better than your kids do, obviously. So. I'm not sure if all that dissertation I just gave you answered your questions, but I, I hope I did. Well, it does because it, it just it shows the importance of talking about money. Right. And and that when we talk about money, we're able to, um, help our children and future generations understand it. And when our all of our generations, you know, none of the generations before me, we talked about money, whether we had it or didn't have it, it wasn't talked about. Um, and I really think it comes back to, um, the importance of talking about it and the importance of talking about, you know, how all the things affected that includes, by the way, my sassy friends who are listening, your calendar and your productivity and how you how you are using the time that you have, um, you know, even if you look at it and go, Holy crap. Okay, I'm going to. From now on, that 30 minutes and this is what I'm going to do for 30 minutes. That's if that's better than what you've been doing before. That's. That's great. I am all about starting where you're at and moving forward from there. I am all about that. I'm about that when it comes to money. I'm about that when it comes to mindset and health, wealth, all of it. Uh, because if you tried to start way over here and you're right here nine, ten times, you're going to get overwhelmed and you're going to quit. And that's not the goal. I just think it's really important. And I'm so glad we discussed it, is how that non productivity or being productive affects your ability to, um, uh, make the money and have time that aligns with your values and your goals and how easy it is to get out of alignment in our calendar. I didn't realize I was out of alignment. I was just going, going, going. And all of a sudden I was like, Holy crap, my calendar looks like a and and I just sat down and I. Okay, what do we do to make sure this is not how it starts look anymore? Because when it looks that way, you're not able to take the time to focus on the things that you love doing, which is growing your business. Um, and, and you've got to be able to connect with people, right, in order to grow your business, especially if you're online and. It's okay not to do anything as well. You don't have to be doing self-care. Yeah, listen. Block it. Put it in there so that your eyes see that it's not an empty space. Self-care. And you can put on there what you're doing. I mean, I'm all about that. And I think that for women, that for everybody, that's just really important because it, uh, brings you back to being grounded. It also when you have the self-care, you end up being able to be more focused later. And I think that's just Totally important. And again, it affects you making money, which affects money, period. Um, you have a free gift for our listeners. Can you please tell them what that is? Well, the gift is a free 20 minute call, and I've got to put a little asterisk next to it. If you're not serious about taking your productivity to the next level, if you just want to like, oh, it's a free call, I'm going to take advantage of it. Please don't go to this website because I'm looking for people who are serious. Okay. Serious? In other words, you rate yourself at the old school grade, maybe a C minus, and you want to get to a C plus or a B minus and you're really serious about it. Then you can go to my website. Mr.. Productivity. Com Mr.. All spelled out. Mr.. I paid a fortune to get that trademark. So Mr.. Productivity. Com you'll see it right there at the top of the page to sign up for Recall if you're serious because I want to help people get out from being overwhelmed, from being stressed because you get one shot at this thing called life. And I don't want you going through life unhappy and stressed, because when you have that, you have mental and physical issues. We don't want that. We want you to be happy. So if you're interested in going to get a call, that's a gift for me to you, just go to Mr. productivity.com. Sign up for a call. It's totally free. You don't even have to join my email list. You could just sign up for the call. So I it's just my gift for you. But only if you're serious. And now I will tell you this because I. I can be a real S.O.B. if we get on the call. And I can sense that you're just wasting my time and essentially wasting your time, too. I'll end the call early because I'm looking. And I'm sure you're the same way. You don't want to be messing around with people or just like, I just want a free call. Are you serious about going to the next level. Are you serious and improving? My heart goes out to you and help you all I can, but if you're just, you know, are. It's a free call. Just book a free call. I'm not gonna do anything with it. I I'd rather you didn't. So I've never thank goodness I've never had anybody book a call who wasn't serious. So just go to Mister Productivity com. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, look, here's the deal. If you're happy with what your calendar is, you're happy with, you know where you're at. Great. No. No qualms. If, however, you're like, you know what? I'm in overwhelm. I'm looking at my calendar, trying to figure out how to make this better. That's when you. And if you can't figure it out on your own, that's when you want to book a call and take advantage of that free call, because he's going to give you a breakthrough session, and he's going to be able to help you look and be able to see where you can change things up so that you can be more productive so that you can grow your business. Now, when you go to the website, it's my target market is HR professionals, HR directors, HR managers, whatnot. You can still take advantage of the call. So don't go there and go, oh, I'm not an HR. That's because we have this thing called Google and Search Engine. So I gotta optimize it for somebody. But if you're coming from this podcast, you can just scroll to the bottom of the page and still book the call. It's okay. I just want to make sure because some people will see I'm not one of those people. It's just for SEO reasons. That's why it's. Laid out that way. And you can let him know that you're coming from the podcast so that he knows. Um, yes, absolutely. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mark, for being on my show. I truly appreciate it. And my sassy friend, if you get anything from this, I wanted you to realize that the everyday things, your productivity, the stuff you're doing every day that's going to affect your money too. What are you doing to make changes? What are you doing to grow your business? Are you working on those things for your mindset to change? That's all part of that productivity. Block it off in your calendar. An hour to go and read a, you know, money mindset book, whatever that is, whatever that looks like for you. The key is, is to make sure you're being productive in that area every single day. And and that affects your money. Okay, so until next time, my sassy friend. Remember stay sassy. Bye. Thanks for joining us this week on Cash and Sass. Check us out on social media and on our website at The Sassy Wealth Coach, where you can download my free Money Story Start guide. The website again is Dot, the Sassy Wealth coach.com, and as always, subscribe to the show to catch every new episode and leave us a review so we can continue to bring you fresh content. And remember, yes, it is possible to have sassy and sexy money. See you next week.