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Elisabeth Donati is revolutionizing what people know about money. Creator and founder of Creative Wealth International, and author of The Ultimate Allowance, she teaches kids how to put money to work, and adults how to be the boss of their financial lives. Her Camp Millionaire for Kids and Creative Wealth for Women programs have turned lives around. Through it all, she maintains that financial health, even in this challenging economy, is less about rubbing two dimes together and more about shifting paradigms, changing the way we think about money.

What is your dream?
My dream is that the information in our camps and programs changes entire cultures and changes the way kids grow up and deal with money.

What is the opportunity a person has in changing his or her relationship with money?
There are people that architect their lives, and there are people who are always putting out fires. Changing the relationship is about designing your life versus being a victim. It’s basically about affecting your life rather than being at the effect of it.

How did you learn what you learned about money?
By trial and error. I love reading. I love going to programs. I started learning it when Robert Kiysaki’s book, Rich Dad Poor Dad, came out. That was my first foray into thinking, “Wow, this is why I don’t get it.” My vision and my whole being became focused.

Do you remember the first time you ever saved money and what it was for?
I was in junior high. It was when the Adidas tennis shoes were hot, the white ones with the red stripes. I remember saving up and buying my own pair of shoes, because my mother would only buy us JC Penney’s blue deck shoes and I hated them with a passion.

What are you reading right now?
I’m reading a book called The Brain That Changes Itself. It’s all about our brain’s ability to control culture.

How does learning how to use money affect a person’s life?
It makes it so that you evaluate all of your choices through a different paradigm. If you grow up and you think you’ve got to get a job and you’ve got to save money for 60 years, then you’re stuck in that. But if you learn there are different ways to make and use money for your benefit, you’re going to make some different choices. Looking at life through one paradigm gets really boring, and you feel pigeon holed. You feel like you don’t have any control.

What do you think about the current state of the world financial markets?
You can make it be whatever it is that you want. You can be part of the collective that wants to think in different terms. …I call that using the power of thought, using the power of education and information to teach and lead a population in a completely different way.

What do you love to do?
I love nature. I love swimming. I love creating. I love teaching. My favorite is when you realize that by sharing what you’re passionate for, you can dramatically alter a person’s life for the good. People tell me I don’t look 50, and I say it’s because I constantly bathe my face in tears of joy.

Where do you find inspiration?
Mostly nature, because nature works, and I look at what works. And I love finding the metaphors of life in everything. It’s one of my favorite things.

How do communities benefit from financially literate individuals?
Just imagine the number of non-profit organizations and government agencies that wouldn’t be necessary if people understood what to do with their money.