589 Patricia Gagic:

Entrepreneurship is an art – in its essence the art of creation and innovation. So when a financial whiz, banker and entrepreneur turns award-winning acclaimed artist, should we be surprised? Today we talk about the artistry of transformation.

MELINDA

I’m Melinda Wittstock and today on Wings of Inspired Business we meet an inspiring entrepreneur who built a successful entrepreneurial career in banking and property management before emerging as an award winning International artist, bestselling author, visionary, as well as Co-founder of Help Heal Humanity and the Karmic Art Experience.

Patricia Gagic [guy-gitch] – whose art is regularly showcased in galleries and shows around the world – is here today to talk about her inspiring life, the power and creativity of consciousness, the karma of money – and much more. Patricia will be here in a moment. First…

Reciting Patricia Gagic [guy-gitch]’s accomplishments could take up all our time on today’s podcast – so I’m going to try to highlight just a few before we jump into this inspiring interview.

Acclaimed contemporary artist, award-winning author, philanthropist, and serial entrepreneur, Patricia built several successful businesses in the financial space before following her heart to France to deep dive into her artistic calling. Co-founder of Help Heal Humanity and the Karmic Art Experience, she also was the founder and CEO of Kyralex Management Group and MLX Property Management. She is President of Patricia Karen Gagic Art Enterprise Inc. and represented by the Paul Fisher Gallery in West Palm Beach and Miami, the 13th Street Gallery in St. Catharines, and Gallery on the Bay in Hamilton, Artworld Fine Art in Toronto, and FACEC In France.

She’s exhibited with BB International Fine Arts in Switzerland. Beginning a solo mentorship with Master artist Dragan Dragic in Savoillan, France, her work showcased in several Art Fairs including Geneva, Berlin, France, Austria, Zurich, London, New York, and Seoul, Korea. In 2018, Patricia won the gold medal in photography at the Salon National des Beaux-arts (SNBA) at the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris, the first Canadian female to achieve this recognition; in 2019, she accepted the silver medal at the Societe Academique Arts, Sciences and Lettres de France; and in 2020 received the Apollo and Daphne award from the Le Bernin – and the International Prize New York City. She was named Artist of the Year 2020 by Art Tour International Magazine, and one of her paintings was featured on the NASDAQ Jumbotron in New York’s Times Square.

And wait, there is more.

Patricia is committed to a conscious path, gracing world stages to encourage servitude and art through her Karmic Art Experience project, and was honored with the Arts Excellence Award for courage and commitment to human rights, dignity and freedom from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association in Toronto. She is also a Co-founder and Advisor to Help Heal Humanity a registered not for profit supporting education in Haiti, Cambodia and Belize.

Her first book, Karmic Alibi, was a finalist at the USA Best Book Awards 2014, a finalist at the International Book Awards 2015 in the Non-Fiction Narrative category, and received the 2017 Book Excellence Award in Non-Fiction. She is re-writing her book “Karma and Cash” originally released in 2015. Patricia is working on several other book projects, including “The Black Snowflake”, “Thirsters and Quenchers”, “Do Happy Things” and “Anger to Zen”.

Patricia is a Certified meditation Specialist / Facilitator certified in Applied Mindfulness and Transformative Mindfulness, a Level 3 Feng Shui consultant and Reiki Master.

In 2013, Patricia was Knighted as a Dame of the International Order of Saint George Grand Prior of Canada.

Patricia has received numerous awards and nominations, including Status of Women – Woman of the Year, YMCA Peace Medal, YWCA Women of Distinction, and the Toronto Women’s Expo Award of Excellence. And so many more honors too numerous to recount here!

So let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Patricia Gagic.

Melinda Wittstock:         Patricia, welcome to Wings.

Patricia Gagic:                  Hi. Thank you. Super happy to be here.

Melinda Wittstock:         I’m so excited to talk to you. You’ve done so much in your life. You were the founder of a property management group, and you had a successful career, both in banking and in entrepreneurship, while pursuing this artistic career that’s really, really taken off. As an author, award-winning artist, and so many things that you’ve done in your life, what was the spark that led you from banking to really being a full-blown artist?

Patricia Gagic:                  Thee world never hands you a roadmap, and you really look at the things that you enjoy, that you appreciate. And I was very left side, right side. And while I was always in my entrepreneur mind and working in business, I still had this incredible passion for drawing, and painting, and visualized myself as actually becoming a professional, permanent, full-time artist. And while you can certainly make a living, it does prevent you from doing some of the other things.

So I really balanced it. I kept my career in business, and then I also pursued studies in art. And I was very, very fortunate on a 1999 on a synchronicity trip to France. I actually met my mentor, Dragan Dragic, who was in fact living in fact Savoye in Movianto. He was in the top 10 percentile of artists in France, in Provence. And through that meeting, my life was changed. And I think that was definitely that aha moment where you saw the potential and someone gave you permission to see your potential. And that combination sort of spurred me into this direction. Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:         When we look back on our lives, often, most people have those opportunities, but they don’t necessarily accept them or receive them, to really seize on that kind of divine grace, if you will, that the universe sort of presents you with something like that, but a lot of people don’t necessarily take that up or they’re not present enough to hear it. What was it that led you to France, to begin with?

Patricia Gagic:                  The gallery that I was being represented by in Toronto had a summer event, and I was in Toronto, and I was spending the day there. And my husband was home, and he’d always been going through The Globe and Mail cutting out this little advertisement for this apartment, Sunflower Apartment in La Bégude-de-Mazenc. And when I came home from the summer event he said, “You’re going to get a phone call from this man, we’re going to France.” I said, “Oh, okay.”

So in fact I had not initiated this, and the following day I received the phone call and I went in to pick up the key from the gentleman who had the place in France. He had this beautiful home and an amazing art collection. So while we were talking about the things that were going on in France and where we would be staying, he said, “Oh, would you like to see the art? I know you’re an artist now.” And I said, “Yes, I would.”

So, get up to the third floor and there’s a particular painting on the wall of this abstract white horse. And it really caught my eye. And I looked down at the name on the at the artist’s name. And it said, D-R-A-G-I-C. So I said, “Oh, did I Dragic. It Serbian?” And he said, “No, his name is Dragic. He lives in Movianto, and he’s a very eccentric, brilliant man.” And that moment is the moment I said, “I want to meet him.”

Nothing in my life would have ever pushed me to ever even say that, you see paintings, you see names, but I seem to have something tapped me on the shoulder, as you say, the universe conspires. And when we got to France, the attempt was made to meet him and he said, “No,” the first time around. And he said, “No.” And that, of course just spurred me further.

Melinda Wittstock:         Of course, because you’re an entrepreneur.

Patricia Gagic:                  Yeah. I’m on a mission here. Anyways, Melinda, when I finally had the nod that he would see us, I drove three and a half hours to Movianto, arrived at subway on the fifth century, beautiful little village. And when I had the opportunity to stand in his [inaudible 00:05:40]. I saw he had exhibited with Christo, friends with Christo.

Melinda Wittstock:         Wow.

Patricia Gagic:                  Yeah. He was exhibiting in Grenoble gallery through Castile in Avenue. And I, I mean, his press book was beyond impressive. And I knew that I had stepped into a genius world that I would never ever in a million years have ever thought I would be there. So to sort of add to what you’ve asked me, it takes courage to manifest. It takes courage to stand up and say, I’m worth it. I’m going to invest in me. I’m going to ask. You can ignore it and walk away and be disappointed.

I didn’t ask him for anything. Funny enough, after our visit, he’s the one, when he was walking us back to our car and the little parking lot, he said, what does she want? Does she want fame? Does she want money? What does she want? He doesn’t speak English, only French and Serbian. And I really spoke only high school French and minimal Serbian. So I was trying to piece together the conversation and my husband responded and said, “No, she’s passionate. This is her passion.”

And he said, I don’t teach anybody. I will give her one week of my time. She needs to speak French and she needs to come back here in six months. And that was what happened. I arrived six months later, I took 38 hours of conversational French. And I had four or five dictionaries. And I arrived in France, scared to death, and knew that I was way out of my league, but I said, “Nope, this is going to happen. I am the creator of my own world. I’m going to step out of the box. The only way you break the crystal ceiling is by tapping it enough times that it eventually gets bored with you. And then it finally lets you through.”

So since 1999. So yeah, we’re in a 21 plus year relationship, I exhibited with him in France in several years ago. But I always believe that you have to have eyes, the lens has to go beyond just pretending. You can’t be scared. The fear only exists if you let it. And even though I was scared, I said, no, who in this world would ever have a chance to meet this person and then to learn from him. And so I continued to work. I continued my business up until about almost maybe seven or eight years ago. And I’m full-time painting now and exhibiting. So yeah, the karma.

Melinda Wittstock:         What a beautiful, beautiful story and so inspiring. I think you said something a moment ago about knowing your own value. Because you have to really be able to believe in yourself to be able to get past that fear. I think that’s where so many people falter. Have you always been that way? Or did you have to overcome something to be in that place where you knew you were valuable enough that you would just push through all the fear that you were just speaking about?

Patricia Gagic:                  Melinda, do we have five hours?

Melinda Wittstock:         I know, I know, it’s a big question.

Patricia Gagic:                  Oh my goodness. You’re talking to the girl who, on one hand, I probably have had more tragedy and hardship and complexity than most people. Yes, those are challenges. When some of these things happen to me, I would say, “Okay, you got this Kiddo, come on, you got this.” And it’s every second of your living energy where you say, “Okay, this is a transformation for me. I know I’m going to get through this.”

So I believe that if you can have embraced these sort of difficult emotions and harness what grabs you, harness what really makes you feel good in spite of all the things that are happening. And for me, that was art. It was getting up going to work. It was getting up going down. Painting and writing. I ended up about maybe 10 years ago writing a book called Karmic Alibi: Gaining Expedient Wisdom by Leaving Your Excuses Behind.

It’s a non-fiction narrative about some of these things that took place in my life. And I think that… I said, “Patricia, take a mindful gap and just allow yourself to live in this moment and appreciate the fact that you have what you have and you’ve done what you’ve done.” I have always been encouraging women for the my whole entire career. And being a mentor, adding a little bit of, I guess taking some… You think you’re taking something away from your own self when you’re giving somebody something else, but in reality, you are raising the bar. And I think that that manifestation will become really evident when people choose to see themselves deserving and to see themselves being able to live wholesome and decent lives by making better choices.

Melinda Wittstock:         Yes. So often, the personal or the spiritual growth happens when we’re presented with a lot of adverse circumstances, be there health crisis, a tragedy, a business failure. It really could be anything, but I’ve come to see, those things are actually just part of a curriculum that are helping you or assisting you into your true path or what you really are ideally here to do and manifest in your life.

And different people are presented with different challenges. I know some of mine have been pretty dramatic, but I look back on them with immense gratitude because they were part of the lesson plan, if you will.

Patricia Gagic:                  No, I think you’re able to take something out of each one of these dramas or tragedies and revive the next steps that you take on the path. And I always think that I can take myself off the path and I will see things in a different way. I also like to give back, so a big, big part of what I do. I’m also a co-founder and chief visionary officer for a charity we started called Help Heal Humanity. But for me, that started back in 2006 when I went to Cambodia.

And there is another one of these segments where every second that you’re living, if you believe that you’re living in basically a humble way, and at the same time you are not attaching yourself to any sufferings, the cessation of that suffering can change, but not only for you, but for others. So opening up your heart, your pocket book a little bit, it changes the way you live your life and it changes the way other people live their lives.

Melinda Wittstock:         I think what you say, though, about service, about giving back, I like to call it giving forward, because-

Patricia Gagic:                  Hmm. I like that.

Melinda Wittstock:         … entrepreneurs by essence are solving problems. We tend to be wired to spot opportunities and the fact that there is a problem that can be solved, which will be solved through business. It can be solved with a book. It can be solved with art. But in essence, entrepreneurs are creators that are automatically, I think obviously the best ones, are in service to helping people in some way. I also think that women entrepreneurs in particular are very attuned to being able to use their businesses for social good and social impact as well.

When you talk about so you having the business, right? And also the charity that you’ve helped grown, but also through your art, is that something that a lot of people can combine really within their business?

Patricia Gagic:                  Oh, I think a hundred percent. We actually… I think we have sort of a limited awareness, but we have limitless potential. And when you are going to sit down and look at what you’re doing, and think about it being sort of outside the box, or even see the invisible and do the impossible, it’s an attitude. And I still feel that there are people who need to re-humanize their attitudes, gain expedient wisdom from doing that, and then they will make a difference.

But I agree with you, women are phenomenally maternal, but at the same time, they are motivated for change. Because we’re looking at the future. I think we know that we’re grounded and we are changing the world and transforming as we go, but there are still limitations which women are faced. And we all know that from being on corporate boards, Fortune 500. And the only way that’s going to change is if we break all the rules, if we see things differently, we engage, we respect history, but we create new values. And I think that motivation we’ll see a better future a hundred years from now, I hope, for women, and that they will affect everything. And we need to do that.

Melinda Wittstock:         I love that. Because I think there’s tremendous potential for women to actually change the rules of business.

Patricia Gagic:                  Totally.

Melinda Wittstock:         Like just even by the metrics that we measure our success. They don’t all have to be about revenue and earnings, a lot of them can be about the social impact, a true commitment to really diverse and collaborative and empowering workplaces great cultures that actually lift people rather than turn them into workhorses.

There’s so many different manifestations of that, Just because it’s been done a certain way in the past doesn’t mean it has to be in the future. Because as an entrepreneur, inherently, you’re creating a future. I’d like to see more women have the confidence, though, to really, really own that. And I do see that happening more and more.

Patricia Gagic:                  I belong to several organizations, some of them are strictly women and others are not, and you can feel the presence and the shifting in different ways. But again, confidence, you use that word. And I have to say, I was 25 years old when I became one of the first female bank managers, just going back into the early-seventies. And walking into a room with 125, 150 men wearing black suits, white shirts, red ties, and then there’s you. And I’m all of five-foot, two and skinny little blonde girl. And I walk into the room and I think everybody sees you as you’re just a little pet. And yet I stormed through a lot of things that it took a lot of confidence.

The other thing, believe it or not, and Melinda, you’ll probably understand this, even though we like to believe there’s equanimity amongst the feminine world, and the female entrepreneur world, there are still emotion. And that emotion surfaces with jealousy, it can surface with a hierarchy ego. And we have still work to do to shelter and to make other women feel confident and comfortable with what they’re doing. That competition is certainly amazing and it’s important, but beyond the competition, there has to be a sense of purification of transitioning from that egoic tendency to more of a collective consciousness, I think. And it is our responsibility to help make that happen.

Melinda Wittstock:         Oh, so beautifully said, because I think there are still echoes of this even when people are speaking the right language. One of the missions of this podcast was to really change the ecosystem so that women really show up for each other, genuinely without ego, to literally lift as we climb, like buy each other’s products, invest in each other, mentor each other, promote each other, et cetera. But to get to that place of abundance requires people to retire their fear.

And the underlying thing behind that fear is often like lack of personal self value. So it comes out in ego or competition in kind of odd ways, which interfere with that. A lot of women are still in this kind of scarcity so women can still at times compete with each other rather than competing generally.

The good news is that it is really changing, but listening to your experience of being the only woman in the bank, my experiences in my early-twenties were so similar. My first job was as a correspondent on The Times of London, and I was writing about banking and finance, and mergers and acquisitions. And I was the only woman and in a foreign country. And just that feeling of being kind of like a pet or underestimated, but it actually worked in my favor, but I found it absolutely impossible to find female mentors at that time, for instance.

Patricia Gagic:                  Yeah. Well, I’m happy to say that in Canada right now, I know that you’re in the U.S, there are several amazing organizations. One of them is the Universal Womens Network. Monica Kretschmer started this. This year, I was given the Lifetime Achievement Award as a woman of inspiration through their organization. And I have to say that, as an ambassador for Women of the Future, it is our core responsibility to recognize those values and to stand up and take the scissors and snip away, and don’t give people permission to continue.

It’s like being the old crone and looking at people and saying, “The way you’ve said that, you’re not using your super words, your super power words, let’s rephrase that. Let’s put this into a different context.” And I think we guide women, but again there’s fluffiness and then there’s saturated in sarcasm and all kinds of different ways of expressing oneself, but the bottom line is be truthful to your essence, be truthful to what you’re passionate about and literally try and raise other people up around you, but not hurt them.

Melinda Wittstock:         Absolutely. So how does all of this, everything that you’ve learned on your journey, express itself in your art?

Patricia Gagic:                  Well, that’s a really super cool question. I think that after going through phases, there’s that Jackson Pollock, Rhea Powell, there’s the Dante, there’s so many different parts of art that I’ve loved. And right now I’m in a very serene, more cohesive, laid back, artheric, surreal type of painting. So I’m hoping that’s through that expression that the audience will feel comfortable. The audience will say, “I recognize something in there.” And if it’s something good, then I’ve accomplished something that I think is pretty cool.

But I’m sure there are going to be moments when you’re… As a journalist you know when you’ve got your pen in your hand and all of a sudden you’re waking up to a crisis that wasn’t there an hour ago, and your mindset might have been completely different, and you have to react to it and say, “Okay, how do I pay attention? What am I going to abstract from this, that is the key, that’s the most important?”

And that efficiency in the writing, in art, I think needs to become the efficiency, so that you’re just being truthful, and real, and raw, and people will resonate with that. And then they will want to look at art in a different way, all art, because it is such a healing transformative way of viewing yourself more than anything.

Melinda Wittstock:         Exactly. It’s getting to, literally, the heart of the matter where there’s this just emotional connection. Do you find that you get your artistic… Sorry, I’m going to ask that again. Do you find that your artistic inspiration literally comes from divine downloads? Do you find yourself channeling things? Talk to me a little bit about the process for you?

Patricia Gagic:                  So what I love, love, love, is knowing that when I was a very young girl, that I was spirit, that I was energy. I knew that. And I think that carried forward throughout my life, perhaps that’s why certain things have happened. And I responded in certain ways, but the true value, the true essence right now of pushing the limits and just giving the universe the best part of me.

I was very interested in being on a spiritual path. I was my whole life. And from studying Hinduism, I studied the [inaudible 00:26:27] mystery school of Buddhism, the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mayan Tradition, Catholicism, the Kabbalah, the Soho, the Tanya, the Manatees. I have a library filled with amazing authors, and writers, and thinkers. And that spiritual path, I believe evolves you to your aha moment, to that’s that sort of moment of enlightenment where your full purpose, your full being, and that you are in fact responsible to all sentient beings for how you act, what you say, how you behave, what are your sort of guidelines.

And using art in that capacity, I think has been a privilege. And yet I also know that there are still much more ahead of me. And I believe in the multi-verse. I don’t think our energy is completed here. I think we are a cosmic experience. And I’ve just enjoyed and want to enjoy every single moment and see it from the perspective that life has cause and effect, and action and change will always be ongoing, so will I. and therefore, I just want to do my very best at the end of the day.

Melinda Wittstock:         Patricia, I love this connection that you’re drawing between the art and the spiritual realm. Like the multi-verse is you’re speaking of, the energetics of who we are as beings and what we manifest. This helps me to explain and contextualize a little bit better, the karmic art experience, a project you’ve founded. I want you to share what the Karmic Art Experience is all about.

Patricia Gagic:                  It became something after being involved with so many different groups and whatnot. People would always say, “Oh, Patricia, do you teach art? Would you teach me?” And I don’t. And there’s a lot of reasons for that, but I believe so strongly that art has… It’s a humanitarian gift. And I wanted to be able to do something to help people on a sort of basic level. So in a combination, I did actually go to the University of Factor-Inwentash, the Department of Social Work, and I did two three-year programs, applied mindfulness and transformative mindfulness, where you become a certified meditation specialist. But there’s also something to this that, in mindfulness, I was already in practice, that I have been doing for many, many years.

So I thought, “Well, maybe I’ll do just do a one-off.” So the WXN, which is the Women’s Executive Network, Top 100 Most Powerful Women Canada Organization. I actually won it four times and was inducted into the Hall of Fame. And they asked me-

Melinda Wittstock:         [crosstalk 00:30:04].

Patricia Gagic:                  Thank you. They asked me if I would do one-hour talk with them. And I said, well, why don’t we do a two-hour experience? So quite a few of the women signed up. And we did a Zoom. And I basically walk them through a meditation/mindfulness/opportunity to do basically tabula rasa empty slate, blank canvas, and let’s just go at it. And I did. And there was an opportunity for me, several years ago, to work in a mastermind work group. I was a member of a mastermind with a wonderful leader. And I wrote something called inspired to be Rewired: Mastering the Five Radical Degrees of Life, Risk, Root, Remedy, Realization, and Reality.

And when I did that, I kept thinking, “I don’t even know where this is coming from.” So when you talked about channeling and download, I think we all get that. So using risk, root, remedy, realization, reality, I applied that to how I was going to do this two-hour event. And when I started, the response inside of me was just like a natural trigger to want to express a way for these people who knew nothing about art. And I didn’t want to have an art lesson, but I took the pallet and I took the logic of creating, and then I applied on many different levels, aspects, that by the time we finished art, it ended up being almost a three-hour session. Everybody had created a piece of work. Every single time person touched something inside of themselves, that I was just a single little tiny button in front of them asking them to think about, just have a moment for yourself.

And this is truthfully what you had said earlier as well, loving yourself. Applied three hours of your life that you would never have given yourself permission to do. And that’s what I’ve started to do. So now I’ve decided… And I did it again for the Can 150, the Olympic women’s team, and some of the females athletes. And again, it was… I created something, Finding Your Inner Hero, which I applied the same principles. And it was all successful. And we had so much fun.

So now I’m going to try and put this together as the Karmic Art Experience. It basically comes from my hard earned wisdom of working with Karma, which I have held as a reverence for applying my grounding lessons. And it’s going to give people an opportunity to create a spiritual roadmap so they can paint in a way that they can transform their life experience in Karma, and manifested into reducing their suffering, creating an increase in their positive growth, seeing outside the box, and also expressing themselves, because when you…

And I’m sure you’ve talked to lots of people who have said, “Oh my gosh. Melinda, you’re an amazing writer, a journalist, you just have a way of saying things.” And yet if they had been taught, or shown, or you had the opportunity to tap into them, you could give them a technique, or a tip, or walk them through into that channeling of what’s inside of them that they haven’t given themselves permission to release. So that’s what the Karmic Art Experience is. I’m just putting it all together right now. And hopefully, it’ll shake people’s ego trees and see what falls out.

Melinda Wittstock:         I Love that. That’s wonderful. And you’re also busy doing a rewrite on your book, Karma and Cash. A lot of women have a lot of money beliefs and things to retire. Again, tied to that ray back at the start of the conversation where we were talking about understanding and knowing your own value and lots of struggles with money. Tell me a little bit about that Karma and Cash.

Patricia Gagic:                  You know that one moment when you’re sitting there and you think, “Oh, I should write a book about karma and money.” But I did not write the book the way that it had originally been intended. It ended up becoming a fiction. And I created characters who all have the name of money. And it basically is a group of people that met each other in university. And I spin it into a tale of, they became investors together. And some of the offshoots of their investments were not that great. But I also created the storyline around why, what choice did they make, and how attached were they to that choice and what was the goal? Were they looking to become millionaires or were they wanting to use their money to serve others?

So there are some really super interesting novel situations that take place. And when I completed it, believe it or not, I was on a pilgrimage in Tibet. I had gone for one month with a few friends, and Lama Glenn Mullin, who is the world’s leading Tibetologist. And he had taken us into Nepal and into Tibet, we were in the Chimpuk Mountains. And I had my laptop with me, and I was just doing the final edits, and I lost my connection. I lost-

Melinda Wittstock:         You lost the book?

Patricia Gagic:                  Pretty much all of the ending of the book.

Melinda Wittstock:         Oh my God.

Patricia Gagic:                  So I had to… I stayed up for literally 24 hours. At that point in time, I was back Kathmandu, and I stayed up literally 24 hours and I tried to remember how to end complete the tail end of the book. So we did complete it. I was not happy with it, so I didn’t do a book launch, but what I knew was there was a reason for it, that this had happened. Now I fast-forward and you just know more. You just know something differently. Or how I would want to express this changed.

So I felt the gift was given to me, and now I’m going to do this rewrite of Karma and Cash. I think it’s explosive. It has potential and really cool stories that I think people will totally resonate with. So that’s kind of on… I have a few other things going on with writing, but that’s going to happen.

Melinda Wittstock:         I’ve worked with a lot of people who look deep into epigenetics and energy healing, specifically around money. Because we all get told all these things about money from a young age, that it’s bad to have money, or money scares, or people who have a lot of money are inherently bad, or it’s somehow wrong, or whatever. All these kinds of stories. We hear our parents arguing about money. And we have dynastic things too, literally in our karma.

And I see a lot of women struggle to raise money. We still get only 2% of the available venture money for folks like me who have technology-based businesses that are inherently scalable and could be unicorns and all of that kind of stuff. But also, only 3% of women get to a million dollars or more. So there’s obviously money blocks there for a lot of women and less understanding of concepts like leverage, or compounding, or just basic things like that where you haven’t been educated, I guess, about money on the same level as men and whatnot. So what are some of the things that you think that hold women back on a kind of karmic or spiritual level, I guess, when it comes to all things money?

Patricia Gagic:                  I think there’s a weakness that we’ve learned from our mothers. Again, it depends on the age. So I have to be careful how I say that. My mom is going to be 88. So I know from that perspective what her mother also experienced. But the tips that we have to give ourselves permission to experience is like a self-correcting consciousness around money. We have to value it. We have to see it differently. There are so many people who have written such amazing books. Seth Godin even taking words from Joseph Campbell.

There is energy around money, but there’s also energy around yourself. And if you want to conspire to have money, then you need to look at yourself as deserving. You have to be able to see it as strictly a vehicle for you to accomplish things. And I know it’s an interpretation that a lot of people don’t wrap their minds around because the financial industry has scared a lot of people off, and you’re never really sure whether or not you should invest in real estate or should you invest into the stock market or whatever yields you’re going to be looking for. But there’s a consistency around acquisition. And I still think that you should always have a nest egg. So in addition to if tithing or serving, you should always have money set aside.

And then when you’re making a decision about, as you are a serial entrepreneur, as am I, that there’s risk and you have to be able to value or understand what you’re going to lose, and can you replace it? So while you’re in the middle of doing this intervention on how to proceed with your own life, you still need to be able to live. I think there’s… I was going to say it’s training your mind, but be educated about it. Don’t be naive. And that’s another area that some people are somewhat toxic about, where they think that it’s going to be there tomorrow. So they will spend away and then they will hurt in the long run. But as-

Melinda Wittstock:         Yeah, if you don’t believe you deserve it, no matter how much money you make, you find a way to spend it. There’s a lot of wealthy people who have no money, if you know what I mean.

Patricia Gagic:                  Yes, of course. Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:         It’s kind of a trap. It’s that trap of consumerism and of just acquiring things, almost emotional purchases, which I think a lot of women fall into. I’m going to buy those pair of shoes because they’re going to make me feel something that I’m actually missing in my life that really should be coming from within. There are so many layers, and layers, and layers to this, but it really is a spiritual healing, I think, around the money. So I’m really excited to read your book. You’ll have to come back on again, because I sort of sense that we’ve only scratched the surface in this podcast I want to make sure that everybody can find all your amazing books and discover your art. And what’s the best way?

Patricia Gagic:                  I love connecting with people, and I’m very open about it. So my website is patriciakarengigic.com. So it’s my full name. And if people want to reach out to me, they certainly can send me an email, patgigic@gmail.com. And I’m on Facebook. I think in a world where we have such incredible social media, if you want to do a good job at what you’re doing, you either have to have somebody working for you, an assistant or whatever. At this point in life, I’ve been very hands-on, doing everything myself. So I’m very… I’m reachable.

Melinda Wittstock:         Fantastic. Well, I want to thank you for putting on your wings and flying with us.

Patricia Gagic:                  It’s been absolutely wonderful, Melinda, and I really look forward to speaking with you again. Thank you so much.

Patricia Gagic
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