Marcia Armstrong is a thought leader in the financial literacy industry and is an advocate of personal development. She specializes in helping visionary career women maximize their income so that they can leverage their skills, influence, and impact to create generational wealth. Having grown up in a household where money was deemed inaccessible and a scarce commodity, she was able to unlock key wealth principles that enabled her to take control of her finances and design a life that allowed her to live financially confident and empowered. Her mission is to redefine wealth so that it empowers and equips change agents to create a life of design that positively impacts their household, community, society, and the world. Marcia is a certified coach who holds the designation of Master of Business Administration from the University of South Wales. Her mantra is no one can believe in you more than you do!
Marcia N. Armstrong, Personal Finance Strategist
Introduce yourself! Please tell us about you and your life, so we can get to know you better.
My name is Marcia and I’m an award-winning financial coach and consultant. My superpower is helping others see money differently. I’m from the beautiful island of Barbados which is 166 square miles and has approximately 287,000 people.
My father died when I was 12 and that shifted my view of the dynamics of money in my home. We depended on the state through welfare assistance and I watched my mom go without just to ensure we had what we needed.
As a little girl, I made inner vows to someday be successful and provide for my mom so she wouldn’t have to worry about anything. Even as a child I felt this need to grow up quickly and I surrounded myself with people who were much older than me.
I didn’t always see myself as the confident woman I am today. Instead, I felt ashamed and embarrassed because of my circumstances and tried to fit in where I could. Seeing other children thrive made me feel poor literally and mentally.
But I recognized that the path I went through formed part of my history. My pain wasn’t wasted but redefined who I was. There was a new definition of wealth that came from within.
When you know your identity and the purpose you were created for, you show up in the world differently. Being in my presence, you automatically feel the joy and peace I feel inside. I love to laugh. I believe that life is meant to be lived not endured.
Outside of my passion for finance, purpose, spirituality, and helping women empower their lives, I have a huge passion for adventure and food!
What is your business name and how do you help your clients?
My business name is A Purpose Life, and it’s a coaching and consulting firm. We help working professional women see money differently by first addressing their money traumas. Thereafter, we look at financial concepts such as money management, debt repayment, saving, and wealth-building strategies.
What sets us apart is that we not only look at your finances but we zone in on three pillars: You, Your Impact, and Your Legacy. We believe that if you embody the woman you are destined to become, your financial habits will change for the better.
What kind of audience do you target your business towards?
I target corporate professional women who want to become financially confident, helping them overcome their money traumas, and limiting beliefs so that they master their finances without stress or overwhelm.
What is your work inspired by?
You don’t have to look far to see the disparity that exists in the world. I want to see more women taking up space whether that is in C-Suite, or having the resources to fund causes and initiatives. Women are powerful beyond measure when they come together.
We are all leaders in our own right and have been given unique gifts, talents, and skill-sets to make lasting change in the world. Seeing this need in our world motivates me to keep showing up, and keep serving our community because there is an untapped market just waiting to be empowered.
If I’m able to help one woman become financially confident, it will cause a ripple effect because she’ll take what she’s learned and up-level her home, her community, and society.
Tell us about your greatest career achievement so far.
Besides being a part of the wonderful Brainz community, the greatest career achievements will always be the transformation of my clients in the form of their freedom and fulfillment.
One of my clients paid off more than $31,000.00 in credit card debt within 90 days. To see where she started at the beginning of our journey and have a front-row view of her transformation in my 12-week Wealth Mastery Roadmap group program is nothing short of amazing.
My business is my ministry and it’s bigger than me. What I do has a global impact, not only do women become free to pursue their passions and the life they want but they’re equipped with options and peace.
Tell us about a pivotal moment in your life that brought you to where you are today.
My business started from a financial breakthrough I experienced in 2018. At that time, I prayed to God and asked him to grant me more money because I realized that every time I gave, I was waiting on my next paycheck.
The answer to this request was, ‘you don’t need more money, you need to steward your money better.’ That was the wake-up call I needed to learn how to create wealth God’s way.
One year after that conversation, I became debt-free and had a fully-funded emergency fund and money in the bank. I was able to give even more because my money was no longer restricted.
Because of this, I didn't want to stop there. So I asked myself, how can I help other women become financially empowered and that’s how A Purpose Life was born.
If you could change one thing about your industry, what would it be and why?
That there is no such thing called overnight success! I find other coaches in the industry boast about how you can make 10K, 50K, or even a 100K month but don’t indicate the mindset shift that is needed to do so. For change to be sustained, you need to become the person whose mindset can make the 10K - 100K month.
Money is a heart issue!
It’s deeper than a surface-level promise. I’ve signed up for a high-ticket program that did not work for me because their systems weren’t aligned to who I am as a person and when you fail to get results, it’s never their offer, it’s you. We have to remember that it is easy for someone to post a highlight reel on social media.
Getting to the next level will cost you something!
People don’t show you the sacrifices, the long nights and early mornings, the rejections, moments you feel like giving up because that part of the process isn’t pretty. But anything you get too fast dwindles. It’s like vapor fleeting.
It is important to know your why in your financial journey and it doesn’t have to look like what others have. Personal finance is personal. What may take you one year may take another person two to three years or months because your history is different, your experiences are different, and your connections are different.
