WHY Not Wednesday with Ashley Patterson

Sam.

Hello and welcome to why Not Wednesday. So excited to be here. Today we have a great guest and I get to do one of the things I love doing and that's introducing you guys to one of our new YOS certified coaches. So today's guest is Ashley Patterson and she's the founder and owner of Elite Acuity. She's a two time international best selling authority, a speaker, a founder and the owner of Elite Acuity. Welcome to the show, Ashley Patterson.

Thank you, thank you for having me.

How are you doing today? What are you excited about today? What's firing you up?

I am excited. Well, first of all, I'm great and I am excited because.

We'Re growing, we're growing at a rapid pace and it's just really exciting to see, you know, all the different steps in between. Yeah.

So you, you work with a variety of clients and we're going to get to that. But you know, the. We're, we're here because you're a new, new, newly certified YOS coach. We met only, gosh, it's been maybe a couple of months, right? You, you signed up with us, you went through the certification training. But I want to talk about your YOS because it's so.

Cool. I mean, it is. And when people hear it, those of you who are coaches that are listening, you're gonna, you're gonna see why I'm what I'm talking about. So Ashley's why is mastery to, to master things, to learn things at a deep level, to know the nuances, Your how is to simplify, to make things simple, and your what is to make sense of the complex and challenging. So how does how, first of all, it's been only a little bit since you've known this about yourself. How does that fit? And let's talk about it a little bit because there's so much to it.

How does it fit? So in order to. Hello. Hi everybody. Who's listening? I see in the comments there.

So how does it fit? Prior to me starting and getting the Y certification completed back in December, I went into consulting and I was helping small businesses and decided to extend to entrepreneurs.

Right.

And when I did this, I realized that there was somewhat of a bottleneck in my business and I couldn't figure out how to speed up the process. Every client I had, I had to do a deep dive. I had to read every book that they published. I had to find their articles. It was not just a quick snap to, for me to be able to articulate how to help that client.

So in that moment of ambiguity, not understanding why I couldn't service faster.

Right.

Taking that wise certification kind of just highlighted exactly what I was experiencing with the current clients that I had.

Right. Digging that, Digging deep. Right. And learning everything you could.

Exactly so. And it was so funny because I was right in the middle of writing a proposal for a client at that particular time, and I remember getting on the phone with him and telling him, I'm so sorry, I have not finished reading all three of your books. And so I'm not sure what to offer you just quite yet as a consultant. So taking that why really highlighted what was going on right at the moment where I felt like I had to do a deep dive just to service somebody.

Right, right. And then. But so your how of simplify. So you take that, all that information, everything you know, you know, you, you've got an advanced degree after advanced degree. Right. We know that about you. You, you're a lifelong learner. That's what people with the why of mastery do. So, but then you, you take all that information and then you simplify it because you're. How you, how you master things is by making things simple. And how does that impact the work that you do?

It's impacted quite a bit what I realized about what I do as far as consulting is concerned. And even with my education and the many different industries that I work with, it's simplified to the point where I have to very strategically price based on value. Because by the time it gets to the client, whether it's an individual entrepreneur or a small business or even the government, they see it as so simple, it's just a click of a button.

Right.

And so.

With the process of my why, number one, it helped to define exactly what I bring to the table. But then I had to be very mindful that because it's so simple, this is what the price is. I've done the deep dive so that you don't have to.

Right, right. And I love that you said that. You know, there's a story that.

Clients tell about a little, little guy who, who's a consultant and, and he gets hired when the, the big machine at the factory is not working. And he walks in with his little tool belt, tool, tool bag, and he taps the machine and gets it working. And everybody's amazed because he just walked in, tapped it, and, and, and then he sends the bill the next day for $10,000. And the guy, the owner, is like, what do you mean $10,000? You come in, you take out your little hammer, you tap the machine and get it going. And, and you're charging me $10,000. And he says, oh, no worries, let me redo my bill. Sends him a new invoice. And the invoice says tapping the machine. And to get it going, you know, $10. The 20 years of experience that it took for me to know exactly where to tap the machine, that's the $9,990 question. So, I mean, that's you, right? You take all that information, you take all that knowledge that you have that you've gained over the years and in, in so many different industries, and then you simplify it. So that's, that's where. And I love that you brought up the, the idea of, of the, of the pricing because that, that, that's something that has to, you have to price your value. Not, not, not, not what you did. It's not the 10 minutes we spent together or the half hour we spent together. It's not an hourly rate. It's. You're getting all of that Ashley has done in the past. So thank you for sharing that. And then your what of makes sense. And this is genius, because mastery, simplify, and then you help people make sense of it all. So tell me about that aspect of your yos.

Makes sense, I feel, is the most critical part in this whole process. I'm a mastery, whether you're a client of mine or not. So I'm always going to be reading and always doing the researching and always trying to make it simple, even for myself, because you could get in your own way of going down those rabbit holes of researching. When it comes to making sense.

What I tell my clients is come in with an open mind because the solution sometimes is right in front of us and we don't see it, and we end up drawing straws, thinking that we need more than what we already have. So, so when it comes to making sense, I really hone in on making sure that every step that they've already taken in their own personal journey is applicable to their solution.

Got it. And so, and so the makes sense. What we know also about folks with the why it makes sense is you love to solve problems, right?

Absolutely.

So that, I mean, it makes a lot of sense. When you're looking at, you're using your mastery, you're also, you're also going, going in and simplifying it. And then now you make sense of it all because there's a lot of information that you have. You don't need it all. So you're going to make sense of it so you're going to solve the problem that the client comes, comes to you with. So thank you for, for deep diving into that with us. So your company is called Elite Acuity. Ashley, so what, what services does Elite Acuity provide?

Absolutely. So Elite Acuity is a consulting firm that I developed back in 2016. It was originally developed to help small business owners and contractors in the human service industry. And what I did was I built automation so that whatever would take hours and hours upon documentation, court order documentation and notes and all those types of different things, we narrowed it down to five to 10 minutes. That gives them more time with their client, it gives them more freedom. And when I mastered that automation for that industry, I decided to expand it to entrepreneurship.

Really trying to connect the dots for entrepreneurs to be able to get started, grow and scale their business.

In the most cost effective way and a little less painful because when you're starting a business, you're kind of drawing straws trying to figure out how to do it. So just providing those steps to make sure that an entrepreneur can start generating income the fastest way possible and making it look extremely professional. You know, you don't want to make it look Mickey Mouse. Moving forward, we now took that process from small business to entrepreneur to now larger corporations. And we're using the same system to teach diversity, inclusion and the new norm and all the, in all the different HR nuances within larger corporations for leadership training and development.

Excellent, Excellent. I was going to ask you about that, Ashley, because, hey, by the way, Tanika said hello. Hello Tanika, thank you for joining us.

And so one of the things I was going to ask you is I was looking at your background. You work with small businesses, large businesses, entrepreneurs, government agencies, educational institutions. So who is your ideal client? Who do you, who do you want to work with? And maybe it's in all those industries, but what is the, what is it that they bring?

Absolutely. So.

When we're looking at the ideal client, we're looking at somebody who is wanting to grow, whether it be individually or within the industry. Their desire is for freedom, which is pretty broad. Everybody wants more freedom of time and space and energy and being able to excel in their position. When it comes to corporations, I'm really looking at those corporations that value systems and best practices.

For the betterment of their employees and the culture. You take those principles in that same principle and apply it to all different niches. Because I do have a lot of different niches. And it's for the person who wants that same thing is to develop A culture within their small business for the best practices. And same with the entrepreneurship journey.

Excellent. So I'm hearing a little bit of an echo. I don't know about you. Are you hearing that, Ashley?

No, actually, you're crystal clear.

Okay, great. Then, then, then we're going to leave it alone. I'm not going to mess with the microphone. So you recently here, I love asking this question. You were recently a co author with one of my favorite motivational speakers in the world, les Brown and J.B. owen. You collaborated with them on a book titled Ignite the Hunger in you. How to develop your greatness and ignite humanity. So if somebody goes out and buys that book, what can people expect to read? What can people expect to get out of that book?

So with Ignite Possibilities, you're going to learn how Elite acuity came to be, how it developed. I didn't wake up and just know right off the top that I wanted to own my own business. In fact, I had a lot of fears behind starting my own consulting firm. So that's what you understand when you. That's what you'll get to know when you read Ignite Points possibilities. When you switch over to Ignite the hunger in you. You'll get to understand when you make the decision to start your own business or you go through a period in your life that's an ep. Maybe you're down in the dumps, maybe you've lost a job, maybe you've lost a loved one and you make the decision that you want better for yourself in your life what now? And Ignite the hunger in you answers that what now?

So you answer the what now? Right. Where are we? We're here. You've started the business and so now there's that question, right? So that's what Ignite the Hunger. And you gets to that. What can we learn about you if we read that that we don't know already? What are we going to learn?

You are going to learn that everything that I discuss in those two books as far as my practices and my principles, is direct relation of what I apply in my business values and mission. And it's based on my life experiences. Being able to meet JB in a time where it was the what now? And then taking action on that what now as opportunity came to fruition, and then literally asking for help and having the opportunity to be personally mentored by Les Brown. That's highly unusual. And you will see that. You will see the direct correlation between my life experience and the values and missions within my business.

Thank you for bringing that up. So what's it like to interact, to be personally mentored by Les Brown? Just, he's an amazing individual. We had him on our podcast. Tremendous energy and. And we just love. I've been listening to Les Brown for longer than I care to admit. What, What's. What was that experience like, Ashley?

You know, at first it was overwhelming because you know who he is.

Right.

And when I first signed up for the course, I didn't exactly know who he was. But of course, being the mastery that I am, I did some research and realized, oh, my goodness, this is a big deal. Yeah. So I was a little nervous. But he has a way of empowering you. He has a way of igniting the hunger in you, literally. You don't have to be a speaker, you don't have to be this top notch whatever, to work with him. He will meet you where you're at and he will build you up. And before you know it, you've got speaking engagements. You've built your confidence. He finds a way to bring that out in you.

I love that. And he's. He's done that remotely and you've had an opportunity to do it directly with him. So what an amazing opportunity. Ashley, if somebody's interested in seeing either of these books, where can somebody go to purchase them?

Absolutely. You can go to eliteacuity.com. we have a shop there where both my books are there, as well as other books that I recommend.

Elite acuity dot com. What are the other books you recommend? Give us one of them.

Oh, my goodness. It's really good to see you. By Stephen Anthony King. Ignite has a series of books which we're uploading because.

Every. Every Ignite book that I've read thus far is very powerful and insightful.

Life in the game and how to play the game.

Think and grow Rich.

Basic. Right?

Everybody.

Everybody has to read that one, Right?

Exactly. I mean, the list goes on and on and on. And we do have all of those in our shop. And, you know, it's. It's one thing to purchase some. We are actually in the process of starting our own book club because I want to discuss this with my clients so that they get the full understanding so they can see what I see when I deep dive into these books.

And that's a great idea for the coaches that are listening. I think it's a great idea. You have the books that you recommend in your shop at your website. Right. So because a lot of times you work with somebody and they're like oh, go get that book. Well, you're saying, hey, you can just go get that book at my shop, Elite Acuity.com, don't go to Amazon. It's right there. We can. And you're going to, and you're talking about starting a book club. So you're going to put more books that you recommend. What are you reading right now, Ashley?

Well, this morning I was reading my Bible. I've read it four times. So this is number five. And it never gets old. You always learning something new. Always, always, always.

So like a lot of us I'm part of, I read, I read the Bible daily. What it give me an insight from today's reading. And is there something you want to share with us or something you want that came to you while you were reading today?

Absolutely. So I was developing some slides for the course that I teach for my spiritual entrepreneurship. And what was revealed to me today was the concept of forgiveness and alignment. And as we go through, you know, whether you're in a corporate setting or you're an entrepreneur, number one, you can't tell everybody all of your dreams. We learned that from, from Joseph, right. In the book of Genesis, he told his brothers that he'd be ruler and they sold him into slavery. Then he was later imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit. But yet, when the time was right, he remained aligned. And when the time was right, he was able to display his gift to the pharaoh and, and became ruler over Egypt, getting them through a seven year famine, if you will.

Right.

So the concept of forgiveness, I was going to actually skip this point, but it's so important, number one, that we stay aligned with our thoughts, our feelings and our actions.

Right.

And if any of those things sway, that's when we are no longer aligned with our true self.

Right.

If we.

Refuse to forgive or have a lack of forgiveness, we are out of alignment. Which means it will slow down the progression of our true destiny of what it is we're supposed to be doing. Whether it's starting your own business, being a speaker, an author, being in that corporation and being promoted, we're holding ourselves back.

Right.

So that is what is revealed to me, is to always remain full of forgiveness. Because everybody at the end of the day is doing what they think is right. And we have to process that and make sure that we're not holding, getting in our own way. Basically, yeah.

T.J. davidson says mastery always requires openness to daily learning something new. And you're all about that, right, Ashley?

I sure am. Thank you.

Tj, that was really cool. Well, I'm going to switch focus a little bit. I want to talk about a post you had recently. It said choose wisely. So you gave a couple of choices and I'm just going to give it to you and then and get your thoughts. The first one was you can focus on the problem versus focusing on the solution. So what do we want to learn from that mindset?

Yeah, focus on your mindset, your thoughts. You know, everything starts with a thought. And if we're not controlling what we think about throughout the day.

We are not in control of our outcome. So focus on the solutions. Don't focus on the things that are wrong. Focus on the things that are right and those things will multiply.

Oh, I love that great mindset. Next one is complain versus show gratitude.

We have a tendency to.

Depict where we are based on our environment.

Right.

And it should be actually quite opposite. The environment is a result of a past decision, but it shouldn't really predict our future decisions or our current decisions. Really what are we doing right now? It's an afterthought. So rather than complain about the things that we can't control or that are already in the past or that we've already made a decision on, let's look to other future and only, only focus on what we're grateful for. Only focus on the things that make us happy, that bring us joy, and that can help us make better decisions for ourselves every single day.

So that is impacting mindset also.

Absolutely.

I love that. Ashley, thank you so much. And then the last one is you can quit if it gets too tough or you can persevere. I think I know the answer, but I want to hear from you because you are so good at this stuff.

Absolutely. Same concept. It is all about the mindset. Yeah. But there's going to be times, it doesn't matter. If you're an entrepreneur, if you're working in a corporation, an employee, a supervisor, there's going to be times that are going to be a little difficult. It could be work related, it could be family related, personal health, whatever it is. We have the ability to make choices and we can give up on our goals and dreams or we can just persevere. We can get past those moments of like we discussed before, being enslaved and imprisoned. We can get past that and.

Make those choices so that we can achieve our goals and dreams.

Excellent. Let me ask you this question because this is the key question. Right. The name of the show is why not Wednesday? So I want to hear about Your biggest why not moment. A time when you said why not to an opportunity, a circumstance, a choice, it made a significant positive impact for you.

So I started the business.

Yes.

And it was starting to pick up, you know, slowly but surely. And people were starting to kind of believe in what I was saying and doing. And as. As I was going, I was getting more and more clarity on what I wanted Elite Acuity to become.

Right.

And then there was a moment of sense silence. And as an entrepreneur, you don't want that moment of silence where nobody's reaching out. You can't seem to get a client, you can't seem to make a sale. Your proposals don't really affect the decision makers. And you're wondering what the heck my why not moment was when I actually got frustrated because I had put so much time and effort and energy, and yet in this period of time, I couldn't really gain any traction. And I just remember saying, why not me, right? Why can't I do this? Why can't I do that? Why is this not happening for me? And within a day, I got my answer. And my answer was, why not? Was because I was asking the wrong question. Instead of saying why not me or why can't I? And showing self pity.

Yeah.

The question should have been, what is it going to take? What do I have to do differently to see the results that I'm looking for? And when I started asking myself, what is it going to take? Just like that, everything turned around for me.

So you went from why not? Why? Why do what? Why not me? To what do I have to do? So change your mindset. And you started looking for what is it that you have to do? And then you probably started taking action.

Oh, absolutely. First it was an attitude adjustment, making sure that I was aligned with my thoughts, feelings and actions and making sure those actions were indeed toward what the next step was to make sure that I continued to grow.

Now, Ashley, you met Gary Sanchez, our founder and CEO. I think it was ignite the fire within. I think you guys were both speaking and. And then I got a chance to meet you not too long after that. And you made the decision to join the why Society is what we call ourselves because it's a bunch of amazing coaches who are doing amazing things at all levels of coaching, from people who work with small businesses only to people who work with Fortune 50 companies. But you had a why not moment with us where you said, you know, I think this is something I want to add to my portfolio. What attracted you to the Y Institute?

The amount of clarity that I had in such a short amount of time when it's so funny, because we were. Dr. Sanchez and I were speaking on the same platform, but I didn't know who he was and I didn't know anything about the Y Institute. So when I heard him speak, I thought, oh, yeah, I've got to try it out. And when I heard someone else refer to it and say, wow, it made such a difference in my life, I decided to go ahead and take the Y just to see, out of curiosity, what it could do for me. So when I decided to go ahead and sign up for yos, it was because I finally understood why and how I was a mastery, what it can do for me and what I can do for others with that why.

That's a perfect. Thank you so much, Ashley. That's a perfect lead into my next question. How have you incorporated the YOS into the work that you do with your clients?

So now. So prior to the why, I was providing consulting for my clients. I was building out their landing pages. I was helping them start and grow their business. But we really struggled in branding, and it was difficult for me to brand because I was so busy trying to do a deep dive into who they were. It could take quite a bit of time to get to know somebody and brand them on your own with no effective tools, just really relying on your own knowledge and your own skills to read very fast.

So now we offer a more robust package for the entrepreneurs being able to brand fully brand, building out their curriculum, building out their courses or whatever it is. Some of them are authors and they want to start their own compilations, but really being able to understand what they bring to the table and what they bring for their clients, for their branding. On the corporate side, we now use YOS for training and development, team building, and diversity inclusion. We have other tools, but the why really illustrates a different perspective on diversity and inclusion when we're talking about to larger corporations.

Excellent. Excellent. So let me ask you this. What would you say? Because, you know, for you, it. It wasn't a. A long debate. You know, we had a couple of conversations. I shared some of the. The how we work. You went through the training. Now as a mastery, I got to ask you this question.

It.

It only takes 10 to 12 hours to go through it. But did you go back and re. Redo. Re. Listen to everything? Is that something that you did?

I re. Listened to it, but I printed everything out, which is not the most effective. But it was a way for me to carry all the instructions with me. That way, at any given time, if I had a free moment, I can go back and refresh and refresh. And so printing it out was the most effective for me because then if I wasn't. If I didn't have access to Internet or anything, I could always go back to it. I'm kind of a book junkie, so.

Yeah. Well, I can tell it. And I bet you like the physical books, not the ebooks.

That is correct. So do I.

That's all I've got is all. I can't. I can't get into the ebooks. I won't finish them. Every ebook that I've ever started, I just don't finish. Because you start looking at other stuff and because you have access to the Internet.

Right.

When you're reading a physical book, I don't think you do that. Right.

Well, it depends on the type of book because I have been known to have the iPad next to me in case there's any phrases or origins that I need to look up or any definitions that I just have no clue on what they are or how they're related. So I usually have two books going at the same time, whether one is electronic dictionary and then the actual book itself.

Love that. Love that. Well, so let me ask you a question. Has discovering your yos impacted your personal life? The way you interact with the folks closest to you? Have you communicated differently?

Yes, I feel as though. And I've gotten some feedback on this. There's a lot more confidence. There's a reason and a method to my badness.

Right.

There's nothing worse than trying to gain clients without clarity of self and confidence of self. So with that confidence opened a lot of different doors for the things that I knew I had, but I wasn't sure of.

That is really good. So it gave you the language that you want to use to say, who am I? This is who I am, Right?

Absolutely.

Well, we are almost out of time.

Ashley.

This has been so good. One last question I always ask, and I want to ask it of you, what would you say to someone. And one of your friends recently joined us, Pamela Bishop, one of your clients. Right. She recently joined Wise Society. What would you say to someone who's considering becoming a wise certified coach and they're on the fence. What would you say to them?

I would say being a wise certified coach is an investment. So if you're on the fence, it's better to invest in yourself and gain the knowledge than it is to pass it up and wish you had and take it. When you take the certification, just be open minded about it. Get to understand all the different nine whys, how it can apply, do the work and the answer on how to apply it will come. And sometimes those answers are in multiples. You can use the yos in more than one way and you've shared a.

Lot of ways with us today. So Ashley, thank you so much for being with us today. This half hour flew by. I'm so glad I'm going to tell on you a little bit. Ashley usually get on 15 minutes early and and Lynette and I were waiting for you and said I'm gonna call Ashley, but this couldn't have gone better. What a fantastic session that we had. Thank you so much for being on and I look forward to continuing to work with you.

Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much. Thank you to the audience, TJ and Tanika, Maria Lynn. Yes, by all means. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out. You can get me@elite acuity.com awesome.

Ashley, have a great rest of your day and a great rest of the week and I look forward to talking to you again soon.

Thank you. You as well.

Bye. Bye.

Bye.